ROLL CALL-- Legend 3/11-3/18

[blackbird71]

Well my bags are packed (almost LOL) and final payment made, airline ticket brought, and one night in the Holiday Inn booked.... It is 19 degs in Va today and I am READY for Mar 4th.... :D

 

In the end, only being in the hotel around 23 hours I went with the Holiday Inn. The only "problem" now is dealing with my first flight to DC from Roanoke at 6:20 AM :eek:

[jsiegel]

Well my bags are packed (almost LOL) and final payment made, airline ticket brought, and one night in the Holiday Inn booked.... It is 19 degs in Va today and I am READY for Mar 4th.... :D

 

In the end, only being in the hotel around 23 hours I went with the Holiday Inn. The only "problem" now is dealing with my first flight to DC from Roanoke at 6:20 AM :eek:

 

I'd much prefer to have to get up early for a 6 a.m. flight than to do the red-eye we're forced to from the west coast. I'll get no sleep at all, which is just as well as usually the night before a trip I'm so wound up I don't sleep anyway.

 

I've spoken to my travel agent and she's supposed to make our final payment but it sounded like she was going to mail me something first (her office used to be walking distance to my office but she moved a couple of months ago to a location I can't get to during their open hours) Is final payment 90 days from sailing or three months? In other words, December 8th or December 11th for the March 11th sailing?

 

Jackie

[blackbird71]

I think it is 90 days... I booked direct with Seabourn and called mine in a couple days early. :) BB is going to miss his $400 Ref credit he had on his first Seabourn cruise....

[jsiegel]

I think it is 90 days... I booked direct with Seabourn and called mine in a couple days early. :) BB is going to miss his $400 Ref credit he had on his first Seabourn cruise....

 

I found a site on the Internet where I was able to compute 90 days out from the cruise. My agent has until December 11th. I've been calling her daily for the last three days and am still uncertain if she sent in my credit card number for final payment. She keeps saying "I'll take care of it" when what I wanted to hear was "I've taken care of it." Maybe she's trying to save me three days of interest, but with a credit card, what does that matter? At least I have until Monday. Over the weekend I'll check my credit card statement to see if it got posted. If not, I may call Seabourn on Monday to see if they've received anything from her.

 

Jackie

[Archipelago]

Jackie et al .. I have a question about this voyage too . Have you filled out the passenger booking form ? I did not fill it out because the final payment was not made yet. It is online and we choose our preferences and give them our passport number etc . Should we fill that out or wait until we know that the cruise has been paid :confused: I'm going tomorrow to buy a new outfit for Christmas and to see when the spring clothes will be in so I can have something nice for the ship !!!My family is going to Vegas for Christmas so I will be in the Canyon Ranch Spa in 2 weeks :) For those ladies that dance ... ATTENTION .... I just won a dance contest so I will be ready ;I especially like the virginia reel !!!:p

[jsiegel]

I filled out the booking form online as soon as I made my deposit, however, I noticed that my marital status was wrong and it didn't let me change it. I asked my TA (whose fault it must have been) to have them change it from Mrs. to Ms. but it still shows up as Mrs. I think I'm going to print out the form with the correction and fax it to them, or maybe just a call will be sufficient.

 

Neil's not a dancer, I used to be so-so, took some west coast swing dance classes for awhile (until I met Neil) Used to love "the whip" step. Maybe Neil will be inspired to learn to dance after seeing you, John.

 

Jackie

[blackbird71]

LOL do not feel bad they had Blackbird listed on his Nov cruise as Mrs. :p I emailed the reservations and got this back

 

Good day Mr. Blackbird,

The record has been updated to reflect Mr.

I can understand the preference.

Kind regards and thank you for contacting The Yachts of Seabourn.

[Archipelago]

Jackie ,

I guess I wll fill out the form then . I wanted to wait until it was official and I think that will be on Monday . I have 2 first cousins who also live in California . They are fraternal twins who grew up in Baton Rouge . Desaix lives in San Diego and Holly lives in La Jolla on the water . Where are you in relation to them ? If there is a cruise that way some time I'm going to post cruise in La Jolla to see Holly and Desaix.:) I like the desert in the Rancho Mirage area .:)

[jsiegel]

Archipelago: We're in central/northern California, not far from the state capitol of Sacramento. We're about a 10 hour drive south to San Diego and La Jolla. Neil did his undergrad work in San Diego and worked in La Jolla. He loves the area, though we've not been in over a decade.

 

Many of the mega-ships depart from San Diego for Mexican Riviera cruises.

 

Jackie

[blackbird71]

If there is a cruise that way some time I'm going to post cruise in La Jolla to see Holly and Desaix.:) I like the desert in the Rancho Mirage area .:)

 

After my Railroad job in Virginia is over I will be moving to lower mid-state California and doing my contracting mainly in the LA areas. There are a number of mega lines that do this (HAL/Princess/RCI) but there are 14-15 dayers that go from San Diego to Hawaii and return. It is 5 days over and back and 5 days in the Islands. Sounds like a very peaceful two week long vacation. ;)

[blackbird71]

Question for my St. Thomas cruise.

 

Has anybody boarded a Seabourn ship in St. Thomas before and is it easy/hard? I know we will probably not know the pier until it docks, will I have to drag my luggage far?

[SantaAna,CA]

Blackbird, as I recall there are a couple of different places in St. Thomas where the cruise ships tie up. I can't remember the name of the place where Seabourn was on my April 2006 trip that left from St. Thomas, but it's the place where there is a big "mall" with lots of shops. Not the place where you can catch the underwater submarine tour (my sis and brother in law did that); they had to catch a taxi to that part of St. Thomas, and I think that was called Crown Bay, so we must have been at the other port.

 

It was a snap; the taxi literally left us off at the place where you board and Seabourn took our luggage. By the way, I couldn't figure what you meant about boarding in Barbados, that you had to drag your luggage, etc. Did you get there late and no one was from Seabourn to take your luggage? Because in my experience it was also a snap, even though I was in high panic because I'd left my laptop in the taxi (which was returned before we sailed).

 

Jane

[blackbird71]

By the way, I couldn't figure what you meant about boarding in Barbados, that you had to drag your luggage, etc. Did you get there late and no one was from Seabourn to take your luggage? Because in my experience it was also a snap, even though I was in high panic because I'd left my laptop in the taxi (which was returned before we sailed).

Jane

 

I talked to the hotel manager Rick about it and he probably corrected the problem before your cruise. I and my bags walked in the far left part of the mini-mall going past the xray scanners. I had to take my bags down one side of the mall U-turn back to the other end of the mall and there was a lady who saw my Seabourn tags and she said I had to leave the bags with her so that they could be scanned. In my talks with Rick, I asked him why couldn't the person collecting bags do it at the scanner area and he agree and said he would talk to the port people. I wanted to buy some Barbados Gulf Shirts but not with my luggage in tow. :rolleyes:

 

Thanks for the info on St. Thomas.

[crystal808]

BB:

 

As Jane mentioned, in April we embarked at Crown Bay. Even though embarking won't be until mid-afternoon, if you take your luggage to the pier, you will be able to leave them with ship personnel, and embark later in the afternoon. They may not prefer that, but they will not turn your luggage away! I had to carry mine up the gangway around 11 am, but they were gracious enough to accept it, hours early. It was just the first of many gracious SB moments for me, and I returned to the pier mid-afternoon to check in. My luggage was in my cabin when I arrived.

 

Guess there's the possibility you /we might dock at Charlotte Amalie, but I'd plan on Crown Bay. It will be dependent upon the other ships docking the same day. From what I understand, the "cruise center" there isn't up and running (at Crown Bay), like Charlotte Amalie's center. Actually, docking at Crown Bay was virtually painless!

[CruisinMatt]

For my Legend crossing in 2004, she docked at Crown Bay as well. I'll agree with Paul that it's painless there. I can imagine that it would have been more an issue had she been at Havensight, since there were three Mega-ships there.

[blackbird71]

Now Cruise Calendar is sometimes wrong but for the 4th of March it shows

 

Norwegian Cruise Line Norwegian Dawn St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands 3-4-2007

Princess Cruises Crown Princess St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands 3-4-2007

Royal Caribbean Serenade Of The Seas St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands 3-4-2007

Seabourn Cruise Line Seabourn Legend St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands 3-4-2007

 

But on the 11th it "claims" only

 

Seabourn Cruise Line Seabourn Legend St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands 3-11-2007

 

will be there.

 

For the 18th

Princess Cruises Crown Princess St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands 3-18-2007

Royal Caribbean Serenade Of The Seas St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands 3-18-2007

Seabourn Cruise Line Seabourn Legend St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands 3-18-2007

 

All in All still not a lot of ships for St. Thomas on any of those Sundays.

 

Yipes for the 14th and 15th it will be a traffic jam in St. Barts and Antigua.

 

 

Norwegian Cruise Line Norwegian Jewel St. Johns, Antigua, British West Indies 3-14-2007

Princess Cruises Crown Princess St. Johns, Antigua, British West Indies 3-14-2007

Royal Caribbean Jewel Of The Seas St. Johns, Antigua, British West Indies 3-14-2007

Royal Caribbean Empress Of The Seas St. Johns, Antigua, British West Indies 3-14-2007

Seabourn Cruise Line Seabourn Legend St. Johns, Antigua, British West Indies 3-14-2007

 

Holland America Line Prinsendam St. Barts, Gustavia, French West Indies 3-15-2007

Oceania Cruises Regatta St. Barts, Gustavia, French West Indies 3-15-2007

Seabourn Cruise Line Seabourn Legend St. Barts, Gustavia, French West Indies 3-15-2007

Seabourn Cruise Line Seabourn Pride St. Barts, Gustavia, French West Indies 3-15-2007:) :)

[blackbird71]

Sorry Dup

[jsiegel]

Yep, I think the cruise calendar is a little off, unless they are changing the itinerary on us. The Legend is to be in St. Martin on the 15th, not St. Bart's. We arrive there the next day, the 16th. Antigua sure looks like it will be packed to the gills when we are there on the 14th. My sister just returned from the Sun Princess and when she was there they were the only ship in port. Lucky her.

 

Princess has an agreement to only use Crown Bay, not Havensight. I don't know if that means "The Worlds Leading Cruise Lines" also favor Crowns Bay to Havensight. If the Legend truly will be the only ship in St. Thomas on the 11th, does that change things? I guess we'll find out when we look down the hill from our hotel in the morning.

 

I wish the Windspirit, leaving the 10th, was departing during daylight hours so that we could get a picture of her under sail.

 

Jackie

[JaneBP]

>" he probably corrected the problem before your cruise."

 

I too, the other Jane, couldn't figure out what happened to you and your embarkation, because I have sailed out of Barbados numerous times with Seabourn and never had the situation you described.

[blackbird71]

Like I said it probably was corrected. Moving the lady from the doors you exit to get on the shuttle to where the scanners are is only 60 feet, but they funnel the passengers down and back so you see all the stores in the mall.

 

One point I did leave out, outside where the taxi dropped me off, a local came up to me and said he would move my bags and get them to the cruiseline and "They will pay me for them". No thank you, I would have allowed him to skycap the bags and I tip him but I did not trust this "free" to me help.

[blackbird71]

Yipes, 75 days out and I received my shore excursion pre-cruise book today for my Mar 4th cruise. :)

 

I did book direct so it did not have to do a stop at a TA. But still this is early.

 

 

[jsiegel]

As we were trying to figure out the implications of the early daylight savings time on our computer network at work I realized that our cruise starts on the new daylight savings time start date, March 11th. :eek: I imagine that's going to complicate things. Will St. Thomas follow the rest of the U.S. in springing forward? Will other islands in the Caribbean? Will we be jumping back and forth through time zones every other day?

 

BB - are you flying out in the 11th? I bet the airline customer service reps don't have a clue.

 

As it gets closer I guess I'll call Seabourn to see what time zone they'll be on for departure. They too probably have not considered it. It's going to sneak up on a lot of people. What a nightmare it could be.

 

Jackie

[blackbird71]

Well BB thinks he has picked his tours..

 

Basseterre, St. Kitt Scenic Railroad tour

Charlestown, Nevis 1 Million BC to Today Boat tour

Frederiksted, St Croix Rain Forest Tour

Virgin Gorda, Virgin Gorda Hilights

 

One nice thing for BB second Seabourn cruise is that he gets a real sea day with sea day things going on. Plus while the two 7 hour tours on my last cruise were good, they were LONG... This is going to be a relaxing trip...

 

I only have one busy day,, that's in Virgin Gorda. Tour in the morning and BBQ in the afternoon..... Hard life but somebody has to do it. :D

[BrittaniMV]

jsiegel- I am so glad you mentioned that. I didn't realize the time change was that weekend. Did you ever find anything out from Seabourn?

[johnnycruise]

Well BB thinks he has picked his tours..

 

Virgin Gorda, Virgin Gorda Hilights

 

I only have one busy day,, that's in Virgin Gorda. Tour in the morning and BBQ in the afternoon..... Hard life but somebody has to do it. :D

 

You may want to reconsider this choice. Most of the people who took the highlights tour in '05 were not impressed (one of the "highlights" was the water treatment/sewage plant:eek: ).

 

In '05 we took "The Baths" tour and it was great. Good snorkeling among the boulders. Seabourn guests have the place almost to themselves since the mega-ship tours don't start arriving from Tortola until the time you are leaving. Since the ship moves to the north end of the island after dropping the tour participants off you still get a nice little "highlights" tour (with three photo stops) in the safari bus en route to Prickly Pear.

 

Two things you should be aware of, though. 1)It takes a bit of twisting and turning in knee to waist deep water through the boulder caves to get to the main beach. 2)The walk from the beach to the safari bus is uphill (about 15 minutes). Neither are overly difficult unless you have ambulatory problems (the uphill trail goes through the jungle so the intense sunshine is not a factor). You do get a "dixie" cup of rum punch at the top of the hill!

 

johnny