5.12.2007 - Live TransAtlantic Cruise Questions/Answers

[jco_direwolf]

Now with everyone and their neighbor doing VoIP- I don't see how they can block it on every site. AOL, MSN, Yahoo, & google all have online calling programs.

It's pretty easy, the packets are well understood (ie it's easy to write rules that match the voip packets.) You don't block the sites, you block packets which "look" like VOIP calls.

Infact there is a company which sells software which allows an ISP to either block, or selectivly degrade VOIP service. (I think it's netqos.com) This is what the Net Neutrality issue is. Should an ISP be allowed to block Voip service, or even websites who haven't paid their "bandwidth" fee? You say imposible, I know, but think of how many people use Comcast as their ISP in the US?

Of course if your cleaver you can get around this, by using a VPN. But even so then all they have to do is "rate limit" you outbound. Since most people are websurfing, and reading e-mail. If you rate limited people to 10-15kb/s no one is really going to notice, URLs in the outbound packets are typicaly <200characters. e-mail with large attachments may take some time...

johno

 

[jco_direwolf]

Some of the banks in Europe do not recognize pin numbers that start with a zero.

Some ATMs in the US have problems with pins that start with 0 and/or have more than 4 digits. I've run into problems before, although I don't think I've had a problem in the last 4-5 years.

I've always chauked it up to bad coding in the ATM software. I assume somewhere they put your pin into an Integer type variable and presto you lose the leading zero unless you remeber to "zero pad" the number.

Same problem ends up with 16-bit Integer and pins longer than 4. 16 bit unsigned integer only goes to 65535 (2^16-1), 16 bit signed only goes to 32768. 4 digit base 10 number fits fine into it (do some 5 digit numbers) but a 6 digit breaks it.

But as I said I've always thought it was just bad coding.

johno

 

[Euchre_U]

Hi! Has anyone used taxis to get from the airport to the port? I am wondering how much it costs and if it is per carload or per person. Thanks!

I'm assuming you mean from the Barcelona (BCN) airport to the port. All of the taxis I saw in BCN were metered (denominated in Euros). The airport to the port should be around 40 Euros for a metered taxi - maybe more, maybe less depending on the traffic. It cost me 90 Euros to go from the port to the aiport to the cargo area at the airport back to BCN downtown by the beach. It was about 10 Euros via taxi from the beach area back to the port.

The Barcelona taxis are extremely small - 4 people max (if 2 of the 4 are children). More ponderous is the size of their trunks. If you have more than three 22 inch rollabout-type pieces of luggage, they'll never fit in the trunk. We ultimately opted for the DCL transfers based on the luggage consideration.

Kurt

 

[gismo1554]

Can someone tell me who is the captain of the transatlantic cruise?

Tom

 

[gismo1554]

mine told me it would take at least a month and a half and to "not bother" trying to get Euros from them. I am thinking of changing banks I never had that type of problem when I was with citi bank.
------------

I have a question for people that have an inside room, how is it since you are spending a lot of time in there? are you regreting your room choice at all? (just wondering since we booked cat 12 gty and got a cat 11)

I had an inside room and it was fine. Didn't mind it one bit and actually felt better in my inside room than when I visited my sisters and mothers outside rooms

 

[gismo1554]

There is a mystery on the trans-Atlantic, but I don't know if they will do it for each sailing

The mystery thing is only on the Trans-atlantic sailings or so we were told when onboard

 

[gismo1554]

i heard the cruise director is rachael.
where is she from?
does she look good?

Rachel is from Yorkshire in the UK. She's blonda and thin if that helps (??)

 

[padalyn]

Hey all - I was on the Transatlantic and the first Med cruise. Some comments for people:

the wireless system was working on the port side rooms just fine when we left. the ship on June 6. They were working on it for the whole crossing - I think they did starboard side first.

be carefull - the net slows down something fierce at 2230 - this is when the crew can get online and they do!! We were also warned that early morning was not good as this is when all the corporate stuff was being transferred. We found dinner time to be the best time.

the ship will exchange money - but no coins - so the smallest bill they have is a 5 Euro. Their exchange rate was fair - not outragiuos.

Warn your CC company of where you will be - I heard of folks who forgot and got "locked out" because of the fraud stuff in place.

Carry some form of photo ID (a copy of your passport will get you back on the ship - but isn't good for CC purchases in some ports) I use an expired drivers license - works fine.

as far as the food - there is a broad selection on all the menus. one can order off menu as usual - just a day ahead again - as usual

Captain Tom was on board for my cruises.

did I miss anything??

 

[milestogo]

Hi guys,
B2B'r here, the CC gift was a tan leather passport holder. We got the same gift on both cruises, so we gave one to our server at dinner. Also a beautiful book on the repo Crossing the Atlantic.

 

[padalyn]

Here are pictures of the gift. Personally I like to be suprised, but I understand some people want to know what is coming...so - here are the pics:

I put pieces of paper in the sections so the flaps would be visible.

 

[kidcoos3]

Here are pictures of the gift. Personally I like to be suprised, but I understand some people want to know what is coming...so - here are the pics:

I put pieces of paper in the sections so the flaps would be visible.

Is that still just one per room? Or one per person?

 

[CACruisin']

One per room.

 

[kidcoos3]

One per room.

Thank you, that's what I thought - definitely one of those things that should/could be 1 per person though. We have 2 rooms - my husband can have one and I can have the other - teenagers wouldn't want one anyway.

 

[cquick]

Has anyone used their ATM card to obtain Euros while inport?

What is the limit for exchanging curreny onboard? Is the exchange rate close to the daily rate?

I used my ATM card to get ALLmy money while in port for the whole month. It worked great....I used an ATM in Barcelona, Venice, Florence, Sorrento and Monte Carlo ( where I needed money to gamble with) I won! $100!

 

[cquick]

I booked a cat 12 gty and got a cat 11 for the transatlantic. I was totally satisfied with it. I ended up on deck 6 aft which is my favorite location. I did take a night light and would advise this and also a lighted clock. Also, I was by myself, so the single bathroom was fine. It might be kind of tight for more people.

Oh, yeah, our son, Michael had an inside stateroom on deck 6 near the aft. He loved it. He works a lot and travels a lot and really needed the down time. He could sleep as late at he wanted, and stay up as late as he wanted. It workded out great. He liked being able to go up the "secret" back stairs to the drink station!

 

[cquick]

Hi! Has anyone used taxis to get from the airport to the port? I am wondering how much it costs and if it is per carload or per person. Thanks!

We took a taxi from Barceloa port to the airport in Barcelona. There were 3 of us and a wheelchair, and lots of luggage. I think it was 35 Euros, and we gave a 5 Euro tip. I found out when we were asking for a taxi that Disney DID have tranportation to the airport, even though we disenbarked a day early.....oh, well. Next time I will ask Guest Services more than one time, it seemed like you got a different answer depending on who you asked......

 

[cquick]

Here are pictures of the gift. Personally I like to be suprised, but I understand some people want to know what is coming...so - here are the pics:
I put pieces of paper in the sections so the flaps would be visible.

I didn't think that gift was very handy. I don't think we would use it. Maybe somebody who had a briefcase or something......

I have a horror story to tell! A man and his family was getting off the ship in Barcelona at the same time as us, and the wife dropped their wallet ( not sure if it was Disney one) off the gangplank! It looked like it fell into the water! He really panicked! ( I would too!) Anyway, it DID not fall into the water, but onto the dock below the gangplank. The poor man almost had a heart attack! The wife, too, especially since she was carriying it!

connie

 

[cquick]

Hey look, I am on this Thread all by myself!

 

[Linda Bell]

Hey look, I am on this Thread all by myself!

You lie. I'm here.

Question for you. Are wheelchair cabs plentiful or did you have to make special arrangements? Since there are no shore excursions in Barcelona for wheelchairs I'm hoping we can at least hire a cab to drive us around a bit.

Thanks

Linda