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su-arizona

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  • Posts

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About Me

  • Location
    Land o' Lakes, Florida
  • Interests
    Travel & golf
  • Favorite Cruise Line(s)
    Oceania, Windstar, AMA
  • Favorite Cruise Destination Or Port of Call
    Wherever the wind blows

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Cool Cruiser (2/15)

  1. Wow! What a great idea! We booked our Aug 2024 cruise onboard in May2022, and I wasn't about to pay for insurance then to get pre-existing coverage. So the idea of buying only enough for deposit and increasing later is brilliant. Does it work with all insurers on online trip insurance sites? We like Nationwide that used to provide pre-existing before final payment, but now they're like all the rest.
  2. I've sailed on most of the Oceania ships, and it you look back far enough, you'll see lots of good reviews. Haven't sailed on Oceania since 2022 because we took a horrible Viking cruise (widespread norovirus) land disappointing Windstar cruise in 2023. You probably see complaints about the food "not being as good" - Oceania cruisers have very high expectations of the food, which is generally far superior to most lines. You'll see complaints about the service - Oceania cruisers have very high expectations of the service too. My biggest complaints are usually about the distance from port to city shown in the itinerary...but I think most all cruise ships now dock farther out from the itinerary cities, We currently have 2 cruises booked on Oceania in 2024...think that speaks for our opinion.
  3. Our Dec 2022 cruise is scheduled to depart Great Harbour at 11:59pm...sadly one minute before my birthday!
  4. Another vote for Welcome Pickups in Athens/Piraeus. Our flights usually leave Athens at the crack of dawn, so I book a room at the Sofitel at the airport. Last trip, we liked our Welcome Pickups driver so much that 4 of us booked him for a full day trip from the Sofitel to the Temple of Poseidon - might have been the best day of our trip. If you get tired of the Acropolis crowds, the Temple of Poseidon is spectacular, and he waited for us while we had lunch at his favorite restaurant on the beach before returning us to the Sofitel. We all thought it was great finale to a wonderful cruise.
  5. OOPS! Think I was autocorrected - not "waterspouts" but "watersports" platform. Entirely different things!๐Ÿ˜ฑ
  6. Think Little Bay is Montserrat, which is our absolute favorite Caribbean port. We booked a private tour with Sun's Tours and it was the best tour ever. You really cannot tour Monserrat on your own, and the tour is really amazing. As I recall, there were 4 of us from the WS ship on Sun's tour - and I think we met the WS excursion (led by Sun's father, if memory serves). I think I posted a review on TA - don't miss this tour! We haven't been to the Soggy Dollar, but had a wonderful time at Foxy's (pre-hurricane) on Jost Van Dyke just walking from the where the tender dropped us. Often the waterspouts platform will be available on that port too. St Bart's isn't our favorite island...at least in all past years they were not welcoming to non-A-list folks. If the waterspouts platform is available, we probably won't even leave the ship. If not, Shell Beach is pretty and walkable. Most exciting thing to do there is to watch planes land from the road overlooking the airport IMHO.
  7. Just finished booking air to SJU for our December 2022 WS cruise. What a nightmare! Flight choices are few, and fares are outrageous. I deliberately chose a RT San Juan cruise because pre-pandemic it was easy and inexpensive to get non-stops (relative to other Caribbean ports). Not these days. I started trying to book air months ago, but it was so bad (and expensive) I though perhaps things would improve after Labor Day. Wrong. But at least the airline websites work and people answer their phones now.
  8. Thanks to Patty for posting the recent menus. We have sailed with both Windstar and Oceania several times, but have only sailed Oceania post-pandemic. Our last WS cruise was in 2017. I know WS has been working to expand their food offerings and from the menus, it appears they have done so. We are looking forward to our cabin on the "expanded" Star Pride, and the new/improved dining options. That being said, it is tough to beat Oceania at food, but WS food has always been very good.
  9. Jack, Really hope you have great weather, because I just booked the same cruise on the same date. We were in Venice on May -11 last year, and the weather was hot then and throughout our ocean cruise. So we're hoping for some nice cool weather in April! Hopefully the Rhine and Moselle will be full and lovely then. Look forward to meeting you aboard! Susan
  10. Thanks so much for your posts. It helps those of us who can cancel decide what is best, when the cruise line gives no information.
  11. Those of us who booked while Viking offered the "Risk Free Guarantee" may chose to skip the Rhine cruise while water levels are low, and Covid transmission rates are high. All frequently cruisers have experienced changes of some sort, but long bus rides with a highly contagious Covid variant may not be the best time to "go with the flow" (or lack of flow!) if we have the option of changing the cruise. So all the good information being shared here helps in making a choice of cruising now, or waiting for better conditions. It's really helpful hearing about the changes from folks currently on Viking Rhine cruises between Amsterdam and Basel. Thanks for all your posts! ๐Ÿ˜€๐ŸšŒ๐Ÿ›ณ๏ธ
  12. One of the reasons we enjoy cruising is that we enjoy traveling to different places without having to pack and unpack our bags. We've taken one river cruise in Europe with AMA which we really enjoyed, but there were no water level concerns or ship swaps. The only buses involved were those taking us to tours we'd chosen that were not on the river, so this is all new to us. How is your luggage handled in these situations? Am I correct in assuming that, like a disembarkation, you need to pack your bags and leave them at your door for pickup at night? Do carry on bags go with you on the bus transfer or tour? We are booked on Viking Rhine AMS-Basel at the end of August, so it seems likely we may have to deal with this. Thanks in advance for your advice/experience and these really informative postings!
  13. Now that I've completed the cruise from Trieste (formerly Venice) to Rome, I thought I'd take a moment to let everyone know what the trip was like. We spent 3 very nice days in Venice as we'd originally planned. My clever TA found a flight arriving at Marco Polo airport from the US early in the day we were to depart from Trieste, told O that we were arriving on that flight, and advised us to be in the arrival area at the time of that flight's arrival. Because we stayed in Venice for three days pre-cruise, we had to take another Covid test to board the Marina. FYI we used proctored Binax Now tests and they worked flawlessly from Venice. We took a taxi back to the airport, and found the Oceania rep after some searching. Our bags, and those of a number of other passengers, were loaded on a large bus. We weren't given any tickets for the bags, and it was all a bit chaotic, but not too bad. The bus trip from Venice to Trieste was about 1.5 hours and fairly boring. The arrival in Trieste was another story. We were dropped at a terminal and had to climb several flights of stairs to a truly awful checkin. While we looked at "SailSafe" banners, we waited in a long unmasked un-socially distanced line to have our PRE-CRUISE COVID tests checked. THEN we waited in another line for a security check. THEN we climbed down a couple flights of stairs to wait in yet another line for yet another bus to take us to the ship. Our bags (even carry-ons) we apparently/hopefully loaded from bus to bus, but we had no receipts for them. Finally got to the ship and our cabin, and had our usual lunch in Waves. Back to the cabin, but no bags had arrived (in our penthouse, which is supposed to provide early bag delivery). About an hour later (about 3 hours after we arrived in Trieste) my husband's bags arrived. He unpacked as I waited for my bags. As the ship prepared to depart, my bags had still not arrived, so I began to search for them. Finally found them as the ship began to leave dock and took them to my cabin. The butler was horrified but unhelpful as I brought by own bags to my cabin. The entire embarkation experience was the worst we've experienced in 7 Oceania cruises. It was so nasty that I cancelled my next cruise (on Vista) which was scheduled to depart from Trieste. To add insult to injury. I had received notice that the Vista cruise would depart from Trieste (instead of Venice) about a week before we departed for the Marina cruise. It was the worst embarkation we've ever experienced, and simply put, I will NEVER embark from Trieste again. Expect that things will get a little better over time, but Trieste is simply not ready to be a major cruise port.
  14. Back in the stone ages, we cruised on a Renaissance ship (R3) from Papeete. For a bit of history, when Renaissance went out of business those ships became the first Oceania R-class ships, including the Regatta. During that cruise, I and a number of other passengers became ill with a virus, probably norovirus though I had never heard that word at the time. I was too sick to leave our cabin, but no one was quarantined in those days. Many passengers were ill on the cruise, and my husband became ill on the flight home. As we all know, back in pre-pandemic days outbreaks of noro became more frequent, and passengers were quarantined. But pre-pandemic, that was accepted as a risk of cruising, hand sanitizers started appearing everywhere, and the Oceania buffet was no longer self-service (Yay!). As we all continue to debate the need for masks and the risks for cruising (and just generally going back to living) it reminds me that viruses have always been with us. I worry as much as anyone about the risks of Covid on our cruise next month. But we chose to continue cruising after Tahiti, and we've chosen to accept the risk and continue to cruise now. And I bet there will still be cruises where norovirus outbreaks occur. But we got our second booster last week and ordered a bunch of KN85 masks from Amazon๐Ÿ™ƒ
  15. Our Sirena cruise was docked in the city of Bordeaux for a bit longer than we expected. The pilot required for docking in the Garonne hit a large buoy and we had to wait for a new propeller. The town is very walkable and we dined at a couple lovely restaurants...but certainly not that costly. This was a few years ago (wasn't everything?) so don't remember the specifics.
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