Torquer

Which National Park or parks had the bad mosquitos? If I remember, the only one we will be in on our upcoming cruise is Tierra del Fuego. Thanks so much for your detailed blog and the great photos. It gave us lots of ideas on what to expect. Hope you get over your cough quickly and it is not covid.

Does anyone know if they have crutches in the medical center to either borrow or purchase? I am currently dealing with a foot injury and my doctor has me wearing a walking boot or crutches when I am not wearing that. It is improving, and hopefully I won't need either when our cruise begins next month. However, if the problem flares up again on the cruise, it would be good to know there will be a way for me to at least hobble around. I really hate to take my own folding crutches or walking boot along, since either takes up half a suitcase of space. Unfortunately, depending how I feel, we may have to scale back our port adventures.

You probably should ask this question on the MSC board on Cruise Critic. But I would think you would tip the crew members in the same currency that you are using for other onboard payments. So for your cruise, that would be US dollars. From the MSC website: For cruises in the Mediterranean, Northern Europe, Antilles, Dubai, the Emirates and Oman, as well as MSC Grand Voyages departing from Europe, the onboard currency is the Euro (€). For cruises in the Caribbean, South America and South Africa, as well as MSC Grand Voyages going to Europe and to Australia, the onboard currency is the US Dollar ($).The onboard currency for MSC Virtuosa summer season cruises through October 2023 will be the British Pound (£).

@NorbertsNieceNow that you have been to all 3 countries on the cruise, I want to ask about money. Do most stores and food vendors take credit cards? If not, do you use the local country currency or can you use US dollars? When we go to Europe we always get Euros or the country's currency from an ATM. However, for the South America/Antarctica cruise we have booked for next month, all the local tour companies only want to be paid in cash in US dollars. This makes me wonder if US dollars might be widely accepted, especially in Argentina after what just happened to their currency. Any advice would be helpful for our cruise.

Non-alcoholic drinks are free in the Pinnacle Suite; you still need to pay for alcoholic drinks. Plus the non-Pinnacle-class ships have a very large refrigerator and it seems like more variety of every thing in it. The Pinnacle-class ships have the small mini-fridge like other cabins, although as I said, the non-alcoholic drinks are free.

You definitely need to do your own research on this, and it takes time, but can be well worth it. As was suggested by others, go to the specific airline you are thinking of booking and see what they say about the different classes; then check out Seat Guru, and the Points Guy websites. Sometimes, you can get very close to the business class experience for the price of premium economy; SAS airlines comes to mind. In other cases, you will be paying a lot extra and not get much for your money.

Going back to the original question that was asked, hopefully without creating any more controversy...is there a different policy for the top suites (OS, VS, OC)? We have not cruised on O since before covid, and I don't ever recall having to wait to drop our carry-on bag in our suite, before going to lunch. Just want to know what to expect on our upcoming cruise and not violate any rules; we are staying in an Oceania Suite on this cruise.

I am resurrecting this old thread to ask another question about paying for shore excursions. We have only ever taken one O excursion in the past, since we prefer private tour companies, but on our next cruise we will be taking two O excursions; we will not have O-life or Simply more. I know it has to be paid for now with credit card when we book it, but when we get on board, would it be possible to switch the payment to use some of our OBC from our TA and as NCL stockholders? We have done this on another cruise line, and we want to know if we can do this on O.

@NorbertsNieceWhat website or app are you using that shows the ship's track over many hours or days? The ones we have used in the past only showed the current position of ships.

Just be sure that when you tell the room steward what you want your fridge stocked with, that it is one of the normal items that comes with the default setup. If it is something else, you will not get the Mariner discount. So for example, if you want a beer other than Heineken (the default on most ships for the mini-bar), they will be happy to stock it but you will not get the discount. Since Coke and Diet Coke are standard items, there will be no problem with those.

There are very few flights to/from Trieste; it is a small airport. You will almost certainly use the VCE airport. If using O, there will be bus transport to Trieste. As others have said, there are other options for getting from Venice to Trieste also.

We know fresh orange juice is included in the CO dining room and in the Pinnacle Grill for breakfast at no charge. It is interesting that you got it in the MDR for breakfast as part of HIA. Also see post #31 above from the OP where they say: "Yes, we did follow up with Guest Services and were told that fresh OJ anywhere on the ship was not covered under the drinks package we had." So it seems like HAL is being inconsistent across their fleet.

And more importantly, the asterisk says "not included from Gelato Juice bar." As we now learned from this thread, fresh orange juice is also not included with breakfast in the MDR. That seems so wrong to me that they are not clearly stating this.

This is really quite shocking. Did you ask them where this is documented in writing, so that someone who has a drink package would know this? To further complicate things, fresh OJ (i.e., not from concentrate) is served by default in the Club Orange dining room on Pinnacle Class ships and in the Pinnacle Grill for breakfast on other ships for suite guests. I seem to remember you can request OJ from concentrate if you don't like the pulp.

I thought they stopped making Segways 2-3 years ago. So I'm not how many tour operators would still have ones that are working. Of course, I could be all wrong about this.

I'm just curious why you don't want to give them your passport number. I have never heard of a scam or ID theft that involves a passport number, and I really keep up with these things. I'm not saying that you should give it to a tour company, but I just want to learn in case I am missing something.

I assume (hope) that is by your choice, rather than the stewards are not doing it. This topic has been discussed elsewhere, with a few people saying they weren't offered it, whereas most, think it is by the guests choice.

We have the same question, but are traveling on Oceania. We go to Europe a lot, and always get Euros or the local currency from an ATM in that country. The interesting thing about this trip to Chile, Argentina, and Uruguay is that all the private tours we have booked want cash in US dollars. We have also learned that these tour guides will happily accept tips in US dollars too. So we are now wondering if we even need foreign money here or if we can get by with credit cards and US dollars. We are certainly glad we didn't get Argentinian pesos prior to now, since the government just devalued them by less than half of their former value.

It may also depend the type of cabin or suite you are in. I know the top 3 levels of suites have real king-size beds that do not separate.

Which side of the bus was the "wrong side", the left or right? We are probably using a different tour company when we are in Montevideo in March, so it may not matter. Still it doesn't hurt to sit on the opposite side than you did in hopes of seeing more sites.

The interesting thing is that you can almost always find a better private tour than the one offered by HAL for less money. By better, I mean it sees an extra attraction, or it is longer duration than HAL's so more time to see things, or even a smaller number of people on the tour bus/van than HAL's. But because it is not exactly like HAL's I assume they will deny a claim.

@NJCoupleForFun Thanks for posting this very amusing and entertaining question...takes us away from the usual repetitive questions. I'm surprised no one asked you to post a photo of your fiance in her thong so we can just for ourselves. 😉

For suite guests there is no need to get a tender ticket...just show your room key. If in a Pinnacle Suite, you might get special service from the Neptune Lounge concierge. On our last cruise, she escorted us to the head of the line in the theater for the immigration check at our first port in the UK, which happened not to be a tender port. But then at South Queensferry UK, she took us down in a crew elevator to get to the front of the line at the ship's tenders.

Wonderful photos/info about the Evita museum. Unfortunately, I guess we will not get to see it on our upcoming cruise. When we disembark in BA, we have an 8-hour tour booked before taking us to the airport, but that museum is not on the itinerary.

The reply from @1985rz1 was to my question. To recap, we are staying in a top suite that includes 6 bottles of wine/liquor, and I asked if it is OK to take glasses of that wine to dinner. Obviously, there is no corkage fee since O provided the wine to us, and I never read anything that says this wine must be consumed while in our room. So I think it is technically OK to do this, but will we get dirty looks from people who think we are gaming the system by walking around with wine glasses that they think it is our personal wine we brought aboard the ship? If a crew member questions us, I guess we just shown them the color of our room card that shows we are staying in a suite, but it is kind of awkward. Previously, we just consumed this alcohol in our room, but what do other suite-passengers do?