MeHeartCruising

This does indeed look like a decent itinerary. Even better than decent. I would have no issues booking this cruise at all. Have fun!

FYI, you thinking that Bruges can be done on your own is spot on. It's a lovely city to just walk around. But you will need to find the transport. I'm surprised your cruise line isn't offering some form of shuttle into the city.

I've generally found bartenders willing to make any drink you want if they have the ingredients. Not all bartenders will know how to make all drinks. If they don't know, they will ask the other staff if they know how. Or you can try to tell them. On a very few occasions, I've had lazy bartenders who basically say "No, I can't make that here." without telling the reason why. Generally, they want you to be happy (and tip more).

Make sure you are aware of the unique layout of the bathrooms on the Epic to make sure it works for you. I have been on the Epic twice and like the ship, however, a lot of people do not like the bathrooms. Personally, we have had no issues with the bathroom. I believe the balconies are the same size between these cabins. Either way, it is a small balcony with just enough room for the chairs and you.

With an 8:40 sunset and a 10:00 departure, I would view the sunset from the ship. Then you don't have to worry about getting down the cable car or donkey path and on to a tender boat back to the ship in a hurry. You will have ample opportunity thru the day to see how amazing the island looks with the water all around.

Given your long day in port, even if the excursion takes you back to the ship directly, you could then hop on the regular tenders and go back up to Fira via the cable car. And then back down in time for departure. Being mid-day, the ride up shouldn't be too long, I would think. Back down may be busy, however, as always. You'd probably have time for several hours to do this.

They should be able to drop you off right at one of the gates of Taormina. The Main Street is pedestrian-only. From the main gates, it is just a few feet to get inside and start your walking around. As a comparison, if you were to take one of the excursion buses, they park/unload in the parking garage maybe 100 yards outside one of the gates and then you walk to the city gate. So a taxi should be able to get you about 95 yards closer than the buses do.

The wrinkle in that plan will be if they decide to visit the sites in a different order than stated in the excursion's description. They usually reserve the right to do this on most excursions. In fact, I've seen them do this to spread the multiple excursions out so that all the buses don't all visit each location at the same time. There may be 5 or more buses all doing the same excursion if there is enough demand. It may turn out that the Winery is your final stop before heading back to Athinios. And you won't really know this until you are on the bus. It is a last minute decision, not one that your cruise line call center agents will know anything about. Now, while that could happen, I would think they will make Fira the last stop so that you could stay there for the rest of the day and then take the cable car or donkey path walkway down on your own if you so choose. I hope that's the case for the OP since they are going to be in port for several hours after the excursion appears to end. You won't probably be escorted around Fira much. The visit there is mostly about shopping, dining, drinking, mixed with some sightseeing.

Checked in yesterday morning around 9am. eDocs were ready when I checked this morning around 9:30am. I didn't check thru the day yesterday to see exactly when they became available.

My group of 2 was paired with strangers. However, that was pre-Covid. I’m not sure if that has changed or not.

You will pass thru passport control as you leave London. First you pass thru UK passport control to properly exit the country. Then a few steps further you will pass thru French passport control. You will need to show any required documentation (visas, etc) at that point. There is also a full X-ray scan of your luggage done at this point. So you will need to lift each bag up on to a conveyor belt. The X-ray is large enough for large suitcases. After all that you go to the waiting area until boarding. In Paris, you simply exit the train and walk out of the station to go where you want. There are no passport/customs formalities upon arrival.

These type of cruises are quite common in the Mediterranean. NCL, Royal, and MSC all do them. It is called interporting. NCL started doing it 3-5 years ago, I believe. And enjoy the Epic. I’ve been on her twice and enjoyed it a lot.

I buy my Eurostar tickets directly on eurostar.com from the United States with no issues. I also download the Eurostar app on to my iPhone and access my ticket from there to board the train. I've ridden it twice (Paris to London and Amsterdam to London). I will always use it for similar distances. The only downside for the OP, as they have mentioned, is their luggage. There will be room for the luggage on the train. But you will need to deal with it yourself for the most part.

Excellent! Thanks.

Sailing in 3 weeks. Do any recent Joy passengers know whether it is a Coke or Pepsi ship at this point in time? Thanks.

I don't think any cruise line in any port has an "official" time that you can check in. You could call your cruise line and ask them what to expect. Generally, they start the process once the personnel are in place and ready with all their setup they need to do. This can vary somewhat. If the ship was late arriving that morning, that definitely impacts things. But yes, it generally is between 9:30 and 10:30 for most locations, but it could be later if the stars don't align. Actual boarding will not start until all the passengers from the previous cruise have left the ship. Sometimes there are a few stragglers that delay boarding. But this doesn't usually impact the ability to check-in. In my multiple European cruises (including a couple from Rome), check-in and boarding times were very similar to what you are familiar with in the USA. If 10:30 works for you, I would arrive at 10:30. You may or may not have a short wait outside the building while they get ready for you. Unless told otherwise, I would probably be there by 10:00, since I like to arrive early. I don't mind waiting if I need to.

Agreed. Use a credit card (get one with no international transaction fees, such as from Capital One) for most purchases. Then use an ATM to get what cash you need as needed, just like at home. Notify your bank in advance about international travel. If you’re uncomfortable arriving with no euros, get a hundred or 2 in advance from your own bank. They may need to order it for you. I usually show up with less than 20 euros that were left over from a previous trip. First stop is an ATM.

As a solo traveler, I’ve always made reservations for 2 when I wanted to do so in advance of the cruise. On my most recent cruise, I thought I’d be nice and notify them on the first day of the cruise that I was just one person, in case that mattered to them. All that did was get my entire first reservation cancelled because the person didn’t know how to modify a reservation. After she fumbled with it, she just told me it didn’t matter. She thought she had fixed the first reservation, but when I later checked it on the tv, it was gone. I had to reschedule it. I just tell them that I am dining alone when I arrive. No big deal.

Thanks @cruisemom42, this is helpful to me too. I’m looking forward to seeing them. Did you take the Celebrity shuttle into the city center? If so, did you have to buy it as a post-cruise excursion? Or just go to guest services and pay for it?

Different cruise lines and even some ships on the same cruise line can do B2B processes slightly different. But they are generally pretty similar. You will likely get your ship pass card for the second cruise delivered to your cabin a day or two before turnaround day. That usually will have a letter with instructions on what to do on turnaround day. Some times, the ship pass cards are not distributed until the morning of the turnaround. In most cases, I think they ask all B2B passengers to gather at one location on the ship at a specific time. It seems it's usually 8:30 or 9:00 am or so. They then process you "off" the first cruise. When I did this in Rome, they took us to the gangway and used the same computer to process us off as was being used by the other disembarking passengers. But they did us all as a group. However, we had to wait until ALL the other disembarking passengers were off the ship. They wanted to zero out the count of passengers ON the ship. This took us until after 10 am in my case due to some stragglers on the ship. Once everyone else was off the ship, we were taken to the gangway and we used our old cards to get "off" the ship. Then if we wished to return to the ship for the second cruise, we used our new cards to get "on" the ship again. If we wished to go ashore, we were free to do that. They processed us "off" the first cruise and also gave us an "Thru Passenger" pass. This pass could be shown to shore personnel upon return to the ship so that we could bypass the check-in process and proceed directly to boarding the ship. Unfortunately for you, I think the timing and any delays is one thing that will vary from ship to ship and cruise to cruise. I'm hoping to do the same thing you are wanting to do in May on my own B2B. Except I don't plan on using any sort of guided tour. I haven't fully vetted out my plans, but I believe Royal Caribbean might offer a post-cruise shuttle to the Ravenna train station (perhaps for a fee) -- designed for disembarking passengers. I may look into taking that, if I can, because the mosaic walking tours that I've seen seem to be in that same area. I also may just get off the ship and take a taxi into mosaic area. I most likely will use a taxi to get back to the ship later in the day. I'll start formulating a better plan here in the coming weeks.

For my Sept 2022 trip, I purchased my train ticket from Waterloo Station to Southampton via https://www.thetrainline.com. I ordered from the USA. I paid $12.33 for one ticket and purchased it a little less than 3 weeks prior to the day of travel. I set up an account online and also downloaded their phone app. My ticket was then available in the phone app. I also had a printed copy, if I recall. I did not make a seat reservation. I'm not even sure it was available to get one. I thought I was directed to this site to purchase tickets by The Man in Seat 61 (look it up if you want a lot of good info on train travel). But now I can't seem to find any references to thetrainline.com on his site for UK travel. So I could be wrong where I heard of this site.

That is correct. Similar concept and end result. But one is purchased on the ship and one is not. Usage terms and $$ value amounts can vary too.

The new plan sounds perfect to me! Have fun.

Similar story here to the OP. I was cruising with 2 friends (Mark and Annette). We all flew in to Miami together from Pennsylvania. A 4th (Michelle) was flying in from the Florida Gulf Coast to meet us at the terminal. She was a friend of one of the 2 in my group. The other 2 of us hadn't met her yet. We easily found each other outside the terminal and got all the introductions done and were all excited as we headed into the building. As we're going up the escalator into the new terminal building I told everyone to have their passport handy, they were looking at them near the top of the escalator. Michelle says, "I just brought an old passport. I couldn't find the new one this morning. But don't worry, I gave Mark the passport number from the new one for online checkin." My jaw dropped and I told her that I didn't think that was going to work. She didn't understand why not. Sure enough, they sent us over to the "special people" desk. Like the OP, Michelle was lucky enough that her sister lived in her apartment building and was able to get into Michelle's apartment to look around for her birth certificate. She sent a photo of the BC and sent it over to Michelle. The whole process took us about an hour. The 3 of us from Pennsylvania were not pleased. We were going on that ship even if Michelle had to fly back home. But once we got on board, we moved on and started the vacation. At the end of the cruise, Michelle was able to get back into the country, apparently using her BC picture from her phone. She got off the ship before we did, so we don't know if there was any hassle. The 3 of use decided we won't be sailing with her again. Ha.

The difference is the size of the vehicle you will be in and how many people will be on the vehicle with you. There will be less people in your tour group in the more expensive version. The tour company gets to decide how many apparently.