rialannah

It is troubling when unreliable 'information' permeates these boards. There are many threads where bringing wine/liquor onboard is discussed. We have sailed on Oceania pretty much every year for the past 15 years. We always bring wine onboard at our embarkation port - usually a mixed dozen sourced from a local liquor store. Occasionally we also bring on some spirits. We top up along the way where necessary. Cabin staff are excellent at providing glassware, ice, mixers etc. We are happy to pay the corkage fee when we take wine to dinner, which we regularly do. One of the pleasures of sailing on Oceania is being treated as a responsible adult!

sorry - last phrase should be 'any college sport'

That's too bad. We had the channel on Nautica last year and again on Vista a few months ago. As I said there was a period of blackout somewhere along the way when the relatively useless Sky Sports News was substituted. On the Sports 24 website Oceania is listed as one of the cruise lines taking their service - along with most of the other major operators. As an aside, they have just shown the Jets v Cowboys, which will be followed by Dolphins v Patriots. I don't recall and college sport being shown.

For the past year or so, O has had a dedicated sports channel on its program list, called Sports 24, which is prodiuced exclusively for showing on aircraft and cruise ships. We have watched it on our past two cruises, both of which have been in Europe. Coverage includes NFL, major tennis events, Formula 1, English Premier League soccer, UEFA soccer, rugby, rugby league, Australian Rules football. There are no doubt others at various times. There seems to be occasional periods of blackout.

I accept that people may walk through the Hall while the string quartet is playing. However, I think it is not unreasonable to expect them to do so respectfully. Couples or groups who proceed through the Hall while maintaining a loud conversation is far too common. Earlier this year on Vista a man walking through exclaimed at the top of his voice "Looks like someone has died"!!!! As a further comment, I find it appalling that on the R ships, groups waiting to go in to dinner sit in the lounges adjacent to where the quartet is playing and conduct a loud social conversation.

Catherine On the following cruise, the restaurant section on the cabin TV included details of the pairing dinners. Mike

We have just been on Vista 11061 for 29 days. There was definitely noise from above in the early hours after midnight. Some nights not a problem, other nights enough to wake me up as a medium light sleeper.

Having posted the earlier negative comment, I am delighted to report that as of today Sport24 has been restored on Vista, so that quality live sport is again available.

There is good news and bad news. A few years ago an excellent sports tv channel (Sports24) was established specifically for planes and cruise ships. Many of the major cruise lines signed up, including Oceania, and some of the major airlines such as Emirates and Singapore. The coverage included live major sport as well as replays from USA, Europe and Australia among others. We watched it throughout our cruise on Nautica last July/August. We boarded Vista on May 13 and watched great coverage of NBA playoff games, Rome 1000 tennis, PGA Golf, English premier league soccer, Australian football etc. Then a few days ago the channel just disappeared. I finally enquired as to what had happenned. I was told that O had failed to complete negotiations for renewal of the contract before the subscription expired and that 'they were working on it'. For us sports lovers this is a real loss. Who knows when it will be restored.

Jan Eddie Manning gets very good reviews. I planned to use him this year. He was very responsive. A change in itinerary meant we needed to cancel. I told him we hoped to use him next year. Without being asked, he volunteered that our 25 pound deposit would be carried over. However, I emphasise that I haven't yet used him. (I always used Smiths for Airports, but like others they are victims of the covid slowdown.) Mike

If your Vista cruise was scheduled to depart from Venice and has been shifted to Trieste, then every passenger receives a Complimentary Shipboard credit.