pinotlover

Trying to get one’s butler to get an extra reservation for 8 in a Specialty, with six of those not being in suites, is a push. Maybe at 9:00 pm! Of course, details from the OP, are slim. Probabilities of such on a 15+ day cruise is significantly higher than on a 7-14 day cruise.

A bit of both. According to the head wine steward on a recent cruise. All wines, beers, and liquor are bought out of the Miami office. It is literally unheard of for a ship to do any local procurement. The beverages are then shipped to Oceania/NCL’s major distribution hubs ( such as Miami, Lisbon, etc) where the ships routinely pass through and inventory replenished. If a ship runs out of a particular wine, it remains out until it gets back to one of those hubs. With this system most of the offerings are the same fleet wide. However, On the second part, sometimes Miami does make huge regional purchases when opportunities exist. An example of this was that the Nautica was in South Africa one winter, corporate got a huge deal on a variety of those wines, and the ship took on a huge cache! The other ships didn’t have those wines and Nautica passengers were left drinking them for months. Some were just plain bad and the burden wasn’t shared across the fleet.

Works only if you mostly enjoy drinking alone with your SO in the solitude of your cabin. We, OTH, enjoy meeting fellow cruisers and sharing experiences along with adult beverages. Almost never had a $0.00 bill. Even with a package I typically end up with corkage fees.

Best to split up. Unless yelling one could never hear the conversation from across the table. Even the few eight tops are bad about this. Do a group of 6 & 4, and just rotate around in the evenings.

Same thing happened to us in Sydney. Last time we ever tried to check in early and drop the bags!

ICT Lineman; Looks like we’ll be onboard together in BA next Monday. Don’t understand your comment about difficulty in bringing wine abroad on that cruise, especially the first 1/2. We are doing winery visits on day 2&3. Then again in the Casablanca Valley from San Antonio. Also Ushuaia produces cool weather wines such as Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. Then don’t forget the pisco!!! After leaving Lima, I agree, a wine desert! However, that 18 day leg is a new segment.

Actually, this is just the same issue discussed before told from a different angle. Our group of ten went to the Club last week for a four course Valentines Day dinner. We ate, drank, talked, and laughed for over 2.5 hours while being served the courses. Time flew bye. Do you realize the number of cruisers on Oceania that would find that a dreadful evening? We sat and had dinner over 2.5 hours!!! 😱😱!! Why do people have to talk during a meal?? Couldn’t they just eat and leave within 45 minutes?? We’ve watched people on two tops rarely, if ever, mutter a word during an entire meal. The issue here, for some, isn’t the number of courses, it’s all about the time spent during a meal.

Debt payments are mandatory. Escargot purchases aren’t.

Must be missing something. Cruisers constantly book grossly overpriced Oceania shore tours for the convenience. They don’t have to think much, but they still have to sign the ticket!! We were on a shorex that had both private and O people on the same tour. Only difference was a separate vehicle delivered us to the tour operator. Our costs - $150 ea. , O costs $350 each. We paid on the day of the tour, O shorex’s paid when booked. Our Upcoming Falkland’s tour is with the same operator doing the same tour as those booking it with O. Our costs $190 ea.- O price $365 each. Same deal, we pay on tour day, O bills when booked. For the convenience of booking with O and never reading a Roll Call, please calculate how many days of Prestige upgrade could be paid for in one day.

Some people’s primary purpose of cruising is eating. We do it for the ports, they do it to eat. Doesn’t bother me except when some are really wasteful. Order 4-5 courses and take a couple bites out of each course with the rest going to the garbage. Especially those ordering the giant steaks and always only taking a few bites.

If you can bring on booze at port stops, I’m sure you can bring aboard jams, jelly, etc. Might even be able to sample some local varieties instead of the mass production ship offerings. Eat local, what a concept!!

Marriott has options at Doral Country Club. Easy access from the airport. Lots of dining options. Great property to just stretch your legs and walk around or take a swim. They’ll give you a late check out option so one can enjoy the morning, miss Boardamania, schedule a van for the entire group for an under 30 minute arrival at the ship. We used them a couple years back before a departing on a dive trip. Everyone was very satisfied as arrivals from around the country came in on multiple schedules.

If the Marina ran out of Chilean sea bass, as previously reported, one of its most popular dishes, then it’s altogether reasonable that a particular ship might run out of cigarettes to sell. Absolutely nothing to do with policy. Just luck of the draw or poor planning.

I have often been glad to have the sports coat on/along. If I don’t need it, simply slip it off. However, there have been times I felt we were eating in the walk-in where they hang meat. My jacket and my DW’s sweater we carried in were a blessing.

We booked a class for our June cruise. Had to have our TA do it. The website was acting up and wouldn’t put the class in our cart. I’d website has been hugely problematic of late. Just logging in is sometimes difficult.

This issue is bigger than just this cruise. Those of us booked for the 2023-24 circumnavigation want to know if Oceania plans on taking 2 of our port days to do hull cleaning for the following cruise as they did this recent cruise. Since it’s a New Zealand issue, let those folks on the New Zealand cruise float around going nowhere while the hill gets cleared. Our cruise has plenty ( too many actually) sea days already and we don’t want more in order to facilitate a totally different cruise. Oceania has not addressed this issue as of yet.

Typically those port numbers include passengers and staff. So it sounds that with 750-780 staff you have only 700 passengers.

Pre Covid, I believe it was on one of our 2019 cruises, one of the OCA said that Oceania was considering going to an every other year ATW schedule because of the low response rate. O stopped sending the Marina to OZ and then the FP because they couldn’t fill a larger ship. We’re on the Riveria next spring for Japan. That cruise on Nautica sold out well in advance, the Riveria cruises have space galore. There are indeed issues with 180 day cruises, just not sure dedication of a larger ship would affect them. A number of past cruisers didn’t enjoy being a segmenter on an ATW. Those issues don’t disappear on a larger ship.O could indeed give it a try. Be surprised if it happens.

Oceania comes no where near filling a R ship on ATWs. Why would they dedicate a larger ship? Several of the segments don’t sell that well either!

The moral to this entire story is unless one is seasonally traveling when it’s daylight at 7:30, or any other time, there is no advantage to having a window view seat. In fact, the cons may outweigh the pros. FWIW, on our October cruise out of Bilboa it was pitch dark at 5:30.

Where did the spa credit come from? Oceania, TA, or a friend? Was the credit via Oceania or via the Spa operator? OBC can be used for any charges including gratuities ( gambling doesn’t count). Obviously a spa credit is different from OBC.

It’s the Pinotlover at Hotmail dot com.

I typically find the Happy Hour and various “ Reception “ pours to be a bit light. The regular bar pours, at other times, are decent pours.

If Riveria replaces Regatta’s schedule it will only get Regatta’s docking priority. My comments about massive tendering was based upon tendering of a 670 passenger ship versus an 1180 passenger ship.

Purely scheduling. Oceania is low on the totem pole of seniority and thus docking rights. All ship docking are based on that system. It happens both in the US and abroad. By coincidence, the August portdocking schedule of Riveria was not as overbooked as the Riveria August schedule.