vlthom

Just got off 77-day cruise on Regatta. I had one haircut priced at $129 + service charge. The cut included wash and style. The quality of the cut was good though he went shorter than I would have preferred. Others said the same thing. On the positive side, I didn’t need a second cut because he went so short. There was only one person onboard in the salon doing cuts for both men and women. DH also got a haircut and it is an excellent cut and priced much more reasonably than the women’s cuts at $49 which did not include washing. I could have washed my own hair for that kind of savings!

I. Wish that they had them, but they don’t. They offer a mat pilates class periodically, but that’s it.

Did you ask Oceania?

I think that in the end, it will be far less hassle with the substituted ports; however, they only are offering a couple of tours in one of the new offerings.

Instead of Shanghai, we’re now spending an extra day at Naha and are going to Miyakojima and Ishigaki, both of which are in the Okinawa prefecture.

Regatta is beautiful. If you like the R ships, you will like it. We had the one issue that kept us in Vancouver for the extra day but no other problems since then. I am not sure that we would have been stuck for the extra day had it not been for the fact that it was Thanksgiving in Canada.

It’s now the next morning and we still have not been told where we will be going for two days. We’ve already been in Japan for 12 days so That’s already a fair amount of time. Japan has been beautiful, though.

Captain has just informed us that we will miss our 2 days in Shanghai due to difficulties being imposed by the government. We were to be the first cruiseship calling in Shanghai since COVID. Details regarding what the Chinese government wanted was not disclosed. Two additional days in Japan are being substituted but we have not been informed of the details yet.

I am sure that it’s safety first, though we missed some because of our unplanned extra day in Vancouver. Seas and weather have not been especially cooperative since then.

Not sure. This route over to Japan is a first for us so I have nothing to compare with.

Motion of the ocean…..and 40 knot winds.

And now, as of this morning we are skipping Dutch Harbor, AK, which was to be the lasp port prior to the long slog to Japan. For anyone sailing on this segment, I would imagine that they are disappointed. So far, we missed Sitka, Hubbard Glacier, and Dutch Harbor. Visits in Victoria and Vancouver were marred by holidays and the Marathon which shut down the port for most of the day spent in Victoria. We’re onboard until Sydney so are hoping for improvement as we continue.

Unfortunately, we will also miss Hubbard glacier, too. We made it to Ketchikan today, a day later than originally scheduled but it coincided with Norwegian Bliss’ visit. Shuttle service to/from the port and town meant standing in very long lines since we were sharing with the Bliss’ passengers. It wasn’t the best situation. We look tiny by comparison.

We are still in Vancouver but will supposedly depart in the next hour. Our itinerary had to be adjusted, obviously. We arrive in Ketchikan a day later than originally planned and we will miss Sitka entirely. We’ll see how it goes. The captain announced that the issue had been repaired, but as we are heading into a more remote area, they have brought onboard two spare chillers, “just in case”.

Onboard Regatta now for the 77-day itinerary to Sydney. We are currently in Vancouver where it is Thanksgiving and everything is closed. The captain came on the PA system and said we will not be departing tonight as planned and he hopes that we will be able to do so tomorrow night. The reason was not given; however, I inquired and learned that there is a problem with the ship’s refrigeration that they need to fix before we can depart. No telling yet how this delay will impact our itinerary. I’m thankful that we are in port and safe but hoping that this delay will only be for one day.

I had already made this discovery and posted about it. Thx

See my post directly above.

After discussing this here yesterday, when we turned on the tv last night, I played around with the remote. There is an unlabeled button on the remote that toggles cc on/off. The button looks like a triangle. It is located to the left of the zero. We’re now watching things with closed captioning. My husband is thrilled.

We have typically sailed in A category staterooms. Noise from others has not been especially bad however there have always been a lot of slamming doors which I found disturbing. For our current sailing, we are in a PH and there is almost no noise whatsoever. It’s amazingly quiet. I am not sure how to account for this.

It might actually be considered discriminatory to disable closed captioning as deaf people would require it.

DH likes the TV louder than I choose to have it. He suffers from some hearing loss but won’t get hearing aids. At home, we use the closed captioning. He doesn’t mind reading the dialog. Unfortunately, we’ve been unable to turn that feature on the tv when sailing. It seems as if the O demographic might benefit from having it be available to use.

We boarded Regatta yesterday. Today in the Terrace, I decided to try the cookies to see if they had improved. They looked different…flatter and less attractive, so that was not an improvement. And I am sorry to say that the flavor was not good. They still taste oddly dry despite not being actually dry. It’s a dry flavor - like dust. And I am fairly certain that these were not made with butter. DH tried them with me. We tried peanut butter and also chocolate chip. Neither of us finished them as they were a waste of calories. I’m okay not having cookies, but I am baffled as to why they cannot get this right. Good cookies are not difficult to make.

We also did a B2B this past June/July, aboard Marina. We changed cabins and it worked similarly as described above; however, it was not especially well organized nor did we get much in the way of instructions ahead of time. We inquired about the process with our cabin steward. We were told that they would clean our new cabin first and then our move would occur. We could leave hanging clothing as-is and they'd move it. Everything else needed to be packed up in our suitcases, which they'd also move if we were not present. But in our case, the keycards were an issue as they did not and could not create the new cards until noon on turnaround day. I was told that it's usually done a bit earlier than that; however, their equipment wasn't working so they were unable to issue the new cards. This made our turnaround day a bit awkward to say the least. But hopefully, it will go more smoothly for you.

No masks were provided on our June/July Marina cruises. We were not sick before, during or after the cruise either. There supposedly is an uptick in new COVID cases around the world so perhaps this has led to the distribution of the masks. I'm glad to hear that they are being provided again, though not required.

Good point. When I was aboard Marina in June/July, it was clear that they were reducing old stock on hand and not replenishing things that had been on the wine list previously -- at least not at that time. I guess that my point was that it remains to be seen what wines will be part of the "included list" on the Simply More plan. And surely, it will change over time. And telling someone what's part of a beverage package now, doesn't mean that it will be part of the plan a few months from now.