Dourobert

On Marina now. I can email, access some web sites, but not all.  Semi-amusingly I've had the most trouble accessing the Oceania website reliably.  I bought a data eSim and do most of my video calls, and photo syncing when we are in port.  Travelling with two iPhones, two iPads, and on Mac Air!

On 6/11/2022 at 8:46 AM, escrick said:

A few years ago, I stayed at the Holiday Inn, and it was fine.  For our next cruise, we will stay at the Southampton Harbour Hotel—although more expensive, it looks fabulous.

We just stayed there two nights and it was a perfect way to recover from a 3 week land-only trip that involved staying at several "interesting" hotels.  The only negative was that we had to prepay and were stuck with it when we had to cancel our June 13 cruise on Sirena. However we spent a great day in Portsmouth before driving past Sirena on the way home.

We had a great 3-day tour of St Petersburg with Alla in 2018 (and in Riga and Klaipeda afterwards). Wish them and the many good Russians we have met on our two trips to Russia the best of luck in these trying times.  The other Russians, not so much.

10 hours ago, Flatbush Flyer said:

“Institutional” TV sets (e.g., hotels, cruise ships, etc) often have many “ports” (e.g., HDMI) and remote control menu (e.g., screen ratio) functions disabled. This prevents guests from misusing/experimenting with them and creating a FUBAR situation.

That has been my experience in many hotels but I was hoping Oceana would be more open.  Oh well, one less cable & adapter to lug around.

Are there any accessible HDMI ports on the TV?  We often snuggle and watch downloaded shows on my iPad but there have been times I've wanted to connect my iPad or portable to the TV. 

1 hour ago, mauibabes said:

Oceania is too expensive, to OMG, where are we going next

Sums up our experience too. After Princess x3 and 1x HAL we tried an Oceania Marina cruise in the Baltic only because it had 3 days in St Petersburg.  Now, after 2 more long trips on Nautica we have 5 more booked, and we're waitlisted on another. 

Horizons on Nautica has (had?) a self-serve machine.  I and a few others (mostly men) often were up there from about 4:00 am watching the sunrise as we went into the next port.  Pastries would show up later.

4 minutes ago, Rummblestrip said:

My partner and I are booked from Mumbai to Bangkok on the Nautica. We also are interested in getting to see Taj Mahal. Will be interested to see how others are planning to visit. Our situation is we disembark a ship in the Seychelles on January 31st. This will be our first time to India. I have traveled all over the world and this is the first time we are feeling a little intimidated by travel times.  We usually have days before and after to cushion any hiccups in transit. For the people have been to Taj Mahal before, is the travel there straightforward and reliable? We are thinking about just spending the days in Mumbai and get to know the city a little. Fyi, we are thinking about getting the 5 year or 10 year tourist visas so we may be able to visit again one day. Any thoughts? 

There is a 4 day pre-cruise to the Taj Mahal that might fit into your schedule. Look under Hotels & Land.

1 hour ago, SophieM said:

Thanks! I appreciate the response from both of you. “Dourobert,” we’ll be with you as far as Singapore. Only slightly envious that you’re going on to Tokyo. We haven’t been there for several years, and I’d love to go back—after we work through our list of haven’t been yets. 🙂 We, too, will be doing tours on our own. If you’re interested in coordinating, we would be, too. Only requirement is a sense of humor. 
 

Jane (& Ed)

We got as far east as Dubai a very long time ago (Dec 2019) but have never been to the Far East or India.  My gmail name is dourobert.

-Rob (& Jerena)

We may cross paths. We're booked on the Feb 5th trip from Mumbai on Nautica and will be doing some touring beforehand.  There is so much to see in India besides a couple of coastal cities and, while we haven't got a land tour organized yet, the Taj Mahal will be one of our stops. We're contining on all the way to Tokyo. Hopefully we'll all get a chance to experience of some of the world's greatest cultures, even if the moments will be far too short.

My wife requires GF and loves Oceania. She gets the next day's GDR dinner menu the evening before and chooses what she would like, usually giving the chef a backup choice.  If the chef is unable to modify a dish to be GF, the server will have recommendations.  GF items are available elsewhere but not guaranteed GF unless preordered.  Let me know (dourobert@gamil.com) if you would like to get more details from my wife.

The wine bottle(s) can follow you around but I'll leave that for somebody else to explain as I rarely go through more than one!  And as frequent B1 customers facing cold breakfasts,  we usually go to the GDR. 😞

-Rob

On 5/8/2021 at 6:17 AM, chengkp75 said:

Couple of misconceptions here, and they don't really affect sea sickness, but may add to people's understanding of ship motion.

 

Stabilizers will control roll only, not pitch or yaw.  Stabilizers don't stop rolling, they merely slow the motion of the roll to make it more comfortable.

 

Ships roll and pitch around the "center of roll" and "center of pitch", which are neither the center of gravity, nor the center of buoyancy.  The center of roll and pitch are the centroid of the waterline plane (the plane that cuts the ship where the waterline is).  This is because when rolling, the volume of water displaced by the side of the ship going down increases, while the volume of the water displaced on the side going up decreases, by the exact same amount.  So, the center of roll (since pitch is a much lesser order of movement, but the principal is the same), is dependent on hull shape, and not where the weight is concentrated.  Center of pitch will tend to be aft of midships merely because ships tend to have a more full afterbody than forebody (i.e. tapered bow v square stern).

Thank you, I didn't know about the roll. Interesting.

On 10/6/2020 at 11:32 AM, cloudchaser said:

Thanks to every one for all the good information and advise.  My wife and I do world cruises (Holland America) and the library is important.  Glad to hear that R class have good libraries.  Actually it seems that our cabin will be left to chance.  Our August 26, 2021 cruise on the Nautica is waitlisted for all but some interiors.  So we are on the list of A3, B1 & B2.  I think in 10 months something should clear.  It is like the Lottery.  Thanks again for the help.

We're waitlisted (B1 & A2) for the same cruise. The itinerary looks great.

One minor difference not mentioned so far is that the only laundry room is on the concierge deck deck (entry from port side).  We've been on the veranda deck on Nautica twice and I did quite a few stairs checking on availability, and as the transporter.  I need to do even more stairs so it was not a big issue for me, but it was for my wife's knee.

We were in 8048 on Marina and it was near the stairs.  There was no noise at all.  It was very convenient and we would book again, but personally I would avoid being right at the elevator bank. People do tend to talk while waiting,  or saying goodbye to friends when getting off the elevator.  9059 is borderline.

Maybe for itineraries that sell slowly but not for popular ones. Possibly during a Black Friday or Memorial Day sale (big US holiday sale periods) - last year I got a better price on our September Marina Vineyards & Castles cruise during a Memorial Day sale - the savings = $1500 pp.

Thanks Orv, the Mice. I can hope.

I should have made it clear that the $ were NZ$ & not US$. I was only posting this to show that they were as good as their word when they said there would be a price increase from the 1st of October. They gave plenty of warning.

Agreed. Our 2019 Med Cruise is up about $150 CAD for a B1. The other cruise we considered are up about the same amount even though they show more availability. Do the prices ever go down? My dream 2020 asian cruise is up too. Sigh.

Oops. You're correct. I am flying on the 10th; the cruise is the 15th. So what is Riviera doing while I'm travelling? Is it related to all this grief?

Where is Riviera going afterwards? We are booked on the May 10th Rome to Venice and I am a bit curious/worried about the 5 day period in between my cruise and the end of the cancelled Room to Monte Carlo cruise? Dry dock, or a charter?

Sometime the distinction isn't clear. Last fall my dentist had found a small crack in one molar while doing a more critical crown replacement on another tooth. The recommenced crown was viewed as being "routine or long needed work" and was scheduled for late summer this year. In June I was sitting in the Viking museum in Oslo when my wife gave me breath mint and I felt something wrong in my mouth. A corner of the molar had come away. This was a few days before getting on the Marina in Stockholm. Luckily the hotel got me in to see a dentist who patched its up and I had no problems for the rest of the trip. I did spend time thinking I was an idiot and should have had the tooth fixed before leaving. However when I saw my dentist at home he told me the corner that broke off was on the opposite side from the crack. So the break was not foreseen, but could have been prevented. So don't bite breath mints, and keep you dental care up.

I'm pretty sure they mean emergency dental care, not routine or long needed work.

We were in 8048 in June. We heard our neighbours unpacking late on embarkation day but never anything from the elevators. Wife asked me to book the same cabin on our cruise.