Sujormik

18 minutes ago, Psoque said:

Did you have any luck with Oceania?  I’m very curious to know of your outcome with them.

Fwiw, I wasn’t able to get any financial break as my room category wasn’t covered.🙁

Our Marina cruise in June will be our first on O.

Our first cruise was on Disney (Magic maybe?) in 2008 with my husbands entire family…it was fine.  The younger kids enjoyed, the younger teens not so much.  A little too rigid with the dining (for me) and too much in-law interaction.

We decided to try for a moving hotel experience after a 3 week trip to Italy with a lot of land moves. Ended up on Windstar from Lisbon to Barcelona in 2016 all suite, very small ship, met some nice people.  It was fine.  Not great weather for all the ship recreational water sports they tout.  No kids!

Did Alaska on Azamara Quest in 19 with 4 day land portion first.  Had the most amazing trip. Upgraded our cocktails and really connected with the fellow passengers on our land piece.  Small shower.

We don’t want to be with other people’s kids. We don’t want to wait in lines. We don’t need 24/7 entertainment options. We wanted to end in Norway for this trip so while I’m not wild about the itinerary, it suits our needs.  I hope we love it as much as many of you do.  
 

I just don’t see us ever getting enough cruises to benefit from the various loyalty programs, so we shall see.  My husband isn’t a beach guy. He doesn’t want to go someplace twice if he can avoid it. So I keep throwing out ideas and hope something sticks!

Nice thread!

We got a PH with an upgrade 2 levels promo last year.  Our itinerary is on the list…will we have a chance of $$ savings or is our level too high to benefit.

Hubs not a big cruiser so we do fewer trips but bigger spaces/more perks.  Allegedly.  Our first O.  Thanks.

8 hours ago, JoePDX said:

Reservation not invitation.  😂🤣😂

Oops, I swear I read invitation only😉

Are all cruise lines’ promotions this confusing? Is ANYTHING straightforward on other lines?
 

We‘ve been on 3 cruises, 3 different lines so no “loyalty” benefits, and I feel like I have to learn everything new every time!

On 4/7/2023 at 5:31 PM, JoePDX said:

A Passover Seder was also held here on Sirena in Terrace Cafe.   Was by reservation only.

Wonder how they know who to invite?🤣

2 hours ago, OhState1 said:

Thanks everyone for the guidance.  I logged on at 12:01 this morning and secured tables for 6 in all of the specialty restaurants at the time we hoped for, if not the exact dates we wanted. This board helped immensely.  

Took me a few minutes after 12 but I was able to book ours as well.  Chose all early in the week in the hopes some open up later for second go!  Are you on Marina 6/21-7/1?

Thank you all so much for your replies.  I get to book dinners tomorrow and wanted to have a sense of whether to try for a late seating and couldn’t find a word anywhere.

Chag Pesach Sameach to anyone celebrating.❤️

A friend on an O trip in February (to the Western Caribbean) said there was a short Shabbat service on Friday evening.  Is this a common practice on all itineraries? Is there a way to find out if it’ll be offered on ours?

On 4/4/2023 at 5:24 AM, davekent said:

Apart from a pleasant stroll through the city, prior to everything opening up we did enjoy the harbour bus (boat) as a comfortable and bustling way to pass 30 minutes zig zagging across the waterway with a number of points of interest on the way. Also the Museum of Copenhagen though not as dramatic as either the National or Glyptoteket museums opened at 9:00 and was an interesting way of spending some time prior to moving on to the bigger attractions

Thank you.  My friend’s sister lives there and will be taking us around for our sort of half day.  I just didn’t want to bother her at the crack of Dawn but she seems really eager to help us out, and lives close to the port.

Any suggestions for a nice gift to bring to thank her for her hospitality?

9 hours ago, PhD-iva said:

I was in this state room (11023) on Marina’s sister ship, Riviera. It was a fabulous location, very convenient to the elevators. It was very, very quiet. You should have no worries at all.

Thank you! 

18 minutes ago, LHT28 said:

Either

Go to "MY ACCOUNT" on O website  manage  cruises  then  the dining tab

Thank you.

My ship arrives in Copenhagen at 7 am and departs 2 pm.  Is there ANYTHING open at 8 am on a Friday? We have so little time I’m quite disappointed by the short timeframe.

Tangent:can you book specialty restaurants online (once your day arrives) or must you go through the O phone line or TA?  Thanks.

On 1/23/2023 at 8:29 AM, YoPhilly said:

I was just notified of reduced port times on my Baltic cruise.  How can I experience Stockholm in only 8 hours??

I feel you! I’ve got Copenhagen from 7 am until 2 pm…is anything open at 7 am? I think not.

30 minutes ago, AMHuntFerry said:

Oh, sorry. You said "3 excursions…the additional cost covers the excursions so it’s probably financially worth it for that" which I misinterpreted to mean that you had not purchased O-Life yet but were considering it since the Ultimate OLife is available.

My bad, if we change to Ultimate from our existing res, it’s $150 more than what we’ve paid. Since we already had $300pp OBC, the 3 excursions are really what we are benefitting from.  I can’t really drink and my husband usually declines (in solidarity) but if he even has a glass of wine or a beer, I think we still come out ahead.  I just hate how convoluted all this stuff is!

1 minute ago, cmph said:

@Sujormik just took a quick screenshot to show you what I mean. On Firefox, you can actually get to that red shopping cart button. That definitely never showed up on Chrome, but I wasn't really digging too deeply since the pricing was all I was interested at the time.

 

Thank you! I’m actually on my iPad, I rarely use the laptop at all any more!  I should really sleep but these things run through my head all night and I can’t relax!  I do appreciate it.❤️

I’m looking into Visby also.  Haven’t seen the free walking tour yet but I did find a site suggesting you can do Visby OYO. https://backroadplanet.com/how-to-explore-visby-on-your-own/

19 minutes ago, gnome12 said:

Train ticketing machines in Germany give you the option of switching to English (and presumably other languages). You can also use the Deutsche Bahn app in English to purchase tickets in advance, or the website bahn.com.

Sorry to be a pain, I’m so grateful for your guidance!  I’m looking at the Bahn site.  It will show me times from Kiel to Lubeck, but I cannot select one, nor can I get the return Lubeck to Kiel to show up.  Any suggestions for navigating this? $80 rt for 2 is a bargain compared to the $300 to take the bus from the ship.

Here’s a new option, curious what y’all think.  We can use one of our “free” (really just included) excursions to take the bus to a Lubeck from Kiel and then sign up for our tour there once we arrive.  But if it’s really that easy to take the train from Kiel, the costs saving might make it worthwhile to try it.  Then use our “free” excursion later in the trip.
 

The timing of the trains may actually be more favorable and give us more time in Lubeck, but I’m always so nervous about complications and missing the ship departure. Advice?

On 3/26/2023 at 11:53 PM, sailawaybellaluna said:

Hello, we are also going to be in Kiel in June on board the Holland America Nieuw Statendam. We've visited Hamburg before and are considering Lubeck. May I ask what you have found in terms of the best train journeys and where you are booking through?

Sorry for late reply, is this for me? We are on Oceania and we’re looking at a Get Your Guide tour so Jewish Lubeck.  They’re unable to provide transport so we’d have to take the train without a guide, not sure I want to try that in a language I don’t speak!

Hijacking to ask about mah Jongg.  Do the O ships keep mahj sets on board?

4 hours ago, kibutzer said:

What line have you cruised that has ever allowed pets, unless they are service dogs.

None. That’s why I asked after reading the report by artlee. And apparently people now bring their pets and call them service animals.

2 hours ago, AMHuntFerry said:

Actually, with the "Ultimate O-Life" (all 3 included), you get the cost of O-Life back in OBC (e.g., pay $300pp for O-Life, get $300pp OBC...kind of like prepaying some/all of the cabin gratuities). So, the shorex and wine/beer at meals that you choose to receive is actually closer to "free" than with regular O-Life.

We already had the OBC so it’s just the shores and drinks.

Thank you. We have only a few places where we want to use an O excursion. We’ll be in Scandinavia.