ToddWelch

Hi there....we are going on a 2 week cruise from South Hampton.  We are from Canada and just wondered about the need to bring local currency for Iceland and Norway?  Can you get by with credit card for most things?  Just tried to avoid bringing GBP for England/Scotland and then the others as well.

Thoughts?

Thanks

Todd

Hi there....I know with some cruise lines you are to email cruise directors or Maitre'D's on each ship.....does MSC offer this option?

We are going on a 2 week cruise on the MSC Virtuosa in June (3-18) but is not a normal itinerary....so we were hoping to email the cruise director to see what special nights might be planned....like White Night or how many formal nights.

Any help would be appreciated.

Todd

Hi there....we are looking at 2 different cruises for June 2023.  One is with MSC and is 14 days and the other is with Carnival and is 9 days.

MSC - leave Southampton UK and goes to Glasgow, Stornoway, 2 ports in Iceland and then Aalesund, Maloy, and Flaam in Norway then back to Southampton.

Carnival - leaves Dover and goes to Bergen, Aalesund, Molde, Olden, Cruise Nordfjord, Skjolden, Cruise Sognefjord, Haugesund and then back to Dover.

We love the MSC option as it goes to Scotland and Iceland and Norway, but our main concern with the MSC option versus the Carnival option relates to Fjords.  We really want to experience the Fjords where you go through them and see the high sides and the path through them.  We know with the Carnival ports we will do that with the 2 days of Cruising through the Fjords to Nordfjord and Sognefjord.....but will we miss out on this experience taking the MSC ports in Norway.  Is there an option to go through the Fjords on an excursion and get the same experience as you would on the Carnival trip.   The MSC ship is bigger and won't go through the actual Fjords like the smaller Carnival ship.

Any opinions or comments would be great.  Have you done either of these or both perhaps.  We sort of look at it like the Panama Canal....we just went there last year on a bigger ship that just docked on the one side and didn't go through the canal itself, but we still took a boat excursion through have the canal and came out on the pacific side and then took a bus back to the other side where the ship was.   This worked for us as we got to go through the canal and experience that.

Thank you in advance for your help.

Todd

Does anyone know what the current occupancy levels are on the MSC Divina.  I recently saw a post where people said there were only 1600 people on that particular sailing.  We are on the November 4th sailing and just wondered if this was the case or not.

Thanks

Todd

If you live in Canada you can't book with MSC USA any longer.  We even tried booking with MSC USA on the phone and as soon as you get to a certain point where they ask for addresses and credit cards then it's a no go.  I am not sure how a TA works.....maybe some of them have USA addresses and accounts??

The other little thing to remember is that the CAD and USD exchange rate is always an issue.  We were looking at the USA site prices in USD and then the Canadian site in CAD and there was sometimes large differences even when looking at the exchange rate at the banks and credit card companies.  Sometimes the rates were over 50% exchange when the credit card was only 34%.

We have cruised out of Miami several times but we have always travelled in by plane and used rental cars.  Looking for recommendations on parking for 2 vehicles for the week (Friday to Friday).  Has anybody come up with unique solutions....or just good experiences at the various parking lots?

Thanks in advance.

Todd

Hi there, we are flying into IAH on a Friday night in January for a Saturday Carnival Cruise.  We were originally just going to use Uber or Lyft to get to the port on Saturday morning, but we just looked and noticed we can get a Budget Car Rental from the airport on Friday night and return to Texas City location for about $55 USD on Saturday morning.  It is about 17 miles to the port from there.  Does anyone know if they provide a shuttle to the port or we could just call a taxi or Uber from there.  This just gives us (group of 4) a little more flexibility on the Friday night to go out for dinner and get some last minute supplies at Walmart.  For the return trip we would likely just take an Uber or other transportation service.

Has anyone done this? 

We will be in Aruba next week for our first visit on the Sunshine.  We are in port from 1pm to 11pm I believe.  We were thinking of taking the bus from the port to Eagle beach....there are 7 of us.  Is this fairly simple to do....where should we get off to find a nice spot on the beach with chair rentals and bathrooms?

Then we thought we would go back to the ship and eat dinner and then go back out to the town area?  Will the stores stay open later if the ships are in port later?  What else is good to do after dinner and once it gets dark?

Thanks

Todd

How do I find a travel agent with group space?  I always book directly with the cruise lines?

I am new to RCL but not cruising.  I was looking for a answers to a couple of questions...hopefully someone can help.

We are looking at a cruise in July 2020 out of Rome for 8 nights on the Explorer of the Seas.  Combination of Italy and Greek Islands.  My questions are:

1.  We have never booked this far out even on the cruises we have been on with other companies.  I see there is a $250 deposit when booking....because we have 8 people going this is a significant amount of money.  What happens if something happens between now and the cruise that we can't go for some reason.  I know there will be dtaes along the way where refunds will reduce but what are those and when?

2.  Right now this cruise is a really good price because of the BOGO 60% sale...especially since we are booking 4 cabins with 8 guests.  My questions is...how often would RCL have a sale like this.  I know on the other cruise lines we usually go on it....sales come and go almost continuously all year...but overall the price never really changes too much.  You might get lower deposits or on board credit but basically it doesn't change.  Is this the case with RCL?  We just don't want to miss a low price that might now come around again.

Thanks so much for your help.

Todd

My group of 12 family members just got off this Super Bowl cruise as well. Here are our thoughts...this was our 3rd time on the Valor.

The ship is tired looking compared to previous cruises....lots of places look like they aren't doing proper repairs because of the dry dock. Wooden drain covers on the lido deck are replaced with plywood for example....painting not being kept up to the normal standards.

Constant sewage smell around the lido open areas and in some of the hallways. We have cruised on Carnival over 10 times and though you get this now and then...this cruise was noticeably worse....even in the main lounge we could smell it one day. Our bathroom floor had a noticeable weak spot in the middle of it....like the floor was broken underneath the covering.....we mentioned this to the room steward....we also found other weak spots in a few of the hallways....perhaps this is from water damage getting under the carpet or floor coverings.

Food was great all week. Room was kept perfect and overall the ship is clean and tidy....just needs some TLC in the repairs area. We all thought this ship had the Indian Curry place at the back grill but it was closed all week except for the last night they had burgers going late at night.

Overall we are huge Carnival fans....this one was a little disappointing but hopefully they clean her up a bit while in dry dock.

We are a family of 6 and cruised on Carnival 8 times now I think. We always book through our Carnival booking rep just so we get 2 cabins next to each other. I don't think we have ever had "connecting" rooms like with an internal door, but we never really had a problem with it. We would just go in and out the main doors. We have triplets and one older child. The triplets have been going since they were 2 or 3. Never had any issues before. When they were younger we always left them in the room with their older brother or sometime Grandma was there.

It is a little tight with the 4 of them and trying to share the bathroom.....especially now that they are teens...lol Sometimes they use ours.

But hey...they make do since they are on a cruise!!!

Todd

I will send off an email to the special needs group for sure. Just wondered if any others had info.

What about the outlets the staff use to vacuum the buffet area or the MDR....would they not be North American outlets??

Thanks

I will be travelling in February on the Valor with my MIL. She requires oxygen for about 18 hours a day but is really much better when on it all the time.

She is planning to take her POC device that produces oxygen for her in the room...this plugs in the electrical outlet and will work for her while in the cabin.

She is also bringing a smaller POC that is more mobile and can run on batteries for small periods of time. They are thinking of plugging this smaller unit in when staying in one place for a longer period of time...such as the dining room or a lounge area.

Has anyone had any experience with this....being able to get a table in the MDR near an outlet....say around the edge....or in a lounge area?

Just curious.

Thanks

We always just look for the cheapest flights because there are 6 of us. The last few years we have flown in and out of Fort Meyers and cruised out of Miami. The flights are sometimes half the cost or even less that flying into FLL or MIA. We rent a mini van for less than a hundred dollars and just drive the 2 or 3 hours. The one way car rental thing in FL really helps this process.

This year we are cruising out of Port Canaveral but flying into FLL and out of Tampa. We saved almost $1800 on our flights rather than flying in and out of Orlando.

I have made a few bookings but I just can't get over the huge increase over previous years. I know we usually travel in January but we have gone over into February a few times as well.

I have tried CostCo and even some of the bigger car rental companies with my corporate discount which usually is pretty good.

Daytona runs events all through January and February but the big races are the last week or so of February.

All these things could be contributing...so hopefully as we get closer I will be able to find a better deal.

We have cruised out of Florida for over 10 years now. We have 4 kids so our usual method of transportation to the cruise port is to fly into a florida airport (cheapest flight versus closest airport) the day before and then we just rent a mini-van and dive to the port area. We stay overnight at a hotel and then drive to the port and drop off the car rental.

We have done this many times and then we usually reverse the process on the way back. Our car rental costs have always been between $50 and $80....depending on discounts.

WHat I am finding this year for our cruise in February 2016 is that rental prices are crazy expensive....even more so for a mini-van. I have seen rates as high as $400 for 1 day to rent in Cape Canaveral and drop in Tampa at the airport. we have rented vans for an entire week for less than this??

Last year I paid $55 plus taxes for AVIS one day rental between Fort Meyers and Miami.

Does anyone know why the rates are so high? After looking and looking I have two reservations but they are both over $150.

Todd