Buckwheel

I am currently on a bus headed to NA in FLL with a group of 33 neighbors and friends. We are from The Villages, FL and are excited to go on our first ever neighborhood cruise after living here for 14 years!!

I love seeing the wildlife and you take excellent pictures of them. Those acorn woodpeckers are such a joy to watch. There are some that live near our son and daughter-in-law‘s place and it’s fun to watch them squirrel away the acorns.

We always play by house rules. With so many different variations, that seems easiest.

Thank you for taking time to write a thorough comparison. My husband and took our one and only Oceania cruise earlier this year on their Nautica ship. Their food lacked in many areas. The one and only piece of fish I had cooked properly was prepared by their executive chef after I gave him an honest answer when he asked about our meal one evening. Since I was almost finished, he asked me to request him next time I wanted fish. A couple of days later I decided to take him up on his offer. He came out to our table, we had a quick conversation and before you know it, I had a perfectly cooked piece of swordfish. Talking with other frequent Oceania cruisers, they kept referring to our cruise as being "one off" meaning it wasn't what they had experienced on their previous Oceania cruises. We've taken one Viking Ocean and one Viking Expedition cruise and both of those cruises had far superior food. A couple more plusses for Viking are their heated bathroom floors and their spa is quite lovely as well.

We had a similar experience with Air Plus/deviation and "free air" recently. In order not to pay a deviation fee Viking requires passengers to arrive the date of their embarkation. We've learned when from the US to Europe with a connecting flight, delays and cancellations can happen. Thus, it is our practice to arrive at least a day early, giving us extra insurance in case of flight delays or cancellations. Our deviation/Air Plus fees were just under what we would have paid to purchase tickets on our own. We likely will not ever use Viking's "free air" again. Free air sounds good and probably lures people in; realistically it's not much of a benefit. It would be nice if Viking offered a discount in lieu of not using their "free air" which isn't free unless you want to risk not arriving on time.

Hello, My husband and I are intrigued with your Seven River Journey itineraries. Do you have plans for a Fall of 2024 Seven River Journey and, if so, when do you plan on releasing them? We've never been on a river cruise and thought this might be a fantastic way to have an introduction. Julie

We have an Xploration Galapagos cruise scheduled for October 2023

Just finishing up a Tokyo to Tokyo cruise March 23, 2023-April 2, 2023. Here is a list of all ports where we had shuttles: Kyoto 3/25/23 - arrived at port 12:00 noon for overnight. Bus service ran first evening 7pm-11pm 3/27 Hiroshima - all day 3/28 Busan - all day 3/30 Hososhima - all day 3/31 Kochi - all day 4/1 Shimizu - all day

Reduced port hours announced in “Sail & Sustainability” program: Nagasaki and Shinzo, both arriving to port one hour later. Unannounced early departures so far; Kyoto - 1 hour Hiroshima - 90 minutes We still have 4 ports to go.

A later arrival in Nagoya where we had a tour operator waiting for us. Thankfully he did wait and we were able to enjoy the rest of our tour. Kyoto - Our tour operator notified us about the change about a week ahead of time. Thankfully we were in port overnight so adjusted our schedule to meet our guide at 7 am instead of 8. Leaving Hiroshima 90 minutes early did not affect us as we were taking an O excursion that day.

I am currently on Nautica. Prior to our cruise we received a “Sail & Sustain” email reducing time at two of our nine ports. Since we’ve been on the cruise three additional port times have been reduced with only one announcement made ahead of time. And by ahead of time, I literally mean the morning we were supposed to dock at an earlier time, they announced we would be arriving an hour later due to the port contacting them and advising them the port was too congested. It’s plausible this port reduction was unavoidable. We found out about one of the reduced port stays from an independent tour operator who contacted us to rearrange our tour schedule after seeing that Nautica was leaving an hour earlier than planned. We found out about the second reduced port stay by reading our port schedule in Currents. As I mentioned earlier, we are still on this cruise and so far, 5 of our 9 ports have had reductions of time spent in port. This is our first Oceania cruise and most likely our last.

Is Oceania going to continue to advertise itineraries with ports including their arrival and departure times? If so, will Oceania continue to "optimize arrival and departure times" after guests have booked their cruises claiming it's part of their Sail & Sustain? Why not be up front by advertising fewer ports and shorter hours at the ports in the first place?

I agree with you completely. What seems like a sham is Oceania advertising one product then delivering another. Everyone knows it saves money to reduce port stops and times. IMHO, Oceania would have more support if they had accurate port stops and schedules when they released cruise itineraries. Routinely changing schedules down the road, including sometimes after final payment is fraudulent. Of course, they are unable to predict weather. If a port must be skipped due to extreme weather that is the correct decision to keep safety in the forefront.

I received an email this morning from a tour operator who we had booked an excursion with asking me to change plans due to Oceania reducing our port time by one hour. We received an email 1/13/23 advising of reduced port times as part of their Sail and Sustain that listed two ports which were affected. After receiving my email from our tour operator this morning I checked CruiseMapper and confirmed not only was our tour operator correct about a reduced time in their port but there was another port where Oceania is leaving early. Our cruise embarks March 23, 2023. Oceania should have enough courtesy to notify passengers each and every time there is a port change. Continually reducing port times after advertising port stops and hours coupled with not notifying passengers is unethical. At this point we have four of eight ports with reduced port times! We were looking forward to our first time cruising with Oceania and if this is how they choose to operate we will make our choice to not stick with them.

We purchased some tea towels with a cartoonish poster image of our state and some reusable Trader Joe's bags. Did you wrap yours? A wrapped gift is likely not to look very good after traveling that far in my suitcase. However, everything I've read is that in Japan, wrapping a gift is almost as important as the gift itself. I'm thinking of bringing some ribbon so I can at least put a ribbon with a bow around the gifts. What is your experience with gift wrapping?