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Thanks everyone.  thanks for the dining recommendation and love the pic PastaLaVistaBaby 

Jancruz, I will look at Air B and Bs and try to search for the one that you stayed at. Sounds great!

53 minutes ago, Jancruz said:

We stayed at a great Air B and B..next to a fabulous restaurant a block from the beach..and down the block from a coffee shop  where we had breakfast every morning..

Jancruz1

Thank you again everyone for these wonderful suggestions. 

Thank you everyone for your thoughts and ideas. And to Chateaunole-du- pape, we are also excited about this cruise! We had not thought of an Airbnb. That may be something to consider given the high rates in some of the hotels at this time of year (700 - 900 euros).

Thank you for these excellent suggestions.

To GeezerCouple, thank you for suggesting I search other locations on Cruise Critic. Indeed, the first place I looked was French ports, but a funny thing happens when you type in Nice hotels - you get a bevy of "nice" hotel posts (as in lovely hotels) LOL and no amount of maneuvering the search terms helped me isolate any recommendations - if there were any to begin with. But I had not thought of creating a topic post there. Will do!  Thank you. 

Traveling gurus,

We will be staying a few days in Nice France. Any recommendations for hotels? I have reviewed a few hotel websites, but I cannot tell whether it is better to stay at the beach (but looks to be further away from the action) or to stay in the city center. Would appreciate any advice. 

Catherine

Traveling gurus,

We will be staying a few days in Nice before we board our Regent cruise on June 3. Any recommendations for hotels? I have reviewed a few hotel websites, but I cannot tell whether it is better to stay at the beach (but looks to be further away from the action) or to stay in the city center. Would appreciate any advice. 

Catherine

How interesting. We have been in PH on both O and R ships. It was one of the first things I commented on when we saw our refurbished room on the Regatta this month. That and the shower door! No wait...and the plugs. Judging from Roothy's post, I guess some people liked it very much and will miss it. It was quite deep. I guess that means I just placed too many things on top of the table so it was annoying for me to remove them to get to the pop up drawer.

Catherine

I was on the same cruise as Frances and also loved our cruise. But gotta say the online cruise evaluation was a little difficult to complete.  First you need WiFi (you can guess where that was going) and second you need your confirmation number to complete the survey.  That took me a little time to find.  In the end, still very glad I completed it. Lots of raves and a couple of suggestions. 

Catherine

That is what we had – upper floor harbor view – and we loved it. We would have taken taxi or uber to the port (they are plentiful) because I am not the lightest packer and I would not have wanted to walk the streets with the luggage!  But as it turned out having the view of the port was a lifesaver for us as well!  I had assumed we were leaving from that port, and we woke with anticipation the morning we were to board to view our ship docked at the Quay only to see another cruise line’s ship in its place.  Doesn’t everyone dock at the Quay? Apparently not.  Our port was 15 minutes away.  Thankfully we had a view early in the morning that corrected my false assumption.  

Catherine

There is a hair dryer, and it is a pretty good one. But I am happy to report - at least in our cabins - the lift-up desk drawer has been removed. I say happy because I continually had to move items on the desk to get to it. In our cabin the hair dryer was in a drawer in the small closet below the safe.  The built in table now has a regular thin desk drawer.

A plug for Shangri La which is only a couple of blocks further up the hill and facing the water. It has outstanding views from the rooms facing the Harbor. 

We just returned from NZ and had one of the best tours in Hawkes Bay with The Winemaker's Tour.  It is a private tour that costs a little more than others, but it is well worth it.  Husband and wife who own a vineyard and family farm, extremely knowledgeable and personable. It was a full day -  We visited four wineries, ate lunch at a beautiful winery (cost separate), and were treated to tea and dessert in their home.  We could not have asked for a better experience!  They fill up quickly so doing research now is a plus.

Catherine

We just got off our cruise in Auckland.  I agree that you should pack for a variety of weather.  Weather was much cooler than we anticipated, but as posted previously, quite variable. On the cruise 14 days and only one day could have been bathing suit weather.  But two days prior to boarding in Sydney, it was 100 degrees. Thankfully that was the one time when my overpacking instincts helped me out!

Catherine 

nah, not even close.  There are still four drawers below the safe. So actually the safe is around waist level.  Now talk to me about a hotel I went to recently...  That safe was on the floor of the closet!   My only point in posting was to follow up on the earlier post which had a great observation about the poor placement of the safe in the closet. By the time we boarded a few months later, that had been changed.

Catherine

Oh darn. And I took a pic specially.  lThe shelf is in the same location as earlier poster’s pic, but just moving the safe to below the shelf made more accessible room for shirts and men’s pants folded over.  This closet is in addition to the full closet next to it.  

We like the changes very much in the rooms on Regatta. Just got off in Auckland this week. The new furniture and color scheme are lovely. No more annoying need to clear table top to get into desk drawer. Love the number of plugs and USB ports.  We also wondered whether there was better soundproofing because we did not hear next door’s bathrooms. And poster’s wish is their command!  They have repositioned the safe in the small closet to allow more hanging. Hopefully you can see the picture I took. 

thanks so much. Will do!

On 11/14/2019 at 2:39 PM, Chiliburn said:

We did a walking tour,it was only cheap and about 1.5 hours andThen the guide took up to a pub where we had a fantastic seafood lunch.

 Quite easy to DIY

Chiliburn, Can you share the walking tour that you took? We will be in Auckland in February and might like to do that. And thanks to all for suggesting Davenport.

On 11/12/2019 at 7:49 PM, possum52 said:

Do you know exactly where the tour starts and finishes Catherine? The tram from the end of the pier at Beacon Cove takes approximately 20 mins into the middle of the city. As long as the tour finishes on time, there shouldn't be a problem arriving back in time. A taxi should take a similar amount of time but because it will be peak (rush) hour, it is likely to take longer. All aboard is likely to be 5.30 pm if you are scheduled to sail at 6 pm.

 

This is a link to the tram timetable - just a reminder you will need a Myki card to travel on public transport. 

https://ptv-prod-timetables.s3.amazonaws.com/timetables/03109/all/ttpdf-vic-A-ttb-TIMINGPOINTS-03109--1573592301/timetable.pdf

 

Information about the Myki card -

https://www.ptv.vic.gov.au/tickets/myki

 

Leigh

thank you everyone for your replies. I appreciate the factoring in of traffic and logistics.  And Leigh, thank you for the important and fundamental question you raised  - where will our tour be starting out?  We have homework to do!

Does anyone know how far Melbourne city center is from where we dock? We are looking at a tour that goes from 1:30 to 4:30 in town.  Our ship leaves at 6:00 p.m., but I hate to cut it close and want to make sure that we would have plenty of time to make it back to the ship. 

Thanks 

Catherine

This is a great suggestion, not only for possible Napier recommendations but also for Auckland. We will be there for two days at the end of our cruise.

Thanks so much

Catherine

Thanks David for the follow up reply.  Appreciate it. 

Catherine

Thank you both for your responses.  We plan to do a private tour (Oceania tours are notoriously expensive).  Glad to hear that the region is among the best. Although we love wine, we are most familiar with California wines, so we are eager to learn about this region.  

Two local wine tours popped up in my research, but I glad to hear from David that we could just take taxis from one to another and not have to rely on an organized tour guide