jem16

Does this include Deck 7 Deluxe Cabins? :eek: We need 3 separate beds.

It's all decks. If you're looking for 3 berth then look for the # symbol. Deluxe cabins on Deck 7 are all 3 berth, some are twin plus 3rd berth and some are twins which can be pushed together to make a double plus the extra bed.

Use this deck plan as the symbols are correct.

http://www.thomson.co.uk/cruise/ships/thomson-celebration-deck-plans.html

It looks like all Deck 7 deluxe cabins should be fine for you.

Also, the dot means that it's 3 berth, what does this actually mean and does it matter that the 600's numbers don't have the dot?

 

Thanks

Watch out for this - the key on the booking section for Thomson Celebration is wrong and I have this confirmed by Thomson when I emailed them about a specific cabin.

If you look at the Deck plan on the website for the actual ship you will see that the Circle (or dot) symbol means Fixed Double bed. The # symbol means 3 berth. This is also confirmed in their actual brochure.

Unfortunately the key is round the wrong way for the Circle and # symbols. I have asked that it be corrected but whether or not it will be who knows.

Thanks Malch.

The company I was looking at was this one;

http://gibraltar-rock-tours.com/

Payment is taken after the tour so I suppose it's not completely booking.

My friend and I have had a look at various tours both with Thomsons and DIY. We may still just DIY and head for the cable car ourselves.

However thought we might want to see a bit more and looked at the Gibraltar Rock tours (great reviews on Trip Adviser) which covers two tours - one at £25pp (Tour A - 1.5hrs) and one at £45pp (Tour B - 3hrs).

Tour A covers;

Duration: 1.5 HRS

Location:

•Pillars Of Hercules

•St. Michael’s Cave

•Barbary Apes

•Great Siege Tunnel

Tour B covers (apparently their most popular);

Duration: 3 HRS

Location:

•100 Ton Gun

•Europa Point

•Catalan Bay

•Pillars Of Hercules

•St. Michael’s Cave

•Barbary Apes

•Great Siege Tunnel

•Airport Runway

Would anyone be interested in joining us on either of these tours? 8 people are needed for the minibus.

The Thomson tour seems to be in between these two tours at £33pp for 2 hours and covering;

Europa Point

Pillars of Hercules

St Michael's Cave

Barbary Apes

Airport Runway.

From what I can gather you can walk into the Cable Car area from the port and buy a ticket which covers the Cable Car and Nature Reserve for 28.70 Euros - about £22.

Yes gem i`d say that`s the one you you need to look at for the sistine chapel.

Thanks.

Thomson's have also onfirmed that the Rome Express doesn't do a specific tour of the Vatican.

Thanks dronnygirl - very helpful.

there isn`t a tour of the vatican city included it`s just into st peters square and the basilica

Thanks. It looks like this may not be the tour we want then as we specifically want to visit the museums and the Sistine Chapel.

It looks like the Classical Sights & Vatican City is the tour we need. That's a pity as I would have like the train journey.

I'd recommend doing Rome on your own by train. We did this and had a wonderful day, seeing all the major sites. We got off the train at the Vatican and did it first so there was hardly any queue. The key is to get off the ship as soon as you can and get the first train, then don't leave it to the last train coming back. The cost was 12 euros return and it was very easy. If you are interested, I could let you have a full itinerary of what we did.

It's something I might have considered once I had looked into it all. However my friend, in particular, is not happy with the DIY trip as she feels she would be clock watching all day and worried that something would go wrong with the return journey and we are back late and miss the ship.

However I would be interested in your itinerary though.

Hi

 

I did this tour last week and by the time we got through the queues at the Vatican we literally walked in one door and out the next. We barely had time to look around before having to race back to the train station.

Was the tour actually an organised part of the whole trip or was it a case of being dropped at the Vatican and left to do your own thing?

The reason I ask is that those on a specific organised tour of the Vatican seem to skip the queues as they have a specific time to be there.

Can someone confirm whether or not the Rome Express excursion ( ie the one that goes by train) actually has a tour within the Vatican City?

The tour seems to suggest that you go to the Vatican in the afternoon after lunch but I want to make sure that it includes a tour.

I just think it would have been nice for the TA to phone me and explain that they had not taken enough deposit and not just sent out an amended invoice out of the blue.

 

Lesson learnt :o:D

That's where I'm not following your logic Linda.

The deposit is £400 (or £300 if you choose the lower deposit). The cost of booking the cabin isn't normally added to the deposit as that still remains at £400. The cost of booking the cabin is added to the total invoice and is payable when you pay your final balance.

Some TAs do take the £42 plus the £400 deposit at the time of booking so you would pay a total of £442. However you had only paid £400 so the rest is due with the balance.

However I do take your point that your TA should have explained the reason for the updated invoice.

We are considering a Thomson cruise in the autumn because the itinerary looks so interesting. We cruise for the ports rather than facilities so the fact that Thomson's ships are older won't be a big problem for us I feel. I would prefer a balcony but they seem to be short supply on their ships. Which ships have them and which don't?

The Spirit and the Celebration certainly do, both on Deck 9 and some on Deck 5 for the Celebration only.

Also the drinks packages seem very expensive. We are not big drinkers so what sort of prices do the ships sell drinks individually for onboard? Anyone have a drink menu?

Menu posted here. Some ships are slightly different but this gives you an idea.

http://cruiseforums.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1748329

My son drinks a lot of fruit juices are they available? Is it possible to bring soft drinks onboard?

Yes they do have fruit juices. I don't think you'll have a problem bringing them onboard but only for cabin use.

Also would like to know more about the food onboard. Is it mostly British style? We are British (but long time expat) so British is fine with us. Are there vegetarian options? Is there also a self service food area? Does it have long opening hours?

Menus are suited to British tastes but they do have themed nights in the buffet areas - things such as Asian, oriental etc. They also do vegetarian options.

Buffet is usually open till very late and from very early. In some cases it's 24 hours but not all. I don't think you'll ever find a problem with eating.

My point is why do I have two invoices saying one price and another saying something else?

First invoice is for the cruise itself.

Most recent invoice is for the cruise plus the added £42 to book a specific cabin as you cannot book the cabin at the same time as booking the cruise.

I have 2 invoices exactly like this and I booked online.

Why you have a 3rd invoice I cannot say. Perhaps this one is from the TA rather than Thomson's?

I suspect what happened is that the £42 was for the cabin booking but as it was put with the £300 it became part of the deposit. Another invoice said that I had to pay £100 as the remainder of the deposit, so that would have made up the missing £42.

It didn't really become part of the deposit. The low deposit is £300 and the full deposit is £400. You paid the low deposit of £300 plus the £42 cabin booking charge. The other £100 that you were asked for makes up the remainder of the deposit. However I see you only paid £58 so Thomson seem to have taken the £42 as part of the deposit, probably because they add it to the invoice.

I though it was odd that they took the deposit and cabin booking together, as they have always done them separately before.

It does seem an odd way to do things but I have seen it done that way before through TAs.

Time to book on line methinks :D

I've booked online the last 2 cruises. At least I can see what's going on!

I have just found a letter dated 22 June saying the cruise costs £1704 minus £156 retail discount, but how can they put the basic price up?

You said the original cost of the holiday was £1662. Then it became £1704. That seems to be the original cost of the holiday plus the £42 - ie £1662 + £42 = £1704.

If I paid £150 pp low deposit that is £300, so the £42 must have been for booking the cabin. As Kruzseeka says they won't book it without the money.

With Thomson's you have to book the holiday before you can book your cabin. The £42 for booking the cabin will then be added onto the invoice, hence the two different totals on the same day.

Certainly when I booked my cruise that was the way it was handled.

From what I can see you still have £42 to pay as you haven't paid the total of £1704 yet.

We have pre-booked cabin number 142, deck 7 on Celebration for a Caribbean cruise next January. Can any one tell me if this cabin has obstructed views due to a lifeboat. Thanks

Deck 7 cabins look out under the lifeboats so generally not obstructed.

Although many people would argue with me, Whitby is not the Greater Toronto Area.

I suppose it depends on your interpretation of GTA but it seems to be considered part of Durham region which is part of the GTA.

http://toronto.about.com/od/communitieslivingspace/a/gta_cities.htm

It's a 45 minute drive into the city core from Whitby.[ If you're doing it during rush hour, it could take you an hour thirty. I

Would agree with that, yes. Fortunately my son drives to work at Scarborough so for him it works. Daughter-in-law gets the Go train into city centre. Currently they are in Ajax.

If one wanted to live in the city, a house can cost around $800,000 CAD. Or this semi detached which just sold for over a million.

 

http://m.theglobeandmail.com/life/home-and-garden/real-estate/riverdale-semi-goes-for-more-than-250000-over-asking/article19133429/?service=mobile

I could well believe it.

Most young people who wish to get into the house market need to move far out of the city core.

probably like most major cities.

After writing all of this, I wonder to myself why I'm discussing the Toronto housing market in a cruise forum.

Slight deviation from the thread but interesting nevertheless. They moved out almost 2 years ago and are thoroughly enjoying it the way of life. I'll be visiting next month.

As for cruising, this might work for us. they can fly down from Toronto and I can join them from the UK.

I cant comment on house prices in glasgow? (would be interested to know tho) but around here £200k would only buy you an average 3 bedroom semi (i am guessing that would be about an average price for most provincial towns here in uk)...

There's so may districts in Glasgow with many different "average" prices. In the better areas it would cost around £280k for a 3 bedroom semi. Other areas of Glasgow you would get it for around £160k or less.

in an northern ontario town you could buy 3 or 4 detached bungalows for that

I was talking about the GTA though. My son is buying there just now - he went to look at one over the weekend in Whitby - East Lakeside area of the GTA. 3 bedroom detached with basement, double garage and pool in the back yard was 450,000CAD which is about £250,000 approximately.

I got in touch with Thomson and they said the extra Manchester seats were prob due to cancellations.

Probably. Did they offer to change you over to Manchester if that's more suitable for you?

we hired a huge chrysler to drive up to northern ontario for about £200 for the week, it was a 600 mile journey petrol was cheap, motels were cheap, food was plentiful and cheap (by our standards here in uk)

 

I absolutely luvved canada:cool:

I think prices depend on where in Canada you actually are. In Toronto itself restaurant prices are very similar to here and in fact many are more expensive. In general I would say their prices are more on a par with London but like London the salaries are also higher.

As for house prices, both rental and bought, it's dearer than in Glasgow for example. However you get a much bigger house for the money with huge basements being standard.

Referring to the language barrier comment I had wondered whether the poster had meant that some people may transfer internally to Toronto from Montreal etc !!

I should imagine djg's comment about a language barrier was more tongue-in-cheek than anything else.

All announcements I expect will be in English only. I don't think any of the entertainment team will speak much if any French !!!

As Toronto is in the English speaking part of Canada, I doubt there would be any need to be speaking French.

Glad the number has come in useful.

I booked the Celebration repo cruise back in December dept 5th April 2015 for 19 nights. The Manchester flight was already sold out then!! So we have to fly from Birmingham.

That's odd - it's still available from Manchester now although only 2 seats left.

Thanks for a great informative post!

 

During the immigration process were you aware of anyone having problems with Egyptian, Oman or Jordan stamps in their passports?

I have Egyptian and Jordanian stamps in my passport - no problem with Israeli immigration.

You're more likely to have a problem with these countries if you have an Israeli stamp in your passport which is why they give you a separate stamped landing card. Quite thoughtful actually.