Tsunami74

Is there a name for this ? (like Regent has a pre-cruise package)

How does one find about this?

Is this an add on?

We are considering a London to London cruise on the Sojourn. The port is actually Dover. For those who have been on this type of cruise, is it difficult to go from London to Dover (with luggage at hand) ? How did you do it?

Do you know it you can use on board credit for this?

We have $300 each in Simply More excursion credits. A possible 3 excursions we picked would add up to $320.75 Can we just pay the $20.75 that is over? Or use OBC? Or do we have to somehow only choose excursions that add up to less than $300 each?

First to Houston. Same airline to Australia (United Polaris business) And yes, it is $125 for not being in a gateway city - would always have that surcharge deviating or not. I have read on this forum that if your domestic flight connects with an international, it is first class for domestic leg, and it has been for us. However, I have not seen that in writing officially.

From our city For example in January we flew Pittsburgh/Houston/Sydney. One stop from Pittsburgh to Australia is pretty good.

We have used Regent airfare several times from a non gateway city without any deviation and have had pleasing results. Could not have picked better route ourselves. Maybe we are just lucky.

Oh no! Thank you for all the assistance that you have provided us. Good luck in the future!

We agree with this! Excellent cruise and pre/post hotel and tour.

At this point in our (relatively long) lives, when we fly long distances, we really appreciate (or I might say "need") business or first class flights. Otherwise, it would take 2 days to recover from a 10 hour + fight. So value wise, Regent always comes out on top for distant cruises From our non gateway city, adding business air to Asia on even a Princess cruise makes it more expensive! Otherwise, for a Caribbean cruise in/out Miami - both Oceania and Regent are great choices.

I couldn't agree more! We do much enjoy the more "creative" (for lack of a better description) on Oceania. For example, the pea vicchyssoise, sea bass in puff pastry, lobster gnocchi. We do not get to enjoy this kind of fare on any other ship. We love it (and remember fondly), but admit it is not for everyone who might better enjoy a steak and potato.

We will be in a pent house suite on the Grandeur in April. This will be the first time that we will have a butler. Having been pleased with the room steward service on previous cruises, we are not sure what a butler would add. Would anyone like to enlighten me as to what to expect?

This can vary so much! We were on a post tour out of Hong Kong to Xian China and there were less than 20 people. We just got back from a post tour in Singapore with about 350 people! The small group was excellent. The Singapore group was handled about as well as could be done. However, we almost always went in the same order and our group was almost always last 😟 (but still a good experience)

Oceania and Regent are the two lines we use - just got off the Explorer. The whole dining experience on both lines is excellent. Service comparable. However, we feel Oceania ranks higher food wise. Both have very good food with very few misses, but Oceania has some truly memorable meals. Examples: Red Ginger vs. Pacific Rim, the miso sea bass at Red Ginger over the miso cod at Pacific Rim; the duck water mellon salad offered at both, it is much better on Oceania. Several dishes at Oceania's Jacques: the pea vichyssoise (so much depth of flavor), the scallop gnocchi, the sea bass wellington for two. On no other ship have we had such dishes. We also appreciate that the buffet at breakfast and lunch on Oceania is all served by attendants (no touch by passengers). This was true even before covid. Just seems to be more sanitary (although I haven't really seen anything egregious on Regent)

We just write out request and give to room attendant when he/she comes in to introduce. This seems to work, but ours are very simple requests

There is a shower head which you can detach and hold in the tub

We have used both at the same time. I love a bathtub, and this one is nice and roomy. You can take a leisurely bath, then stand up and rinse your hair with he shower attachment.

What ship/restaurant is he on?

We were on an admitted pre covid cruise in February 2020 on Riviera (maybe Marina?). The staff did monitor the loungers. If only a book or something was on it, he put a card that said something like "this bed was unoccupied at 11:00 if no one is here at 11:30, items will be removed to the table". They had a table set up on the edge. This worked! Despite being in the Carribean, it was not difficult to find a lounger in the shade. I think if people knew that there was a good chance to get what they wanted, they would not need to "hog" Sadly, this practice of monitoring/cards removing items and freeing loungers is no longer practiced

We are in the Polaris Lounge in Houston awaiting our flight to Sydney. We have Regent, Uniworld and Viking luggage tags, Oceania bag. I think I have an Oceania tote packed. If we like the product we use it!

Yes that puts all this discussion in perspective!

Bongomauka, If this is not too personal, with so much action on this topic, would you mind saying approximately how much did this medical evacuation cost? i.e. what magnitude of a problem is everyone discussing?

Some months ago we put a preliminary booking on either this cruise or another British Isle Cruise close to it. It was about 10 months out, but when I looked into excursions, almost all the excursions we were interested were waitlisted. We then had to unfortunately cancel the booking. British Isle must really book fast