the mice

We were on Marina June 2-12 with 2 days pre-cruise in Amsterdam and 3 post-cruise in Hamburg. Never had Covid. 2 vaccines and 4 boosters, last 3 weeks before cruise. We were among the very, very few wearing masks onboard, which we did in the elevators and on buses. We did not share tables in the specialty restaurants and ate breakfast in the MDR which was quite empty, although they seated the few guests all in the same general area, but still with some spacing. We only ate 1 dinner in the MDR, and aside from the specialties, we dined outside in Terrace in the evenings. I did not mask up a couple of times in the laundry room only because I forget my mask. Onshore we ate outside and masked up inside if around others. We did all our touring DIY (lots of walking) but did ride in a few shuttle buses, and used public transportation, where we masked up. Wore masks on the plane (business going, economy with connection returning home). Thankfully, we observed almost no one coughing and came home symptom free. We still mask up inside when we are around groups of people. And we'll doing the same on our upcoming cruises. (Pre-Covid, on our Australia/NZ cruise on Celebrity, I think the entire ship - passengers and crew - had respiratory issues - everyone was coughing or worse. It was miserable, and it took me 6 weeks to stop coughing after I got home, and it wasn't even Covid). Hope you recover quickly!

We were recently on Marina on a Scandinavian cruise. There were both American and European outlets which I had not remembered from the last time we were in the same stateroom back in 2018. Since we were in Amsterdam pre-cruise I had some European 2 prong plug adapters so was able to charge things in different outlets. But one of the outlets at the desk was "jammed" with something and wasn't usable.

Need some help/advice here. I've read through so many posts on SM and repricing, but not sure exactly where I'm at and what I need to do if I switch us to SM. We are booked on a GV February 12 - March 9, Bangkok to Seoul. It's composed of 2 segments - Feb 12-26 Bangkok-Hong Kong and Feb 26-Mar 9 Hong Kong - Seoul. (2 parts of a long 82 GV). Now the 2 segments are part of the Summer Sale. The price of the 2 segments is $1251 pp less than our current booking under O Life. So far, so good. My confusion is in regards to the SM Shore Excursion credit vs. our O Life benefit. Since we will be doing our excursions together, I am breaking this down as per person, instead of per stateroom. With our OLife booking, we get 7 included shore excursions per person spread over the entire GV. With SM, Cruise 1 gets $500 pp credit and cruise 2 gets $400 pp. So less $ value under SM but more flexibility. We booked 7 O Life excursions (pricing out at $1073 pp) plus 3 more (one an OS) getting a 25% discount. if I break these down by segment, on cruise 1 our 5 O Life excursions before discount are $745, and 1 OS is $279. On cruise 2 our 4 O Life excursions before discount are $626. Several points of confusion.: My TA said the excursions could not be transferred over if we changed to SM. Is it because the cruise would have to be booked as 2 separate cruises? Or is there a way around this? Assuming prices are the same, if we decided to “rebook” the same excursions, by my calculation, we would pay $245 pp more for our O life excursions on cruise 1 and $226 pp more on cruise 2. Total $471 pp more. That would still be a savings of $780 pp over our current booking. And it would include a 2nd internet (useful) and beverage package (not useful to us since we don’t drink alcohol, although I can but DH cannot so I maybe have a glass of champagne at one of the O events.) Does anyone have any idea how the discount for added shore excursions would work if the booking is split into 2 separate ones? I have booked a couple of private excursions for cruise 1, but the providers in Vietnam want to be paid in USD cash so I’m limiting those. Roll call for our segments is very inactive. Have contacted several vendors in ports for cruise 2 but only 1 responded so far. But I think I will be able to arrange some private excursions on cruise 2 to keep the shore excursions close to the SM $400 pp. Also, our 5th O cruise is in November on Vista. So we will be bronze on our Feb. cruise. Our current GV invoice is showing the $50 pp shipboard credit. If the booking is split, will we get that credit for both cruises? Hoping that some more experienced O cruisers can provide some guidance here. Thanks in advance. Marilyn

Was in the Polaris lounge on Tuesday after Memorial Day weekend and it was a total zoo, absolutely jam-packed. Surprised as only business class passengers can access it. Heard from some people that they actually had to wait on a line for 20 or so minutes to get in during late afternoon. So good that you are arriving early so pick out a good place to park yourself. There is a sit down section with table service for ordering from a menu, but we gave up our slot so as not to lose the seating we finally managed to secure after walking through the entire lounge twice. So pick a spot you will want to be in if you decide to stay all day in case it gets crowded in the afternoon.

Over the years, we have traveled a number of times in the Mediterranean area (land and cruise) in late October-November (even up to the beginning of December) and have enjoyed mostly great weather on these trips. Not shorts or swimming weather in general, but often wearing tee shirts. Weather is always a concern, but we have rarely experienced rain for more than a day on any trip. Lack of crowds more than makes up for that. The biggest difference between spring and fall is the hours of daylight.

Been on that roll call - agree, very inactive, but find that's been true of many RCs lately.

@TFree @Benita We are also on this Nov. 3 Vista cruise. We booked on opening day and took Olife, no air, with the 4 free shore excursions. The price for our B4 is now $400 pp more for SM w/o air. Our 4 booked shore excursions are $596 each or $1192 per stateroom, so better than the $1000 per stateroom with SM. We don't drink alcohol either. Using some "orphaned" miles to fly to LA and will probably pay for an economy flight home (watching prices). While the 2nd Wifi would be nice on the sea days, we can share and we'll be fine. We have T-Mobile, so should be able to connect while in ports which is good enough for me to clear out my email.

We have taken 4 O cruises. On our first, on Marina, we did 3 Olife excursions. 2 were very good, with one being something very unusual that could not have been arranged privately to the best of my knowledge (it was from Bilboa to an estate up in the hills way away from Bilboa with an incredible car collection, including a Rolls Royce from every model year). The 3rd one booked was cancelled since we could not tender into St. Jean de Luz due to weather. We only had one day left to fit in a tour - they subbed a trip to San Sebastian which was a bit of a haul. But the guide made the best of it for us, despite poor weather. Not the best, not the worst. We did cruise only for our next 3 cruises, a mix of DIY and private group tours. Of those private tours, some were good, and some were mediocre. Small groups of strangers are not always compatible just because they are small groups. We found that out as well on our Australia/NZ cruise on Celebrity. Recently we cruised a B2B on Azamara where they handed out so much OBC that we had to use a lot of it for ship excursions - again, mostly good, but some average. Our roll call there was inactive so we sucked it up and paid a lot for some private tours in ports where we wanted to go farther afield. Now we are booked for a 26 day Asia cruise on O. It's part of a long extended journey. Our segment has had minimal roll call activity. We have booked excursions with Olife and added a few more to get the 25% discount due to logistics in some of the ports. I have booked some private excursions. I have also followed the roll call for the full extended journey. What I have noticed in the posts for private tours in the other cruise segments, is that the guides want to be paid in USD cash. This has also been the request from the private tours I've booked. So if you are doing a bunch of private tours for two people, you would need to be carrying around a lot of cash. That also figured into my choice of booking ship tours. Would I prefer a cruise only choice in most cases? Probably yes because we don't drink and I like to do my own planning and touring when possible. Will we continue to cruise with O? Undetermined after our currently booked cruises. Going forward, itinerary will matter most, whether it is a cruise, a land tour, or independent travel. There are lots of things that go into the decision process, such as what I described above about shore excursions on Oceania. .

We are flying into Bangkok about a week before our cruise. We will be picked up on Sun morning and taken to Siam Reap by afternoon, do brief touring, stay overnight Sun, Monday tour Angkor Wat starting with sunrise, late afternoon taken from Siam Reap to the port where ship is overnighting. IIRC (a bit fuzzy so might not be exact) the difference from O tour is O picks up passengers from the airport on Friday and brings them to Bangkok hotel (no transfer if you arrive earlier), leave on Saturday early to fly to Siam Reap, arrive in afternoon, do brief touring, stay overnight Sat, tour Angkor Wat Sunday (also with sunrise?), folklore show on Sunday, stay overnight, fly back Monday and get taken to the port. Meal exclusions are about the same as for the private tour. I am sure the private tour could be customized for added days. Highly rated on TripAdvisor, very responsive in all correspondence.

We are on the Feb 12 cruise, booked under O Life. At the time the free land tour was a tour of Bangkok. IIRC, the tour to Angkor Wat was $1999 pp. I have booked a private tour (driving in a/c vehicle so we can nap on the way w/o the schlepping through airports) for much, much less. And we will be taken to the port instead of returning to our Bangkok hotel. So there are other options.

How does each handle flight delays/cancellations (I assume you have seen what has been happening this week)?

Just back from cruise on Marina that ended about 10 days ago, Roll call wasn’t very active despite large number of repeat cruisers. But also a large number of 1st timers. Of the few posters, most were asking to hear if anyone had planned private excursions and were looking for others to join, but no one seemed to want to plan any themselves, It can be a lot of work and/or responsibility for the planner, so personally, having done it on more active roll calls, I am disinclined to do it again unless it is a very active roll call with engaged participants. For this particular itinerary, it was easy to DIY. And while we didn't do it on this cruise, we are also willing to pay for private tours for just the 2 of us ŵhen there is something we want to do on on our own timetable. I should add that low participation was also evident on our Azamara B2B in October, Usually AZ cruisers are active on roll calls, but this may have been a factor of AZ having promos with lots of OBC. The Simply More changes kick in on July 1. Perhaps people have booked O excursions and may drop them once the new program details are out.

Did it on Onward in November by having the concierge book it.

My DH has preferences, too, like being spoiled by award flights in business. But for daytime flights home from Europe, sorry hubby, but we are only using miles for economy 🤣. He survived just fine with a few whimpers just for effect ( but not on me 😉 ). Anyway, there will be service on this short flight so it won't be quiet like a long flight. Seatbacks up for takeoff and descent, not a lot of pitch, so how much sleep will he really get on such a short flight? You have a long TA flight ( probably 8-9 hours as our flight from Munich ) so plenty of time to sleep. Save your miles (especially since UA has devalued again) . i am sure you will both manage with this compromise. Enjoy your trip.

When there is 3-3 seating single aisle ( or 3-4-3 double aisle ) flights, I book aisle seats across from each other for the two of us. We just did that on a Lufthansa flight from Hamburg to Munich last week. Then 2 seats together on the 2-4-2 flight onward. This was an award ticket using UA miles.

The key questions are - are you flying in a day or more ahead of your cruise in case of any delays? - what if your flight out of Miami is delayed - then what are you connecting flight options? - what is the minimum connection time in Lisbon? Short connections are always risky,.

Cruised B2B on Onward last October, and just off Oceania Marina 3 days ago. I realize that food is subjectve but we found the food on Onward mediocre, and the specialty restaurants average. White Night on our first leg was very good (2nd leg rained out so smaller buffet indoors and just average). They did a surprise wine and cheese small buffet one night by Mosaic after dinner which looked good (but we had just eaten, so can't say as to the taste) . We found the food on O to be consistently better, although we ate mostly in the specialties and our one disappointing dish was in Polo steakhouse. My DH had what he said was one of the best prime rib he had ever had in the Grand Dining Room. Wonderful fresh berries every morning. Only no Nutella on 0, so AZ gets points for that. As I said, food is subjective but we preferred the food on Oceania overall.

There are dining packages as well as other packages - check them out online before you board. We had a lot of OBC ($1700), are not drinkers at all, and don't use the spa, so we spent ours on some ship excursions, dining package, upgraded internet package for DH and shopping. We also used some for a private transfer from Monaco to Nice at the end of our cruise (see the concierge if you need to do this type of thing). If you need to spend in the shops, take note of the departure times in ports to get an idea of when the shops will be open. Do NOT leave shopping until the last day because merchandise that might interest you may be gone, and the shops could close early if the ship gets too close to the disembarking port. I suggest checking out the shops ahead of time and strategically planning when you would make your purchases (if you still have OBC to spend). On our cruise, there was a huge crowd and they quite literally descended like vultures on the shops when they opened. Not at all something we were used to on Azamara. But there were a lot of big OBC offers for the sailing, so I am sure that had something to do with it. Most importantly, enjoy your Azamara cruise.

Hope this link work (food at Aquamar and Ember further down) : https://thepointsguy.com/news/oceania-vista-cruise-ship-things-to-love/

You didn't mention if you will be paying $$ or trying to book with miles. If the latter, be aware that it may require diligence, patience and perseverance on your part. I found that many ideal flight routings did not have award seats available. I didn't pay for any tools like Expert Flyer, and I didn't use an award booking service like Points Pros, but it took me weeks to find award seats on the routing I mentioned in post #3. .

We are doing a cruise next February from Bangkok to Seoul and live on the east coast. Here's what we (well, me, since I do all the travel planning) decided: We wanted to use frequent flyer miles for our tickets in business class with only one stop en route, so that was the primary gating factor for us Plus given the uncertainties of travel these days, we wanted to book using our United or American miles which would revert back to those accounts should we need to cancel and/or change flights and/or plans. We did not want to transfer points (which we have with Chase and Amex) to an airline like Singapore where they would be "stuck" once transferred, with a 3 year expiration. We had previously booked this Asia cruise which was Covid-canceled a couple of times. Back then I easily found transpacific award flights at saver mileage levels. So I thought this would be a similar exercise. I did some reading and some people prefer flying west to avoid jet lag. Others didn't have a preference. However, given the parameters outlined above, I found transpacific awards were slim pickings, often inmixed cabins, and at exorbitant miles. And lots of flights routed through Chicago - not in February, thank you. I ended up booking the outbound flight with UA miles on Swiss and Thai with 1 stop in Zurich to Bangkok. For the return from Seoul, I managed to use AA miles to book Qatar Qsuites from Seoul via Doha back to NY. Very reasonable miles for business class. We arrive days before and leave days after our cruise so should be OK. It took some time but I am satisfied with what we have booked. Hopefully I have given you some things to consider. Have a great time planning your travel.

We don't bring lots of "stuff" and we fit OK in R ship showers, but we are spoiled by a very large 5'x3' shower with a big built in bench in our renovated bathroom at home so this looks very nice. And I am so happy to see that there is still a laundry line in the shower!

TPG is one of the travel/miles and points blogs I subscribe to so I get a daily newsletter..

She had a verandah cabin on Vista. Here's here write-up on the bathroom: https://thepointsguy.com/guide/oceania-cruise-ship-bathrooms/?

@njsmom Thanks for this additional info. We have some time to figure out what we want to do other than the Petersen. So long as we do that, my DH won't care much about anything else! I will look at the Getty Center and Getty Villa websites and decide if one or the other, or neither, is what we want to do. Walking and wandering may be just the ticket (or actually, lack thereof!) Seems like everything now requires timed ticket reservations. We are fortunate that we did a lot of traveling in the '90s and 2000's before that became a thing. As organized as I am, I still find it more than a little annoying to have to "timestamp" my vacation.