terry&mike

Thank you, I'll check into it

Thank you to those who have weighed in on my upgrade offer question, I appreciate you taking the time, and have made some notes.

I also have an upgrade question, that I'm hoping some of you will weigh in with your opinion.

DH and I are sailing on the Riviera in October in a B3 cabin (one of the four B3's with the extended balcony that is open to one side). After a lot of planning and research, I booked this voyage/cabin last year.

As we are celebrating a bit of a milestone on this trip - our 25th wedding anniversary - I have been thinking that it might be a nice surprise from me to upgrade us to a PH3 or better, if the opportunity arises.

A bit about us, we usually take 4-6 trips a year, mostly international, mostly land based independent. We cruise on occasion, usually itinerary driven, or to join a group of friends or family. Lately, we have been thinking that we would like to try some of the luxury cruise lines, and possibly cruise a bit more in place of some of our land trips. We are getting older (although not old, 50 and 55 this year), and would like a bit more pampering on occasion. Thus our first booking of Oceania....

As it stands now on our sailing, all the categories below us are Wait List, all the categories above us are Available. Here are my questions -

Would you give up the B3 open side extended balcony for a PH3?

Any idea what a typical upgrade offer would be for this switch on a 7 night?

Any idea if this is a possibility to be offered?

For the record, I would not be interested in accepting an upgrade to a Concierge/A category cabin, or switching to another sailing.

Any and all opinions appreciated.

Lucca is a beautiful town, not far from Livorno (40 minutes by taxi, about an hour by rail), and offers a beautiful walk around the park on top of the towns surrounding walls.

Hubby and I are booked on a Viking river cruise for August, 2015, and are considering a Viking ocean cruise for May, 2016. Would I be able to receive the Explorer Society Travel Credit of $200 per passenger for the May, 2016 sailing?

What's a love seat like? I see you are from England. Love seat is a US term, and basically, it is just a shorter couch length wise, usually a 2 seater.

Lucca is one of our favorite Italian towns, we enjoyed taking a walk around the park on top of the wall. Pisa is good for a photo stop of the leaning tower.

We have done safaris as part of land trips through Southern Africa, and found that the game viewing in Botswana was superior to that in South Africa, and it is worth the flight. In Botswana, stay at a lodge along the Chobe River and you will have viewings from boats also, which allows you to see the hippos in the water, as well as elephant herds and other animals coming down to drink. We found the evening game drives to be the most successful for sightings, but saw animals on every outing, morning, noon, or evening. Worth going in early for, as it ranks in our top trips ever.

Or just take the train, simple and avoids traffic. Only requires a short taxi on either end.

I think Caroldoll makes a good point. A lot depends on who you are, and your habits.

While hubby may enjoy the occasional Scotch in the room while waiting on me to get ready for the evening, or to unwind after a busy day of touring, we prefer to have cocktails in public settings to mingle with other guests, or to enjoy some music, or just for atmosphere. It feels more like being on vacation to be out and about.

If I have to wipe the back of the chairs, I will quit cruising! Being cautious is fine, but homophobic is off the wall. Just my opinion.

I'm thinking you meant germaphobic?

If your schedule will allow, you may want to spend a few days in the Winelands, just outside of Cape Town. Hubby and I rented a car and spent 3 days at a lovely inn about an hour out of Cape Town, and visited wineries in Franshoek, Stellenbosch and Paarl. Some of the most beautiful manors and vineyards we have ever seen....

Most of the restaurants we visit don't use the markup of double the retail price on wine any longer. We usually see 2.5 to 3x markup on the retail price on wine in restaurants these days.

Like potterhill, we fly in coach, and it is not an unbearable burden. We take about 4 international trips a year, and it works for us. I have flown long haul flights in coach from the US to South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Tahiti, India, and a few other far away places, and have arrived on the other side with my sanity, and rested and well enough to enjoy the day. I am able to sleep in and out during the flight, relax, movie binge, read a bit. Hubby can usually get a pretty good sleep in, and enjoy some movies.

For us, each journey starts the moment our first flight takes off, and we enjoy the entire experience, even finding fun in the quirky airline meals. We always marvel at our good fortune to be going on a particular trip and savor every minute.

Sure, we have enjoyed the occasional Business/First Class flight, and they were very nice experiences, but it isn't a large factor for us. Of course, YMMV, as we all have different tolerances.

Jane Fonda has recently come under attack for similar behavior. She takes her small white dog everywhere she goes, (restaurants, shops, etc), and has said it is a service dog to help her with anxiety. In an interview she did say that the dog wasn't medically sanctioned as so, but that she needs the dog with her to keep her calm.

gldtraveller, I was not bothered by your post, and understood it to be genuine curiosity.

Although I am certainly not a person of importance, I do own my own business with an employee of one - myself, and my clients needs are important to both themselves and to me. Although this gives me great leeway in allowing me to travel on several trips a year, it does have the downside of meaning that I need to check my emails for about 30 minutes twice a day (and in the case of an issue, a bit more often, and even the rare phone call).

DH likes to check in on what's going on at his company, and briefly surf his favorite news sites, for a few minutes twice a day also.

We always ensure that wherever we are staying - vacation rentals, hotels, cruises - wifi is available for purchase, or free.

I doubt that sharing one wifi account will impact us much, as one of us could take care of business while the other one was getting ready, napping, reading, and vice versa.

Ku'uk in Merida, Yucatan, Mexico offers an incredible 15-16 course tasting menu that they pair with beverages including beers and wines. It is a wonderful dining experience.

Laraine, I am very happy you are posting from Egypt and are following your every word. I want to visit in April, 2015, and will be emailing you upon your return for your guides contact, any tips, etc, that you care to share.

Happy travels, Terry

Are you on the October sailing of the Riviera?

I think the deviation fee is currently $175 per person.

It is usually the wines themselves that attract guests to buy more expensive wines, not the anticipation of the level of service one would receive when buying it, correct?

Hubby and I spent 5 days over Christmas last year in BA, and loved the city, the energy, the food.

Travelcat2 - In our experience the amount of air credit did not change, so I imagine it is cruise specific.

We booked a cruise for October, 2014 in May, 2013. We were quoted the air credit would be $850 pp if we did not use O air. We made the booking with the O air in place, figuring we'd remove it later and get the credit if we wanted to.

We were recently able to find a great air routing at a great price, and booked our air independently. Just this week, about 260 days from sailing, I had our TA remove the O air and give us the credit, which was still $850 pp.

YMMV

I think the free air depends on the trip, if it is worth it or not, or free or not.

For our upcoming October trip, we took an air credit of $850 pp from Oceania, and were able to purchase great routing of our choice, arriving in advance of the cruise and staying after the cruise, for $856 pp.

So right on the money, and when we factor in the deviation fee we avoided, we did considerably better.

I think the noon or after flights are the safest also, even though most of the time we have been off a ship very early.

We did have an unusual occurrence once when reaching our disembarkation port. We had gone to breakfast, and returned to our room to close up our suitcases and prepare for a 7am self walk off. At around 7am we heard a passenger's name being paged to come to the front desk. We continued to hear the page every few minutes, then the page became very specific for "passenger X in stateroom X" to appear, and repeated about every 10 minutes. By 7:50a we had still not been called to disembark, and needed to clear out of our room by 8a, so we went up to a public area to wait. Lots of people were milling around, and trying to figure out what was going on. The passenger pages continued until around 8:50a, quite sternly, and then the pages stopped, but disembarkation did not begin. Finally, at 9:30a an announcement was made that disembarkation would begin shortly, and it did start around 10 minutes later. We saw a crew member that we had become friendly with during the sailing, and asked her, what on earth was going on, and she told us, "The drug dogs on the pier got a 'hit' on one of the suitcases lined up, so they needed the passenger present to open the bag, but the passenger would not respond. When he did, it turned out to be a teenage grandson sailing with his grandparents. The matter has been resolved."

We were off and clear by around 10a, and on our way, but there were some very anxious passengers with early flights.

I have always felt bad for those grandparents doing something nice for their grandson, and then having that experience.