su-arizona

The Sagrade Familia is the one thing you must see in Barcelona. We are awed every time we go there. Tickets are timed admission, and you can (and should) buy them online before you leave. You don't need a tour there - in fact this cathedral is probably best experienced alone. It is an amazing and very moving experience. You will need to take a cab from your hotel (which as I recall is near the old cathedral). The Boqueria market off Las Ramblas is an easy walk from your hotel, also worth seeing.

The HOHO bus in Barcelona is excellent - there are a couple routes which will take you to everything you need to see EXCEPT Sagrada Familia. The HOHO bus departs from Placa Catalunya at the top of Las Ramblas, also a short walk from your hotel. The Cathedral Barcelona (old Cathedral) is also a worthwhile sight, and is right across the plaza from your hotel. A good spot to see while jet lagged.

An easy way to get an overview of the main sights of Florence (or most anywhere in Europe) is to go to Rick Steves' web site and view episodes of his TV shows. He has one episode on Florence and another on other Tuscan cities (as I recall, Lucca is included). Not only does he give some background and history, but you also see locations, which can be very helpful when you're in an unfamiliar city. A fun way to prepare for your cruise stops.

I'd suggest you take a ship tour to Florence from Livorno. It's about 1.5 hours one way, and though the train is less expensive, I prefer knowing I will be back to the ship on time. I don't know the price of the SS excursions, but private tours to Florence from Livorno are not inexpensive. Florence is pedestrianized, and quite easy to do on your own, so we prefer a "Florence on your own" type excursion. The art in Florence at the Uffizi and Accademia is simply too much for a single day, and would leave little time to see all the stunning churches and the town itself. And the churches themselves are works of art full of art. You wouldn't want to miss the Duomo and Baptistry or Santa Croce, and when you tire of crowds Santa Maria Novella and the Boboli Gardens are much quieter.

No need to apologize when you were just trying to be helpful! Thanks!

Yes, using the 'print' function does print a list of your reservations. What I was requesting was that it print the daily calendar as formatted on the screen. The nicely formatted screen also shows the port, embark/debark times as well as dining (and presumably shore and spa, though I haven't booked any yet). It is a handy way to graphically view your entire itinerary by date and time in a short concise format. I also hand write my independently booked activities in the same calendar...which I print using the "print screen hack".:(

This is our first SS cruise, and I do like that shore excursions can be booked in advance, but are paid for onboard - especially since we have lots of OBC to use, and can pay for shore excursions with the OBC. On our last cruise, we had to have prepaid excursions refunded to us when the port was missed.

That being said, I've read a lot of negative comments on the quality of SS shore excursions. I've booked some private tours too, and it's really disappointing that there is so little participation/interaction from SS cruisers on Cruise Critic. Some of our very best excursions were those we set up in advance with others on CC roll calls.

Pvbgirl: We were in Bordeaux and Le Havre (for Normandy beaches) last fall on a cruise. Assuming SS docks in Bordeaux proper it is a very walkable city and also has a couple of HOHO bus lines. There are a number of expensive private tours of the Normandy beaches, but we rented a car and toured the ones that interested us on our own. Had a wonderful time, and the American Cemetery is easy to get to, park and tour on your own - the museum there is excellent and moving. I did a lengthy review/explanation on Trip Advisor with the details if you're interested in self-touring.

We are booked on our first SS cruise, but having cruised a number of times on Oceania I made reservations for the SS 'specialty' restaurants online as soon as they became available to us. I immediately booked La Terrazza for both formal nights on our cruise, then booked a few nights in The Grill as well. Cruises are leisurely travel for us, and after years of packing suits etc for business trips we have no interest in dragging them along on vacation. We usually dress up a bit for dinner, so a jacket and dressy pants/tops are fine. And we were happy to be able to make online reservations for the formal nights we choose to miss.

I'm not I understand why making restaurant reservations is inconsistent with a 'luxury' cruise....We've lived in many places, and reservations were usually necessary for fine dining restaurants. But not tuxes and formal dresses...

Thanks for the condolences...I did use the print screen hack, but I hoped maybe if I put a request in CC Silversea might be inspired to make it 'simple'. Sigh.

The "My Activities' section of the 'My Silversea" web interface is nicely formatted, and a handy way to quickly look over my itinerary.

But...Why is it impossible to simply PRINT it?

Silversea - are you listening? Some of us still like to have a printed page to carry along!

I've booked with SPB for our Silver Whisper cruise in August. Sadly, it seems Silversea cruisers don't participate in the Roll Calls in Cruise Critic often. Hope you will post here on your experience on the tours and the cruise in general.

We are also Oceania fans and are not looking forward to formal nights on the Silversea cruise we have booked. So 120 days before sail date, I went into 'My Silversea' and booked La Terrazza for both formal nights on our cruise. It's much like pre-booking the specialty restaurants on Oceania. There is a nice display under the My Activities tab where you can select 'Dining' for each day of the cruise and then select your restaurant. The Formal nights are shown on the left of the display under each date. We didn't pre-book Hot Rocks since I was also concerned about cool weather; hopefully we won't have any difficulty booking onboard.

We're looking forward to our cruise - hope the Silversea cruisers are as wonderful as those we've met on Oceania! Sadly, there is very little response to Silversea Roll Calls on Cruise Critic so I've not had the opportunity to meet other cruisers online.:confused:

The veranda cabins on Sirena are spacious enough for us - though the larger cabins on the O-class ships do tend to spoil you. The baths are quite small, however - I really missed the large O-class baths (especially the tub!).

I do bring the medicine cabinet with me, so a hanging cosmetic bag is an absolute must on Sirena. Hung on the hooks on the bathroom door, it makes storage so much easier, everything is easily visible in the hanging bag, and there's nothing rolling around on the vanity.

There has been lots and lots of discussion of the small shower and 'clingy curtain' already. The shower is small, but manageable for average size folks. It isn't that bad, but certainly not luxurious.

However, our Sirena voyage was enough to make me decide our next trip will not be on R-class ships.

We were not fans of Red Ginger on the O-class ships, but it became our favorite on Sirena. The room itself is beautiful on Sirena, but dark and cavernous (IMHO) on the O ships. The windows on Sirena help and the decor is gorgeous. Service was wonderful on all our Sirena visits and food was excellent.

Looked forward to Tuscan Steak, but we also did not enjoy the new limited menu. Not really the "best of both" in our opinion. We were also very disappointed in the Terrace Cafe. Service and food were both lacking. But we last cruised on Sirena in Sep-2016 so hopefully this has been corrected by now,

We purchased O PE upgrade for our last cruise and did deviation both pre and post cruise. The O $99 upgrade was substantially less than purchasing PE independently. On the regular economy O air, there's often very little difference in price if you book yourself or use O, but the same is not usually true of PE. Suggest you find the non-stop carrier you would like to use before booking through O - they tried several multi-stop routes for the PE before finally agreeing to the non-stop we wanted.

If you are interested in touring Pompeii from Rome, Rome Cabs offers a day long private trip to Pompeii from Rome. I haven't taken this trip, but have booked private transport with Rome Cabs many times and have always been very pleased. I've also had a small group (6 people) tour with Rome Cabs and that was excellent too. (Rome Cabs is a limo service BTW - not a taxi)

If you visit their web site, it will tell you that the driver is not a guide and will help you book a private guide for the tour.

My neighbor had a penthouse on what appears to have been a very popular Caribbean itinerary. She turned down a couple offers for OBC for changing to a different cruise. She finally was offered an upgrade to a Vista or Oceania suite plus OBC for changing to a different itinerary. She was also was offered the Owner's suite with no OBC. She decided to go for the new itinerary and Oceania suite on Riviera deck 11 stern (forget the suite number, but it was the one StanandJim said was their favorite).

I am green with envy...never happened to me!

We flew premium economy on Lufthansa using Oceania's upgrade this summer. Seating was in a separate section, and service was excellent. We paid the air deviation fee (always do, since we like to arrive a day or two early) and my TA had to do some negotiation to get us the Lufthansa PE...Oceania tried to route us through Atlanta on some US based carrier (probably Delta??) first, and the US carriers didn't have true PE at that time (maybe they still don't). But I was surprised that our Luftansa flights to and from Frankfurt were on a United aircraft and were true PE. Don't understand, but I saw the plane (sadly, we had to board from the tarmac in Frankfurt...)

Air France PE is super nice too. If you're going for the PE upgrade, suggest you try to use an international carrier.

We were on the Riviera several years ago when Oceania docked in an awful little town called Motril for Granada. The ship's tour of the Alhambra filled up very early on, and there was NOTHING - nothing to see, no car rentals in Motril.

Several folks got together to book an Alhambra tour with Spain Day Tours. There was such interest that we ended up with multiple buses full of cruisers (all signed up via Cruise Critic) to the Alhambra - at least three buses I think.

Spain Day Tours was excellent. The Alhambra has limited timed admissions, and this company provided admissions, nice buses, excellent service and a good walking tour of Granada in addition to the Alhambra. And they were able to add additional buses as the size of the group grew.

Highly recommend!

We sailed on Sirena this summer, and I posted a review which included our opinions on the restaurants. Most of the Sirena cruise reviews discuss the restaurant options, since they are different from the other ships. Suggest you check them out.

It's great to hear from all of you who have cruised this itinerary before. I really appreciate all your feedback and suggestions!

I'm trying to contact Sun's tours on Montserrat. I've also started a roll call on the Star Legend Roll Calls for the 07-Jan-2017 sailing, but haven't heard from any fellow cruisers yet. If you're on this sailing - please check in on the roll call!

Does anyone have any advice on the Culebra tours? There are quite a few independent tours listed on Trip Advisor - has anyone tried them??

Thanks again for all your help!

We have cruised several times on both Windstar and Oceania, and if you enjoy Windstar, you will enjoy Oceania.

Oceania sails a small ship (Regatta - max capacity 684 guests) to Alaska so it is more compatible in size to the Windstar ships. The food is excellent (better than Windstar, we think) service not quite as good as Windstar, but still very good. Prices are very comparable, although if you want airfare it is included in the Oceania cruise fares (though you can purchase cruise-only).

We have not cruised on Regent, the higher-priced sister to Oceania. It is all-inclusive, unlike Oceania or Windstar. We don't drink enough to make it worthwhile, and dislike butler service - not our thing. Regent is significantly more expensive than either Oceania or Windstar on standard type cabins.

If you are interested in comparisons of Regent vs Oceania, it's a much-debated topic on the Oceania boards.

We're cruising the San Juan itinerary in January.

SB44 - Can you please post the name of your private tour in Montserrat? We are really interested in this! Thanks!

Assume by alumni you mean Windstar Yacht Club members?

I booked a flash sale cruise last week, and was told by the Windstar reservation agent that the flash sale was not combinable with Yacht Club discount. We've now made final payment and did not received the YC discount.

If you did actually receive the discount on the flash sale, can you please reply so I can argue with Windstar with evidence?

Thanks!

We cruised on Star Pride soon after it was acquired by Windstar, and I was one of the negative reviewers. Although we have not cruised on Windstar since, I am considering cruising on Star Legend next year.

My primary complaints then regarded how poorly the ship had been renovated, and some of the areas that had received little (if any) renovation before our cruise. From what I can see of the newer renovations, all the areas of my main concerns have been re-thought and addressed on the 'newer' ships. So I'm willing to give the "Stars" another try.

If we do, you can be sure I'll write another review!

We were in a concierge veranda on Sirena last month, and storage space in the bath is very limited. There is a shelf below the sink, but it's quite small and the little triangular shelves above the head aren't real useful.

But a hanging cosmetics bag is a lifesaver! I've been carrying one with 4 compartments on my last 3 cruises, and on Sirena it was really a huge help. It hung from the hooks on the bath door, and I could see everything in it quickly. Just unzip a pocket, use the item and replace it in the pocket.

I don't know why I didn't discover it before - but BUY ONE!

PS: The second hairdryer on Sirena was large and heavier (probably older) than the one in Jim and Stan's photo. It also caught on fire (literally) about halfway thru the cruise...kinda exciting...