kevinyork

Hi all

 

 

 

Travelling on IOS next year from Southampton

 

 

 

We are using a courier so won't be parking. Just wondering how close do we go via a courier to the dock and do they take the bags or do u drop them at the check in

 

 

 

It sure about Southampton so wasn't sure if u get dropped right outside or not

 

 

 

Thanks

If by courier you mean a taxi or private hire then you are dropped outside the terminal in the drop off zone where your bags are taken off you. You walk into the terminal with hand luggage only.

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I am from UK so perhaps different terms but I have always had to pay gratuities upfront if booking My time dinning. Surprised to hear that it isn't mandatory but most likely one of many favourable terms which only apply to US residents.

 

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I am from the UK too and booked onboard under the UK promotion. I found out that gratuities being compulsory upfront for MyTime dining was dropped in 2015 via this site.

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We were onboard Indy a few weeks back. I had anticipated a change of promos for the UK Royal offers and on the day the new promo was offered I priced it online and went to the Next Cruise office. I told them the ship and sailing date, the cabin grade, the dining preference and offered our loyalty numbers to get a balcony discount. The easiest booking ever. Whilst it took some time the lady did it. We wanted Mytime dining but she said we would have to prepay tips (something I didn’t want as we had onboard credit to use) but I went with it.

So all booked I called Royal to get our Military discount applied. After what seemed like hours they said the second leg of our B2B wasn’t confirmed and was just on hold. I went back to the Next Cruise office and they took a look. The girl was a trainee and the manager next to her wasn’t helpful and they bickered in front of me. Eventually she said they would email Miami to sort it.

Anyway on our return home, this forum gave me the info that tips don’t have to be paid upfront for Mytime dining (at least since 2015). So I called Royal and asked for the tips to be removed from both legs of the B2B. That took 30 mins (on a chargeable number) but they said they had done it. Later the invoices were emailed and one of them had lost the OBC for booking onboard so I called again. Another 35 min call and he said his manager would apply it and the invoice would be through shortly. No invoice for 48 hours.

So I contacted them via Facebook and after two promised resolutions I got the correct invoices through.

So that left me thinking. Why would a next Cruise person onboard say that tips were mandatory for Mytime dining when that changed 2 years ago? I’m sure now it’s a revenue exercise to increase their overall onboard sales revenue figures. Plus her inaccurate info led to over an hour of phone calls to resolve the removal of the tips and the reinstatement of the correct onboard credit after the tips were removed.

I would have expected that their onboard Next Cruise team would have been the best in dealing with Royal bookings (given its all they deal with) and would be fully informed about Royal’s procedures and deals but in fact I came away feeling as though they felt they had done me a favour and that I knew more than they did.

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Yeppers, I have known that the cheese's used on 'many' cruise lines are NOT vegan and usually avoid them, as I would any restaurant which could not confirm the contents.

 

 

 

 

 

I usually go with a 'vegan' sauce in lieu of the cheese.

 

 

 

bon voyage

Aahhhrrgg. This isn’t about vegan cheese. It’s about cheese that doesn’t contain animal rennet. Most cheese sold in the UK has no animal rennet. Celebrity advertise menus which are shown as being vegetarian but include non vegetarian cheese. That’s illegal in the UK. If they market themselves to a specific market they need to ensure they meet the needs of that market.

It’s NOTHING to do with vegan cheese!

After months of communications with the UK MD of Celebrity, on our last cruise the onboard team met with us and admitted their vegetarian notifications on their menus were wrong. They had removed all cheese from their vegetarian menus fleetwide and were sourcing vegetarian cheese for the main menu. So it’s not just about outperform views, they had realised they were getting it wrong.

So this isn’t about different interpretations of what is vegetarian, and isn’t about “well if you are a strict vegetarian you should ask for a vegan menu” it’s about being a vegetarian that’s eats dairy but not meat.

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You are 100% correct, of course. Regardless of contrary opinions.

 

There is also plant based, which is vegan/vegetarian with the occasional allowance.

You are repeating inaccurate info. People who eat no meat derivatives are vegetarian. That’s what the V on Celebrity’s menus indicate. Vegans eat no dairy and should notify Celebrity in advance of their diet to be accommodated. Celebrity’s site says that they cater widely for vegetarians and yet those cheese based vegetarian offerings contain meat derivatives.

In June on Eclipse we met with the F&B manager and Chef who admitted the vegetarian dishes on the main menu were not vegetarian and that all cheese had been removed from the vegetarian menu until they could resolve the issue fleetwide.

So it seems they might now understand the problem.

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We sailed on Anthem when they had dynamic dining. We loved it and took formal wear to eat in the Grande which was a treat. Superb fine dining and not that busy as many didn’t want the formality. Their halibut dish was to die for. Alas Royal wimped out and dropped dynamic dining (us Brits loved it on Anthem’s maiden season but the ex US cruisers apparently hated it) so now you how 4 weirdly themed dining rooms serving the same food, without the halibut or lobster each evening.

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We are just off Indy. The windjammer was vastly improved from our previous RCI Cruises. Breakfast had everything you could want, lunch was amazing. In 14 days we had giant Shrimp every other day and lobster 4 times for lunch. The huge joints of lamb and beef were lovely. We were travelling with others so had dinner in the MDR but our trips through the windjammer before dinner looked very good.

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Great find. A bit surprised by "for selected sailings". Has that been the case with previous offers?

 

 

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Yes I think it has. It's certainly excluded transatlantic and repositioning cruises previously. I think I've seen China cruise excluded to.

They need to be careful about their advertising....it say it includes 'their best ever drinks package'. It isn't. Their Ultimate drinks package they had up to last year included virtually everything. Now there are drinks priced over the price level of their Deluxe drinks package that you have to contribute the difference to.

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Is it far to walk into the Town of Civitavecchia from the coach park?

According to Google Maps, about a 9 minute walk to the Cathedral which I suppose is pretty much the centre. Civitavecchia has always looked a bit uninspiring as a place to visit.

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How have you found this out pls.

Yes I would be interested too. If there is detail about 'select worldwide sailings' then there would be specifics about the qualifying sailings.

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Your position in line would not impact when you can leave though. The group goes into the chamber as a whole and leaves as a whole so even if you are first, you do not leave until the last person in the group flies. That being said, you should normally be able to do all of this within an hour's time.

Spot on. You all do this as a group: the pre flight briefing, the suiting up and the flight itself. Those that go first have to wait for the rest and the whole group exit the tube together. In any case yes it's an hour at most. We loved it.

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Does anyone know if P@O have a shuttle Bus that takes you into the port For Rome

All cruise ships that dock in Civitavecchia have free shuttles to the port as the pier is long and not easily walkable if your ship docks far out.

They drop off at Largo della Pace which is a coach park. From there you can take a local bus to the train station or walk into town. It used to be easier when they dropped off at the port entrance but that ended due to road works. The road works ended yet the remote drop off continues. Clearly it's to force people to buy a bus ticket to the train station instead of walking from the port entrance and the bus company benefits...........bribe, surely not.

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We specifically booked the US offer while on Navigator (sailing from Southampton) this summer. The agent we were dealing with also told us to come back before the cruise was finished to check for a reprice in case any other new offers were available.

 

 

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Seems it inconsistent then. We've only ever been able to access UK offers on ex UK sailings.

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Consistency is not Celebrity :loudcry:

Not just inconsistency between ships but inconsistency between staff. Very annoying.

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The one time we tried to book on board referencing the offers on the flyers that were in cabin we were told that they were for US citizens only !! not for the likes of us !!!:o

I think that's correct. UK bookers access UK pricing and offers only. Won't affect us as the drinks package hasn't been a promo for US customers for some time but regularly appears as a UK offer.

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No one knows yet

Thanks, really useful.

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We've done it with other lines- MSC and Costa while sailing out of US booked through US - as long as it was a down grading of package, they didn't have any issue making changes. Changed from alcohol packages to soda or soda/water with nothing more than a "give me one minute and the sound of typing on a keyboard" and it was done.

 

 

 

 

 

Don't know if it's a cruise line specific thing, country difference or simply people don't attempt to ask until after boarding.

Nope, cannot be done at the time of booking with Celebrity. The promo is the promo.

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Glad you asked the question. We will be on Indy next week when the promos switch. It's been a long time since they offered the drinks package promo to UK cruisers. We booked in Jan and it ended in Feb. If they bring it back next week we will be booking onboard for a Symphony Back to Back. If they don't we won't be booking.

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Cigarettes will usually be less expensive in the shops on Main Street in Gibraltar though bear in mind the limit for bringing them into the UK is 200. The shop in the terminal at Barcelona was also inexpensive.

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We did exactly the same (i.e stay in a Southampton hotel the night before) on a recent (2 months ago now) cruise, but parked at Heathrow T5 as we were flying back there.

 

 

 

We used this company : http://www.smithsairportcars.co.uk/

 

 

 

They were very good, I would certainly use them again. It was £67 + £7 for them to park at T5 to collect us.

 

 

 

Hope this helps.

Smithsairportcars are regularly recommended on the US cruise line forums for Southampton transfers. That seems a very reasonable price.

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Many here are saying they did it on-board.

 

Dumb question - Did anyone request the change upon making the original booking and the agent said NO or was the thought of changing packages not thought about until after the booking was completed.

If a cruise deal comes with a free Classic Package, it cannot be changed when booking.

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sollyman, many thanks. That's eased my mind and made it much easier to plan.

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The bus to Tarquinia makes a stop on Via XVI Settembre just past the corner of Via Cardona, if you look on a google map you'll see that this is just two-tenths of a mile from the shuttle bus stop at Largo della Pace. There is a place to purchase bus tickets right near the shuttle drop off.

Thanks for the quick and excellent response. Do you know what we look for to identify the place to buy tickets? Also do we get off the bus from Tarquinia at the same place on the way back?

Thanks in advance.

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We've done Rome many times now and would like to visit Tarquinia on our Friday call at Civitavecchia in two weeks.

Been searching for ages now but cannot narrow down the practicalities. I have the Cotral bus timetables which show the bus leaving from in front of the Cathedral in Civitavecchia and buying the tickets from the stall opposite McDonald's. However, we have my Mum who is a part time wheelchair user but can board a bus and walk short distances. The port shuttle from the ship seems to drop off at the slightly edge of town tourist info by Largo Della Pace which would mean a walk all the way back to pretty much close to the port entrance.

Does anyone know if this is the case or if there is an easier way. The port mobility site seems to suggest the cruise shuttles may go to that drop off then make a stop at "Molo del Bicchiere (pier)" which sounds a bit like the best option.

If I have understood it correctly do we just stay on the shuttle and it will return and make a stop at the pier (presumably near the fort?).

Hoping someone can assist.

Kev.

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We were on the May cruise and were very disappointed one night while dining in Illuminae. There was a special invitation only event in the back half of the restaurant. We were in the front half. I understood it was hosted by the capitan, possibly for the president; I don't know that for sure.

 

Anyway, during dinner we were abandoned by ALL wait staff for approximately 40 minutes. I gave serious thought to going to the passport bar to refill my glass of wine. For that period there was zero service.

 

I was angry, they new it and were appropriately apologetic. The rest of our cruise dining in Illuminae was fine. Please note I do not think this was a failure by the staff. I'm quite sure that management is to blame for the lapse.

 

Other than a sail away champagne reception, we did not participate in any of the presidents events.

 

In the future I would not go out of my way to book a president's cruise; it seems extra brass on board is a burden.

I cannot see how a President of a company can believe that by just experiencing the top level venues/experiences onboard that they can understand the range of their passengers experiences. Is it just me but if I (never gonna happen) we're in that position I would ask to be in an inside cabin, in the MDR with no perks to really understand the cruise line experience. If she's happy to accept the red carpet treatment then she clearly is out of touch with the vast majority of her paying guests.

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