Baggage Shipping Services

[Dark Avenger]

Planning on doing the April 2017 M. Odyssey cruise. Will travel Denver to Venice with a pre-cruise stay and also perhaps a post cruise stay in Barcelona and/or Madrid. Would like to do Denver/Luft. direct to Munich and then open jaw to Venice and back from Spain. If I get crazy mad I might try business class on the long flight overseas legs.

 

Anyone have experience with the baggage shipping services? And/or FedEx,

etc. to ship bags directly? Perhaps send to ship and then rely on carry on bags for first few days in Venice?

 

Any experiences out there to share, or sage advice?

[Peregrina651]

Planning on doing the April 2017 M. Odyssey cruise. Will travel Denver to Venice with a pre-cruise stay and also perhaps a post cruise stay in Barcelona and/or Madrid. Would like to do Denver/Luft. direct to Munich and then open jaw to Venice and back from Spain. If I get crazy mad I might try business class on the long flight overseas legs.

 

Anyone have experience with the baggage shipping services? And/or FedEx,

etc. to ship bags directly? Perhaps send to ship and then rely on carry on bags for first few days in Venice?

 

Any experiences out there to share, or sage advice?

 

I was reading an article by travel writer Chris McGinnis about this just the other day. His take is that it costs so much more to ship it than it does to pay the airline fees, so just pay the fees.

 

..

[tubeamps]

I've used luggage free for a cruise out of Venice on Regent and luggage forward for a Crystal cruise out of NY.

 

BOth are pricey , but it is really nice traveling without hauling luggage around, especially if you have international connections to make.

Luggage free can be more expensive because they charge a $50 pick up fee, and if you are more than 40 miles from an airport that will jump to $100.

 

In both cases our luggage was delivered to the ship. We did a pre cruise stay in Venice and lived out of our carry ones no problem.

 

If cost is no object I would give it a try. Our next cruise, INto the Midnight Sun, we decided to just fly with luggage. We are in business class and that luggage usually gets priority handling.

 

One thing to note, if you are flying home and have a leg on a small aircraft your luggage might not make the flight. WHen we flew QUebec to NY it was on a 60 seat commuter jet. THe only luggage that made the flight were the pRiority handled business class luggage.

[roothy123]

I've never used those services, so can't really help. However, with Venice being the way it is (water and bridges everywhere!), I would think it might be a little better to ship what you can. Depending upon which hotel you use and where the ship docks, you may have to rely on expensive water taxis or else struggle with large pieces of luggage on the vaporettos. (I think the yellow Alilaguna boats, however, help you with luggage, as do the private water taxis.) For the vaporettos, I've heard they can refuse to let people on if they have too much luggage, but perhaps they don't always enforce that. We were fine in September with one large suitcase each and one duffel bag or backpack each. In Venice, getting to your hotel can be a bit difficult, and in many to most cases you can't simply take a taxi to your hotel. If the ship docks at the place where we docked (near the cruise port but not right there) you may not be able to take a taxi to the ship from your hotel, so you'd likely end up on a vaporetto or else pay for another expensive private water taxi ride.

 

I'm not sure how things work if you fly in one day and the ship doesn't get there until a day or two later. Can you order delivery to the ship on a particular day?

 

I do know that there's a luggage storage facility at "Piazzale Roma" where you can store luggage for a couple days. Piazzale Roma is a square in Venice where many vaporettos pick up and drop passengers, plus there's a little overhead train that goes to the cruise port - a short and inexpensive trip, but without help for your luggage. Also, I've read that sometimes you still have to walk a bit from there with your luggage to get to the ship.

[garycarla]

Fedex does a great job.

 

But, once you get hotels and cruiselines in the picture, things can happen.

 

I know lots of folks that travel around the world with carryon and manage just fine. We just did 10 day cruise plus a few cities on our own in Europe with carryon. It can be done. Even dealing with a regular size suitcase on wheels is not difficult. We always do hotels before and after our cruises so we have extra clothes, etc.

 

To me, it is just not worth the worry about our bags showing up somewhere by Fedex, DHL, or any other 3rd party carrier.