The Rest of the Story

[Travelcat2]

1 hour ago, Ep010835 said:

TC, you’ve been busy!

😃

 

 

Yes - this is a hobby and I'm usually online already so I check in with CC a few times day.  Once the Explorer reaches Santiago, we will be onboard and I'll be posting from there!

[Ep010835]

1 hour ago, Travelcat2 said:

 

Yes - this is a hobby and I'm usually online already so I check in with CC a few times day.  Once the Explorer reaches Santiago, we will be onboard and I'll be posting from there!

 

Glad you are there for us. We immensely enjoy your insights. I know that I do, for sure! 😀

 

Have a great time on your cruise and please check in regularly.

 

 

[Hambagahle]

Speaking for myself anyway I am REALLY looking forward to reading your posts from Explorer, Jackie!   Last cruise you had you started by saying you weren't going to post much and then, happily, you "took us along" with you.  Please do the same from Santiago north!!

[Travelcat2]

45 minutes ago, Hambagahle said:

Speaking for myself anyway I am REALLY looking forward to reading your posts from Explorer, Jackie!   Last cruise you had you started by saying you weren't going to post much and then, happily, you "took us along" with you.  Please do the same from Santiago north!!

 

Gerry, I do plan on posting as much as possible from Explorer.  At the moment, we are in the midst of flight issues and it is the weekend -- not quite sure what we will do but we will definitely get to the ship on time.

 

We are enjoying Rachel's post (and your comments on that thread as well).  

 

EP010835 - thank you so much for your kind post.

[amusea]

On 1/27/2019 at 11:48 AM, 1982CruzStart said:

We are sailing Barcelona to Dubai this fall and it overnights in Dubai. We will deviate and take a late night flight out if we can rather than stay overnight.  We can deviate as of today so will contact our TA tomorrow and ask her to release the booking so i can talk to Regent Air to check our options. 

We are taking the same cruise in 2020 on the Explorer.  We are now deciding whether to spend a few nights in Dubai before flying home.  Since the itinerary is almost identical I would appreciate any comments on this exciting itinerary when you return  We will definitely deviate both ways.

 

Jay in Tucson

[DeepFreeze63]

7 hours ago, amusea said:

We are taking the same cruise in 2020 on the Explorer.  We are now deciding whether to spend a few nights in Dubai before flying home.  Since the itinerary is almost identical I would appreciate any comments on this exciting itinerary when you return  We will definitely deviate both ways.

 

Jay in Tucson

Hi:

Have sailed both to and from Dubai with Regent. Dubai is a great tourist destination, especially in late November when the temperatureis warm but tolerable. I think that the optional 3-night post-cruise excursion is a terrific deal. Great way to see Abu Dhabi and the Marriott Marquis in Dubai is a marvelous property.

 

[1982CruzStart]

4 hours ago, DeepFreeze63 said:

Hi:

Have sailed both to and from Dubai with Regent. Dubai is a great tourist destination, especially in late November when the temperatureis warm but tolerable. I think that the optional 3-night post-cruise excursion is a terrific deal. Great way to see Abu Dhabi and the Marriott Marquis in Dubai is a marvelous property.

 

I don't share your enthusiasm for Dubai but it is interesting to see at least once.

We have done almost the same itinerary before. We wanted to get back to Petra and Luxor so when we saw this cruise we jumped at it. We are doing the overland adventure to Luxor while the ship is docked at Safaga. 

My plan at the moment is to do another thread with my writing buddy flossie009 so amusea i hope you will follow along. 

[Travelcat2]

We have also been to Dubai on Regent.  We are booked (not 100% sure we'll keep the booking) for the Barcelona to Dubai cruise in November 2020.  The ship arrives in Dubai at noon and remains overnight, so passengers will have the opportunity to see the city in the afternoon and can take advantage of dinner, etc in the evening.  In my opinion, one extra day would be enough - unless you have specific things in mind that you want to go to that would take more time.

 

If we go on this cruise, we will not be touring Dubai but rather will take a late flight out of Dubai on the day we arrive.  While Dubai is fascinating, we have seen enough.

[1982CruzStart]

22 hours ago, Travelcat2 said:

We have also been to Dubai on Regent.  We are booked (not 100% sure we'll keep the booking) for the Barcelona to Dubai cruise in November 2020.  The ship arrives in Dubai at noon and remains overnight, so passengers will have the opportunity to see the city in the afternoon and can take advantage of dinner, etc in the evening.  In my opinion, one extra day would be enough - unless you have specific things in mind that you want to go to that would take more time.

 

If we go on this cruise, we will not be touring Dubai but rather will take a late flight out of Dubai on the day we arrive.  While Dubai is fascinating, we have seen enough.

We were going to do the same and take a late flight out the night we arrived but there were no options to YVR.  I know you usually fly to and from there.  Emirates out of SEA OR LAX were not an option as i was not paying and upcharge of 1500 pp to fly them.  Our flight home is on BA and leaves at 10 am the last day. 

On our first visit to Dubai we arrived early morning the day before embarkation and arranged a private tour with 2 other couples from CC.     On this trip we will take a shore excursion of either a dune ride or a walking tour of the old city and that will be enough of Dubai for me. To me it is a place of very tall architectuarily interesting buildings and lots of sand, not much more.

[Travelcat2]

3 minutes ago, 1982CruzStart said:

We were going to do the same and take a late flight out the night we arrived but there were no options to YVR.  I know you usually fly to and from there.  Emirates out of SEA OR LAX were not an option as i was not paying and upcharge of 1500 pp to fly them.  Our flight home is on BA and leaves at 10 am the last day. 

On our first visit to Dubai we arrived early morning the day before embarkation and arranged a private tour with 2 other couples from CC.     On this trip we will take a shore excursion of either a dune ride or a walking tour of the old city and that will be enough of Dubai for me. To me it is a place of very tall architectuarily interesting buildings and lots of sand, not much more.

 

Thank you for that information.  We were planning on flying on Emirates until I read about the upcharge.  Now we will likely do BA or Cathay Pacific.  Guess we won't be departing the ship until everyone else does.

 

Agree about your views of Dubai.  Unfortunately, prior to visiting, I read a book about the things that you do not see in Dubai.  People come to work in Dubai - their passports are taken until they "repay" the cost to fly them to Dubai, etc.  Unfortunately, these people become almost slaves and live in horrible conditions for years.  I spoke with a man working in a restaurant and he verified what I read in the book.  

 

One place that was fun to visit was the gold markets.  My DH thought that we should go there as he heard that the price of gold was good in Dubai and thought he might buy me a nice necklace.  When he saw the tons of gold (most of the pieces are huge), he was too embarrassed even to ask for a normal gold chain/necklace.  It was amazing to see this shops.

[LadyandtheTramp]

1982CruzStart, Travelcat2;  I believe we are on this cruise also, and we've been thinking about our return out of Dubai.  (We've been to Dubai a couple of time before, so see no need to stay there more than necessary.)  We would be grateful to learn what happened with your return flights on (or not) Emirates.  Ours would be to Orlando, and our last two flights out of Dubai were non-stop on Emirates, with no surcharge.  

[Travelcat2]

50 minutes ago, LadyandtheTramp said:

1982CruzStart, Travelcat2;  I believe we are on this cruise also, and we've been thinking about our return out of Dubai.  (We've been to Dubai a couple of time before, so see no need to stay there more than necessary.)  We would be grateful to learn what happened with your return flights on (or not) Emirates.  Ours would be to Orlando, and our last two flights out of Dubai were non-stop on Emirates, with no surcharge.  

 

We are on this itinerary next year - not this year but I'm learning a lot from other posters.  While I understand that Regent has contracts with airlines on some but not all routes, I'm guessing that that they no longer have a contract with Emirates out of Seattle or Vancouver (they actually do not fly out of Vancouver to my knowledge but fly back to Seattle and connect with a flight to Vancouver.  We cannot book flights until around February 2020 and we hope that the contracts will change.

 

Just checked and Cathay Pacific (a lovely airline in our experience) has both day and late night (11:30 p.m.) flights.  The downside is that the layover is 5 hours.  While I love Hong Kong airport, that is a long time.  Regent has booked on Cathay Pacific   before with no extra charge.  BA's flights only have a 3 hr. 20 minute layover at Heathrow but we would rather not have to stop in Heathrow.  Thankfully we still have time to think about it.  At the moment we are going through nightmares trying to get from Vancouver to Dallas this Friday so it is difficult to think about other flights.

 

Although we have not as yet flown Emirates, it is wonderful that you can get a non-stop flight - happy for you!

 

 

[1982CruzStart]

23 hours ago, LadyandtheTramp said:

1982CruzStart, Travelcat2;  I believe we are on this cruise also, and we've been thinking about our return out of Dubai.  (We've been to Dubai a couple of time before, so see no need to stay there more than necessary.)  We would be grateful to learn what happened with your return flights on (or not) Emirates.  Ours would be to Orlando, and our last two flights out of Dubai were non-stop on Emirates, with no surcharge.  

Our curise is 2019 and we are flying BA at 10 am from Dubai to Heathrow and then on to Vancouver.  Regent may contract with Emirates on the east coast but we don't seem to have much luck on the west coast. The last time we flew to Dubai we could use Emirates out of SEA but for an upcharge of $1000 pp, now it is 1500 pp.   We didn't go that route either time. 

[jctdlt]

23 hours ago, 1982CruzStart said:

We were going to do the same and take a late flight out the night we arrived but there were no options to YVR.  I know you usually fly to and from there.  Emirates out of SEA OR LAX were not an option as i was not paying and upcharge of 1500 pp to fly them.  Our flight home is on BA and leaves at 10 am the last day. 

On our first visit to Dubai we arrived early morning the day before embarkation and arranged a private tour with 2 other couples from CC.     On this trip we will take a shore excursion of either a dune ride or a walking tour of the old city and that will be enough of Dubai for me. To me it is a place of very tall architectuarily interesting buildings and lots of sand, not much more.

 

[jctdlt]

We took Regent’s money for airline.  Then flew emeritus airline.  We flew out of Dallas.  Wonderful flight.