BrakeawayTakeaway

Recently completed my first cruise ever, Marina 12 days Tarragona to Trieste. Wanted to thank the Cruise Critic community for helping me prepare for what to expect from a cruise vacation. My expectations were adjusted due to many threads I read, Main Dining room was hit and miss and service was slow there and at bars. But specialty restaurants stood out and provided the best food. I learned about how my food allergy would be handled and I am glad to report I was well taken care of. The Main Dinning matire d learned me and my cabin number quickly and always had my special menu ready to be handed off. My own preconceived notion of a mostly older crowd whom I couldn’t relate to was dismissed. Picking the more adventurous excursions meant several familiar faces I would see over and over. I was in the minority for sure but there is a niche for the younger crowd. You just have to be prepared for a LAID BACK vacation. The entertainment was pretty bad, even my mom said most of the references were older than her. Don’t use Oceania Air. You guys told me hundreds of times and I wished I had listened. It was a mess and WAY more stressful than a vacation should be. Wifi is not suitable for work, or much. But I was able to WiFi call my family which was all I needed. So I was pleasantly surprised I could do that since I figured it would be like dial up reading on here. I will never be a die hard cruiser, but I may go again to sample a slice of the world. And I would probably choose Oceania if it were an adult trip. If my husband and kids went we would choose a different line. I saw kids on board and the one 7 year old I talked to at the pool told me she was SOOO bored, and I get it. But thank you all for all the information, it was very valuable and I felt more informed than my mom who has cruised Oceania several times before. Happy Cruising to you all!

They are EU plugs by the bed. I was just on Marina and used this plug with 4 USB ports. Unidapt Universal Travel Adapter,... https://www.amazon.com/dp/B077XRXRZR?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share

Tendering was a sore subject on Marina earlier this month. It was a s show to put it lightly. If you’re not on an O excursion I would suggest getting there early to get your ticket. o excursions get priority and it took several hours for some people to get ashore, some with privately booked excursions were NOT happy. They had 4 tenders running.

We did turn ours in the same day of the laundry special prices so that definitely had an effect on the time. 😊

It really does take three days. Onboard Marina now and we just got our laundry back after 3 days. They have sales on the ship as well to give them a bag of laundry for a discounted price if you run out of your complementary bags.

Sailing later this week. We did online check in at 17 days instead of 21 and 4pm was the only boarding time left. Doesn’t matter to us because we don’t fly in until 1pm anyway, Oceania air.

Yeah that chicken does not look that great to me. Looks like something I put in the slow cooker on busy school nights. Lol. All your other food pics have me very excited though!

You can still take your own luggage off right? Is it really that much of a hassle to get your own luggage off the ship? (Cruise newbie sailing in 3 weeks)

Love the pictures! You’re making me want to upgrade our drink package for later this month. Hope you have a wonderful cruise!

My thoughts about her treatment exactly. Antibiotics will do nothing for COVID except maybe for if bacterial PNA has set in on top of it which would take time. Blood work for organ failure, sepsis? Seems premature. I am very hesitant to visit a ships medical center. For my late September cruise I am taking new COVID tests, KN95 masks, hand sanitizer, ibuprofen, zinc lozenges, and emergen-c. And watching very closely for the new COVID booster to come out in the next few weeks, I will probably be too late but might snag it through work just in time, but will definitely get my flu shot early September.

I am on your cruise as well! Glad your reservations went well, hope you got good days too. Can’t believe it’s only 45 days out!

I would seeing as how I have seen Viking commercials and knew about the brand long before I ever heard of Oceania. I just saw a Viking commercial the other day at the dentist. I would consider that mass market.

I am brand new to Oceania but I got a Simply More and Summer Sale brochure yesterday. And today I got a fedex package with the cruise documents inside. No shore excursions were listed in the booklet that we picked nor were they separate. But it is a very nice folder to hold our documents and luggage tags.

Just did our reservations tonight and it was super easy. It was about 12:03 ET before I was actually let in to make the reservations, their servers were probably loading. But we got all the dates and times we wanted and table preference! 60 days until launch!

Hope you and your husband are feeling better soon and thanks for the reminder. I will remember to bring masks and use them at the very least on transportation.