Skyring

Numbers are dropping rapidly in Japan, going by this site. My guess - and I am not running the Japanese government, which is probably a good thing - is that a month from now Covid will not be the factor it was a month ago, and there will be increasing pressure to open up. 

Here in Australia our international border is open once more, I was able to travel interstate a couple of days ago without any tests or certificates or approvals, cruising is resuming, and masks are steadily disappearing. We're not completely over it yet but another month at this rate and it will be something in the rear view.

Unless there is something new come up, which is always on the cards…

12 hours ago, Denny01 said:

The earlier post was correct in the OP was just interested in bringing a special beer from a port of call back on to enjoy. I hope the OP doesn’t judge the X passenger ‘demographics’ based on the higher than thou comments here. 

I was interested to know the line's policy so I could comply with it. Hearing the responses of experienced cruisers is also immensely valuable.

As for passenger views on moral behaviour, I spent five years as a night cabbie. I saw a lot of drunks. My job was to get them home safely and comfortably. I don't mind if people have a glass too many, so long as they don't become violent or abusive. Or throw up on my clean seats.

If a passenger drinks the bar dry, that's fine. If they become a danger to themselves or others, or interferes with ship safety, that's a different matter. I imagine that X is able to deal with such events.

4 hours ago, hawkesbaynz said:

We have a cruise booked with Oceania and am a little confused what to do. The booze package is mealtimes only and am told the sommeliers are quite mean. Considering the $600 OBC and bringing a couple of bottles of Botanist for the balcony pre-dinner and sussing out the happy hours. Wish they were AI like Celebrity.

I didn't find them too bad. Wine by the bottle is a better price - doesn't matter how much they put in a glass, you've still got 750 ml worth overall - and if you don't drink it all at one meal they will keep it for you and it will be available at your next meal, regardless of restaurant.

You'll love Oceania. Their "best cuisine at sea" slogan might be a trademark but they live up to it. The dining is marvellous, the menu changes daily, the presentation is immaculate. The buffet is fully staffed; one cannot serve oneself. I used to love brekkie there. I'd draw my chair up to the smoked salmon station, open my mouth and let them fill me up like a seal.

Thanks for all the comments. Yes, there was a certain amount of tongue in cheek about smuggling grog aboard a ship already awash with the stuff.

My days of getting more than merry are over. I don't mind a glass or two with dinner, maybe finish the bottle if I don't have to drive home, but after a while one is just paying good money to get sick. The first glass of a fine wine is awesome. The fifth, not so much.

I've been to Iran once or twice. That involves going weeks without alcohol of any kind. It is no hardship at all, particularly if one has good company and pleasant surroundings. Our Persian guide had some tricks up her sleeve for getting alcohol through the border checks, and I myself managed to smuggle in a couple of bottles of (non-alcoholic) Shiraz for the pleasure of sharing it with the rest of the group in the ancient Persian city of Shiraz.

The comments about bourbon above interest me. I don't know that I'd bother bringing aboard two bottles of wine. The cost of corkage - Oceania had it at $US25 a bottle for drinking one's own wine in the restaurant - pretty much negates any savings unless we are talking champagne.

A good Scotch, on the other hand… My next cruise leaves from Japan and I know that the Japanese make some very good whisky. Buying a bottle duty free on arrival and taking a dram as the sun goes down on the Far East is my idea of a nice cap to the day.

16 minutes ago, canderson said:

(Scroll down at the link below to see this and other information)

https://www.celebritycruises.com/faqs/before-you-board

Thanks, that's exactly what I needed.

Cheers!

12 minutes ago, Covepointcruiser said:

I thought Celebrity had alcohol on the ship or can you simply not afford to buy a Celebrity drink?

With the price difference between Oceania and Celebrity I imagine I can get sloshed on on-board drinks every night and come out ahead.

No, it's the pleasure of buying a bottle or two at a cellar, or just some of the local beer, and enjoying the terroir aboard instead of whatever generic global brands are available aboard. Imagine flying into Fort Worth asking for Shiner Bock and being told they only serve Budweiser.

My last cruise was with Oceania and they have a pretty liberal policy on bringing alcohol aboard. You could bring a crate of wine or similar with you at embarkation and after a shore excursion I would often bring back a bottle or a six-pack or something. Passengers were free to drink this in their cabins but not anywhere else.

I found this a great way to enjoy the day, sitting on my balcony during sailaway and drinking some of the local booze.

I remember one Sunday arvo in some dusty Canaries port, scouring the town for a place that would sell me some takeaway beer. Everything was closed. I finally found, in a back street, a tin y Muslim convenience store which sold beer and I bought six bottles, stowing them in my backpack. On the shuttle as we approached the ship I lifted my pack and the bottles clinked cheerfully. "Aha!" said a fellow passenger, "we know where the party is tonight!"

I can't find the rules for Celebrity on their website, but I'm getting the feeling that they might not be quite so accommodating.

You will need a PH on this ship to be happy.

I found a lot of the staff to be genuinely happy, and they certainly weren't enjoying the same amenities.

or just ask your butler to get one for you from Barristas

A far better option. So far as I could see, Baristas was the only place that did coffee properly. Everything else was either filter, or from one of those auto machines.

The life jackets in your cabin will have the muster station printed on them, there are instructions and a map in the cabin, the drill takes place before you leave port on the first day, and there are multiple warnings.

Once it begins, the corridors are full of staff telling you where to go. Take a book, or seize the opportunity to make friends with your neighbours, who will be at the same muster station.

Count on the whole thing taking a half hour, and if your muster station is a bar - ours was Martinis - they won't be serving drinks.

I look at these things as being a learning opportunity. Even more than on a plane, every ship, every cruise is different, and if - god forbid - something happens in the dead of night, I want to have a clue as to where to go and what to do.

just ask the room steward for wine glasses they will supply them for you

There was an opener already. Australians are no longer accustomed to bottles with actual corks in them, but we needed one for the bottle of sherry we bought in Seville.

I brought a couple of Glencairn whisky glasses with me; unlikely to find anything like them aboard an American ship, where the idea of drinking a single malt involves ice and a wide-mouthed tumbler. :eek:

But they seem to have perfected wine glasses.

MAYBE still an advanced model like my G7X, but otherwise, they're dead to me now...

 

I upgraded my iPhone a week ago to an iPhone 8. This is the first time I've really felt my phone could actually take good to great photos. No, I didn't try low light (didn't have a good opportunity), but with any light at all, including some indoor shots in a cathedral, the phone was outstanding. AND, it fits in my pocket...

Your cathedral shot is an excellent example of where phone photography is nowadays. There are "clip-on" zooms and macros that help get more difficult shots, but I think for general photography a good phone is all most travellers need nowadays.

Something like a Sony RX100 will take it up a level without getting too chunky. But you're then looking at a solid slab of money, well out of the general P&S range.

Just about everyone has a phone.

It's physics. If your lens and sensor are about the size of a grain of rice, then there are limits. Basically, if you can slide a camera into your jeans pocket, your phone is probably as good or better. Certainly more convenient.

I've got a skinny little Leica C (a rebranded Panasonic DMC-LF1) and it struggled in low light. I doubt I'll travel with it again. I brought it aboard for dinner images and I missed so many shots. When I took some care, it was okay, but it was chancey.

My Leica D-Lux was chunkier, with a fixed lens, but performed extremely well. ƒ1.7 - 2.8 10.9 - 34mm lens with an M43 equivalent sensor. It lived in a pouch on my belt. At a pinch, that's all I need. It was easily able to outperform a phone, such as getting a bit of bokeh, or shooting HDR (like straight into the sun).

Of course, having something like Lightroom helps a lot. But how many phone cameras shoot RAW?

For most people and most purposes, a new-ish phone will do just fine.

For those wanting to make photographs that go a step or two further, a P&S isn't going to cut it anyway.

We had no issues bringing any sort of alcohol aboard. But they will pick up things like knives and measure the blades. Anything longer than 10cm and they'll hold it for you until disembarkation.

Ice cream is fabulous. We had some salted caramel that was really salty and caramelly, rather than a faint whiff. Likewise other flavours.

On Riviera, bring an adaptor and a powerstrip for devices, especially USB. The American outlets are positioned next to the light switches, so any "overhang" on the plug turns the light on. The Euro outlets are a little wider, and the plug prongs go straight in without hitting any switches.

Leave the formal wear at home, unless you are into dancing or going ashore in Monte Carlo.

Twice now I've come back from a tour and spent an hour or so ashore looking for a place to buy some grog. Lanzarotte on a Sunday arvo was tightly shut apart from waterfront cafes. Finally found a place in a poorer quarter where a tiny market about the size of my cabin sold me cheap but indifferent beer in a plastic bag.

Clinked all the way home.

Definitely worthwhile shopping in some of the bigger places, such as Barcelona, to lay in a store. Terminal duty free shops can be hit and miss. The prices can be higher than ashore.

Shore-bought wine can be freely consumed with meals, by the way, so long as you order room service. Worth bringing a couple of wine glasses - there was only a couple of glass tumblers in our room.

Riviera has a big dent on the starboard side now. That might be a difference that lasts a while until Marina gets one too.

One last shot of people. The streets were picturesque and exciting, but people walked through it all with their heads in their phones, and the drivers likewise had one hand on the wheel and one hand for their phone. Sweet Jesus, what a place!

Back in the bus, down the coast, jump on the ferry, and tender out again. Some great cruise yacht had come in behind us, and she showed up Aurora's boxy lines. We have a great ship, but hardly a looker.

The road up to Genoa for our tour offered some spectacular views up the mountains and down the cliffs. We took the Autostrada, and that was much better, although there was some impressive engineering and tunnelling on display. Some great views over Genoa as we came in, but I didn't have my camera ready, instead we have a view of housing also with views.

We looked through three palazzi, all with some great art inside, but although that sort of stuff can excite me, it didn't, and taking pictures of pictures never gets any better than looking them up online. Let's just say that if you wanted to make a buck in Old Italy, you painted for the church or some wealthy patron.

People watching was much more fun!

Yeah, gypsy vendors all over the shop. You want to buy a pair of genuine Bay-Rans, this is the place.

George Clooney has a lot to answer for:

But the umbrellas - in many shades - really made the place:

Last full day of the cruise today. Our tour reads "Leisurely Cannes", but apparently there's some local festival going on, so it may be a little more frantic than advertised.

Yesterday we anchored off Portofino and tendered in.

A lovely but tiny place, with a road in so narrow and bent that tour buses weren't allowed in, so we had to take a ferry to get to the next town along.

Which gave me the opportunity to get some shots of the place.

The main street is the only street, running along the front. We were in constant danger, just walking along.

Stacked full of yachts, with charming little waterfront cafes and clubs. I'll bet this place rocks as the season progresses.

I got a tiny paper cut on my ring finger as we checked off the ship. The guy on the gangway spotted the blood - only a smear - and in the wink of an eye had pulled me aside, whipped out the first aid box, pulled on a rubber glove, wiped the area down and expertly applied a bandaid.

My self-help would have been to lick the affected area, apply a sterile wipe of my hankie, and stick it in my pocket out of sight.

Got to hand it to Oceania, they run very efficient ships.

(As a friend commented elsewhere, "Lucky you were docked, a medical evacuation can be expensive.")

I stumbled onto this post while looking to see how the enhanced internet was working. I see it is; thanks. And I'm loving your photos and posts. It's even better because I've been eyeing that same cruise for a year now. We were in Lanzarote and Santa Cruz de la Palma on another Oceania cruise (without Tenerife) and absolutely loved both places, especially Lanzarote and the volcanoes and park. If someone is looking for something to do and is adventuresome, I'd recommend renting a car at both places (Lanzarote to visit the volcanic park and more, and Santa Cruz). There is a great car rental place for both (CICar), and the roads were excellent. We also love Lisbon, and I want to visit Sintra if we get back there.

 

Thanks for doing such a great job with your narrative and photos! Glad you're enjoying the cruise and the O experience. We certainly do! (We're pretty much lifers."

Lanzarotte got a bit of a rap from the port presenter. Made it sound like a blasted wilderness full of dismal people inhabiting a desolate landscape.

I was inspired by the reality. The people have overcome any number of obstacles to create and maintain their environment. The blight of condos and resorts and advertising has been kept at bay here through some extraordinary efforts.

The national park has a road that curves tightly through some of the more interesting parts. Into a crater, along a collapsed lava tube, and so on. It is restricted to tourist coaches, and private cars forbidden. One lane with as little disturbance to the 280 year old lava beds as possible. The drivers have to be pretty good to keep a big vehicle on the narrow road, often with a steep drop on one side and a jagged rockface on the other.

The downside to Lanzarotte was that I went into town on a Sunday afternoon to buy some beer for my balcony drinks, and the place was pretty much closed up tight apart from cafes. Found a tiny market - about the size of my cabin - in the poorer part of town, and I clinked happily all the way back to the shuttle.

Great pics Pete. Hope you and K are coping with the cruise life, you know it is addictive.

I think at the high end or for specialised photography, photographers will select what they feel most comfortable with. Which, for old hands, will be DSLR unless there is a very good reason for change.

But for most photographers and new entrants to specialised and high end fields, why on earth would they change from mirrorless?

is there a charge for self laundry on the riviera, including soap.

The washers and dryers require tokens to operate, which cost SAD2 each. One token buys one wash or one drying cycle.

Token dispensers may be found in laundries, taking SA currency, or may be purchased from Reception or the various lounges.

The end of an excellent first day of a fresh cruise. Shopping and lunch in Barcelona in one of my favourite restaurants high on Montjuic with an amazing view.

Came back to the ship for a whole fresh group of cruisers. Average age has dropped about ten years, I think.

Cruise Critic Meet and Greet, ably organised by LindaB. We poked our noses in once we had stowed our lifejackets, but bailed out after a bit. A bottle of cava and a lot of walking had fair dome us in.

Sunset was spectacular:

…and the afterglow lit up the clouds above Spain beautifully:

Finished off - for we two at least - by a boisterous piano concert with a bit of jazz, five very talented musicians and a drummer. "There's a reason he's behind bullet-proof glass," I murmured to my wife.

No, just kidding, they were all fabulous.

Loving Oceania. They certainly run some very efficient ships.

Skyring,

 

Excellent commentary and pictures!

 

Please advise what camera you use. We currently need to upgrade and impressed with your photos!

Most kind.

My good camera is a Leica Q, and for everyday a Leica 109.

I heartily recommend using Lightroom and some presets, especially for making dark silhouettes into visible images. A little skill goes a long way in improving dodgy shots.