Wheelhouse

Call to make dining reservations. It was very easy.

I booked the extended Hawaii cruise very early and after reading about the lack of entertainment/daily activities we decided to cancel and moved our booking to an extended Caribbean itinerary. Even though we have been to the islands plenty of times before at least we can stop and go to a beach or just walk around. We did Hawaii R/T from LA a few years back and its definitely a good bunch of sea days. On that trip we were on Princess and they provided an adequate amount of things to keep busy. Heike, the hotel manager from Azamara, will be away in the time running up to the Hawaii cruise so activities could still be lacking.

The cruise that I booked with 30% off on the Black Friday sale now is 25% off on the new Total Luxury sale. I assume that the slight price increase would indicate that some additional bookings (but not too many) have occurred.

Thanks for this. I'll follow these instructions in February rather than paying $155 pp for the ship's tour.

If the newly offered 2025 and 2026 cruises are on the current sale then it would make zero sense to end the sale on Monday with only one day available to book the reduced price. I would think this would indicate the sale will be extended again or renamed to a different sale. There seems to have occurred a major change in strategy to align Explora with other lines who offer continuous sale pricing.

Lyn, it was told to me by the TA who booked my Allura cruise. He was on our Vista cruise. The library will be relocated to the area adjacent to the Lync Digital Center starboard forward on Deck 14. This shift is designed to make way for a Creperie and Gelatoria.

My wife can't stop talking about the Vista library and is very disappointed that it will be severely changed for our '25 cruise on Allura.

I called earlier this morning and got through right away. At least one of the problems with my check in was corrected. I had tried the call back appointment scheduling which proved useless. The "ambassador" told me the website was down.

And most are R/T Miami and 40% off. If those don't sell well nothing will.

I bet the sale is extended.

I was very surprised with this sale as I saw a presentation in which it was very emphatically stated there would never be discounts just price increases no matter what the passenger (or is it guest) load ended up being. Bookings must be pretty bad. Anyway, today I grabbed a last minute Barbados to Miami 16 day at the end of January. Since I can live with economy seating to the Caribbean, I booked reward AA miles from CLE to BGI for only 10K miles pp. For a very nominal amount I got preferred economy. No additional extended journey discount was offered as in the terms and conditions.

That I can't answer, but as an American I did book early recently and received the onboard benefits. You probably should inquire with your TA and/or Oceania directly.

You can get the onboard booking benefits 30 days PRIOR to your sailing.

Lyn, I guess I didn't read CURRENTS with a fine toothed comb. An email link would have been helpful. By the way I used MJS transportation from POM to FLL and was at my gate at 9:52.

I was also on that cruise and as stated by the OP there was no available American sports on TV. Absolutely zero. One gentleman that I talked to referred to it as a cruise killer and he told me he would not return solely because of this. If you tried to use the Oceania website to search cruises all were quoted in Euros because Musk's server is in Spain. I found that pretty annoying. The Future Cruise Ambassador Juan Carlos was very busy and excellent. I never received any post cruise comment form from Oceania.

I am on the Oceania Vista now at the Manhattan cruise terminal. There are a bunch on tents (at least 30) being set up in the berth closest to the Intrepid. Possibly they could be related to the Explora I naming ceremony.

Those devices will attach just fine to these TVs.

There are two approximately 1in by 1ft speakers that fire down.

There is definitely more than an inch of space between the tv back and the wall.

I heard virtually no noise in my cabin on Vista until last night. All night it sounded like the ship was going to break apart in the inclement weather. I don’t recall any ship sounding that bad in almost 40 years of cruising.

Dr Koob, another cruise line you could consider is the new Italian line Explora Journeys. It seems to hit on most of your desires. The introductory suites are 377 sqft. The food is getting rave reviews from some very experienced travelers. All WiFi is covered as is liquor and wines. The hardware is unsurpassed in the industry. My per diem for April comes out less than the 2025 Allura booking that I just made.

I am a retired Dr currently on Vista and I also feel these charges and tests were unnecessary and it’s nothing more than another profit center for the cruise line. When my wife and I had Covid (not on a ship) we just did teledoc type appointments and had the Paxlovid called into our respective pharmacies. It’s no wonder people do not report positive Covid tests when on a cruise ship.

Everyone, I realize that single ply is preferred by all ships, but that doesn’t make it any more functional. Anyway, while on the subject of bathrooms I believe a new feature is the electric eye outside of the public restrooms. You wave your hand in front of it and the door opens with no touch. Likewise the egress is similar. It’s a neat simple feature.

The single ply toilet paper on this ship is about the worst I have ever encountered. I’ll bring my own next time.

We are enjoying ourselves. It feels like a regular cruise ship if you know what I am trying to say. The food has lived up to its reputation and we find the main dining room very elegant. There are no passengers under age forty and very few under age sixty. Dr Koob has live blog running on the Oceania forum. I asked for a bottle of Lagavulin16 and they provided it at a fair price.