MeHeartCruising

And I believe the females need to wear something on their head. Most use a lightweight scarf. And everyone removes their shoes. So you might want to be wearing socks.

Generally, the cabin steward will move your belongings. Discuss the details with them, obviously. Sometimes they will offer to move the clothing you have on hangers without you needing to take them off the hangers. Sometimes they will ask you to re-pack everything. I prefer to re-pack everything into my luggage and then just let them move the luggage. But it's your call on that, usually. I like it in the luggage and I put a new luggage tag on it with the new cabin number on it. Just so it's less likely to get lost.

@Flyinby Thank you so much for your thoughts on the topic and the specifics of the excursions I've chosen. I too am one that likes to book in advance. I like to know that the major elements of my plan are in place before I leave home. I think I'm going to go ahead and book the excursions. I'll have plenty of clothing/gear to deal with the weather, so it will be fine. On my last previous mainstream cruise in Norway, it rained quite a lot. But I went ahead with the excursions and still had a great time. Even if I couldn't always see the beauty around me due to clouds, fog, and rain. It's all part of the adventure!

When you are on an excursion, you do not get tender tickets at all. You are simply led from the excursion's assigned meeting area to a tender boat by a crew member. So, no, I don't think your 3:00 pm excursion will help you get off the ship earlier that morning.

Thank you for the reply. I know the weather will be very unpredictable, so it's good to hear that buying onboard is a decent strategy. The excursions I plan on taking are: Alesund - Winter Cruise to Geiranger Tromso - The Arctic Capital (goes up the gondola to Fjellheisen) Honningsvag - The North Cape Plateau Kirkenes - The Russian Border That's good to hear about the TV map display and cell coverage. I have a data plan from T-Mobile the will cover a fair bit of data while in Norway. I'll leave my GPS at home. I'd have to buy Norway map coverage for it before I could use it anyway.

I'm excited. I just booked a 12-day round trip voyage (Bergen-Kirkenes-Bergen) on Havila Pollux that will set sail on April 21, 2024. I'm now pulling together my overall travel plan. I plan on booking 4 ship excursions and then doing my own thing in other ports. What kind of advice can you folks offer me as to WHEN to book these excursions. Some of them are ones that I probably would rather not take if the weather is just horrible -- i.e pouring down rain. I can deal with any cold and snow I might encounter, but if it's pouring rain, I may not find it worth it to take the excursion. I know I can buy the excursions now using the Voyage Portal. I believe I can also purchase them once onboard. Is that true? Do you have any sense of how often they are sold out if you wait until on the ship? I would prefer to see how the weather looks in the next day or 2 before deciding on whether I want to spend a couple hundred dollars on an excursion. A separate, unrelated question -- I am a geographer and would love to follow the ship's path on a map as we move up and down the coast through various passages. Do they have such a map on the TVs in the cabins? in the common areas of the ship? Like they do on many mainstream cruise lines. If not, I might look into bringing a GPS device. Obviously, I can use my phone too, but I'm not sure how effective that will be if I don't have a cell signal and I don't know how much data I will want to use up. Any thoughts?

I don't follow your logic. I would say it's all about ADDITIONAL revenue. They already have the booking money from the person with the current GTY and the OA. That's not going to change. Wouldn't they rather have $400 more from anyone (even the person in the GTY) than $200 more from anyone else? What am I not understanding?

You will need to call NCL and get them to confirm that for you. It could be either port. If it is IJMuiden, it is usually spelled out in your cruise confirmation document.

I would just pay the 6 euros/person and ride the bus from your ship directly to the train station. I rode it the other direction and it was great to be taken door-to-door, so to speak.

It’s poorly written, but I think it sounds like there will be a bus involved. Even so, it would be nice if they told you more details. I looked back at the excursion description from my day. It was way back in 2008! In the description, they told us the Hilton Hotel was our drop off and pick up point. That allowed me to make specific plans in advance. Good luck

Can you post a description of your excursion? I can't get to it without having a cruise booked. It was years ago, but when I was on an excursion that did this, it didn't matter which train station we were taken to because once at a Berlin train station, we were put on a bus and then taken into the city center. We were dropped off at the Berlin Hilton (near the Stadtmitte U-Bahn station). Pickup was at the same location. This info was included in the excursion's description, so I could plan accordingly.

When I was there in 2023... It is indeed a 10-15 minute, mostly downhill walk from the visitor center to get to the site itself. Once down there, you will be able to see a lot of the site without walking difficulties, however, as mentioned, you probably won't walk out on the rocks that much. There was also a small trolly car run by the site that would transport people back up the hill if you want to use it. It arrived just as I was finished seeing what I wanted to see, so I rode it back up the hill. I can't recall if it also took people down the hill but I would imagine that it did. Especially someone with mobility issues. Quickly looking thru the linked document above, I didn't see mention of this "shuttle" service. But maybe I just missed it. Or maybe it's not always offered. I'm not sure. But I know I rode it back up the hill.

Did you see the "Important Details" section of the page you linked to? It seems to spell things out nicely. EVERYONE has to pass thru the same security line at the Colosseum, even if you already have tickets (and a guide) to get into the colosseum. There is no skipping this line. If that line is long, it sounds like your guide may decide to not take you inside. If the line is reasonable, it says you will go inside. At the Basilica, they mention that strict dress codes are in place. That would not apply unless you were going inside the building. But it also lists reasons why you might not go inside.

It’s been years, but when we visited Malta, there was a line of taxis waiting at the port. There was a booth set up as you walked along the pier where you explained where you wanted to go. A person helped estimate the time needed. You paid that person an hourly rate. I believe we paid 65 euros for 3 hours, but I could be wrong. And there has been inflation. They gave us a slip of paper with the destinations written on it. We gave the paper to the first taxi in the line. Off we went. Our driver was not a guide, but we were lucky that he was engaging and there was no language barrier. He took us everywhere we wanted plus one more stop he said we had time for. He dropped us off at the bus station in Valletta since we spent the morning with him and still wanted to explore the city. We did not need to pay the driver since we paid earlier. However our day was very successful, so we gave him a tip (as Americans do). I have no idea if this service is still offered. But you might look into it.

I wondered as I wrote that if I was going to be proven wrong. Sorry. I made an assumption that I shouldn't have. 🫢

On our RC cruise, they offered transfers to/from both Bologna and Venice airports. In fact, when our disembarkation in Ravenna was switched to Trieste due to horrible flooding in Ravenna, they still managed to get the transfer passengers to both Bologna and Venice airports. The transfer bus to Bologna airport left at 3:30 am to get people there in time. They also offered other transfers to Venice city center and Ravenna rail station.

I did Amsterdam to London via Eurostar service after a cruise a couple years ago. I loved it. It was far less stressful/annoying than involving the airports. As mentioned above, verify your timing and how it relates to the service interruption. Even if the direct service is not running, you could still take a regular fast train from Amsterdam to, say, Rotterdam and then transfer to the Eurostar service from there.

Definitely do the Titanic Experience and the Heritage Center. Walk JFK Park. Walk up the hill and photograph the colorful row houses with the Cathedral behind them. Walk up to the Cathedral and visit. Look at the statues/monuments memorializing the historical events of the town. Shop a little. Have a Guiness at a pub. Sit along the waterfront and soak it in. Take a boat tour to Spike Island. You can easily reach Cobh via train from Cork. The train station is right in town beside the Heritage Center. I didn't find a need for a formal tour for any of this.

Did you already explore Cobh while in the Cork area? Lovely little town to spend a day.

While it obviously can be skipped as proven by post #2, I haven't seen a significant quantity of people on this forum mention this in my years on Cruise Critic. Perhaps get a travel insurance policy that protects you if it is a worry to you. Myself, I'd put a cancellation in the "it's part of the adventure" category that I simply accept when I do major trips.

I agree with the above. There should be a bus. Free or a few euros. And while not the best port in the world, it makes for a nice day. Enjoy!

Given the cruise is in a few months, I would assume that NCL has sold out for all the other tours that cruise lines typically offer. It's not that what you are seeing is all they offer. I'd spend the money and get the private tender boat. Splitting it with another couple makes it a little more acceptable. Given the likely overall cost of your trip, it will hardly be noticed in the big picture. 😀 I will add that staying on the ship is not something I would do. However, it is a beautiful location no matter whether you are on the ship looking around and up at the caldera or up top looking down at the ship and water.

This thread may prove helpful. I used the forum Search box at the top of the screen to find it. There were other threads on the topic you might also want to look thru.

I've never walked it. But I just took a look at Google Maps in satellite or aerial photograph mode and it sure looks like there is no reason it can't be walked. There are even covered walkways in multiple places. You a see the painted crosswalks across the entry streets into the various terminals. Have a look, you can zoom in quite close to see how it would be done.

I did a B2B a few years ago that had Kusadasi on both cruises. So I was there twice, one week after another. This was my first visit. On the first visit, I did the ship excursion which spent the most amount of time at Ephesus. This included the Terrace Houses. On the second trip, I didn't see any excursion that interested me other than one that went to Ephesus. But this time it was a shorter time at Ephesus. Basically just a walk down the main drag. Then we proceeded to another ruin site called Magnesia. Then we went on to Miletus where there was a very impressive theatre. Finally we went to Didyma, which had a very impressive Temple of Apollo. I actually enjoyed the second trip to Ephesus as well. It was good to hear 2 guides version of what I was seeing. So while I saw Ephesus twice, I still spent much of the day at other very worthwhile ruin sites. This was a Royal Caribbean excursion named "Best of Antiquities". If you can find a way to get to the non-Ephesus sites mentioned above, it would be an enjoyable day. Assuming you're into Antiquities! 😀