Insignia review, Nov 12, 2011, Venice to Rome

[Imagineer]

...we had a member review published of our most recent Oceania cruise from Venice to Rome on board Insignia, Artistic Explorations, for any of you who would like to read it, here's the link: http://www.cruisecritic.com/memberreviews/memberreview.cfm?EntryID=92648.

 

...we decided to head over earlier and do a walking tour on our own of Rome, Florence and Venice, so we flew into Rome two weeks prior to the cruise, did our own thing there for three days, walked from one end of 'The Eternal City' to the other and back again - our feet were glad to find a few spots to sit down. The weather we experienced while we were in Italy, from October 31st to November 22nd, was completely gorgeous, it was in the mid 70's in Rome, 60's in Florence and Venice and didn't really get much cooler until our final days on the ship. It got colder at night but unless the wind was up, always warmed up quickly. We only had rain on two days and then it was only for a couple hours - certainly can't complain about that!! We made a return visit to the Borghese Gallery, amazing place to see, saw all the other major sites Rome has to offer and headed to Florence by train the following morning...

 

...no problems with that other than leaving my P&S camera on the train - they don't have a lost & found dept at Trenitalia, it's the age old rule of losers weepers, finders keepers. So we picked up another camera in Florence and then wound our way through the streets of this Renaissance capital city. Didn't do the major museums this time as we'd been a couple years ago, but we did go to the Bargello museum which I can highly recommend. Did a side trip to Siena and San Gimignano, love San Gimignano, very picturesque with all the surrounding country in fall colors. We finished our last evening in Florence by having dinner at an amazing restaurant near the public market called Za Za's, if you're ever in Florence you MUST try this place. One of the fall specialties on the local menu's is a dish called "pappardelle d' cingiale", home made pasta with a sauce made with wild boar - so good I had it on three separate nights...

 

...next morning we grabbed a taxi to the train station and made the final move to Venice arriving just before noon. Our hotel was a fifteen minute walk from the station and only involved crossing one bridge - I did my homework on Google maps! Our room was ready so we checked in and headed out to start our wanderings of 'The Serene Republic'. I actually didn't get lost this time, if you keep your eye on the little signs posted on the corners of most buildings they have arrows indicating the general direction of the nearest major landmark, by following these and watching where the local traffic flow is heading, you really won't get lost...

 

...we had a delightful time wandering all over the place, on this trip we didn't have any particular things we 'had' to see, so we just took our time to take it all in. There had been talk of problems with Aqua Alta, Venice's notorious high tides, but we had no issues, you could see where it had crept up a few feet on some of the canal sides. We did check out most of the big churches and found ourselves more impressed by the Frari Church than St Mark's, it has a simple, quiet and grand elegance as opposed to being covered all over with marble, statues and gold. On one of our days we headed by vaporetto over to Murano and Burano, it was a beautiful sunny day that really made the time on these little islands so much more enjoyable. If you've never been to Burano and seen the absolute riot of color all their houses are painted with, then you won't believe it without seeing it for yourself. We picked up some Murano glass and Burano lace while there and headed home into a stunning sunset. We were told by another traveler that Venice is famous for its sunsets, viewing this one we simply had to agree. We sampled a lot of seafood we'd never ever eaten before, all in a variety of pasta dishes you never see in North America...

 

..on a side note, we also arranged two private tours to Tuscany and the Chianti region from the ship, these tours were truly wonderful experiences and I highly recommend 'Unforgettable Tuscany' if you're wanting to find alternatives to what the ship has to offer. We sampled olive oil that had just been cold pressed from olives picked that morning - WOW, can't buy that at Costco! I bought a bottle of that along with a bottle of Chianti Classico Reserva 2007, an award winning wine that we had the pleasure of sampling during our wine tasting. If you include all the wine we drank with what we had on the ship, we probably consumed more red wine during our three weeks in Italy then the entire previous year!!

 

...the Insignia arrived in Venice on the morning of the 11th and we boarded her on the afternoon of the 12th, everything else went off like clockwork and is mentioned in our review linked to above. Hope this may help any of you wishing to visit this amazing part of the world.

 

cheers,

 

the Imagineer

[no fuss travel]

Thank you for your delightful review. We will be sailing on the Insignia in February so were wondering if the service would be the same quality as we experienced on the Marina earlier this year. You brought back some happy memories of our cruise last May with your descriptions.

[Paulchili]

Thanks for taking the time for your review and itinerary suggestions - very useful.

[CintiPam]

I really enjoyed your review; thanks for posting the link and taking the time to write up your reflections on the experience.

 

Happy to read that you had good weather and calm seas in November. I still am a bit worried about being on a ship in mid-October in the western Med, having only sailed in early September and May and June previously, However, I look forward to my return to the smaller "R" ships after my wonderful June Marina experience in the Baltics.

[shackpacker]

We also cruised on Insignia and loved it. It is a beautiful ship, well-maintained, and we had a remarkable experience. We had never cruised with Oceania before and found it to exceed our expectations. We had a C1 cabin because we were concerned about how much we would use a balcony in November. The cabin was perfectly adequate and our window was really a large size so we were absolutely satisfied. We thought the food was exceptional, although we didn't really care for Terraces at the evening meal. Our only problems were with a tour guide in Florence/Pisa who was more concerned with her cell phone than with the tour and our dinner in Polo Grill. We were given a table at the very back that was right by the door that led into Toscana. It was very noisy as they were clearing dishes in that area in Toscana. We were told that a table-side Caesar salad could not be done there due to room, and our sommelier argued with us about our wine choice. Oceania did offer us another dinner there, but at 9:00 p.m. the night before embarkation which was not really plausible with packing to leave early the next morning. Other than those two incidents, we felt that Oceania delivered and we had a wonderful time.

:) shackpacker

[Mura]

We've done the Med twice in mid-October -- the first time on the R2 (now Regatta) and just this fall on Marina.

 

Both times we had wonderful weather and my recollection is of very calm seas. We had about 3-4 hours of somewhat rough sailing one night on Marina, but I don't remember any rough sailing on the R2. And I'm rather sensitive to rough seas!

 

Good luck.

 

Mura

[CintiPam]

We've done the Med twice in mid-October -- the first time on the R2 (now Regatta) and just this fall on Marina.

 

Both times we had wonderful weather and my recollection is of very calm seas. We had about 3-4 hours of somewhat rough sailing one night on Marina, but I don't remember any rough sailing on the R2. And I'm rather sensitive to rough seas! ... Mura

 

Thanks for posting your mid-October Med experiences, Mura, because we are doing our first October cruise next year, and I am a bit concerned about rough seas because I also have a sensitive stomach!:o