avalong

15 hours ago, honmani2 said:

I have the same challenge with $2300 OBC per person for my upcoming cruise.  I can get the drink package and gratuities but other than that we can't see using the balance for spa treatments, dom dinners, etc.

 

Are there a lot of shops on board?  Maybe we'll just get overpriced stuff to bring home.

I have a humongous amount of obc on an upcoming cruise too, and actually thought I might do a bit of Christmas shopping for my daughters in the jewelry store. 

5 hours ago, pinotlover said:

Did you make the Orient during your military stint way back when?  There are a couple of things called Typhoon Season and Monsoon Season which make certain areas, during certain periods, as unattractive to cruise as the Baltic in December. China, meanwhile, will remain a huge question mark for any activities.

 

Oceania stopped sending Marina to the FP for the sole reason they were consistently running at 70 or so percent capacity. I would love for the OZ circumnavigation to be on an O or R ship. It’s all those in between segments O suffers with.

Oceania would have done better in FP if they hadn't insisted on being there during the rainiest/muggiest time of the year. I would roll my eyes at their FP itineraries every year.

7 minutes ago, remydiva said:

Sure! 
for Ireland we used “Ireland Chauffeur Travel “ ( not sure if we can post web links here) … together we planned itinerary and style , they booked all accommodation and we had same driver/guide for the full 10 days in a private Mercedes Sprinter van.

 

for Italy we used Dragonfly Tours. They too helped us plan itinerary based on our interests, time and budget. They booked all accommodation but we used fast trains to get from city to city. They arranged for driver to pick us up at train station and provided us with guides each day,

https://www.dragonflytours.net/

 

 

Thank you so much!

23 hours ago, remydiva said:

Agree with others this is an interesting thread!

here’s my two cents —/

just home from our 20 th Princess cruise of 4 th TA ( different ports each time) and feel we need a change.

 

As others said, not only has product changed over the years, but so have we as we age.

Too many people, too many lines, not enough enrichment opportunities, too many ‘health/ wellness ‘ promos (7-8 every day from acupuncture to teeth whitening) to push sales etc. The demographics in both age and ‘style’ has changed and eroded imho.

 

Princess Elite perks all but disappeared so staying for loyalty alone not the deciding factor.
Itinerary, shipboard experience, food and demographics of fellow passengers now more important.

We also have 2 RCCL, 3 Viking river cruises, 2 Uniworld river cruises and 4 land tours — two with private chauffeurs which were amazing.

So like others here, it’s time for a change and I will look into Oceania as a possible option.

I have Orkney Islands on my bucket list and see they have a cruise that includes that so it might be a good test run.

 

May I ask what company you used for your land tours, especially the privately chauffered ones?

1 hour ago, piper28 said:

Looking at doing our first Oceania cruise in July to Alaska, so I'm definitely interested in seeing how it will be.  We started cruising in 2006, on the Crown Princess tilt cruise, and in spite of that incident, found that we really did like cruising.  We also felt the way Princess treated us after that was very well handled, and at the time, the product fit our interests and our budgets.  We did a lot of cruising on Princess, I think we're around 22 or so cruises with them?  But of that, 140+ of those days were spent on the small R class ships.  We haven't actually been back on a Princess ship since the Christmas 2019 Pacific princess sailing (although we do have one scheduled for december).  As Princess has dropped their smaller ships, our interest in them has definitely started moving away from them, so it'll be interesting what I think of the december cruise.  I think prior to the shutdown, we'd only done 1 cruise that wasn't Princess, and that was a Royal Caribbean cruise on the Anthem.  (My parent's really like Royal, and we went with them.)  It was interesting, but not really my idea of what I want from a cruising experience, but I won't rule out going on them again (and have since).  I do think whoever programmed the elevators in their ships needs to be fired.

 

Since the pandemic, as we've started taking a few cruises, we started with a Crystal cruise shortly before they went under (second to last sailing I think), and definitely enjoyed that, but realistically, we took that because of some very good pricing offers, and I don't know that it would normally be something that fits our budget.  We then took a cruise on Wonder of the Seas, which even half empty reenforced our view that those monsters ships aren't really our thing if we have a choice in the matter.  Originally last summer we had planned 28 days on Princess' Island Princess doing a baltic then iceland cruise, but canceled that even before Russia caused problems because I was still leary of whether everything would be open enough to make it worth it, and instead were going to try our first Oceania cruise.   Day before we're supposed to leave for that, wife tests positive for Covid (with no symptoms, but very fast positive, that lasted a long time before she finally tested clear).  I ended up sick with it by a few days later, so it probably wasn't a false.  Wasn't too bad for me, basically ended up just being like a regular cold, but obviously we missed that cruise.  We ended up doing a quick jaunt on a Celebrity cruise just to get away for a few days.  Celebrity was interesting, but after now having done a couple cruises on them, I'm not entirely sure they quite know what they want to be as a cruise line - they're trying to project an image as being a step up from Royal, but I'm not convinced they hitting that mark.  They also far and away have been the worst cruise line to deal with for food allergies of any that we've dealt with.  Thankfully my wife's allergies aren't real serious, but if you had a serious food allergy problem then I honestly would advise against Celebrity based on my experience.

 

After that, decided we really wanted to try something different, and since it fit our schedule, we did an 11 day Windstar cruise on one of their sailing ships.   And quite frankly, that feeling of home we had when we first started with Princess was back.  I'm really looking forward to our next cruise (although not the flights too and from it).   The biggest problems for us with windstar is cost and convenience - depending on the cruise, it's definitely on the more expensive side of things for us (we're not exactly suite people on the mass market lines), and since my wife's a teacher, fitting cruises into her schedule can be a bit tough, especially with some of the flight routings required for it.  I'll be honest, there have been times when I really wish I'd booked the windstar cruise to alaska instead of the Oceania one we have booked.

 

So that brings us to now, just a couple months from our first Oceania one.  I'm hoping we'll get that same feeling of home.  I've wanted to try Oceania for quite a while, but part of it's been finding an itinerary that fit our schedule wasn't always easy, and part of it has been cost issues.   I fully admit that I'm going to be one of those down in the porthole oceanview rooms.  I know the R class ships aren't necessarily universally loved by the Oceania fans, but at least for us, it'll be a very familiar experience, so I'm probably willing to overlook some of the shortcomings that O fans that like the bigger ships point out.  If we decide we like it, I've already got my eye on an itinerary for Christmas 2024 that I think looks interesting, although there's a couple others that have some competition for it.  Unfortunately, also I think R class, making the other ships fit in our holiday schedule just seems to be tough.

 

I will say, things leading up to that first Oceania cruise, I do have mixed opinions.  There's a number of things that I think Oceania just needs to figure out how to do better.  One is definitely their IT.  I think it's a given that everyone complains about the IT department of whatever cruise line they're dealing with.  I've done enough now, that outside of maybe Windstar that is on the simplistic side of their IT interactions, Oceania is by far and away the absolute worst.  The simple fact that their website can't show proper pricing for excursions when you try to book them is a disgrace - and it's not like this is a new issue for them.  Of course, part of that stems from the fact that Oceania probably has the absolute most complicated fare structure for their cabins and then pricing structure for their excursions.  It's silly, and something they really should simplify.  And it's already been a pain on this coming cruise where they charged me the reduced rate for the YWC way of buying excursions, but then actually billed the account the other 25% of the cost for it to be paid when final payment was made.  Dealt with, but if they didn't make life so complicated, probably wouldn't have been needed.

 

So, overly long, and nobody probably made it to here.  Looking forward to trying Oceania, and from the outside in at least it looks like the type of thing we're looking for.  I'm just hoping it meets expectations.

I am both a Windstar and Oceania fan. I think you made a good decision to go with Oceania to Alaska. Windstar's little yachts just don't have enough indoor space for cool weather cruises. I absolutely love Windstar, but chose Oceania for Norway for this reason.

I would stay put too. My research showed that folks in cabins 221-222 through 230 could be bothered by folks lining up in the hallway waiting for the tenders.

Does anyone know how long this "extraordinary" promotion will last?

LHT28: You're probably wondering why the heck I was concerned about an early pick up if my flight is the next day. We're spending the night in Windsor and want as much time as possible to check it out.

The castle is closed that day (of course, our luck), but still.

19 minutes ago, LHT28 said:

Fingers  crossed

 I would not book p/u before 8 am though   that is just me  though 😉

 

What time is your flight?

No flight til the next day, so I've decided on a 9:00 am pick up. Just in case the authorities want to chit-chat. 🙂

6 minutes ago, LHT28 said:

maybe  it was the previous ports

We came from France  before  SOU

 But on other cruise  we had stopped in Falmouth before disembarking in Dover   that time  we were on the bus at 6:30 am  but it was many years ago

We'll be coming from Norway by way of Orkney. Maybe that Orkney stop will help us. 

10 minutes ago, cruisingxpert said:

No. I just walked off the ship. I used Smith Transport.  Unfortunately, they have closed down.

Thanks. Nothing that I've googled regarding disembarkation at Southampton mentions meeting with authorities, so maybe something weird/special was happening when LHT28 disembarked. 

8 minutes ago, cruisingxpert said:

In 2018, I had the driver waiting at the exit as I got off at 7:30am- I did self disembarkation because I had a Noon flt out of Heathrow.

Thank you. Did you have a face-to-face meeting with authorities like LHT28 did?

Thanks Lyn!

Hi Oceania people:

I want to arrange for a car to pick us up at Southampton port. The Marina comes in at 6:00 a.m. What do you think would be the earliest I could have the car pick us up? Thanks in advance.

I was interested to read about some of the posters here having a good experience calling Delta for help. I tried that and the person I dealt with seemed to be just barely literate. I actually wanted to have them book some flights for me because I had a few questions about routing and I needed to use some credits I'd gotten for cancelled flights during the pandemic. She was unable to remember dates, cities, etc etc. It was truly unbelievable. I terminated the call and made the reservations on-line. It took me an hour and several gray hairs, but I did it. Maybe that was her goal.

On 10/5/2021 at 8:56 AM, clairol said:

I do not have experience with this specific cabin, but we were in cabin 10083 on Marina in November 2019, which is similarly located to an elevator - take a look at floor plans for comparison. We were concerned about anticipated elevator noise. But I am happy to report that we heard no noise from the elevator. We were moved mid cruise to cabin 9065 and there was TONS of noise from the staff activities in the hallway. And for some reason neighboring guests, on both sides, seemed to take great joy in slamming doors... but that's another matter. 

I've just booked 10083 on Marina. Why did you move? Was there something wrong with it?

I was like you, somewhat concerned about the motion of the ocean on the sailing ships. We've sailed 3 times on them (2 Windsurf, 1 Windspirit) and it's the darndest thing: they're really stable. One of our Windsurf cruises went through a storm at night and it wasn't bad at all. We were on deck 1, midship, the only place I like to be!

6 hours ago, urlaub said:

Happy to leave Marina after more than 50 days! It is a very worn ship. Our AC didn‘t work and they couldn’t fix it! Hot in Brazil, cold in Antartica! The Balcony door didn‘t close! No chance for a repair. each 3rd day the same food on menu.

We are booked on Vista and will cancel. 

We know about we speak because we did more than 25 Cruises on Oceania! 
 

What was your cabin number? I'm booked on Marina this summer and want to be sure I have A/C. Thanks!

Looking forward to following along. Enjoy!

21 hours ago, flygod said:

The problem is life has been tough at the end of the pandemic and many people in Europe have decided to/had no alternative to holiday in Europe. 

When planning summer 2022 last autumn, the USA was still closed/still required vaccinations and expensive PCR tests. And the Far East is still a basket case. So people waited until the Spring to book, and went for things closer to home: ie Greece and the rest of the Med.

 

Cruise lines have adapted their schedules to where the market is too - not helped by the war in Ukraine!

 

Finally, the most crowded places are the most popular places - the places where people want to go, so the destinations the cruise lines want to advertise. 

Me, I have just come back from Greece - five wonderful days in Hydra, a car/scooter/bicycle free island where everything is carted around by donkeys and water taxis buzz round the port. Athens was then a zoo, you could walk on people's heads at the Acropolis!

I then had two days in Albania - the capital Tirana was an amazing place. A bit like East Berlin 40 years ago, but with avocado on toast! Not sure how else to describe it. But if Windstar said they were visiting Albania instead of "Game of Thrones" Dubrovnik in nearby Croatia, I'll bet they wouldn't get flooded with bookings.

 

Looking forward to my 18 days in Tahiti in 2023!

There are no BICYCLES in Hydra? Really? That seems extreme.

Yes! My husband and I rented a car on Bora Bora and had a great time touring the island.

I always like to check how many ships are going to be in port before I book a cruise. I have used cruisemapper.com, but I believe there are other sites. Mykonos and Santorini are problematic, that's for sure.

1 hour ago, ejohansen341970 said:

 

I prefer Roses as it has just enough sweetness for the gimlet, which I like on the rocks.  The drink is old school and was introduced to me by my dad who has one every day.  It's how we like it.  Have had the new version with fresh lime and it is a completely different taste and not to my liking.  I also like to drink vodka and soda with just a splash (less than a teaspoon) of Rose's, very refreshing and not nearly as strong as a Gimlet.

I had forgotten all about gimlets until this subject came up. I agree with you that Rose's just has a particular flavor that makes a gimlet a gimlet. Of course, fresh lime juice definitely has its place (I'm looking at you Margarita). A gimlet was the very first cocktail I ever had at the ripe old age of 18 at Simpson's in London. Purchased for me by my teetotaler father. Completely out of character for him. Good times!

6 hours ago, Cruisedreamer1 said:

Thanks for the help. I, on past O cruises just asked for a drink without specifying  brand or what else and was always disappointed in the quality of the drink. Now I know to be more discriminating.

The size of the drink is also disappointing. The martinis are the itsy-bitsiest little drinks I ever saw.

So very sorry to hear it Petoonya. I love reading your posts on the Windstar board. After I read your post about bringing a carry-on full of dog food for the starving dogs in Tahiti, I  decided you were my very favorite person on Cruise Critic. 

As you care for your husband be sure to take good care of yourself too.