allisonfamily

A QUESTION about picking up car rentals in Molde:

Do you have to take a taxi to the airport?

Or do some of the Molde car rental companies offer a pickup service at the cruise dock?

Thanks!

On 2/17/2024 at 3:30 AM, allisonfamily said:

Thanks for the suggestion ... I'll definitely track them down.

The itinerary (MSC Euribia May 2) says that the ship arrives in Flam at 0800, and departs at 1800.  In the mythical world of math, ten hours *should* be enough to take a 2 hour boat ride and a three hour stave church drive.  But in the real world of cruise math, we all know that 0800 to 1800 isn't actually ten hours.

I'm betting that the humans at norwaysbest.com might be better at estimating actual tour time and how to fit it into that time window.

By the way, here's what we decided to do: RENT a car!

NorwaysBest confirmed that they don't have an excursion that does both the Nærøyfjord and Borgund Stave Church.  They also don't offer the ability to build a custom tour for that.  Also, they don't have a bus to Borgund, or a taxi, or a private transfer tours that would do that.  So the phone call nailed down what they don't do.  Which, frankly, was VERY helpful in making plans.  What they did suggest was renting my own car.  And as it turns out ...

Perfect!  Fjord cruise from Flåm to Gudvangen, taxi from Gudvagen to Flåm, rent a car in Flåm, drive to the stave church and return in plenty of time (fingers crossed) to make the 1800 departure.

Why take the taxi back to Flåm and not the NorwaysBest shuttle bus?  Of course, the return shuttle bus is already fully booked.  🙂

Car rental is right there near the dock: FlåmCarRental

Taxi was also easy to book: FlåmTravel

Hope this helps!

Thanks Kaisatsu!

I finally reached norwaysbest.com by telephone (+47 57 63 14 00)

The person who answered the phone suggested that instead of renting a taxi, that I rent a car instead.  Good idea, I hadn't even thought of that.  But the person also gave me three phone numbers for arranging taxis ...

Taxi companies in Flam:

+47 40887385

+47 57633400 (Aurland Taxi)

+47 40859476

I'm not going to contact them (at least not yet).  As someone said, taxi vs rental car would be really expensive.  So I'm gonna try that first.

Thanks again Kaisatsu!

I'm trying to get from Flam to the Borgund Stave Church.  May 2.  Trip, wait while we tour the church, then return.

• Has anyone used GetTransfer in Flam? gettransfer.com
• Also, is Aurland Taxi the only taxi service in Flam?  (I finally found the web site https://tts.as/bestill-drosje/aurland/ but I can't figure out how to use it).

Any other suggestions?  Thanks!

I'm getting the same error.  Off by one day.

In my case it's the MSC Euribia.

My itinerary says we stop at Flam on May 2, but the listing shows May 1.

Everything else is correct.  Arrival Departure Duration Previous Port Next Port everything.

Just the date.

https://www.flamport.no/arrival-list

Well this is really annoying.

We searched and searched and finally found our Best-For-Us Fjords Cruise, covering both of the two UNESCO fjords that are closing soon ... Geirangerfjord and Nærøyfjord stopping in Flåm, Hellesylt and Geiranger. (YC class in the MSC Euribia).  Booked it.

(Hellesylt and Geiranger are very close.  Hellesylt was only a one-hour touch-and-go; most of the port time was in Geiranger.)

Today we learned that MSC dropped Geiranger from the itinerary completely!  What that *probably* means is that the ship won't sail down the beautiful eastern arm of Geirangerfjord.

I don't care about docking in the port of Geiranger, but sailing down that arm of the fjord is (to me) a big deal.  The whole point to this cruise was to hit both of these two UNESCO fjords.  Not *almost* go to these fjords.

Of course, there's no way to confirm where the captain plans to sail.  (Heck, they haven't even explained *why* they changed the itinerary.)

Has anyone had this type of sudden itinerary change?  I can't imagine that there's any recourse.  I'm sure I could cancel, but I'm equally sure that MSC wouldn't give me a refund.

I'm guessing that this means I'll hire onto an "excursion" to take a ferry or tour-boat from Hellesylt to Geiranger, and bus back to port.  Anyone have suggestions?

Thanks for the suggestion ... I'll definitely track them down.

The itinerary (MSC Euribia May 2) says that the ship arrives in Flam at 0800, and departs at 1800.  In the mythical world of math, ten hours *should* be enough to take a 2 hour boat ride and a three hour stave church drive.  But in the real world of cruise math, we all know that 0800 to 1800 isn't actually ten hours.

I'm betting that the humans at norwaysbest.com might be better at estimating actual tour time and how to fit it into that time window.

Question about a shore excursion in Flaam.  May 2, '24.  Specifically, I want to do two things: 1. Fjord boat cruise from Flåm, through Nærøyfjord, into Gudvangen then return to Flåm through the tunnel.  2. Drive to the Borgund Stave Church, tour it, then come straight back (no railway, no Stegastein viewpoint, no Snowy Road, just Borgund and back).

Does anyone know of a shore excursion that covers those two itinerary items, or is there a way in Flaam to develop a custom excursion?

Thanks!

Thanks EM. Sad result. But good to know.

Indeed I found the very tiny map on the MSC website and cruisetimetables, and a zoomable map with a few more details on cruisemapper.

*Your* answer was the most helpful. If they take the left-hand fork going into Flaam, that's Aurlandsfjord (Nærøyfjord is the right-hand fork).

So about the MSCforME app ... what *does* it show while on board?  Does it show menus, or events, or any other daily news?

Again, thanks!

I can't find anyplace on the MSC website where it shows a detailed route map of where the ship is expected to be traveling.

Do the detailed routes show up on the "MSC for Me" app, while on-board, during transit?

I would love to get a detailed route ahead of time.

But maybe the app will at least show me where I *am*?

In a related question, when the port-of-call is Flåm, does the ship go down the famous Nærøyfjord?

Or do you have to take an "excursion" to get over to Nærøyfjord?

Thanks!

Two perhaps useful facts:

1. Viking River cruises does, in fact, have a Merchant Category Code. It's MCC 4411, which is the MCC that all travel and cruise companies are supposed to use.  This can be important for holders of "reward" credit cards that offer bonus rewards for travel ... most of those cards base the "travel" reward on whether the cruise vendor uses MCC 4411, and that means your Viking cruise purchase will qualify for the extra reward bonus.

2. I was not able to negotiate a significant extension of the due date (e.g., debbie311).  However, I was told by the agent that Customer Service will routinely give you an extension of a few days if you call them and ask for it (877-668-4546).  This can be really important for situations where your cash availability, or tax liability, coincides with the due date.

daytrip.com as an alternate to very expensive taxis?  Any experience with daytrip, or other transfer services?

OK, a bit more digging, and a quick email exchange and phone call with the Alaska Director of Verizon Enterprise Solutions got me past the Permahold, the confusing website maps and the even-more confusing newspaper articles.

 

(I needed to find this out for work, but the info is applicable here as well.)

 

ALASKA

Verizon has their own voice and 4G LTE data in Anchorage, Juneau and Ketchikan. Verizon has partners for voice and data in Skagway and Sitka, but from a billing standpoint, the partner connections are the same as their "own-network" connections. These connections support voice, texting and data applications like email. In other words, there are no roaming fees for those locations. It's the same deal that you have for CONUS domestic. (I only asked about those five ports. I did not ask about other locations.)

 

CRUISE SHIP

Most cruise ships have their own cell towers. They don't charge their own separate charges. Instead, they get treated as an International roaming location by your own carrier. So the roaming rates come from your carrier (in this thread, that's Verizon). The ships turn off their towers (as someone else pointed out) when they get near a port (12 miles for HAL) not for the passengers' convenience but to avoid accidentally providing high-expense service to residents in those ports. Verizon has a "Trip Planner" that shows you specific rates for specific ships, but it appears that all of Verizon's "Cruise Rates" are the same: Voice Rate Per Min Standard: $2.49 Pay as you Go data rate $0.020/KB ($20.48/MB) Text Rate $0.50 send $0.05 receive. Plus they offer a prepaid Global Data Plan $25/100MB. Since Pay As You Go data rates work out to $20/Megabyte, and 100 MB works out to $2,048.00, it seems like there are 2,048 reasons to either buy the Global Data Plan or hold a strict line on Airplane mode when on the ship. Oh yeah, and texting is texting. With, you know, text. Not multimedia sharing.

OK, we're back from our trip. Wow, what a surprise. And not in a good way.

We had four people, carrying four cellphones from three different carriers. *ALL* of us ended up having different successes and failures in different ports of call.

I was *assured* that my Verizon phone would work fine in every port of call, and it almost never worked. The AT&T phones worked pretty well, but not consistently. To be fair, they had an earthquake the night before we landed in Juneau, which apparently knocked out most of the area's Internet. And I assume that if Internet is gone then the phones are probably affected too, but still ...

My advice: Everyone bring your phone, and when you're in port (in Alaska), everyone turn 'em on. See what you get.

P.S. Vancouver was a different story. Roaming rates apply, but coverage and connectivity was never an issue.

Hope this helps!

So to summarize:

 

If you want to eat in the Main Dining Room/Pinnacle on Formal Nights, the dress code requires both a coat and a tie. (Tie alone, not enough; coat alone, not enough; yes even on Alaska cruises.)

 

If you don't want to bring a coat and tie, then on Formal Nights you can still eat (the same food choices) in the Lido, or of course order room service. You could also eat at the Canaletto or Terrace Grill without a coat and tie.

 

Do I have that right?

Well, we're back from our cruise (Volendam, Alaska Inside Passage out of Vancouver) and it was great. The above summary is right.

• We saw a man turned away because he wasn't wearing a jacket. They offered him a jacket, but he said he had one in his stateroom so he went back to get his own.
  
• Almost no one wore jeans, but I did see a couple people wearing those zip-away shorts/trousers things. But they were black, not dirty, and looked fine. Black sneakers worked fine as well. Again, not dirty. No one was wearing shorts. *Everyone* wore a jacket. All but two or three wore a tie. No one wore a tuxedo.
  
• Women, on the other hand, were dressed to the nines. LOTS of long gowns. Lots of cocktail dresses. And almost everyone was in a dress or skirt of some kind ... no jeans at all and only one or two wearing slacks. TONS of jewelry. (We know who formal night is for.)
  
• Children were incredibly cute! I have no idea what they were wearing, but the handful of tables with kids ... oh man. The boys in their often-matching ties, and the girls dressed in their best cruise dress-ups ... cute, cute, cute!
  
• In the ship's store they sell ties at yard-sale prices. So very non-HAL of them. I don't think you could buy a refrigerator magnet for the price of a tie.
  
• And yes, the Caneletto does not enforce formal night. As it turned out, the only night we could get dinner in the Caneletto was the same night as formal night. We did not dress "formal" ... and neither did anyone else. (By the way, the Caneletto was very nice and I'm glad we went. But the most memorable meal on the ship was in the Pinnacle.)
  

That's our report ... hope it helps!

Thanks for the compliment. We appreciate it. It was hard, hard work, but helping others is what we do.

Well, we're ba-ack! We had a wonderful trip on the Volendam through the Alaska Inside Passage, returned to Vancouver intact (albeit not dry), and had an absolutely wonderful time--assisted in no small part by the fact that we were *armed* with knowledge about what to expect. Thank you CruiseCritic and thank you POA1.

The Signature Beverage Package that was included with our Explore4 promotion was wonderful. We never worried about trying to keep our beverage purchases down and almost everything we drank was within the $7 limit.

• The biggest SBP surprise: *All* wine-with-dinner was *over* $7. Clearly, they're trying to get extra money from people who have SBP cards. Very disappointing. Simple solution: we had mixed drinks with our dinners. The only "wine" that was under $7 was a pre-dinner Prosecco, and an after-dinner Limoncello. Perfect. We were cruising Alaska but we were dining Italy!
  
• Glenfiddich is over $7. By a lot. :-)
  
• Interesting occurrence when carrying wine onboard: There were four of us in two rooms. We went to a liquor store in Vancouver the night before and bought 4 bottles of wine (and two big bottles of soda). We put all of it in a box from the liquor store and checked the box as luggage (complete with luggage tags that we duct-taped to the outside). Well, because it was four bottles of wine in one box, they kept the box downstairs on Deck A and did *not* deliver it to our room. After the lifeboat drill, all four of us went down to Deck A and told our story. (By the way, they are *not* comfortable with passengers roaming Deck A unescorted. :-) ... Anyway, it only took a minute or two to realize that yes there were four of us "carrying" four bottles of wine, and no corkage fee would be needed. But it did require a special visit (and yes, I *did* check at the front desk later in the week to make sure the corkage fee hadn't slipped in accidentally). All worked well.
  
• A surprise: We didn't finish all four bottles! We thought we would be drinking in the suite, but we didn't do that so much. And after *all* my questions and planning, we didn't buy a bottle of liquor either! We found that with all we were doing, we *did* spend a lot of time on the suite balcony, but we did *not* spend much time out there drinking.
  
• I still think that HAL is missing the, ah, boat, by not making it easy to buy stunningly-expensive bottles of liquor along with cans of soda or mixer that are covered by SBP--to carry to your stateroom or suite. We would have bought one on the very first day.
  
• As predicted, most liquor with mixers was under $7. The barkeep always knew whether the brand we asked about would bump us over the limit or not.
  
• We had a couple of times when the bartender or waiter told us that the price of something was higher than we thought it would be. We never argued. We just ordered something else.
  
• The drink of the day was always under $7. One of our more adventurous souls participated in the drink of the day every day.
  
• In fact, our Adventurous Soul figured out that this was the *perfect* way to try out all sorts of drinks and cocktails that he had never tried before. Back home, spending $7 (each) for a bunch of different cocktails is an expensive way to get an education. Especially if you don't like them. But with SBP ... perfect!
  
• Wow moment: They didn't know what a mint julep was! We started to tell them, but the blank stare we got in return told us that a Discussion (no matter how cogent or articulate it might be) does not fit into a Point Of Sale terminal. ... Yup, we'll have a mojito please :-)
  
• HUGE win on getting soda and bottled water at The Explorers' Lounge instead of on the gangplank. Soda went back to the room.
  
• First thing we did as we got into the room was to find out *which* bottle of water in the room was complimentary and which was for sale. Then we immediately took possession of what was complimentary and established the house rule--don't touch the mini-bar and don't touch the bottle with the sign on it. (And then set our cellphones to airplane mode :-)
  
• The Neptune Lounge concierge was knowledgeable and informative, but they don't dispense drinks, sodas or water there.
  
• Plus a hint: If you *do* carry your cellphone in your shirt pocket (especially on port of call days), *don't* put the room card and SBP card in that same pocket. My cards were de-magnetized *twice*. Easy to fix at the front desk, but it sure was annoying.
  

All in all, SBP was a huge win. And I know it's off topic, but wow ... that balcony in the Neptune Suite was amazing. Wide enough for the entire family. We spent most of our ship-board time out there. Whale-watching, glacier-watching, sailboat-watching, Alaska-watching, or just falling asleep in the lounge chair ... pretending to watch the water.

Hope this helps, and once again ... THANKS!

Listed in order of distance from downtown Juneau, with codes linked to the map. Info is from http://wikitravel.org/en/Juneau

• Sea Drome Dock (SD) -- Map F
  
• Alaska Steamship Dock (AS) -- large ship -- Map E
  
• Cruiseship Terminal (CT) -- large ship -- Map D
  
• Intermediate Vessel Float (IVF) -- Map C
  
• South Franklin Street Dock (FKL) -- large ship -- Map B
  
• A J Dock (AJD) -- large ship -- Free shuttle to CT -- Map A
  

It takes a good 20 minutes wandering around Verizon's websites to see a map that makes it look like Verizon cell service--both phone and data--are widely available at virtually every port of call in the Alaska panhandle.

 

A quick phone call to Verizon yielded nothing. Permahold.

OK, a bit more digging, and a quick email exchange and phone call with the Alaska Director of Verizon Enterprise Solutions got me past the Permahold, the confusing website maps and the even-more confusing newspaper articles.

(I needed to find this out for work, but the info is applicable here as well.)

ALASKA

Verizon has their own voice and 4G LTE data in Anchorage, Juneau and Ketchikan. Verizon has partners for voice and data in Skagway and Sitka, but from a billing standpoint, the partner connections are the same as their "own-network" connections. These connections support voice, texting and data applications like email. In other words, there are no roaming fees for those locations. It's the same deal that you have for CONUS domestic. (I only asked about those five ports. I did not ask about other locations.)

CRUISE SHIP

Most cruise ships have their own cell towers. They don't charge their own separate charges. Instead, they get treated as an International roaming location by your own carrier. So the roaming rates come from your carrier (in this thread, that's Verizon). The ships turn off their towers (as someone else pointed out) when they get near a port (12 miles for HAL) not for the passengers' convenience but to avoid accidentally providing high-expense service to residents in those ports. Verizon has a "Trip Planner" that shows you specific rates for specific ships, but it appears that all of Verizon's "Cruise Rates" are the same: Voice Rate Per Min Standard: $2.49 Pay as you Go data rate $0.020/KB ($20.48/MB) Text Rate $0.50 send $0.05 receive. Plus they offer a prepaid Global Data Plan $25/100MB. Since Pay As You Go data rates work out to $20/Megabyte, and 100 MB works out to $2,048.00, it seems like there are 2,048 reasons to either buy the Global Data Plan or hold a strict line on Airplane mode when on the ship. Oh yeah, and texting is texting. With, you know, text. Not multimedia sharing.

Sadly, the carrier is a fountain of misinformation!

It takes a good 20 minutes wandering around Verizon's websites to see a map that makes it look like Verizon cell service--both phone and data--are widely available at virtually every port of call in the Alaska panhandle.

I *think* that really means the service is available, but ... is it all roaming?

A quick phone call to Verizon yielded nothing. Permahold.

Thus I turn to CruiseCritic, the source of true facts.

I've seen where we're told that Verizon Voice should be arriving "this summer." Has anyone been recently? Was there Verizon voice coverage in the panhandle ports of call?

Please? And thank you!

Hopefully I answered your questions. If not, let me know.

You are a *monster* answerer. Thank you!

(It was a kind of long-winded question. Thank you for taking the time to go long-winded on the answers. VERY much appreciated.)

Either pre-order for room delivery or order from the room service bottle list. They have been priced the same. People have reported that tax is charged on the pre-orders in certain ports. If you want to avoid the tax, you can wait and order once you board.

Let me be the 8 millionth person to say thank you for all your terrific advice, suggestions and collected knowledge on these topics. Thank you.

...

So I've figured out that HAL really wants you to drink at their bars and restaurants. Got it. But for me, I'm traveling with family, we booked a Neptune suite for us to all get together, maybe play a little bridge and hang outside on the balcony. Of course we'd like to have our drinks *there* ... not in a bar. Room service drinks not covered by SBC. Mini-bar not covered by SBC. Not a big deal, I think, this should be easy to solve. Buy a couple of bottles and setups. Nothing fancy. Gin and tonic, bourbon and 7 up, just a couple of different setups. HAL doesn't let you bring your own bar--gotta buy from them--not a problem, I'm fine with that.

On your advice I looked up the bottle list. OK, we're getting close. There's the Tanqueray. And Bacardi Gold. And while I don't see Knob Creek, I see ... well I thought I saw Jack Daniels somewhere. Got that part covered. Now the tonic, and 7-Up, or coke. Hmmm. How do I get that?

OK, here, the bottle list shows gin and tonic, rum and coke, bourbon and coke. Again we're getting close. I'm sort of stunned though. 1 liter of gin and three 12 oz cans of tonic? Wow, those are gonna be some *really* strong gin and tonics. (By my reckoning, that's about a 50/50 mix ... way too strong for a family get together.) Plus those brands ... Myers Rum, Jim Beam, Bombay Original. Not what I was looking for. This is getting to be harder than I thought.

Boils down to three questions:

1. Is there any way to buy higher-end bottles for my stateroom? Gentleman Jack, Maker's Mark, Knob Creek ... or even just regular Jack Daniels. I see that if I buy it in duty-free or Signature Shops, they put it away and don't let me drink it in the suite. Is this bottle list the only way to buy a bottle?
   
2. Is there any way to buy a couple of six-packs, or even 2-liter bottles, of things like Coke, 7-up or tonic water for use in the suite? I'd love for those sodas to be covered on my SBC, but even if I have to pay separately for it, I'm not seeing a way to get it done. At all. It looks like I need to go to the Lido, pick up a soda, carry it back. Then go back 5 minutes later, pick up a soda, carry it back. Rinse and repeat until the room is stocked up.
   
3. Maybe the Neptune Lounge can help me out? Maybe I'm still stuck with the 5 minute wait. Does the Neptune Lounge have those setup drinks--heck that might even be SBC covered! Or better yet, does the Neptune Lounge have a bar ... that would solve the problem completely!
   

I get it that HAL wants to make their profits. And I'm happy to contribute to my share of their profit margin. But it looks like they're working overtime to keep me from having a few drinks on the balcony of my suite! These exact same drinks--in the bar--are covered on SBC. But in my suite ... Nope.

Ironically, getting bottles of wine for my suite is fantastically easy. Even high-end bottles of wine. But for simple liquor mixed drinks ... the only option is cheaper choices and make 'em super-strong. Seems like the antithesis of a HAL option set.

Suggestions? What do you think?

Explore4 beverage features differ by cruise. It's spelled out in the Terms & Conditions footnote in your ExpressDocs:

• Explore 4 is a Free $50 Beverage Card on "select Caribbean and Mexico sailings."
  
• Explore4 is a Signature Beverage Package on all other cruises.
  

It doesn't spell out a method for determining whether *your* Caribbean or Mexico cruise is "selected" or not. I'm guessing that what they really mean is that Explore4 isn't offered on all Caribbean and Mexican cruises. But *when* it's offered on one of those cruises, then you always get the Free $50 Beverage Card.

So to summarize:

If you want to eat in the Main Dining Room/Pinnacle on Formal Nights, the dress code requires both a coat and a tie. (Tie alone, not enough; coat alone, not enough; yes even on Alaska cruises.)

If you don't want to bring a coat and tie, then on Formal Nights you can still eat (the same food choices) in the Lido, or of course order room service. You could also eat at the Canaletto or Terrace Grill without a coat and tie.

Do I have that right?

So I see that the price of certain liquors onboard (listed, for example, as Tanqueray) is $6.95 ... just under the $7.00 limit. Halfacts shows them on the bar menu as "PROPERS."

Does ordering your liquor with mixer in it put it over the $7.00 mark? Is that iconic Tanqueray & Tonic over $7.00? Rum and Coke? Or is the mixer considered a "free" extension of the PROPERS?

(I have to believe this simple question has been answered a zillion times before, but my crummy search skills couldn't find it!) Thanks!

(P.S. I haven't done the search for my second question, trying to find the cheapest way to get a bottle of Tanqueray in my suite for afternoon drinks)