atlast95

On 6/2/2023 at 11:32 AM, Globaliser said:

 

 

And the relative merits of these routes depend on where exactly you are staying. Victoria Coach Station is about half a mile from Victoria Tube (especially if you're using the District Line), which is underneath the northern end of London Victoria mainline railway station.

 

So if your hotel is (for example) the Clermont Victoria, which is actually in Victoria station, taking the National Express coach isn't the best route, because it leaves you with a long walk that would be entirely avoidable if you take the Tube.

 

And the Tube is cheaper (even if you don't pay £5 extra to National Express for Change and Go).

 

And you don't have to worry about picking a time.

Thanks so much for this helpful information as we are staying at the Clermont Victoria in September. I was going to do National Express but we are now going to do the tube.

18 hours ago, jeep1 said:

Hope someone has video. Was on this cat!

Did you experience the collision?

Last week we went to the Marriott Hotel and Casino, Frigate Bay for the day.

The cab from the cruise port was $20 (for up to 5 people).

We had not reserved in advance and paid $49 per person at the Front Desk to receive wrist bands.

Make sure you bring towels from the ship as they are not provided.

You need to ask for the 10% discount on food & bev when you place your orders, as the servers didn't automatically give it to us.

The beach cabanas provided the shade we need and the pool chairs have individual canopies.

If you are not interested in lying on the beach or beside the pool, then you could just order food and/or beverages at the 

outdoor bar and restaurant area and forgo the day pass.

The beach is public and we were politely approached by two vendors, as well as the ladies who have massage tables set up in the cabana area.

We had a shrimp appetizer and 3 beers between us, and with the round trip taxi and day passes it worked out to close to $200 for the two of us,

which I think is fairly pricey.

There are multiple Golden Eagle Catamarans -- there were 2 at the dock when we did our tour, so your tour is probably running. If I had to do it over again I would choose a different shore excursion. I don't think I could have swum to shore if we had been involved in the head on collision at full speed that we narrowly missed. I don't think the lady in the wheelchair could have either. Or the people who were completely wasted.

We were on the Princess Excursion yesterday and the captain of the Golden Eagle III wasn't paying attention as we were sailing back to the cruise port and we were almost in a head on collision with an oncoming barge going full speed. Passengers started acreaming and the Captain  swerved at the last minute. We were hit hard on the side. Several passengers went down hard and one lady went into convulsions. Had to make an emergency stop so EMS could come on board.

Glacier Bay is a must.

What is the best way to get to the resort? Taxi or water taxi? Is there public transportation?

Thanks for doing this Gurnseycruiser

Thanks so much for your blog! Lots of useful information for planning our upcoming cruise.

We went a few years ago at the beginning of July and the weather was fabulous. We went swimming in the Baltic when we were in port in Warnemunde. It only rained a little in Tallin, giving the medieval town a little bit of a moody atmosphere. Our Baltic cruise is still my favourite. We had two overnights in St. Petersburg providing three full days of touring. Try to get at least one overnight as there is a lot to see. We used TJ Travel and were very pleased. They also helped us with transportation to the Marinsky Theatre for a ballet performance to use tickets I had purchased online directly from the venue.

Here is a cruise critic secret that will make reading these forums, and Princess posts, more enjoyable.

 

You can control how many posts you see per page. I only get a 2nd page when a topic reaches 200 replies. It takes 400+ post to start a 3rd page. This saves time, especially in super long topics, by not having to flip through pages every 20th post.

 

1) Go to your User CP (user control panel) located at the upper left of this screen. Next, click on Edit Options. Scroll down to find the section where you can increase the posts shown per page. You can choose from 10 to 200.

 

2) You can turn off seeing everyone's custom signature below each post as well. Just unclick the box that says 'show signatures'. Same directions as above.

 

Adjusting these two features make for a much more efficient browsing experience on the Cruise Critic forums.

 

Work smarter, not harder:D

Thanks for the great tip about adjusting the number of posts per page. So much better!

Thanks for the heads up!

I will be checking this out.

We plan to go to Holiday Beach Resort. Here's a link to my website with info, links & photos: Curacao.

Thanks for the info Candydane -- most helpful.

I see we are both on the Royal Princess May 20th cruise.

Thanks fletch1027! I really appreciate the info and the pics.

Just wondering if there is any type of shade on the beach? Umbrellas? Love the beach but don't like to fry.

Enjoying your photos of Barcelona. Looking forward to the rest.

Actually, I looked it up and there are facilities for storage at the AMTRak location related to the Ferry building

I'm also looking into temporary luggage storage in San Francisco. From what I can find, Amtrak will hold bags only if you are an Amtrak ticket holder. Does anyone know if this is correct? The California Welcome Center at Pier 39 apparently charges $5 per bag and is open until 7pm. The Exploratorium has lockers meant for visitors to the museum (which we may do) that might work for our bags which are medium size. No idea of the locker rental price there.

We were unable to book a room through Resort for a Day, as they were all sold out. We had stayed at a hotel pre-cruise, so we asked them if we could return for the day post-cruise until our flight left. They told us to call the morning we arrived back in port. If there was a room available, we could get a day-use room for half price, which would give us a place to store luggage and shower before our flight. This would have been less for our family of 4 than the resortforaday, which would have cost $320.

 

It turns out they were fully booked, so there was no day-use room for us. but they offered that we could check our luggage and have pool access for $27 pp. No food included, but there were options at the hotel and outside the hotel. We decided to do this.

 

We arrived at the hotel about 11am. We checked our luggage with bellhop and noticed that a lot of people were checking in and out. Lots of luggage being checked for the day. Very large lobby in this hotel, and we observed other families checking their luggage, as we did, as well as others sitting in the lobby with all their luggage. Some families sat in the lobby with their luggage for hours, enjoying wi-fi, eating lunch at the hotel restaurant. I assume since they did not use the pool, which required a pass-card to open the exterior door, that they also paid nothing for this option. Something to consider as an alternative to waiting all day at the airport.

JanKP, Just to verify, are you talking about the Marriott Stellaris?

I wouldn't take an economy flight from here to Rome even if it was free... that's one long time to be at the back of the bus...:)

Learned that the hard way last year on AirTransat from Toronto. The smallest, hardest seat ever. In the middle of the night, when the stranger next to me was cuddling up on my side, I was vowing never to travel to Europe again.

Best if I stay out of this thread, having a preference for JO

 

Skiier Girl will be a mine of information.

 

Just wish to say, if there was a $5.00 burger on the menu and a $2.00 beer, then sadly, it would be a destination for the cruise herds. ;)

Sometimes all you need is a $5 burger and a $2 beer whether you are in a herd or not.

I got an email that our Sept 24 cruise is cancelled because of a change in deployment. They are offering $15 OBC per passenger as compensation. Seems a little low for the inconvenience they are causing.

Hope the weather clears up for you. Very interested in your review of the Constellation as I have just booked a cruise out of Venice on her for Sept. Our first Celebrity cruise.

yes, I am wondering about this also as there are more excursions shown under each port than are showing on my cruise planner.

Thanks for posting. This is just the kind of specific info I am always looking for

when planning our beach days.

Portofino is charming. It has not changed since the first time we visited there. It is a nice place to take a long hike if you like to walk and also to just enjoy walking the area near the tender drop off. You can also visit Santa Margarita from there as well.

 

We were just in Portofino this past May.

 

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-CZMZDHhV4NI/VWQ4Ja_29kI/AAAAAAAAwL8/4D9WE_Mg9T0/s1600/IMG_4872.jpg

 

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-iRV22gSMoyg/VWQ7QiHAMII/AAAAAAAAwMo/bIeMo65C-tI/s1600/IMG_4882.jpg

 

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-7ooZ46uNZfw/VWQ8wLwXq1I/AAAAAAAAwNE/bBAyuR_BASg/s1600/IMG_4898.jpg

 

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-FzvSIr-XC9M/VWP-XRGxl5I/AAAAAAAAwKY/w2XGcOxWDv8/s1600/DSC_3747.jpg

 

Keith

Thanks for the beautiful pics Keith. We will be in Portofino in a few weeks and I am now really looking forward to it.