Kristal Blade

We were in Sirena in October for the northern cities tour. It was wonderful. The staff were great, service was excellent even if the supply of Villa Maria ran out. We didn’t want for anything! We took some wine on board with us, didn’t have time to drink it all! We enjoyed the team trivia every afternoon, made some new friends there. Food was delicious. We enjoyed the themed nights in the buffet a couple of times, staff there were wonderful, super keen to get you to try their particular speciality. We have been on 4 cruises this year, all with different lines (Cunard, HAL and Silverseas) Sirena was our favourite!

I take Kwells, you can dissolve them in your mouth and they are very fast acting. If your room is rocky in the day time make your way to the bar at the centre of the ship. On QM2 I have spent many hours in the Chart Room, nibbling dry toast.

We sail 23 October. Nothing for us yet. I rang Silversea yesterday and was told they would come from our TA so next call is to them.

I have just rung Silverseas and fully vaccinated passengers are no longer required to do a pre cruise Covid test. I had my 2nd booster today, husband last week so we are good to go! Happy holidays everyone

Well that was a bust. There was no up to date news about Covid testing, but I did find out that the residence of the Greek ambassador needs new curtains!

We are sailing on 23 October with Silverseas. Their website was updated on 10 October to say vaccinated passengers no longer needed a Covid test pre cruise, but they did not say if this applied world wide. I’m hoping Greece is included in this. Im thinking of checking out the Greek Embassy website. Will report back if I get a definitive answer!

I think there are 550 on board this current cruise. It hasn’t felt crowded at all. I have only been swimming once and I was on my own in the pool. Hot tubs are busier. Terrace cafe food has been very good at lunchtime and the German buffet dinner was fabulous. They did sushi one lunch and it was great. Some of the soup choices are a bit odd. Today it was salmon tamarind soup. I didn’t try it as I don’t like tamarind. The Caesar salad is excellent. Tossed to order and you can select what you want. I had it with no croutons and extra anchovies. Maybe that’s not what aficionados would call Caesar salad!

Definitely the wurst!

We are on board Sirena right now. We have got a 2nd Red Ginger reservation for tonight. Booked it this morning via the reservation desk on deck 5. If you are sharing a table you may be luckier with getting a 2nd booking, which is our case. I would agree about the soufflés in GDR. Delicious. We enjoyed the speciality German dinner in the buffet a couple of nights ago. It was so well done and so popular they did it again last night. They had all sorts of smoked fish, cold cuts, sausages, roast pork, red cabbage…. Yummy!

We are on this cruise too. I have to say I am enjoying the chocolate! I had a pain au chocolat yesterday and thought it was good. I’m sorry you aren’t enjoying it, Oskidunker, we all have different palates. Try the soufflé for dessert. Last night was limoncello and it was delicious. Today we did our own thing in Copenhagen, walked 6.5 miles around the city and loved it. We took an Oceania excursion in Zeebrugge, Bruges a mediaeval gem. Our guide was very good. He walked us round at a decent pace, we often had to trot to catch up as we were dawdling along enjoying the scenery. The trip included a canal cruise which was a bit dodgy because the boat “captain” forgot to tell us to duck for the low bridges, fortunately we all survived. We have a ship excursion in Oslo and another in Kristiansand. We normally do our own thing but we had 3 free each as part of our package. Service on board is fantastic, the staff are so friendly and willing to please. We have been able to book a second date at Red Ginger tonight. I think it helped that we wanted to dine with some new friends and a table for 4 works better for them. Our room stewards are lovely. They are cleaning ninjas who sneak in, tidy the room and deliver chocolates every night. We are in a outside cabin. The bed is super comfy but the bathroom is super small! For this 10 day trip it’s fine. It definitely beats being at home!

We are on Sirena right now. last night was our first night. We ate in the main dining room, found lots of good things on the menu and started a sharing table. We were quickly joined by 2 other couples and had a really good night of interesting chat. No boredom for us!

We cruise tomorrow and there are still lots of cabins available, just not the top price ones.

As a Scot I can tell you all are fabulous, but I am biased. Where do you dock? If it is Leith (Edinburgh) then you can catch a tram to Princess Street and walk (uphill) to the Royal Mile which takes you to the castle. Stirling will be a drive of maybe 45 mins away, the castle is steeped in history and sometimes in the summer months they have guides dressed in period costumes to tell you tales of life there in the time of Mary Queen of Scots. Scone Palace is just outside Perth. It is a longer drive, but you will see some lovely Scottish scenery and the Palace is beautiful too. Even more history of the Scottish royals there. If you go to Scone you might have time to drive past The Beech Hedge. The longest, highest beech tree hedge in the world. It is along little country roads through some pretty villages, but if you aren’t into trees you will be underwhelmed! Perthshire is known as the Big Tree county and has some gorgeous trees. I love trees, you might be able to tell, so a trip to Perthshire is joy for me. YMMV, ha ha.

Agreed, but we have still visited some new ports (to us) by this method. And yes, LH28, we do find some great discounts in the U.K. it’s not just Oceania who come up with great offers. A few years back we sailed from Singapore to Sydney on Ovation of the Seas for less then the business class airfare, which we were considering doing. It was 2 weeks of fun for us!

If you have time available and like a bargain; book late and get Olife Ultimate, all 3 free. We are about to go on our 3rd Oceania cruise and have always just checked over the cruises on offer and chosen one we like the sound of, get drink package, OBC and a few free excursions. Oh, this is a thing to do! Not a not do.

See you on board! Roads shouldn’t be too bad. Kids are back at school, a bit of Saturday traffic as we come into Portsmouth, maybe, but we should be on board in time for lunch.

Are you on Sirena? We checked in today too. We can drive to the port so I just picked a time I thought we could achieve without having to leave home too early. I’m hoping we won’t be held to our time too strictly, just in case of hold ups on the road.

We have just returned from a 7 day Alaska trip with our grandchildren, 8 and 11. The 8 year old girl made loads of friends in the pool, she was swimming every day and arranging to meet her chums regularly. The 11 year old boy didn’t find a buddy, but he had no trouble entertaining himself even though he rarely went to ClubHal. Thinking back, his main form of entertainment was eating at the Lido! He is a beanpole and definitely managed to get full value every meal. We used the games in the Crow’s Nest on some sea days. It was a lot of fun traveling with kids.

Sorry, Unfathomable, my finger fumbled on your name first time!

Hi U fathomable, We sail from Piraeus in October. We were intending to do video proctored tests the day before we left home. Are you saying that these tests are no longer valid? Will definitely buy you a drink on board!

Hope you are having a great time. We are loving our sea day today, such beautiful scenery plus whales and the grandkids are taking full advantage of the buffet!

Phew, thanks very much. Panic over. ger77, you are a star!

Hi, last minute panic. We board Zuiderdam today. Are hair straighteners allowed? Thanks for anyone who can reply fast!

I have just used VeriFLY for my flight to Vancouver. Very annoying! British Airlines wanted me to use the app to “speed up” check in. That would be fine if the app and BA actually talked to one another. I ended up entering the QR code of my Covid vaccine status 3 times until BA actually let me check in. VeriFLY also links to ArriveCan. I needed an ArriveCan verification number to add to my VeriFLY data. It is a major headache. I have started filling in VeriFLY for my HAL cruise on Wednesday but I have had to stop until I do my Covid test. All these new hoops to jump through are really turning us off cruising, fortunately our next cruise from U.K. to Northern European ports doesn’t require a Covid test and no VeriFLY. Good luck everyone!

Thanks, LHT28, this helps a lot. I now need to see what is free and if I fancy doing it. Or, even more importantly, does hubby fancy doing it! At least with European ports we know we can do lots of things independently. On previous Oceania cruises they have had really great local tourist info people come on board the ship to give out maps and provide tips for independent tourists. In Malaga we were told how to find a fabulous sherry bar that we would have walked right past if we hadn’t been told to check it out.