Ruby's Transaltantic Oct 0/09
 

Are you booked on the Ruby Princess for the Oct 09 Transatlantic sailing?

We've got a terrific CruiseMates Group Cruise for that sailing, that we've dubbed the Venetian Fantasy Crossing. Hope you're going to be there with us!!!

http://www.cruisemates.com/articles/...e/ruby2009.cfm

Ruby Princess October 2009
 

This cruise sounds fabulous... Never done a transatlantic before, so this will be an adventure. I have been to Europe several times and am looking forward to revisiting this part of the world.

Hope to hear from others who are on this cruise...

AQ :D

The Warren's and Weatherly's are joining you again! We enjoyed the last transatlantic!

Passport to Europe (Venice) with Samantha Brown will be aired Friday, 16th on travel channel at 12:30pm

Passport of Europe (Barcelona) with Samantha Brown will be aired Thursday, 15th on the travel channel at 12:30pm

Passport to Europe (Lisbon) will be aired Tuesday, 13th at 12:00pm
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i am seriously, seriously considering this cruise...

Hi Kuki;

Karin and I will be on the Ruby Princess. We did the same cruise last year on the Emerald and had a great time, it was our first time in Venice. We are going to try and get to Venice a day or two early this time. Looking forward to seeing you. Oh for all the Mah Jongg players, the Emerald Princess had 4 or 5 sets of tiles. Karin loves Mah Jongg on sea days and it is my time to kick back and relax.

Hi Karin!! Yeah! So glad we will be together again! I am so glad they have the Mah Jongg tiles! There will be another lady going with our group that plays Mah Jongg--we almost have a table! I was wondering if any of our Cruismates group that we were with on the Freedom with last year were going to take this cruise!
Hannah and Johnny

Hi Hannah;

I will let Karin Know that you will be on the cruise, let the mah jongg tiles fly. I have not heard if there are others on the cruise that were on the Freedom, pretty sure there will be plenty, always is a core group. Will let you know if I hear of any, I am sure Kuki will keep us posted. You will be hearing from Karin soon.

Karl

Hi kids!

Just now trying to get my life in order now, after a month away. But I'm going to email the group soon to get things rolling.

We have 23 cabins booked in the group so far, and we're hoping to see more join in yet.

Mrs. Kuki is a Maj player as well. Sure she'll be happy to while away some sea days shuffling tiles.

We're planning on at least 2 days pre-cruise in Venice, but haven't made any hotel or air arrangements yet. Going to have to get on that too.

Another westbound crossing, with all those 25 hr days. Can't wait!!

We now have 4 couples in our group from Dublin! I was glad to hear that princess had mah jongg tiles, I did call them and someone called me back and they said they did not. How can we be sure? They are too heavy to carry. Glad our group is growing. We have spent 4 days in Venice before, we stayed at a great hotel. I will dig the name up and send it to you if you are interested.
Johnny and Hannah

4 couples from Dublin! Oh great now I have to learn how to speak Irish :wink:

No doubt it'll be great fun on this crossing! And I'd love a good recommendation for a hotel in Venice. Thanks Johnny and Hannah.

La Locandiera
Campo San Giovanni Novo, 4432
30122 Venezia (Veneto), Italy
+39 041 2410664

is the name of the hotel, small, good location, not fancy.
We now have 5 couples from Dubin, Georgia, you may have to have a shamrock!

:D Dear Kuki

I am booked to go on this cruise (Oct 7, 2009)

Everyone is very quiet.

Could you please let me know if you will be booking a private tour as you did last year in Florence?

Sorry... it's been a very busy couple of months for me, with lots of travel, and I haven't got around to sending out any group emails. I promise to work on in the next few days and get it out.

If everyone (or enough) are interested in a private tour to Florence (from Livorno) I can certainly arrange that. We'll start exploring options.

8) I am booked and ready to sail. I have been following this cruise on Cruisemates. Is anyone else going?

Hi,

I know this is a silly question, but I can't make up my mind whether to fly in to Venice from Miami - to arrive in Venice on the 5th or the 6th of October. What are most people doing?? :D

Venetian Fantasy Crossing
 

We’re set to go on the Venetian Fantasy Crossing. We can’t believe how much we saved over last years North Atlantic crossing.

A couple of questions. We normally make our own air arrangements. But the air via the cruise line cost less than half of what I can find. We will be leaving from DFW and the best route I can find is a one stop/plane change. What should we expect from the cruise line air arrangements?

Second, we would like to arrive a day early but don’t know where to stay. Hotels thru the cruise line are terribly expensive. Any recommendations?

Thanks

Jim/Beverly

Hi Kuki, Thought I would pop in and say Hi! Tim and I were tag alongs with the cruisemates group Hawaii in Jan 2006. Again, we will be on a cruise with you, althought we booked before I realized you were doing this as a group cruise. We were just talking about you last month when we were on a land vacation to Ireland. We won a red fleece pullover as a door prize on that cruise and it sure came in handy in Ireland. It has a Canada logo on it and everyone asked me if I was from there, but as soon as they heard me speak realized I was a hillbilly :wink:
Will be good to see you and Mrs. Kuki again.

Re: Venetian Fantasy Crossing
 

We stayed at this hotel in Venice a couple of years ago. Great location, they are on the web.

La Locandiera
Campo San Giovanni Novo, 4432
30122 Venezia (Veneto), Italy
+39 041 2410664

Hi Karin and Karl! heard you are going to be our leaders! Good Job!
Not much activity on the this board! Maybe we can get it going again.
Looking forward to sailing with you again--More Mah Jongg! Karin there are 4 in our group that plays.
We are going early to Venice. Are you? See ya on board--where is everybody???

Hi Hannah;


Thanks, we were just notified about a week ago, unfortunately Kuki can not make this cruise.

Glad to hear there are Mah Jongg players, Karin loves Mah Jongg, I know you are aware of that. I think I mentioned in a previous post that we were on this cruise last year, on the Emerald Princess, they had lots of Mah Jongg sets, but to be safe we will be bringing a travel Mah Jongg set with us.

Karin is putting together some other activities, including Bunko. Do you play Bunko? It is fun and easy for a group to play. Will be posting the other activities we have come up with soon. If anybody out there has any ideas for fun activities on our sea days, please post them and let us know.

It does not look like we will be getting there early this year, to many things happening at home. Would really love to though, Venice is great.

Say hi to the Dublin gang. Have a great day and I promise you Karin will post soon, I hope.

Karl

Hope we can get more on this board! We would like to learn Bunko! Have several friends who play. Are we going to exchange gifts like we did last time? That was fun!

Hi Hannah;

It is Karl, the board would not let me log on as usual, so I had to register under a new name, sorry about that.

We think bunko will be a fun game that all can play and enjoy. No problem learning it is real easy to pick up. Hope there will be others interested also.

Karin and I think the gift exchange is a great idea, thanks for reminding me, I will be sending emails to all the cruisemate cruisers as soon as Nancy sends me the list. I hope to get feed back then about who would be interested in the gift exchange. I know you and the rest of the Dublin group will participate hopefully others will too.

As soon as I get the Name of the our Princess contact I will also check with him/her to see if they have Mah Jongg sets onboard the Ruby. I will keep you posted on that.

I will mention this board in the email I send out, see if that gets folks talking about the cruise.

Have a great day and thanks for the input(s).

Karl

P.S. Karin will be on the board soon, she is really rapped up with the grandkids, right now, we have them every summer. Keeps her young!

Hi Again Hannah;

Figured out what was wrong and got logged in properly. Hope you saw the previous msg.

Karl

Question for Karl about Formal Night
 

Karl, is a dark sports coat (tie) and dress pants appropriate for the gentleman on the formal nights? They will not be carrying a tuxedo.
Our group has been discussing this!
Thanks! Wish other would post.

Also, our group (Dublin) will participate in the gift exchange if others in the group want to do this.

Hi Hannah;

We do not believe it would be a problem. We remember the dress thingee being a little more relaxed on the transatlantic cruises anyway.


Glad to hear the Dublin crew is participating in the gift exchange, including Karin and I, I believe there are 2 or 3 others that are interested. Will keep everyone informed. Still have not heard back from everyone. Will be sending out another update soon.

Maybe as we get closer to cruise time we will have a few more folks posting.

Thanks again for helping out with the Hotel info.

K & K

Hello
 

I was posting on this web back in Feb but not much activity. I have been asking questions on another web cruise site as Paccruise. I am glad this posting in picking up.

I am going in to Venice October 5. Would anyone be interested in sharing a taxi from San Marco airport to San Marco Square? Or does anyone have experience with water bus?

I have had a large learning curve on this trip. Wow. Picking excursions, baggage (gee, they weight carry on??), euros, packing etc.

I have printed my boarding pass. But have not received the package with tags from Princess/Nancy yet.
Linda

Hi Linda;

Karl here, just sent you an email. We, Karin and I are not staying in Venice, we are doing the Princess transfer. I know there are about half the folks in the group doing pre cruise time in Venice. So hopefully we will start getting replies.

We have not got the package from Nancy as of yet with the baggage tags. I will be checking in with her Monday and will check when we can expect them.

Only 60 days till cruise time, anybody else out there?

Karl and Karin

This is a good site to find out about transportation
 

http://europeforvisitors.com/venice/...ice_by_air.htm

we are not taking the water taxi, it is too expensive. We are taking the Alilaguna water bus from the airport to our San zaccaria, which is the nearest port to our hotel. This site has a good step by step from the airport.

That is real helpful, thank you Hannah.