teddy

Plans are set. In Lisbon, we will take the Metro in town and have lunch after we clear immigration. It would be a shame to have an eight hour layover and only see the inside of the airport. When we arrive in Venice, we'll spend two nights at the Marriott Courtyard Venice Airport and one night at the M Club Deluxe B&B in Ravenna. We are staying near the airport rather than in Venice proper because we get in at 1830 and know we will just want to get to a room to recover from traveling. This hotel is a five minute or so bus ride from the airport. The bus stop is across the street. Once there, we want to just stay in one place for two nights rather than schlepping our stuff to a different hotel. Our plan (if we aren't too jet lagged out) is to catch an early morning boat into Venice and wander around before it gets crowded. We may head back to the room for a nap then go back out to see Venice at night. We will take the train down to Ravenna on day three and spend the night there. This plan includes catching a morning train at Venezia Mestre station and enjoy Ravenna the day before the cruise. The B&B owner has secured transportation to the terminal for us on Sunday. Lots of plans here....how's that go? No plan survives first contact?

Even booking on Royal I'd use an agent. My wife is going with her sister and a dozen or so of their friends for a 3-night cruise on Liberty next January. Easy peasy to book...until it isn't. Our travel agent has been wonderful helping all of them get their cabins and gives all of them a piece of mind in the fact that they have an advocate in their corner if something goes wrong. We have two MSC cruises booked for 2024, but both are just the two of us in one cabin, so we didn't learn anything earth shattering. They will match your Crown and Anchor to one of their loyalty statuses. C&A Diamond equaled MSC Gold.

When paying for each drink on the spot I always asked for a can of whatever soda and they brought a can. I do the same now that I’ve reached voucher level, and I’ve always received a can. The one time I forgot to say the word “can”, the waiter brought me a glass of fountain soda and didn’t use a voucher.

Whenever possible, my wife and I set up our travel arrangements so we can volunteer to be bumped to a later flight if a call goes out. One time on a flight to Miami, we each got a $1000 flight voucher, put in first class on the replacement flight, and ended up getting to Miami only two hours later than originally planned. We‘ve discussed what we’d do if we were ever bumped from a cruise. Both of us agree that we’d find a way to make lemonade out an offer that included 100% fcc.

Geeze. Cut some slack, cause crap happens. <insert something about casting a stone>

I bring a water bottle and those liquid drink mixers like Mio…..although we buy the store brand because we’re “thrifty”.

We’ve definitely had to supply flight numbers to Air2Sea. I agree it’s not great, but it’s saved us money, so that makes it worth doing.

I’m kinda late but…. My wife and I have transportation through Royal from the ship (in Civitavecchia) to FCO reserved for our upcoming October cruise on Explorer. $71.99 pp

Yup. Bathroom attendants in Mexico. I had forgotten they existed until we went on our first cruise to Cozumel in 2019. Before that, the last time I saw one was in the Philippines in 1992. My wife had never seen one. When she came out of the woman's room, she said "Why is there a woman just sitting there in the bathroom?"

We have an annual plan with Allianz, and as part of that plan, there is a 24 hour hotline. One of the stated things the hotline can do is help find a doctor or medical facility if needed. I'm taking a wag here that most, if not all travel insurance plans include something like this. As twangster said, the ambulance/first responders will take you to the place where you can get life saving care the quickest. Once there, your travel insurance can be contacted by you or someone else in your party to find out what your options are.

Big head's up. There is a marathon in Venice on Sunday, 22 October. Plan ahead if you're flying in the day of, even with Air2Sea. https://www.ahotu.com/event/venice-marathon I read on the other site that this is one of the reason Royal is not offering shuttles to the port (in Ravenna) from the city center for this cruise. We got caught up in the Miami Marathon mess when disembarking Oasis in February 2022. Travel was painfully slow.

We tend to book our own cruises and transfer them to our agent. She was priceless during the shutdown, and since the restart has been awesome doing things like helping us change things with already booked cruises

It's been my experience that when using American cash in Canada, it's accepted at par. In other words, don't expect to get any exchange rate. American money is not foreign to Canadians, although it can be a pita to exchange if you're living on PEI or similarly isolated (like Nova Scotia ). This isn't just while at cruise ports, but everywhere. My wife was at her parents a month or so ago and forgot to bring the Canadian money we keep around (they didn't take cards for less than $20). Her American dollars were gladly accepted at the place they had lunch at in Fredericton....at face value. That being said, growing up in a border town, coins you got in change (ie. less than $1) were interchangeable. I don't know if it's still this way everywhere, but when I go back, I'm just as likely to end up with pennies/nickels/dimes/quarters of either nation.

For sure. We were there back in February and had a wonderful day spending nothing extra.

As much as I really liked sub $75 Beach Club passes, people must be paying these prices. I remember my wife and I agreeing that we would pay as much as $100 pp for the Beach Club if we were there with two full ships (and thinking we were nuts to do so).

Oof. I never even thought about time zones

Living in northern New England, most cruise ports are a long day’s travel from home… before any travel delays or cancellations. Because of this, we like to get off early and start the trek home. Even if we are planning on staying an extra night in the port area, we are still ready to get home. The exception to this was when we cruised out of Boston last fall. We sauntered off the ship and were home before noon. That was nice.

Oh!! If you click on any of the links on the airport website, there is the ability to change the language to English in the upper right hand corner

If you use the transfer to the airport, you can take the bus to Piazzale Roma. I'm pretty sure there is a direct bus. To take the train from the airport, you'll have to first go to the Mestre train station. You could be adventurous and take a boat from the airport to Venice, too. I'm not sure on taxi availability at disembarkation. Airport transport info: https://www.veneziaairport.it/en/transport/venice.html

Air2Sea pricing for our flights to/from Italy this coming October couldn't be beat when we booked. $1412 total for the two of us... Boston to Venice via Lisbon on TAP Air and Rome to Boston via Munich on Lufthansa. We are getting to Venice a few days early and had to call to get the flights booked that way. The only way we could do it online was if we were flying in the day of the cruise. One thing to mention, the flights had to be paid in full to choose our seats. We went ahead and did this so we could have seats where we wanted. We paid for the Royal shuttle from the port at Civitavecchia to FCO (Rome airport) which came to $144 for the two of us. We chose this because we are taking all of our extra days in Venice and Ravenna before the cruise, so we need to fly back home the day the cruise ends. There have been some changes since we booked.....layover times, departure/arrival times, and one aircraft change. Each time, Air2Sea contacted us before the airlines did. On the aircraft change, we were given seats equivalent to what we had chosen in the new aircraft.

Disclaimer: I haven’t looked at any updates on this story since it was initially released, so I may be missing something. My wife and I have only been married 26 years, but if she died on a cruise, I’d definitely bail at the first possible port and get us both home. I can’t imagine staying on the ship. This is one of the times our travel insurance policy would come into good usage.

I look forward to reading about your experiences. I’ve been intrigued by European river cruising for a while now. We’re cheating in 2024 as well….but it’s a Northern European itinerary Royal doesn’t do, so we’re not feeling too guilty either.

You can probably get tickets through the website. There may be other companies, but this is the one I see the most. https://www.trolleytours.com/boston/hop-on-hop-off Leaving from Ravenna (ie Venice) and ending in Civitavecchia (Rome). It’s a bucket list cruise for us.

Boston is easily walkable and safe. It’s just over a mile walk from the cruise terminal to South Station, where you can access the subway. The New England Aquarium area is about a mile and a half walk. Faneuil Hall is probably another half mile. The Freedom Trail is close by there and fun if history interests you. Taxis are available, and I believe there is a hop on/hop off trolley that stops near the terminal when ships make port calls. My wife and I like hop on/hop off trolleys in cities that are new to us. If it’s windy, the buildings will create a wind tunnel effect, so bring a jacket if it’s cool out. Maybe even a hat and gloves, too. As I recall, you’ll be there while we’re on Explorer, otherwise I’d pop down and meet for lunch.

I’m not sure if it’s still the same, but pre-covid, your choice of words mattered when calling to reprice. You want to say “reprice” not “rebook”. The first time we did it, we said rebook and that would have cost us a $100 pp change fee (we usually book non refundable deposits). We didn’t understand why so we hung up. Then we found this site and realized we should have said reprice. When we used that word, we got the cheaper price with no change fees.