okavango

3 hours ago, dwhe said:

Yes, should be a short walk from their according to Google, I'm getting the train from New Street, there should be a long line of us after breakfast walking down. 😁

Nearly 1/2 mile , you need to make sure when you walk down to take the correct lane to get to the bag drop area rather than straight to the terminal building , they are seperated and a bus takes you round to the terminal building for check in when you have dropped and tagged your bags

9 hours ago, dwhe said:

I take it the free shuttle is on the Saturday, we're getting there on the Friday and staying in a hotel close to the port.

The shuttle is on the sailing day , why would it be on any other ?

21 minutes ago, Mopsymillar said:

Hi, we have just booked the midnight sun cruise to Norway leaving 6th June 2020.

Where is the cruise port , is it Newcastle or South Shields?
Trying to decide whether to drive or go by train.

Thanks for your help.

North Shields , port of tyne. If you go by train there is a free shuttle bus from Newcastle central station to the port. They have reps at the station just inside the main entrance to guide you for the bus ,all very easy and works well. This year first bus was 11.00 am then every thirty mins.

1 hour ago, tart6000 said:

Hi all,having had an operation back in September due to pancreatic cancer I now feel well eno

to travel abroad.Would be most grateful if anyone could give me recommendations of any insurance 

companies who specialises in this type of insurance.Im looking to go early January.

Thanks in advance for any replies.

Worth a look at World First , their online medical screening is quite thorough so it does not instantly reject you for one bad word but looks in more depth as to whether a condition is a real problem to you.

Checked in yesterday for a flight next saturday ,it was still saying max 23kg ,typical TUI IT department ,probably take them about three years to update everything.

3 hours ago, Vitalsign said:

Yes Okavango that must be the case especially after seeing what Pakistan airways passengers have as luggage on the programme about Heathrow Airport!!!

Have you seen how much they put on the roof LOL

15 hours ago, Vitalsign said:

Yes PC if handlers are not allowed to lift more than 23kg then how come British handlers lift 25kg for other international airlines i.e. Quantas, Ethiad, Emirates etc

😀

Always wondered that ,most of them can be 30kg bags ,i suppose because most luggage is containerised on long haul the number of times each bag is handled is drastically reduced

Just seen an extract from Marella , it does indeed look like they have increased the max case weight to 25kg , they are probaly hoping more people will buy the 25kg if they arn't going to lose some of it to the weight of an extra bag.

3 hours ago, dronnygirl said:

Seems strange as cases are usually limited to 23kgs for the baggage handlers. Don't know how they even manage to lift those😦

Must employ some big lads for the long haul jobs with a 30kg case limit.

3 hours ago, dronnygirl said:

Aren't  you on E2 next year? You can take as much as you want when sailing from Newcastle..

Individual cases are still supposed to comply with the 23kg handling limit but i dont know whos going to weigh them at the port LOL

44 minutes ago, howmuch! said:

 

 

The complete cabin number is not shown on the card, so if lost its should not be possible for anyone to enter your cabin or use it for 'extras' as your picture comes up at the till.

It's relatively easy to find the cabin,  the combination of the few numbers and muster station would narrow it down greatly

32 minutes ago, nancyneptune said:

I have seen some great bargain prices for the Holy Land cruises from several regional airports departing in December with cabins in all categories from inside up to suites at low supplements.  I know the region can be unstable from time to time and this affects bookings but I can't help thinking if these  cruises had flights from Glasgow there would not be so many cabins to fill at this late date.  I for one would jump at the chance if they had Glasgow departures.

 

Come on Tui Marella bring back the choices we used to have from Scottish airports with Thomson or risk being left with unsold cabins at loss making prices. 

 

If we can't fly to destinations we did previously  from our regional airport we simply book with another line. 

 

Theres flights from Edinburgh and Newcastle so you could say Scotland is covered.

Dont think its actually getting a refit as such ,most of what ive heard points towards mechanical work ,any serious amount of engine work can take a while ,even possibly related to the new fuel regs , her engines are probably two stroke designed for HFO so maybe some upgrade in the injection department to work better with the lower viscosity fuels ,but thats pure speculation.

1 hour ago, dronnygirl said:

Hi msk1955,  welcome aboard.

You will have to register a credit card when you board, even though it's AI there are extras e.g. photos or drinks not included in the AI

You don't  need to inform Marella of your insurance details, it's your responsibility to sort this

Luggage labels are supplied when you arrive at the airport as you will be met by a rep

Formal evenings or Dress to Impress nights are well attended but sadly less and less men wear black tie. Only about 25% on our last cruise on Explorer 2. Most people dress smartly though.

I'm sure you will have a lovely cruise, which ship/itinerary have you booked?

Luggage labels not normally given at the departure airport any more ,they seem to have changed back to mostly at departure port check in or arrival airport reps except for the bonded luggage flights

2 hours ago, davecttr said:

Restrictions on Norway cruising - apparently Norway may be adopting a 'zero emission' policy for ships in at least 3 world heritage fjords including ports such as Flam and Geiranger. This should be implemented by 2026 and zero emission means no exhaust so essentially battery power or hydrogen fuel - Looks like it is bye bye to cruising the fjords on anything but the latest ships

Theres quite a lot of new LNG powered ships (they dont use hydrogen)  to come on stream between now and 2026 , puts marella out of the equation for about the next 20 years though LOL

46 minutes ago, FuzzyDuckUK said:

They arrived in the area around 7:30 and left no more than a hour later, the schedule was 15:00. No possibility this was intended.

 

Now it's cruising at a modest 12Kn towards Maderia. 

OK if thats the times probably too rough to dock ,it is a bit exposed at the quay and not a very big harbour ,very much like la palma if i remember correctly

2 hours ago, FuzzyDuckUK said:

Doing the Canarian Flavours starting 22 November on Explorer. Been following Explorer on MarineTraffic site for a while and noticed todays stop at La Gomera was abandoned after a short while and now is heading straight to Maderia. I'm guessing it was too rough for tenders to operate. Is this common at this time of year for this port?

 

 

La Gomera is a short stop just the same as La Palma on the alternate week , its a long drag to Maderia so they need to depart the southern isles around mid afternoon. Also Gomera is not a tender port (been twice) its got a good quay.

2 hours ago, GOQ said:

I think the lease contact on Celebration ends at the end of 2021 and people seem to be guessing Celebration will go in 2022. Dream is undergoing a refurbishment in January 2020 so they will probably keep Dream for another 4 or 5 years.  Also the staff captain on Dream is leaving to become the new captain of Celebration so it probably has a couple of years. 

Celebration is no longer on lease ,it was bought by TUI UK in 2018

13 minutes ago, so,ton saint said:

 

 

HI Colbrit am willing to sacrifice my Caribbean cruise that winter to do summer in the states on Discovery, i feel sure Carnival  Royal and V.V will be looking over there shoulders to see a British ship home porting  on there patch, have sailed on carnival ecstasy from port canaveral i think its about  one hour from the airport.

Arn't the Discoveries still tied up with RC anyway ? , playing to a different audience to the american lines so probably not treading on too many toes

2 hours ago, 2BACRUISER said:

No both marella and p&o websites and princess a n other cruise agent. To be fair I did see Marella at a slightly earlier date at £1849 but it's still over £100PPPD. 

This year the Baltic ones dropped quite a lot ,think the first one came down to about £900 deck 10/12 inside ,anyone who paid for a balcony that trip totally wasted their money LOL ,it was certainly baltic.

3 hours ago, 2BACRUISER said:

I've been looking for a baltic cruise for next year May/June.

Virtually same itinerary.

Marella £2049

P&O £1449

Princess £1299

Now I know Marella is AI and there are drinks to buy with p&o and gratuities to add with princess but there is no way in the world we will spend the £1000+ that going with Marella would cost us on either of the other two lines.

I wondered if anyone else was feeling the same as our last cruise on D2 was imo defo 3* at a 5* price. 

I really wanted to go on the Ex2 baltic as we loved her but the price is a killer. 

 

Is that brochure price ?

3 hours ago, campolady said:

A good warning - there are a lot of fake cigarettes sold in Gibraltar.

Yes ,thats one of the consequences when goverments get too greedy and keep hiking the taxes

On 10/14/2019 at 2:29 PM, kruzseeka said:

 

Agree - our experience of fly/cruises has been very good.  Arrivals are staggered due to different flight arrivals.

 

Like gillhalfpint, we too had a quick check-in last year at Southampton but arrived perhaps half an hour earlier than this year.  Made a difference! 

 

So pleased to hear things were so much better on 27th - the provision of seating and imposing some means of allowing passengers to embark in order is just what was needed.  I'd have been ok having to wait 2 hours had we been able to sit and if folk were being taken in turn.  I have no problem whatsoever with those who are premium passengers or those with medical needs being given priority. 

 

All it needed was some system in place.  Good news to hear that apparently that is now happening.  

As a matter of interest how long an embarkation window did they state at southampton , was it too short a period like at newcastle , if people had not started arriving up to 1 1/2 hours early it would have been even more chaotic than it was, dont think they ever managed to sail anywhere near on time.

3 hours ago, 2BACRUISER said:

Sad to say that it might be by the posts I read on the various Marella FB groups, the bottom line is Marella/Tui need to fill their ships and they dont care who they fil them with. A lot of the Magafluff AI brigade seem to have caught on that the ships dont limit you like the hotels do so expect shall we say a more diverse clientele. 

How could Marella or indeed any cruisline vet all the passengers at time of booking and refuse the undesirables , luckily the undesirables are usually not too numerous and i dont see evidence the totally AI set up has changed things much , the idiots were always on AI before

Sadly Marella dont react too well to feedback ,a few years ago i kept telling them for about two years they had an obsolete phone no on their website ,reaction zero. Until the bean counters notice something is hitting them in the pocket not much changes.