Harters

Have to say, I didnt really miss it for the cruise we've just finished. As I recall, there's nothing particularly useful that isnt on the emailed version. Now, if they want to save money, stop sending me almost weekly sales booklets.

I suspect bill splitting is not as common here in Europe as I think it might be in the States. Certainly, it's not something you often see in my country. When we have a family gathering, one will pay by card and the others will later reimburse that person by bank transfer. Alternatively, get one bill and present four cards, asking the server to charge X to each one. Obviously much easier if everyone is paying a quarter and not nit-picking over whether they had a second glass of wine or not.

Just to round this off, we did book that 2025 cruise on board. All priced in sterling. There was an "on board" discount and some onboard credit. We could apply that credit to either the existing or new cruise. We chose existing as it would go some way to paying gratuities which, for the new cruise, are now included in the headline cruise price for customers in my part of the world. We left the ship happy with the deal but, also, in the knowledge that we could pass this booking on to a travel agent - either our existing one or another. The last couple of days have one of negotiation with three companies - our existing one, one that I know Vallesan uses, and a third who we liked the look of. In the event, we've gone with the offer from our existing one which, taken in the round, suited us best. Everything taken together, we've managed about a 12% discount on the Oceania website "promotional fare", so happy with that.

Our travel agent had booked us a transfer from the port to Rome airport. It failed to turn up - in spite of speaking to the company once and the driver three times. First time, he said he was there (he wasnnt). Second time he said he'd be there in 5 minutes (he wasnt). Third time , he just shouted "taxi, taxi, taxi" (which we decided he meant he couldn't be arsed doing the job he'd been paid for and we should get a cab). So we did. It cost just under €200 on the cab meter. We had just enough cash to pay. On the plus side, we've spoken to our TA today, who was very apologetic and is arranging a refund to us of the cab money. Company to avoid - Samarcanda

A quick related matter, Our travel agent had booked us a transfer from the port to Rome airport. It failed to turn up - in spite of speaking to the company once and the driver three times. First time, he said he was there (he wasnnt). Second time he said he'd be there in 5 minutes (he wasnt). Third time , he just shouted "taxi, taxi, taxi" (which we decided he meant he couldn't be arsed doing the job he'd been paid for and we should get a cab). So we did. It cost just under €200 on the cab meter. We had just enough cash to pay. On the plus side, we've spoken to our TA today, who was very apologetic and is arranging a refund to us of the cab money. Company to avoid - Samarcanda

I used to enjoy the late night buffets on P & O during the early 90s. That's decades back and we only returned to cruising recently. That's been with Oceania which doesnt have late evening food except room service (you don't want a meal at that time, so no use). My late night snack at home would, most usually, be cereal. Muesli with yoghurt is a favourite.

It's historical. Goes back to the time that "hospitality" workers were indentured servants, rather than employees earning a wage. It's too lengthy a subject for discussion on this forum but Google will find you info. Here's a scenario. In the middle of the 19th century, I'm a wealthy friend of the equally wealthy William Hanmer and visit him for the weekend at his home at Bodnant Hall. I havent brought my servants with me, of course, so I am "looked after" by his. On leaving, for my train back to Manchester from the new station at Llandudno Junction, I thank Hanmer's butler and slip him a small sum of money. And there you have the start of tipping service workers. It's an archaic practice I hope we eventually see consigned to history as other European countries have managed to do.

Bear in mind that Sunday is a day when work on the track and signalling often takes place, so trains may be slower, or be diverted onto a different route. Personally I would always travel to a cruise port the day before (if in the UK) or two days (if outside the UK). We've just booked a cruise from/to Southampton for next year. We'll drive down the day before. When we last did this (2018), we found a lovely hotel near Winchester which really set us up for the cruise.

Agreed. It's almost a duty to try and understand the place. you're visiting. I have a friend who practices law in Kentucky. Much of his practice relates to "workers rights". He explained the need to tip in accordance with American norms, otherwise you can actively financially harm the server. My recollection of what he said was that your tax authorities would assess a server's income tax liability partly based on the assumption of how much they are likely to have earned in tips. So, at its most basic, let's say I tipped at the usual UK rate of 10%, the tax authority may well assume that, for the hours worked over the period, the server would have received tips at the usual American 20% going rate and tax accordingly. FWIW, I used to play on a now defunct food forum where most contributors were American. Tipping often cropped up as a subject for angst and the need to be seen to be doing the right thing. Not something that would ever happen on a European led forum. Different cultures as I said. It can be tricky in Europe. There isnt a common tipping practice. Some countries have a tipping culture, other don't . Belgium is a country I've visited regularly and it used to have both cultures. In the French speaking parts, tips were not expected, as in France. But, in the Dutch speaking parts, tips or around 10% were common as then in the Netherlands. The area I visited was near the "border" between the two language areas, so it was always necessary to know exactly where you were when you stopped for lunch.

It was fine. We stayed the two nights to avoid any possible SNAFU with flights. Also meant we'd adjusted to local time by the time we were boarding the ship. We had a nice time - walked round the botanical gardens which were lovely. Walked on the Beach. Bought sandwiches for lunch and ate them in a park opposite the hotel. A couple of nice dinners. Our next cruise (2025) is a Southampton round trip so no flights involved which really appeals. Booked it on board and am in negotiation with the TA you hinted at a while back (and a couple of others).

We've visited the States a goodly number of times since our first visit in 1980. We do not generally visit the areas that are popular destinations for foreign tourists. It's often been the case that folk in the hospitality industry have never previously met a British person. Rudeness has been rare - probably no different than in the UK or other European countries. I've always enjoyed and been engaged by those trips - I find America to be the most "foreign" country I visit, even though we generally share a language. More foreign/different than, say, other European countries. It's just down to America and Europe generally having very different social cultures on so many aspects. But, what I see of current American society suggests that our recent pre-cruise stay will probably be our last visit. It no longer holds an appeal.

We've only used Ryanair once. It was fine and ontime. There's also Jet2 which was our flight home last Thursday from Rome.

Somewhere on your cruise line's website, it will tell you when online check-in opens. For our recent Oceania cruise, I think it was 21 days prior, so there's no need to be fussed about checking in at the minute (or day) it opens. I cannot recall what time of day ours opened but do know it was Florida time, as that's Oceania's home port and main office.

We are just back from a transatlantic on Oceania's Vista. Our online cruise specialist travel agency (which forum rules prevent me naming) arranged our flights. We'd also looked to sort it out ourselves but found the TA was the cheapest/easiest way forward. The transatlantic was with British Airways - Manchester/Heathrow/Miami. I could not get close to the TA's price myself. But one very keenly priced option I did find was Aer Lingus - Manchester/Dublin/Miami but for a couple of reasons it just suited us to have everything in one booking with the TA, rather than a DIY thing that would have saved us literally only a few quid. Both of these would need an overnight hotel at Heathrow/Dublin because of the fairly early departure time for Miami. Return flight from Barca to Manc will be easy for you to sort out with Easyjet or Ryanair.

Of course. And we encountered it during our brief pre-cruise stay in Miami Beach. I'd noted, from the Tripadvisor forum, that restaurants there commonly add a service charge (at around 18%). And so it was on both dinners we had there. First night, the server pointed out the charge on the bill, saying that nothing more by way of a tip was expected. Good for the Miami Beach restaurant industry.

Bollocks!

Yeah, Sleazy or Ryanair will get you to most European destinations from Manc.

Ah, yes, American cultural imperialism. Have you even considered for one moment what an insult that would be to your server, to receive a tip in a foreigner's currency, rather than their own.. Nasty. Just plain nasty. Shame on you.

We had a butler on Nautica last year. We'd booked a penthouse because of the regular mention of the shower cubicle being very small in lower grade staterooms. We had no use for him, with the exception of one night we ordered the freebie canapes. They weren't very nice, so never repeated it.

Yes. Maybe the hotel van thing was part of your deal with the hotel or cruise line. Our travel agent had booked the hotel for us and, rightly, said there'd be no need for a transfer company - it'd be easy just getting a metered cab from the airport to hotel and then hotel to port. Simples.

I liked this. Part of the excellent cabin design, IMO. No problem with the blue light for either of us.

Indeed, old fashioned cash tipping is very much a minority interest here. Many restaurants have replaced it with a discretionary service charge (tends to be 12.5% in the London area, 10% elsewhere) which, of course, you have to actively ask for it to be removed from the bill. FWIW, my brother in law drove a taxi for about 10 years up to Covid. When he started, most customers would tip at about 10%. When he finished, it was rare to get any tips during a shift. Not even of the "keep the change" varierty. He tells the story of driving football superstar, Cristiano Ronaldo, who waited for his ten pence change on the fare. We do indeed have a very different attitude in Europe towards tipping, from the American attitude. I'd read of porters at Miami cruise terminal almost demanding a tip from passengers arriving for their cruise, to "make sure their bags got on board".

Flights were arranged by our UK travel agency. It included Manchester-Heathrow, Heathrow-Miami, Rome-Manchester. I don't know the individual pricing as it was all rolled up with the cruise price and other ancilliaries. I tried to work it out, knowing how much the headline price of the cruise was, and could only conclude the TA had access to British Airways prices that I couldnt match on BA's website. FWIW, the best transatlantic price I could find was with Aer Lingus via Dublin. It would have worked out slightly cheaper than the TAs offer but it was more convenient to keep everything in one place.

This was our third Oceania cruise and the first on Vista (previous ones on Marina and Nautica). It was also our first transatlantic and we were really looking forward to all those sea days – we knew it would be a much more relaxing holiday than O’s usual port intensive cruises. We’d flown from our local airport to London, on the Sunday, staying overnight at Heathrow, then on to Miami the next day. We spent a couple of nights at Miami Beach. Flights and Miami hotel had been arranged by our cruise travel agency, meaning the whole deal gave us protection under consumer law as a “package holiday”, protecting us should the agency, Oceania or British Airways go bust. Unlikely in the latter two cases but good to know that we were covered. Oceania had given us a check-in time of 13.30 at the cruise port. So, what to do between our hotel check-out of 11.00 and then? Well, we wondered about just turning up early and see what happened. The worst might be that we were denied entry to the terminal and had to hang about there. My partner asked for advice on an Oceania Facebook group and received the consistent reply that they would be no problem going early. So we did. Unfortunately, so did everyone else. We joined a long and slow moving queue but, in due course, we were on board and heading for the Terrace Café for lunch. It wasn’t that long till it was announced we could go to our cabin. We were in 9063 – a A2 Concierge cabin. It’s a good size, well designed with a comfy, firm bed, enough storage space for the fortnight’s trip, decent shower cubicle, etc. We experienced none of the issues of noise from adjacent cabins that have been extensively mentioned on Cruise Critic (although we did hear of others who did have problems – so this is a real issue). In the latter part of the cruise, I developed a bad cough as, seemingly, did quite a number of other passengers. I can only hope the noise from that didn’t annoy the neighbours. I’m sorry if it did but there was nothing I could do about it. The cabin attendant kept the place spotless and was really helpful. In fact, “spotless” is a word you could generally use about the whole ship. As you walked about, there were always folk cleaning. Thought and money has gone into the design of the public areas. There’s a considerable amount of artworks – wall hangings, sculpture, ceramics, etc. The mosaic “floral pictures” on the Terrace Café wall must have cost a small fortune in themselves. As for the food, I suppose the first question must be is this “the finest cuisine at sea”. Well, with only Oceania experience to call on in recent decades, I’ve nothing to compare that marketing slogan against. But, I do know the food was pretty good and when you think that this is mass catering, probably better than “pretty good”. With North Americans representing about 1000 of the 1200 on board, it’s no surprise that the food is rightly geared to their tastes. A particular disappointment was that almost every dish where you expect the vibrancy from spices seemed dumbed down and generally quite bland. There was one negative of note and it applied in the Grand Dining Room and the specialities. And that was the amount of time we regularly sat there with menus in our hands, waiting for someone to take our order. It wouldn’t be acceptable in a land based restaurant and it really isn’t acceptable here. But, once your order is in the system, everyone is generally fine. The sommeliers (they are not really sommeliers in the usual sense of the word) are generally on the ball, regularly offering second and third pours. . Our booking was under the Simply More arrangements which got us included booze at lunch and dinner. This was nice, although I don’t drink alcohol and my partner only sparingly. I do enjoy the occasional alcohol free beer or wine, so was able to take advantage of this (although the alcohol free Merlot is very thin on flavour and I couldn’t really recommend it – better than nowt, I suppose. Some brief comments on the various restaurant venues:- Grand Dining Room – we ate here most nights. Always found something we wanted to eat and the food was good quality. We also had a few breakfasts and lunches. It was nice to be served a “proper” breakfast and the lunchtime French bistro classics were also good. Terrace Café - good for breakfast and lunch. Lots of choice. Nice to sit on the open terrace on good weather days. We had dinner once when the buffet was given over to a “Spanish Market”menu. , which was excellent, both in the variety of choice and the use of traditional flavours. I felt myself whisked back to Mallorca with the sobrasada on toast and suckling pig. Waves – went for lunch a few times. Good sandwiches. In the evening, it becomes a pizzeria. We went once – pizza was fine. Think good quality supermarket pizza, rather than it being as good as your favourite place at home. Aquamar Kitchen – we went for lunch a couple of times. This is the ship’s “healthy option”, which is probably why we weren’t keen. Nice enough salads, poke bowls and the like. Small portions – we went to Baristas afterwards for coffee and got pastries from the Bakery, as still hungry.. As for the four specialities, we enjoyed the variety. It’s a plus point for O’s larger ships, over the two on the smaller ships. We liked Ember. The food was excellent but it was the space that really made it. It’s a very modern design and the open kitchen is always going to add excitement to a restaurant. Polo Grill and Toscana both did their jobs well – plenty of choice on the menus and cooking is to a high standard. Red Ginger, however, was a disappointment, as it had been on our Marina cruise. For “Asian Fusion”, read dumbed down food. We complained about one dish (the only complaint about anything on board). That was the beef rendang and were told it was prepared and flavoured as it should be. Happens to be a dish we know well and this was just wrong on several levels. But, that aside, the specialities were fine and made for a good balance with the other options. None would meet our “Holiday Restaurant” test – if it was a restaurant at home, would we become regulars. Polo and Toscana are the best two but neither are as good as the steakhouse and Italian that we go to regularly. Baristas is good for daytime coffee. My partner, who is a tea drinker, says it’s the only place on board where the water is hot enough to make a proper cup of tea (I’m sure she could do a full ten minute rant about the tea in Horizons at afternoon tea time). . The Bakery attached to the space is excellent for the likes of quiche, beignets and other sweet treats. In the evening, it becomes Baristas Aperitivo – a lovely bright cocktail venue that seems to be ignored by the vast majority of passengers. Nope, I don’t understand why. Not least as Martinis is so cold that we found it actively unpleasant to sit there. No-one’s going on an Oceania cruise for the entertainment. I mean, it’s OK but not really better than OK. It’s a larger performance company than on Nautica but, truth be told, we found the quality of performance to be not as good. On other nights, there were “guest performers”. Danny Buckler did a good comedy magic routine. Vocalist Nik Page was OK, if a bit shouty. We’d seen Duo Esencias on Nautica last year. Seeing them once was enough. We didn’t go to the shows after Day 9. And, yes, comments by others about the design of the Vista Lounge are all true. It’s easy to find your view of the stage blocked by someone in the row in front. So you do regularly see folk shuffling around to new seats. With regard to excursions, on our previous cruises we’ve always taken the “free” excursion perk, as consistently recommended on the Cruise Critic forum. We find that the Simply More excursion credit suits us better in that we can spend it on any available trip, rather than being tied to the very basic ones. For example, we booked a more costly gastronomic excursion in Malaga as that part of Andalucia is very well known to us from previous land based holidays. So, with a mix of ports where we planned to do our own thing and three where we’d booked ships excursions, we were looking forward to them. Unfortunately, the three ship’s excursions were all at the end of the cruise. By that time, I’d picked up the bug I mentioned earlier and my COPD had flared up, so we cancelled two of them. And, I’d have to say, the one we did, in Monaco, wasn’t that great. You did learn a bit about the history but you only get to see three major sites – the Cathedral, Prince’s Palace and the Casino. There’s no feeling of even scratching the surface of Monaco. I think we’d have done better buying a ticket for the hop on, hop off bus and doing our own thing. But we did spot someone famous (or, more accurately, infamous). As we were waiting for the bus back to the ship, Sir Philip Green walked past. So, that’s about it.. We had a really nice time. So nice, that we’ve booked a cruise for next year (same cabin – so fingers crossed the lack of noise issues wasn’t just down to very quiet neighbours). I think Oceania has probably made a good decision in making the pricing more inclusive – the change in excursions and drinks with meals. And, for the next cruise, gratuities will be included in the headline cruise price for British (and other European?) customers, as it has been for the Australia and New Zealand market for some time. It’s in response to O’s discussions with the UK cruise travel agent industry which, I understand, has called for it. Oh, yes – we’ll manage our port days better, treating some as sea days, so we finish our cruise properly rested, rather than having rushed around and feeling the need for another holiday to recuperate.

Yes and no. Most services will be reliable. They'd go out of business if not. The only times we use a taxi is if we are going to the airport or nearby mainline train station. There used to be a very reliable company in town (in fact, my brother in law used to drive for them). But it became less reliable - not failing to turn up but cutting the time to the train/plane worryingly close. So we stopped using them. For the train, I now drive to the station and pay an exorbitant fee to park for couple of days. And we now use the airport's own "preferred partner" taxi service. Dearer than most but hasnt let us down.