jeffrub

On the 10 day, forget Cayo Levantado, it is a mess. Horrible.

 

On the 12 day, there are great ports. I love Barbados too.

+1 I agree with Carol.

We have been too all of the ports on your 2 itineraries and the 12 day one sounds like a winner.

$25 for each bottle.

The posters here advising you not to get off the ship on Cayo Levantado are not steering you wrong. We visited there a few weeks ago when Riviera stopped there, and took the tender over to the Island. As soon as you disembark and try to walk over to the beach, you encounter a row of local merchants looking to sell their worthless trinkets. We walked to the beach to find a crowded scene that to us was very unappealing. In many ways (being from New York) the scene there reminded us of something that one might find in a public park in the South Bronx. We made a U-turn and tried to get into the resort that occupies the other half of the island, and were turned away by security who told us that it was only open to guests of the resort. Our next move was to get right back on the tender and spend a lovely day back onboard. So our advice is to skip the round trip tender ride and just enjoy your day on Riviera.

During the next to last night theater performance on Riviera last week, where the crew is introduced and applauded, Leslie Jon announced that he was leaving Riviera after our cruise. He did not indicate whether or not he was leaving Oceania, but it was clear that he was not going to be on Riviera anymore.

I just read an article on the Cruise Critic website about this. The article lists each cruise line and then has details on what you can bring on board. For Oceania it states 3 bottles of wine maximum - anything else they will confiscate and return to you at the end of the cruise.

 

 

 

 

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I do not know what the article said, but I can tell you that I personally carried on 6 bottles of wine two weeks ago on the Riviera without any problem. The security people looked in the bag and said nothing. So I suspect that what is written and what is reality may be different.

We just got off Riviera today and this past weekend 2 out of the 4 NFL playoff games were shown on ESPN international channel. Why the other 2 were not shown I have no idea. However, for those of you that have no interest in football you can rest easy knowing that you can watch Jacques Pepin prepare numerous culinary treats 24 hours a day, or watch any of the other 13 Oceania channels talking about port shopping, dining in Privee, or future cruise intineraries ad infinitum instead.:eek:

BUT they did cut BOTH TSA locks on our golf bags last February - I was really annoyed as those locks are expensive. And really! Golf clubs? Couldn't they see from the x-Ray that they really were clubs???

Being a golfer myself, I think I understand why they cut the locks. Speaking from my own experience, I know the way that I swing a 3 iron it can be considered a dangerous weapon, and the TSA would be doing me a great service if they just confiscated it. :D

So, Jeff. Since we leave from Barcelona in 2 weeks what suggestions would you have for picking up some bottles there before boarding. I'm a little weak on my knowledge of Spanish wines.

It would take me too long to give you a list of wines to pick up in Spain, so I have a better idea. Just take me with you and I will personally pick out some good Riojas for you.

Back to the OP's question - Wine Prices. This post applies to those folks who like a "good" wine with meals. It does not apply to hondorner;)

 

We are just off a 20 day Nautica cruise. As stated the prices of wine on board are more or less comparable with a decent restaurant, perhaps a bit higher. That is to say, expensive :eek:. Because we are dining "out" we drink a lot more wine when we are cruising that we do at home. We do not normally dine out 20 nights in a row. So, it can get real costly over the length of the cruise especially if you tend to like the $80-120 bottles (that you can buy for $20-30 at home.)

 

In addition the selection of wine is pretty limited. This is OK in a restaurant because you are only there one night and can find something acceptable for that meal. If you eat in that restaurant for 20 consecutive nights you are going to run out of things you like or you are going to drink a lot of the same wine

 

It follows that we bring a lot of wine onboard with us. On this last cruise we found excellent buys on wine in England prior to boarding (really good prices on NZ reds and whites and on French wines). We also bought a couple of bottles in Norway (no tax in Spitsbergen). The bottom line is that even with the corkage fee we ended up paying around half (less on the more expensive wines) what we would have to get the same bottle of wine from the ship assuming they had it, which they did not. In addition we enjoyed a variety of wines we would not normally see.

 

Robbie the wino:cool:

Thanks Robbie for getting back on point here. We do like a good bottle of wine with dinner as well, and Two Buck Chuck just is not going to cut it for us. I found the discounted wine sale on embarkation day very helpful on our last 2 Riviera cruises, and I was disappointed to learn that it has been discontinued. Perhaps when they realize that more and more people will be bringing wine on with them, they will bring the sale back. In the mean time I guess I will be shopping for wine the day before our upcoming cruise to carry on with us. I just wish that were leaving from Spain, Italy or France, not Miami. :eek:

Pay the $25 corkage and you get to bring what you want to drink. In general the markups are 3 to 4X retail US prices and that is without the 18% serving fee.

I understand the $25 corkage, and I am fine with doing that. I was just curious about the wine list because shopping for wine to bring on board when we fly in the day before the cruise is not what I want to do unless I feel that it is the best option. Someone must have a copy of the wine list with bottle prices on it (he said hopefully).

I know that there have been numerous threads about wine and liquor packages on Oceania, and I have seen prices of wines by the glass posted. I have even seen a wine list posted, but it did not show the bottle prices. Does anyone have an actual recent Oceania wine list with prices that they are willing to share?

With the recent suspension of the wine sale on board, I am trying to decide whether it is worth it to carry a few bottles on and pay the corkage or just bite the bullet and buy the bottles in the restaurant.