Would like to hear about your trip Nautica 25/11/07 Rome to Singapore

:)

ATTN: Lahore,StingrayNZ,UB&AS, and others on this cruise.

We are booked for Nov/08 sailing. How did you find the weather in Rome that time of year, do we need heavy sweaters/blazer? Which limo service did you use, and did anyone go directly from the airport to the ship?

Did anyone experience anything that you can give an advise on what to do or not to do, such as: side trips that you should have taken or not have taken. Lahore, I read about your comment regarding the cabanas, I think I will take your advise not to reserve one.

I would really appreciate your comments and advises.

Thanks

hi Cruzagain

Don't worry on my part - I am working on a photographic review - didn't want to try to emulate Jack, and was just going to post some photos for each port and write a tiny amount. It's being prepared at the moment. Will get back to you soon. I know Singraynz and group (there are three of them) are still travelling (lucky things).

Get back to you shortly, and thanks for asking.

Hi Lahore,

Looking forward to it. Greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Got a few spare minutes so will post some thoughts and answers to your questions.

Firstly we had two weeks in Italy prior to boarding. We arrived on November 12th and stayed in Rome for a week, then spent a week in Sorrento. In rome we stayed at the River Chateau and in Sorrento at the Grand Hotel Excelsior Vittoria. Reviews of both hotels by me are available at http://www.tripadvisor.com/members/Austrahlian (both hotels were excellent, but for different reasons).

The first week in Rome was REALLY cold and REALLY wet. We used all our backpacking cold-weather gear (e.g. Goretex) and often had it all on at once - e.g., 5 layers in my case. The benefits though were that we got into the Vatican without any queue at all and most things in Rome were not booked out or horribly crowded. The weather improved in Sorrento and we had a nice time going down the Amalfi, over to Naples, a day in Pompeii which was fabulous. We did all this by public transport. Train to Sorrento, public bus to Amalfi, public ferry to Naples and train back, train to Pompeii. No problems at all. To get to Civitavechhia we shared a van with five other cruisers whom we met on this board. See our planning thread for John (the man from London Canada who organised it) - he might have their contact details, I don't. It cost us a bout 26 Euro each and was just fine.

Here are my photos from Italy which hopefull tell their own story:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=12348&l=34592&id=546233662

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=12854&l=71c23&id=546233662

Jon and I didn't do anything much in Sicily. Being a volcano freak, I got up early to see us cruise past Stromboli, but we were about 10k away and it was difficult to see much. There was some minor smoke emission but that's about it. When we got to Sicily it was still quite cool and it was too late in the day to go to Etna so we just wandered around the town. The Basilica is a stunner. We went to submit our tax rebate form. Apart from that everything in town was shut for midday to 4pm, so we waited until we could buy some soft drink and then got back onboard. It was quite cold and cloudy so I don't regret not having gone to Taormina. If I hadn't spent two weeks in Italy i might have made the effort.

Visas: YES you have to have an Egyptian visa. If you board without one, you will be forced to pay for one whether you plan to disembark in Egypt or not. This definitely happened to one of the people we became friendly with.

Tour guides: Egypt was the only country in which we employed a professional tour guide. Now I know why I don't use them. The 'guide' wanted to take us to a range of places that would pay her commission (e.g. papyrus factory, cotton factory etc etc). This despite the fact that I had done a lot of research and knew exactly where we wanted to go and that had been agreed online before we departed. It got a bit nasty for the first ten minutes - she was determined - but we finally go what we wanted. The company was DeCastro.

Convoy: the convoy thing is unaviodable...sort of. On the way in to Cairo, I need to pee (that was predictable)! We stopped at a garage (gas station) and I used the loo. At that stage we left the convoy and we didn't rejoin it. Go figure.... On the way back we were returning independently, but we encountered a convoy going back to a Princess ship and they forced us to join the convoy. So if you are a white person and there is a convoy about you will be forced to join it, but if there isn't you can do what you like, apparently.

Cairo: Cairo traffic is beyond belief. Take the worst traffic you have ever imagined, and triple it. It takes a very long time to get anywhere and do anything. Hopefull these photos tell some more of the story - mostly good:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=15780&l=45ed3&id=546233662

Suez Canal: I hope you don't REALLY want to see the Suez, because we didn't get to see it despite going through it. The ship departed Port Said at 2.00 a.m., so it was obvious that we were going to miss the first part of it. By the time I got out of bed we were bobbing about in the great bitter lake, and the 'cruise director' kept trying to convince us that we woudl soon be seeing the second part of the canal, but given that the last announcement was made at about 5pm, just before dark, we didn't buy that at all. The excuse given was that the US Navy took prededence - and they were certainly there en masse. Bummer for us though.

Safaga: After our tour experience in Cairo I was SO glad that we had elected not to go to Luxor. We really like to do our own thing. We hired a taxi up to Hurghada at about 4pm, when it was cooling down. It cost us about USD $50 there and back. There is much to do and see in Hurghada, nothing much at all in Safaga. See photos:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=15860&l=8361a&id=546233662

Oh man, Oman was our favourite place!

Tours: I had organised a taxi driver in both Salalah and Muscat. I got their phone numbers and email addresses from the lonely planet website 'thorn tree'. Both cost us about UAD$40 for the day. In Muscat the driver had met a lovely young Italian backpacker who was learning Arabic and asked if she could come with us. Of course we said yes, so there were four of us on that trip. Both taxis were comfortable, aircon and both drivers spoke great English and were so hospitable.

In Salalah, again, we got in on a Friday and the markets were about to close for the afternoon (a pattern), so we went to the souq first and bought some lovely Omani head scarves and some frankinsence. We then went on a drive through desert country up into the hills, went to a beautiful area where there was a river and then went to the fishing town of Mirbat.

In Muscat we went to the Grand Mosque first (because it closed at 11 am). Yes women need to be COMPLETELY covered, No capri pants won't pass muster. Then we went to Nakhl fort which was stunning too. After that we went to a gorgeous hot spring. The road to the hot spring was being dug up, so we had to walk along a parapet to get there. It was well worth it. By the time you get there it shouldn't be a problem. Don't go down in front of the spring area on the rocks, because Jon did and fell in - slippery rocks

The pictures are worth a thousand words here:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=15701&l=09849&id=546233662

OK, that's enough for tonight, Dubai, India and Thailand to come.

Lyn,

Fabulous photos. Oman certainly looks to be a wonderful place to visit.

Were you issued with a visa on arrival in Oman as I cannot find anywhere here to get a visa. We are going off to the Indian Consulate next week for our 1st visa, then we have Egypt, Jordan and Vietnam.

Jennie

HI Lyn,

Oman looks wonderful.

Can you please post the contact info. for Mohammed & Mahmoud? How long was your time with each?

Did the $40 uad include entry fees? About how much were they to the Mosque, Fort & Mineral springs?

Did you or Jon swim at Mirbat beach? Looks very inviting.

Thank you and looking forward to Dubai, India & Thailand.

Joanne,

Hi Jennie

We didn't buy an Omani Visa before we went and there was no 'rigmarole' waiting for the ship to be cleared in Oman. When we got our passports back there were Omani stamps in them, but no Visa. In short, don't worry about Oman. Do certainly get the others, I have personal experience with all of them expect Jordan and know you absolutely need them.

Joanne: Mohammed in Salalah's email addie is: struggler99@hotmail.com; and Mahmoud's is mahmood_7081@yahoo.com. It's important for me to stress that both are local taxi drivers, not professional tour guides. I like this because it gives some money to the local community, but you need to be aware that it's not the glitzy tour variety. I researched and knew where I wanted to go, and they took me there - with a few personal recommendations that worked out well in both cases. We paid them both about USD$40 and then a little extra as a tip of course. Add to that the fact that neither of them would let us pay for anything - Omani's are very very keen to show the hospitality of their country. There is no charge for the Grand Mosque or mineral springs. There was a charge for the fort but Mahmoud paid and wouldn't let us pay. We didn't swim at Mirbat beach because we didin't bring bathers. I don't know how that would go for a woman - I would probably not have felt comfortable swimming on a public beach there because of Muslim sensibilities. Beaches outside hotels (e.g., the gorgeous Shangri-la) are an entirely different situation and I would have definitely had a dip there had I been prepared.

Hi again all. OK, Dubai - We had two days in Dubai. The first day Jon had a migraine so I went ashore alone. I shared a taxi with two crew members to the Mall of the Emirates. That is amazing; both seeing the juxtaposition of cultures and the fact that the thing has in indoor ski slope in it. You go out the back of the Mall and there is a musical fountain. Behind that all the shuttle buses go to various hotels. I hopped on one to the Madinat Jumeirah (spelling?) so got there for no cost. From the hotel I walked around to the local public beach to get some photos of the Burj. Many people on Nautica paid a lot to go to the Burj for breakfast, morning tea etc. Several said they didn't think it was worth it. You can do a tour of the Burj on youtube (:p ) so I was quite happy to take photos of it form the beach. OK, so up until then I had spent almost nothing. I decided to go see the gold souq. I walked back up to the road from the beach and along came a public bus with 'gold souq' clearly marked on it, so on I hopped. This was really neat - the bus was completely clean and there is a section at the front for women where men are not allowed, no matter how crowded it is up the back. So I got off at the Gold Souq. My very cheap day then suddenly did an about face and I dropped about $500 in the gold souq within an hour. Then I hopped on an abra (public flat bottomed boat) and went back across the Dubai river. From there I got a taxi back to the port. I had been out for about 12 hours and got back about 10.30 pm. It was a great day. Jon was better the next day so I basically took him where I had been. Unfortunately I lost a lot of the photos of Dubai Creek, I am hoping some might be on a memory stick that is in a box on it's way back from Singapore. What I do have are here:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=15779&l=8a767&id=546233662

Lyn,

Thanks for the info regarding Visas. Did you take malaria tablets in India or did you just use lots of Rid or other types of repellent?

We will be spending 3 days in Dubai on our way home from Athens so I was very interested in what you did on the two days there. Obviously the Gold Souk is a must though I don't think that Peter will be too happy about visiting that particular market!

Jennie

Hi Jennie

No, to be totally honest, we were totally slack when it came to considering Malaria. Some friends found a mozzie in their cabin after Kerala so they were definitely about. Jon and I didn't do anything about it to be honest though.

India to come...

Cheers

Lyn

Hi again everyone.

Mumbai: We were quite emotional to arrive in India at last. Jon and I have twice tried to go visit the home of so many of our friends; the first time we had to cancel because we were going via Nepal and there was a lot of Maoist strife so we left it until the next year, and the next year we actually flew out of Australia and I got sick as anything in Hong Kong so we had to stay there ten days, then come home. It seemed like we were not destined to get to India. So when we finally docked in Mumbai, to the band playing at the dock, we were both at the railing with lumps in our throats and tears in our eyes. Finally!

We booked a guide and driver, again found through lonelyplanet. This time he was a tour company, but couldn't have been less like the ripoff merchants in Egypt. The cultured, generous and knowledgeable Mr Kamliesh took us everywhere I had wanted to go. I suspect we were the only people on Nautica who made a highlight out of eating Bhel Puri on Chowpatty beach, but this was something I had always wanted to do. We followed it up with a kulfi at a nearby stall. Kamliesh said he had been eating at both since he was small and promised we wouldn't get ill - and we certainly didn't. It was so good to taste the real local food. Like in Oman, Kamleish paid and wouldn't hear of us paying. The price was tiny but that's not the point at all. Apart from the bhelpuri-on-Chowpatty highlight, we also visited two temples - the Mahalaxsmi and Siddhi Vinayagar (I have Hindu leanings, so others might not have been so interested, in fact Jon waited outside at one), we visited the 'hanging gardens', the dhobi ghats, Ghandiji's house, the Kashmiri Government Emporium, Mumbai University, the main train station (both have stunning architecure), India Gate and the Taj hotel (well its toilets anyway). What a fabulous day. If anyone wants Kamleish's contact details I can give them, but am not sure if that would break board rules so you best ask me for them.

Here, as usual, are the photos:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=15861&l=92dd2&id=546233662

I like the one of the boys on the beach best.

Lyn,

Again wonderful photos. I too loved the photo of those delightful boys with the wonderful smiles.

I hope we get to see the Dhobi Ghats when we are in Mumbai. I have always wanted to see how they do all that washing. We will only be there for such a short while as we are going to Agra for a couple of days from Goa and we return to the ship at Mumbai, so we only get a short sightseeing trip. Still we are lucky to even be having that.

Jennie

Hi again Jennie

Do you know Nautica is in Melbourne today?

The dhobi gauts are absolutely fascinating, and it doesn't take long to go have a look, so I hope you can.

On our cruise, the trip Mumbai - Taj - Kochin was delayed at mumbai airport for 6 HOURS, and at the prices charged my GOD did I hear some complaining. I suggest that you speak to Adam in the destination services section when you get on board and find out if they have a new charter company and what they have done to avoid a recurrence of that problem. They said they were going to (use a different air charter company). Also, be aware that there is a predictable fog at Agra each day (or there was at the time of year we were there) which can delay planes. The ship was an hour late in, and destination services knew this would be a problem yet people weren't told and the tour still went ahead. I knew this BEFORE we got to Mumbai so I am surpised that apparently dest. services didn't (I suspect that they did know). People still got to see the Taj but one or two I overhead complaining at great length afterwards.

Lyn,

First of all thanks for letting me know that the Nautica is here today. What a beautiful day for them all. We may leave early and go down and see her on our way to the MTC. this afternoon for a 4pm play.

Secondly, thanks for alerting me to what can go wrong. Six hours is a long delay. I do know that when we were in S.A. and travelling independently, planes were delayed but nothing as long as that. I think 4 hours was the most we had to wait. We will be in the Third World so can expect some things not to happen quite like here at home but when Oceania has organized an excursion such as this and charging quite a lot for the experience, then one doesn't expect things to be as bad as that.

Jennie

Lyn,

Have just gone to Nautica's webcame and here is a photo of how smooth our bay is today. Aren't they lucky that they weren't here yesterday!

http://www.kroooz-cams.com/oceaniaindex.html

Jennie

Hi Jennie

That is SUCH a useful site, i didn't know about one site bringing all webcams together. Yes they had a much nicer day today than yesterday. We went down at about 4pm and it was lovely, and we bumped into three of our favourite crew members, it couldn't have been better, we nearly made them late back so are going to catch up next time she's in, on Feb 5th from memory.

p.s. completely agree that developing countries you can't expect Western expectations of time. But this was a chartered private plane at $1600 per person. I didn't know what to think, but was glad we didn't go. I can just imagine Jon in a crowd of cruise passengers, with no food, for six hours - yikes!

Hi everyone. I still have to upload the photos from Kerala and Thailand, and of course on Nautica. Thanks to everyone who has sent me comments.

Just on the (previous) topic of Cairo and it's traffic, I found this link today when looking for something else. This is what the traffic in Cairo is REALLY LIKE, all the time. This is not just someone filmed a bad day, this is what our entire tour was like for every second - be warned:

:eek: :eek: :eek: :eek:

Hi Lyn,

Thanks so much for all the wonderful pictures & information, looking forward for more. You are such a generous person to share your time & effort to do this, thanks again.

Hi everyone

Sorry, a bit of a work -related lull in my postings. Here are the photos from Kerala.

We docked in Kochin to find an elephant and accompanying Carnatic music group portside. The elephant was clad in traditional keralan festival garb and she was a beauty with pink-skinned spotty ears. We were not first ashore in Kerala - we waited for the bus to leave then disembarked, took elephant piccies and walked to the port gate. I had cancelled a rice barge backwaters tour during our voyage, because we were getting tired of spending the day being driven a long way to see a 'sight' (e.g., Cairo, and to an extent Mumbai was a very busy day). We had decided to just wander around Fort Cochin and Ernakalum (the main town) and that's what we did. We chose a sweet old Ambassador taxi and negotaited what seemed to be our going rate of USD$40 for the day. The driver's name was Babu. We were in Kerala on a Sunday and thus normally nothing much in the way of shops would be open, but it was just before Xmas and many Keralans are Christian so I knew that the main town shops would be open. Unfortunately Babu decided to lie to us (which did him out of a large tip) and tell us they weren't so that he could take us to - you guessed it - an expensive tourist emporium. We weren't playing that game and again had to be forceful to get our strange foreigner way!

First of all we drove to Fort Cochin and went to see the Chinese fishing nets. Nice... then we went for a walk along the waterfront to the beautiful hotel 'Brunton Boatyard'. This was gorgeous, we had a drink there and sat by the pool watching the ferries come and go and the chinese nets. Very picturesque. Then we went for a wander around the tourist area of fort Cochin (jew street etc). At a backpacker type restaurant we stopped for a fresh ginger juice which was really nice and refereshing. After this we had to browbeat Babu into taking us into Ernakalum. He said nothing was open, and stopped at a large white touristy looking emporium in Fort Cochin, but we refused to get out of the car. Nothing got nasty, it was just a passing final attempt from Babu to rid us of our money, but we dug our heals in. Then off we pushed to Ernakalum, which was, as expected, my kind of fun. This was the local area, most of the shops were open and the main street was a riot of local colour and movement - another photography dream.

I spent a lot of time in a multi-story saree shop (had to get gifts for my Indian friends back home) - I know it was a long time because Jon was asleep in the lounge that was clearly provided for husbands. But buying sarees in an Indian shop is an experience not to be missed, the salesmen are seemingly the most patient on earth and will show you hundreds without getting upset at your lack of ability to make a decision. Once I had decided on five, the purchasing process was something to behold - it involved several different stages, at least ten people, and a shute down which the sarees travelled to the person who was finally authorised to give them to me. By then I knew I had to offer Jon food or risk death. We went to a traditional Keralan restaurant I had read about in the lp, had a rediculously cheap and tasty meal, and then spent about 1.5 hours checking out a 'real' Indian train station (just like I had read) and walking around the main street (Broadway) looking at all sorts of stuff, from Saffron to Xmas decorations. All in all a great day and we are already looking at airfares back to Kerala. Photos:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=15946&l=6312d&id=546233662

Lyn,

Another wonderful description of Kochin and great photos, particularly loved the elephant.

Jennie

Hi,

Loving reading your reports, very helpful. Fry's Rest. looks just like what we like to eat. Do you have an address?

Also, may I have the contact for your Mumbai guide. We also like to tour independently and a taxi fits the bill. Actually, we usually just take the local buses to the sights we want to see. Do you think we could take a bus in Kochi from the port gate to Fort Kochi?

I'm so looking forward to our India ports. We were in India about 20 years ago and the most memorable city was Srinagar in Kashmir. We were on a land tour and stayed on a marvelous houseboat, all carved wood, about 8 pax. on each boat. I will never forget the one evening when the house boys took us out on a canoe on Dal Lake , one couple in each boat so there were about a dozen boats paddling on Lake Dal. The boys would sing and it was so quiet and peaceful hearing the sound of the paddles in the water in the quiet night. Just so romantic and unforgettable. Now, of course, we couldn't get into Kashmir, but the memory is still vivid. And being 1/4 Indian, grandfather's name was Boor Singh, I have an affinity for India.

Thank you for all your posts.

Joanne, the chocoholic

Thanks Jennie and others for ongoing support.

Sable1, nice to hear you are enjoying the journey. Yes I have the address for Fry's, but it's in my guide book in a box of stuff I posted back from Singapore by sea mail and it hasn't arrived yet. It's not due for another couple of weeks, so when it gets here I'll post if that's OK.

Kamleish's email address is traanswaytours@hathway.com. Tell him you know me because he sometimes is away and his colleagues do the tours, but it would be great if you can get him. If you tell him your Indian heritage it would surely be exciting for him. I am not sure if putting this contact here is breaking the rules of the board so if it disappears please let me know if there's another way I can contact you.

I don't think that you could catch a public bus from Willingdon to Ernakalum or Fort Kochi, well you probably could, but working out how and from where is always a problem when you only have one day in a port. If you had ages, probably no problem. This port in particular is quite removed from the usual run of the mill places - Kochin is all on islands much like Mumbai, so I would recommend hiring a taxi or at least an autorickshaw.

Srinagar has been in my dreams since forever, it's so sad that such a beautiful experience has been made impossible by conflict. Lucky you for having had that experience. :D

Hi all, sorry I haven't done my final posting, have been conferencing. I meant to post my photos of onboard Nautica - there aren't many because we have sailed on her before so took all our ship photos that time. But for any of you who were on our cruise or those who want to see some indication of the fun we had onboard, have a look. Any that need explanation, please ask ;)

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=16008&l=e20ea&id=546233662

BTW - we loved Polo; hanging around the pool eating about a ton of icecream; the friendliest exec chef in the world and his marvelous team, especially the Indian chefs who made the MOST FABULOUS slap-up buffet feast after leaving Cochin; laughing with the staff and some friends we met and generally just relaxing. We aren't into shows, the entertainment was definitely not my style and we didn't go to a single show (that's not a note of disappointment, I just don't do shows). The only organised event we attended was the country fair and that was fun. We tend to go to bed early because we are really there for the ports and port days are long with early starts. But Nautica is a pretty nice home to come back to!