the mice

Hi Bonnie,

I hope you can help with this question.

We are on the Journey August 8, 2018, 11 night Romantic Baltic & Golf

Since I've got all my plans made by now, I haven't looked at the Voyage Planner for quite some time. Today, someone pointed out to me that there is now a SECOND Azamazing Evening listed. Surprise!

I don't think others on our roll call are aware of this, since no one has mentioned it. I'd like to get a definitive answer before I post about it.

Are there really 2 Azamazing Evenings on our cruise? The first is scheduled for Gdansk on Friday August 10 and the second for St. Petersburg on Tuesday August 14. I did sign up for both, but I will never get my DH, much as he loves me, to go to 2 classical concerts in 4 days, so I will have to chose if there really are 2. Somehow, I think something is amiss.....

Thanks for your help.

Marilyn

Apparently the "rumors" are real. I just heard from my contact at All (we go with them next week) and she said they are trying to salvage the tourist business being lost by Alla. Anyway, If I was booking now, I'd look at Alla or I Love Travel. At least we know that there is "possibility" of an issue. Just my opinion

Confused by what you are saying here "... she said they are trying to salvage the tourist business being lost by Alla." I thought the story was about SPB. Please clarify.

On our Oceania cruise last September, we took a day trip to Santiago de Compostela with Spain Day Tours from the port of Ferrol, which is about the same distance as Vigo is from that city. They run that tour from Vigo and I would recommend it. We had a delightful guide and were given a fair amount of free time to visit the cathedral, have lunch and wander the area. It was thoroughly enjoyable.

That being said, we did a trip to the Duoro from Porto on that same cruise, also arranged by Spain Day Tours, which was another great day. Plus we spent 2 days in Porto as part of an independent land trip 3 years ago. We loved Porto - lots to see and do, so I hope that if you have never been there, you will have the opportunity to visit in the future.

Thank you for a wonderful review. We are doing Solstice B2B for the GBR and New Zealand in Oct 2019 and this will help convince my DH that the long trip will be so worth it!

Loved your photos!

Marilyn

Fyi, Rick Steve's is updating his northern Europe Cruise ports book this summer so for anyone thinking of buying this, might as well wait for the updated version in August. :)

The new Rick Steves guidebook, "Rick Steves Scandinavian & Northern European Cruise Ports" will be released on August 21st this year (right after my cruise!). It is a great source for the ports you will visit, and can help you decide where DIY is easy to do.

Happy Cruising to all of you.

The release date per Amazon is August 21. You can pre-order it if you wish.

I had the same problem with question 18, but my problems started earlier. One of the first questions asked if I had experienced the new entertainment program yet. Even though my answer was no, the next question asked if I was satisfied with the program.

Same for me. That no answer should have bypassed most of the questions or ended the survey. I quit after 10 or so questions because the choices were not applicable to me. Glad I didn't have these "designers" on my web application team!

I should board in Stockholm on 8 August 2018.

 

Do you remember where the Azamara shuttle stopped?

 

thank you

The August 8, 2018 cruise on the Journey begins in Copenhagen. It ends in Stockholm.

From the looks of it, they could just call it Europe Intensive because from May to October that's basically where all 3 ships will be.

 

If you're an independent traveler when it comes to excursions, and you'll be going to tender ports, you'll be happy to know that Oceania can usually get you on an early tender. They don't generally make independents wait until people on tours are all taken care of. For a place like Santorini, that can make the difference between waiting two hours to get ashore and waiting a half hour.

How do you make that happen? 8 of us were doing an independent excursion in tender port for St. Malo last September on Marina. We got to the lounge early, and snagged tender tickets within the first 30 seconds of distribution. And our group leader had talked to the destinations staff on the day prior as well. Then we waited about an hour and 15-20 minutes until our tender ticket number was called. So, I'd really like to know how to make this work for our next time in such a situation.

If you have to bail out of your April cruise, a couple of things. The Vineyards & Castles itinerary has been offered in 2017, 2018, and 2019. Maybe the itinerary was offered before 2017 but I wasn't looking. So chances are good that it will be offered again or something very similar. Then also look at the Spanish Serenade cruise (we're doing it in November of this year.) I think a similar itinerary is offered at another time, too. If you look at that itinerary, it does the southern Spain ports plus the Canary Islands (need a cruise for those). These 2 cruises pretty much cover a lot of the western coast of Europe. Plus the ports of embarkation and disembarkation are good jumping off points for adding extra days, or another city for some land based touring.

We could be doing pretty sweet land trips for the price of that cruise ;) I definitely want to try Oceania though.

 

We had an apartment in Honfleur a couple of years back that was beautiful and I think we paid about 1,000 Euro for 5 nights and did all kinds of touring. Mont St. Michel, Rouen, Giverney, Normandy Beaches, etc. One day I was looking at a river cruise from Paris which included everywhere we had visited and almost choked on the price. Pretty sure our food was better too ;)

My DH is the one who loves cruising - but more to relax (done Bermuda and Caribbean multiple times). This one is really a destination cruise, very port intensive. I personally love land trips, and can usually put together a trip for way less money than a cruise. So traveling this way is a bit of a compromise for both of us.

It really depends on your travel style, the trade-offs you want to make, the connections you want to make with the local culture, and where you have been. We don't mind carting our own luggage (now usually carry on only), and are fine with a nice, but not extravagant hotel, and a casual local restaurant. For our land trips, we have often based someplace and take day trips out, maybe going to 2 or 3 cities. That worked well when we were only traveling for about 10-11 days. Now retired and traveling around 18-21 days, we'd need to move around more, train travel being preferable to car rental where feasible. But we recently did 10 days driving in Sicily plus 4 days based in Rome (without car).

So we (actually me, Pete just goes along after I twist his arm a few times!) pick our cruise itineraries based on places where cruising makes more sense than a land trip. And then we accept the fact that it won't be cheap. For this cruise, we had a balcony, since the OVs were sold out when we booked, but an OV would have been fine since we were off the ship most of the time. If you were renting a car from France to Portugal, it wouldn't come cheap with the drop charges, anyway.

This itinerary let us cover a lot of ground without driving, getting to places we hadn't been. We've done London multiple times, but never got to Dover/Canterbury. We've done Paris twice, plus Mont St. Michel and the WWII beaches, but a camera mishap caused us to miss Honfleur, so that worked out for us this time, and our long port day allowed us to get to Giverny. The west coast of France and north coast of Spain were both new to us. Since our port days were long, I felt we had a reasonable amount of time in each.

I'm going. Other than Amsterdam it's all places I haven't been to.

 

I'm looking forward to it.

We spent 4 days pre-cruise in Amsterdam - this after spending a week based there in April 2014. So much to see and do in Amsterdam itself, and many easy day trips. We still have more to see if we return. So worth adding on extra days here.

If anyone is a car lover, a quick trip to The Hague for the Louwman Museum is a must. WOW! is all I can say, and I'm not the car aficionado in this family. Check out the website to see what I mean. And while we were there we had the museum to ourselves - fabulous.

Also in The Hague, there is the Escher Museum - small but fascinating, and the Mauritshuis, again small, but the home of the Girl in the Pearl Earring. What a great day out.

Wishing you good weather and a great cruise!

Marilyn

Thanks for the wonderful detail, nice! Was this on an O or an R ship? I'm asking because we're booked on the September 2019 Marina cruise, and a few of us on the roll call have been wondering if Marina will actually dock in the heart of Bordeaux. Thanks, Leslie.

 

Yes, this was on Marina. The only difference in your cruise is that we docked in Honfleur, and yours goes to Le Havre.

Our concern was also about docking in Bordeaux, but my TA was able to confirm the city berth with Oceania. Apparently it is a world of difference to docking in Verdon.

Have a great cruise!

Marilyn

whoops! Meant "mice" not "nice ". Although i'm sure you are nice mice[emoji4]

 

:)

:):)

We did this exact cruise, Vineyards & Castles, on almost the same dates last year - well a week later - September 24- October 6, 2017.

Loved this cruise!! We aren't drinkers (so why were we on a wine-focused cruise? lol) but we are walkers, and found much of interest to see and do. Great itinerary. We had traveled in France and Spain on land trips, but these ports for the most part (except for Honfleur, Porto and Lisbon), were places we had not visited. Most of the time we had good weather.

Amsterdam: We did 4 days pre-cruise, taking some day trips - we only had a few light showers one afternoon. Otherwise it was sunny. Sailaway was a sunny day/clear evening.

Dover: some clouds, no rain. We took the train to Canterbury for the day.

Honfleur: clear, partly sunny, then very sunny. Rented a car and drove to Giverny, then wandered Honfleur on return. (Note: your itinerary shows port of LeHavre which is across the river from Honfleur making it much further from the WWII battlefields if that is your interest)

Saint-Malo: Did private tour to Mont St. Michel and Dinan - rained only when we arrived in Dinan. Since we were not on an O excursion, even though we got tender tickets within the first 30 seconds of distribution, we weren't called for an hour and 15 minutes).

Brest: Sunny and glorious. Did O excursion to Morlaix and Chateau de Kerjean. Charming guide.

La Rochelle: Sunny, mild. Did a DIY walking tour of town.

Bordeaux (overnight in the heart of the city)- was raining when we arrived, but by the time we disembarked (11am) it was stopping, and then was partly sunny/partly cloudy. We don't drink so weren't going to City du Vin or the chateau wineries - we did a DIY of the city and went off to see the Base Sous-Marine (old German U-boat pens).

Day 2 was some on and off light drizzle with clouds. Did more of our DIY of the city.

Biarritz (Saint Jean-de-Luz) - OK, I admit, I knew nothing about the Bay of Biscay until I just read these posts. That would explain why we missed this port. The swells were too rough for us to tender. I was looking forward to our O excursion to Medieval Bayonne - not happening. So we went directly to Bilbao, arriving at noon. The only replacement excursion offered was to San Sebastian, which we took, since we had tours booked for all remaining days. It was a long bus ride, and not enough time to do San Sebastian justice, but the rain let up by the time we got there. Decent guide, some free time. We made lemonade, but it was a tiring day.

Bilbao: this was now day 2 here. Cloudy but no rain. Took the O excursion to Torre de Loizaga with its fabulous Rolls Royce collection. Then had a walking tour in the Casco Viejo quarter of Bilbao. Another good guide. We opted to remain in the city and made our way to the Guggenheim before getting the shuttle back to the ship.

Ferrol: Gloriously sunny. Did a private excursion to Santiago de Compostela.

Oporto: Gloriously sunny and warm. Did a private excursion to the Douro Valley (we had been in Porto 2 years earlier - delightful city).

Lisbon: Sunny once again. Having been in Lisbon for 5 days 2 years prior, we flew directly home, but we are staying 2 days this November at the end of our Canary Islands cruise. Great city - so much to see and do.

You will be spoiled for choice of things to do. Our only complaint? It was our first time on Oceania, and the cruise was port intensive, so we never got to fully enjoy the ship. But the food was wonderful - we tried and enjoyed all the venues. Never did get to the fitness center....why go there when you can go to High Tea, or Baristas? :D:D

Oh, there was also a sale for Memorial Day, with a nice price drop. So be on the lookout since that's 2 weeks away.

Add our vote for Lucca. Much more to see and enjoy. We were there on a Sunday and strolled the walls with the locals. A delightful day.

To see the possible shore excursions for any port:

At the top of the Oceania Cruises home page, click on the link "Destinations", then select the region of your cruise from the dropdown.

A page will open for that region.

Scroll to the bottom, and you will see a list of ports in that region.

Click on a port.

On the next page, click on the link for Shore Excursions, and you will see a list of shore excursions that O offers.

They just won't show the pricing, but should indicate category of tour, etc.

Hope this helps.

I noticed this last year, for my first O cruise. But the excursions opened for booking 6 months prior to sail date.

From the FAQs on O's website:

When are shore excursions available to book?

Shore excursions are available to book at 180 days prior to sailing and may be booked until three days prior to sailing based on availability.

We're going this August 2018 on Azamara from Copenhagen to Stockholm. I've been doing a lot of planning, so I understand how excited you all must be feeling.

We will be in St. Petersburg for 3 days and are going with Alla Tours, rather than a ship excursion. You will find a lot of info about Alla, SPB, TJ and other companies on these boards, and how Russian visas are handled by the private tour companies. We are also stopping in Warnemunde and doing a tour with Alla there as well. For our other ports - Copenhagen, Gdansk, Tallin, Helsinki and Stockholm, we are doing DIY. I've been consulting guidebooks, TripAdvisor and various city websites, as well as these boards, for planning purposes.

The new Rick Steves guidebook, "Rick Steves Scandinavian & Northern European Cruise Ports" will be released on August 2ist this year (right after my cruise!). It is a great source for the ports you will visit, and can help you decide where DIY is easy to do.

Happy Cruising to all of you.

If I am using public transport on a trip (we've done mostly independent land trips), I use Google maps and copy the map and directions into a word document and print it out. I have notes of bus/train numbers/times I don't want to trust my phone for directions on the fly. Did that once trying to find a restaurant for dinner - got lost for 20+ minutes with a tired, hungry, cranky husband - lesson learned!

Thanks for the update, and also still waiting to hear more about your day in Santa Cruz de la Palma. Please don't skip over that day!

Pages stopped loading while I was looking through the shore excursions for my August cruise (right when I posted earlier). So I moved on to other things. Now it's about 6 hours later. Thought I'd take another look. Ugh. Not working again.... dealing with the website isn't worth my time.

Well, certainly not consistent for me, but saw your post and decided to look again. Eureka! Works and the Azamazing Evening reservation shows in my calendar. So as previously stated, I am posting once I have a good result to report.

Would love to hear what you did in Santa Cruz de la Palma. We will be there on Marina in November. Paulchili posted some great info about the port, but would enjoy hearing yours.

Meanwhile, enjoy your cruise!!

Just to be clear - this is not my narration. I copied this article from a travelogue (don’t have the source anymore but apparently a British source based on the pricing of meals :)) but I did pretty much follow along.

When I got to the part about Manolo Blahnik stilettos I realized that! :D