*~ Cruising (travel by Waterways) megathread ~*

fdevine

Closest start point to Dublin as previous poster indicated is Southhampton. Big choice from there. Budget might be the more restrictive part

schemingbohemia

Celebrity are doing a few cruises from Dublin in 2018, got a brochure the other day, there's one to Iceland but this one caught my eye - to Norway.
https://www.celebritycruises.ie/cruises/ec-8-night-norwegian-fjords-cruise/ec08u015/20180520/
They're a bit more than €1500 unfortunately. We had a cruise in Alaska with Celebrity, was fantastic.

G&T22

Hi,
I am going on a cruise with my family. There is quite a lot of time between when we disembark the ship to when our flight is due (8hrs). Does anyone know if luggage can be left somewhere secure before we are ready to check in? We are flying from Southhampton, UK. Any suggestions would be great as I don't want to be hauling luggage around all day!

Thank you

The Davestator

G&T22 wrote: »

Hi,
I am going on a cruise with my family. There is quite a lot of time between when we disembark the ship to when our flight is due (8hrs). Does anyone know if luggage can be left somewhere secure before we are ready to check in? We are flying from Southhampton, UK. Any suggestions would be great as I don't want to be hauling luggage around all day!

Thank you

Not sure about Southampton, but I've left luggage in rail stations all over the world when in the same scenario as you.

cobham

The Davestator wrote: »

Not sure about Southampton, but I've left luggage in rail stations all over the world when in the same scenario as you.

I was not able to leave luggage in southampton some 9 yrs ago.... security issue.

Duck Soup

Am I getting delirious in my old age or did I read somewhere that starting in 2018 there will be at least one Med cruise picking up/starting at Dublin? As a, ahem, larger, gentleman I want to avoid a flight if at all possible, but don't fancy the Nordic routes. I thought I read that somewhere, but since I can't find it again when I went looking, maybe I misread it.

Mc-BigE

Hello, ive booked the MSC Preziosa for the June 2018 from Copenhagen for 7 days.

where doing the Baltic cruise (Denmark,Sweden,Estonia,Russia,Germany,Denmark)

we have gone for the all-inclusive drinks package (not the most expensive one with premium drinks)

we have gone for the Fantastica Experience Balcony room on the 12 deck.

i have a small few questions about the ship

mainly the average age of the passengers on this route in summer ( we are in our mid to late 40s, and 1 teen going along)
looking at some videos on youtube, im hearing piped (or piano) music everywhere and a lot of grey hair people! (sorry but im getting there myself but not there yet! )

i don't mind it really, im not looking for clubbing or rave parties etc lol
just a place with a little atomsphere to have a drink, sometimes separate to the big dining halls etc. there are a few bars etc on board, so that might suit.

the second question is extra charges

will i be charged for using 10 pin bowling, F1 simulator, video games, and other activities on board the ship? is there a way to pay for these as an addon for my Teen (and myself also sometimes) so we can track the cost of these games etc.

can i get a drink/food brought to room included in the price or is that extra.
or can i get a drink myself and walk back to my room or must it be drunk at the bar/restaurant only

what about the waiter Tip package, do people recommend it? or just tip as you go.

what about internet/wifi. it that free of charge or is it extra
is it in your room? or just in the public areas of the ship

finally when boarding the ship, how much time should i leave to check-in etc
how many hours before departure should i show up?

thanks in advance

Densey12

Mc-BigE wrote: »

Hello, ive booked the MSC Preziosa for the June 2018 from Copenhagen for 7 days.

where doing the Baltic cruise (Denmark,Sweden,Estonia,Russia,Germany,Denmark)

we have gone for the all-inclusive drinks package (not the most expensive one with premium drinks)

we have gone for the Fantastica Experience Balcony room on the 12 deck.

i have a small few questions about the ship

mainly the average age of the passengers on this route in summer ( we are in our mid to late 40s, and 1 teen going along)
looking at some videos on youtube, im hearing piped (or piano) music everywhere and a lot of grey hair people! (sorry but im getting there myself but not there yet! )

i don't mind it really, im not looking for clubbing or rave parties etc lol
just a place with a little atomsphere to have a drink, sometimes separate to the big dining halls etc. there are a few bars etc on board, so that might suit.

the second question is extra charges

will i be charged for using 10 pin bowling, F1 simulator, video games, and other activities on board the ship? is there a way to pay for these as an addon for my Teen (and myself also sometimes) so we can track the cost of these games etc.

can i get a drink/food brought to room included in the price or is that extra.
or can i get a drink myself and walk back to my room or must it be drunk at the bar/restaurant only

what about the waiter Tip package, do people recommend it? or just tip as you go.

what about internet/wifi. it that free of charge or is it extra
is it in your room? or just in the public areas of the ship

finally when boarding the ship, how much time should i leave to check-in etc
how many hours before departure should i show up?

thanks in advance

I am also very interested in any answers or advice on this post.
I have booked with MSC for a Mediterranean Cruise in June 2018 on board the MSC Sea view.
It is a new ship and we may possibly be the first on it.
There are 3 of us going (all girls, to celebrate our 3Oths)
We also booked the fantistica package with a balcony room ( Think we are deck 13 or 14) and we paid for the drinks package.
First time cruisers so any info or advice would be greatly appreciated.

Many thanks,

Denise

k123456

Mc-BigE wrote: »

Hello, ive booked the MSC Preziosa for the June 2018 from Copenhagen for 7 days.

where doing the Baltic cruise (Denmark,Sweden,Estonia,Russia,Germany,Denmark)

we have gone for the all-inclusive drinks package (not the most expensive one with premium drinks)

we have gone for the Fantastica Experience Balcony room on the 12 deck.

i have a small few questions about the ship

mainly the average age of the passengers on this route in summer ( we are in our mid to late 40s, and 1 teen going along)
looking at some videos on youtube, im hearing piped (or piano) music everywhere and a lot of grey hair people! (sorry but im getting there myself but not there yet! )

i don't mind it really, im not looking for clubbing or rave parties etc lol
just a place with a little atomsphere to have a drink, sometimes separate to the big dining halls etc. there are a few bars etc on board, so that might suit.

the second question is extra charges

will i be charged for using 10 pin bowling, F1 simulator, video games, and other activities on board the ship? is there a way to pay for these as an addon for my Teen (and myself also sometimes) so we can track the cost of these games etc.

can i get a drink/food brought to room included in the price or is that extra.
or can i get a drink myself and walk back to my room or must it be drunk at the bar/restaurant only

what about the waiter Tip package, do people recommend it? or just tip as you go.

what about internet/wifi. it that free of charge or is it extra
is it in your room? or just in the public areas of the ship

finally when boarding the ship, how much time should i leave to check-in etc
how many hours before departure should i show up?

thanks in advance

F1 simulator, video games, chargeable
waiter Tip package , a gratuity charge will be added to your holiday cost, it is debatable of much goes to staff.I think there is an opt out on this, if you wanted to tip directly
Wifi usually v slow, and I think charged per minute , rather than per byte of data, meaning you are being charged while you wait for downloads .your phone will pick up 3g if near the shore , say 5 miles away, In the EU you dont pay roaming charges. While on shore , in a wifi zone , cafe etc, you could download emails etc to a tablet , laptop , which doesn't have a sim card

its not unusual to see people buy a drink at a bar, and bring to another bar or area. If you want a drink in the room, ; the rooms will be a bit away from bars, long corridors etc. , there is room service.

For the occasional drink in the room, you could bring a bottle or two of your preferred drink on board, if your cruise company doesn't prohibit this , some do, some dont, will be in the tcs. Hand luggage scanned similar to an airport.
Your cases will be brought to your room by porters and scanned en-route

Google ; Toms Port guides, useful info all most cruise ports, cruise cos will sell expensive "excursions " at ports, while these can be good, there are independent cos at most cruise ports, offering similar if not better , for lesser prices. Toms Port guides can be pre downloaded at home and saved to your tablet , phone etc. These are PDF's so you will need Adobe Reader downloaded
An example of a cruise co excursion
Year 1, we opted for cruise co excursion , the cruise will hard sell
about 90 euro, old enough coach, picked us up at dock, tour guide radio mike didnt work well, so difficult to hear him, at sights of interest. , Each time we alighted , got back on coach, took 20-30 mins,
Year 2 , Independent ; pre organised tour, longer duration, chauffeur driven knowledgeable driver , Mercedes , about the same price, no delays saw much more

deisemum

I've been on 2 MSC Mediterranean cruises and on both there was a good balance between all ages, plenty of families too, not just elderly.

We paid the €9 per person per day tip and it worked out cheaper than tipping every time we got a drink, meal or snack. The level of service was excellent.

We occasionally brought a drink back to our cabin but we were near the lift/stairs so not far to carry it. You can get room service - think it's free if you have the fantastica package but you're expected to tip for that, I think you have to pay if it's the Bella package. We regularly saw people bring food from the buffet back to their cabins.

The ships excursions are very expensive but if you post the ports on here people will be able to give you much cheaper options. You can also check them out on cruise critic.

coylemj

Having been on three cruises (2 x MSC and 1 x Royal Caribbean), I would say that the hard sell all of them do their drinks packages suggests to me that they are not worth it.

coylemj

deisemum wrote: »

We paid the €9 per person per day tip and it worked out cheaper than tipping every time we got a drink, meal or snack. The level of service was excellent.

When you order a drink from a waiter/ess on an MSC ship, the person who serves you gets 15% of the tariff so nobody tips when getting drinks. I'm pretty sure the same system applies when you get drinks on the other cruise lines.

Food is different since breakfast and lunch are typically buffets where you're not paying. Agree that the service on MSC is excellent.

deisemum

coylemj wrote: »

Having been on three cruises (2 x MSC and 1 x Royal Caribbean), I would say that the hard sell all of them do their drinks packages suggests to me that they are not worth it.

I think the €26 per day drinks pack with MSC is great value, I'm not much of a drinker but I certainly got good value with it by the time you add in bottles of water, speciality coffees, ice cream, cocktails, wine, prosecco and spirits it would have cost a lot more had I not had the drinks package.

We had a lot of our breakfasts and lunch in the same restaurant we had our dinners and had our meals served up to us, this was very handy on the busy days.

Mc-BigE

regarding restaurants in the MSC ships ( im my case the preziosa)

is the cost of dinning in these restaurants ( example Ristorante Italia) included in the price of the cruise?

or is it only the buffet is free?

coylemj

Mc-BigE wrote: »

regarding restaurants in the MSC ships ( im my case the preziosa)

is the cost of dinning in these restaurants ( example Ristorante Italia) included in the price of the cruise?

or is it only the buffet is free?

If it's a sit down restaurant with a name and a food theme (e.g. on your ship 'The Golden Lobster' or the Italian place you mentioned) then it will cost extra but dinner every evening in the main dining room is included in the price. The speciality restaurants are there for people who might want a change on one or two evenings. I was on two MSC cruises, we had dinner one night in the Japanese restaurant on the MSC Poesia but on the second cruise we never got around to investigating the restaurants. There is a huge choice of courses on MSC ships, we picked three courses from a list of about seven each night.

spurious

We had booked for the main dining room each evening, but after two meals we realised it was taking close on two hours to finish dinner, so we switched to the buffet instead.

coylemj

spurious wrote: »

We had booked for the main dining room each evening, but after two meals we realised it was taking close on two hours to finish dinner, so we switched to the buffet instead.

Not every cruise line offers a free buffet alternative to evening dinner. Can you say which line and ship that was please?

spurious

coylemj wrote: »

Not every cruise line offers a free buffet alternative to evening dinner. Can you say which line and ship that was please?

Yes sure. It was Royal Caribbean. The ship is out of service now. It was Splendour of the Seas. I think it is TUI Discovery now.

hdowney

Thoie. Advice please. Best way to go about booking with RCI for Christmas/New Year 2018/19???

Thoie

hdowney wrote: »

Thoie. Advice please. Best way to go about booking with RCI for Christmas/New Year 2018/19???

There's no magic bullet I'm afraid. I use Seascanner to filter down the cruises I like and check their prices, then compare them against booking directly on the RCI website.

I also check the US prices using https://www.royalcaribbean.com/?wuc=us (usually forces it to the US site, instead of letting it force you to the Irish site). IF there's a big difference I'll look at a US travel agent, but it would want to be a pretty big difference. Booking through the US you pay a much larger deposit, but it's refundable, and you can get price drops usually if the cruise comes down in price.

This has worked well for me a few times, but didn't pan out well for me this year - I ended up paying a little more than if I'd booked it later through Ireland.

The majority of the Christmas/New Year cruises are in the Caribbean - a lot of the RCI fleet leaves Europe in October/November. At the moment I'm not seeing much listed for Europe yet, but they may add some later. If you can, be ready to have your cruise decided on, then watch out from November 22nd for Thanksgiving sales.

Best of luck!

finbarrk

Mc-BigE wrote: »

regarding restaurants in the MSC ships ( im my case the preziosa)

is the cost of dinning in these restaurants ( example Ristorante Italia) included in the price of the cruise?

or is it only the buffet is free?

You can have dinner for free in the main restaurant. Or in the buffet restaurant. But the main one is better. We had it every night on that ship. We didn't bother with the speciality restaurants that are extra money.
They also sat our family with another Irish family for dinner, which was good for the kids.

Mc-BigE

Quick question about power sockets in the cabin on the MSC ships, are they american, European standard (2 prong 230v) or UK or a mixture of all.

do i need ireland to xxxx adaptors for my plugs for chargers etc

coylemj

Mc-BigE wrote: »

Quick question about power sockets in the cabin on the MSC ships, are they american, European standard (2 prong 230v) or UK or a mixture of all.

do i need ireland to xxxx adaptors for my plugs for chargers etc

Can't remember if they had UK sockets (think not) but definitely Euro and US. The voltage on the Euro (two-pin) sockets is 220V so you only need an adapter, the same as if you were travelling to France or Spain.

If you have a US adapter and your phone charger can handle 100-240V, you can use the US sockets to charge your phone. Also applies to any Apple device.

Thoie

Mc-BigE wrote: »

Quick question about power sockets in the cabin on the MSC ships, are they american, European standard (2 prong 230v) or UK or a mixture of all.

do i need ireland to xxxx adaptors for my plugs for chargers etc

coylemj wrote: »

Can't remember if they had UK sockets (think not) but definitely Euro and US. The voltage on the Euro (two-pin) sockets is 220V so you only need an adapter, the same as if you were travelling to France or Spain.

If you have a US adapter and your phone charger can handle 100-240V, you can use the US sockets to charge your phone. Also applies to any Apple device.

Haven't come across any ships with Irish sockets yet (though P&O/Fred Olsen might). All the ones I've been on are US and EU. Royal Caribbean usually has 2+ US sockets and 1 EU socket. I usually bring something like this with me, but some people say extension cables aren't allowed and will be confiscated (and returned to you at the end of the trip), so I don't bank on it alone. Fire on board is a big risk, so your cabin steward will often unplug things if you leave the cabin with stuff still plugged in - I put that extension lead away in a drawer when I leave the cabin, but it's handy for plugging in a few things while I'm there.

coylemj

Thoie wrote: »

Haven't come across any ships with Irish sockets yet (though P&O/Fred Olsen might).

Fred Olsen is two-pin only though a recently refurbished ship now has UK sockets...

All our cruise ships feature 2 pin Continental style plug (220 volt-60 Hz). Please note for Black Watch only, since the ship entered dry dock some cabins now feature a standard UK 3 pin plug

http://www.fredolsencruises.com/help/general-information/are-plug-adaptors-available-to-hire

Cunard have UK sockets ............

Both UK 3 pin and US 2 pin sockets are used on board. You will find a three pin socket next to a two pin socket.

https://ask.cunard.com/help/fleet/Voltage_onboard

P&O has UK sockets ...

Standard UK three pin plug sockets are used on all ships across the fleet.

https://ask.pocruises.com/help/PO/fleet/Voltage_onboard

The Caveman

Hi All

I am following this tread from time to time, but have never really posted in here.

I was wondering, how many cruises have you been on?

We are taking out 19th cruise next year.
No 20 booked as well.
Planning no 21, symphony of the Seas on Oct next year, but cant justify the cost, just yet...

We are in out 30's and enjoy travelling. I am on Cruise Critic as well, same username.

Thoie

The Caveman wrote: »

Hi All

I am following this tread from time to time, but have never really posted in here.

I was wondering, how many cruises have you been on?

We are taking out 19th cruise next year.
No 20 booked as well.
Planning no 21, symphony of the Seas on Oct next year, but cant justify the cost, just yet...

We are in out 30's and enjoy travelling. I am on Cruise Critic as well, same username.

I've the same name on CC as well. I'm not really sure how many I've done, but doubt it's anywhere near 20. Took my first cruise in 2008, but it was a while before the second one, and about one a year since then, sometimes 2. So, probably max 9, maybe closer to 7.

Densey12

The Caveman wrote: »

Hi All

I am following this tread from time to time, but have never really posted in here.

I was wondering, how many cruises have you been on?

We are taking out 19th cruise next year.
No 20 booked as well.
Planning no 21, symphony of the Seas on Oct next year, but cant justify the cost, just yet...

We are in out 30's and enjoy travelling. I am on Cruise Critic as well, same username.

Hey there Caveman and Thoie,

Just wondering if you would have any tips for a first time cruiser??
I am sure you know the tricks of the trade with having so many cruises completed

Heading on a Med Cruise in June 2018 with MSC on the Seaview with a fantastica balcony/ drinks package (Not really sure what fantastica will give us we had no choice but to upgrade)
3 girls celebrating our 30ths!


Any tips would be appreciated!

Also does anybody know do I need to pay more to use the wifi??

hdowney

Densey12 wrote: »

Hey there Caveman and Thoie,

Just wondering if you would have any tips for a first time cruiser??
I am sure you know the tricks of the trade with having so many cruises completed

Heading on a Med Cruise in June 2018 with MSC on the Seaview with a fantastica balcony/ drinks package (Not really sure what fantastica will give us we had no choice but to upgrade)
3 girls celebrating our 30ths!


Any tips would be appreciated!

Also does anybody know do I need to pay more to use the wifi??

Yup. WiFi has an upcharge. They have different packages depending on what you want to do - Facebook, blogging, vlogging etc

Yellowledbetter

Just booked our second cruise with RCI, Med cruise on the Symphony Of The Seas next September. Really looking forward to it as we did a Caribbean one on the Oasis for our Honeymoon 2 years back and we were both amazed by the ship.
The current offer which includes 2 deluxe drinks packages ends in a few days,delighted to have booked in time to get these as it’s a substantial saving