the mice

Airfare seems to be up everywhere, and so are the miles required for award seats, assuming you can find those to line up with your dates, especially now that every mainstream publication is writing about credit card points for "free" travel.

Well, I will be sure to check your blog for great information. Your photos are amazing as are your descriptions. Sorry I didn't get to meet you on Riviera, but I think you disembarked as we were getting on in Bangkok. Maybe one day our paths will cross.

@DrHemlock FWIW, I was looking at various 2026 itineraries, including the one we booked. If you see a cruise you are interested in, open the itinerary and click on the port name, or on the link for Ports& Excursions above the itinerary list. You may see descriptions for excursions- maybe if the port was ever used before. Of course, no prices and these excursions could change by the time booking for any opens at 365 days, but some helpful info to glean some insight about the ports. For our Japan itinerary, a couple of ports only said "information coming soon" or some such thing. But there were ports that I have not seen on an O itinerary for Japan (maybe on Regent?) that had excursions listed.

Just booked Legendary Japan 24 days on Regatta. Has northern ports in addition to the southern ports Oceania usually visits. Only 2 ports are those we visited on our recent Riviera cruise from Bangkok to Seoul.

We were on Riviera for 5 weeks February into March in Asia. We prefer Pellegrino to Perrier. Both were available upon request in dining venues. When the server comes to ask if you prefer still or sparkling water, we politely ask for Pellegrino, but Pellegrino may have run out by the last week of our cruise as we were asked if Perrier was OK. Our stateroom attendants, once they learned of our preferences, kept our fridge stocked with small bottles of Pellegrino and the occasional bottle of Perrier, again because Pellegrino may have been in short supply.

Thank you for this. Much appreciated. As for the limited listing for European cruises, that section is labeled "2026 Europe Preview". This is similar to what they have done with previous versions of the Tropics & Exotics brochure. I found a brochure I had that is labeled "Tropics & Exotics Plus Europe and North America" but I'm not sure when it came out in relation to the "Tropics & Exotics" brochure. Knowing Oceania, I am sure there will be more brochures coming 🤣

We sailed on Onward in October 2022 and found the food quite average for the most part. We were also disappointed that while the staterooms had redone, the bed area and couch, they still had the old original dark wood desk and cabinet - not in the best shape, either. (Oceania did a better job of upgrading their R ships). We had one missed port in Corsica due to weather, but we were re-routed to Genoa (this re-routing also happened on our 1st Az cruise back in 2009). This happened to many other cruise ships which we saw in Genoa that day, including an Oceania ship. We also sailed on Oceania 3 times in the past year - Marina in June 2023, Vista in November 2023, and most recently 26 days on Riviera in February-March. We enjoyed all 3 cruises. On our Vista cruise, Prior to sailing, Ensenada was changed to San Diego which was a welcome change by most, and Nicaragua was not allowing cruise ships so we had a sea day. On our 26 day Riviera cruise, we did not encounter any missed ports and we had overnight stays in 6 ports, including 2 overnights in Hong Kong. Food on all 3 ships was very good, especially on Vista. We also found the service to be attentive on all 3 ships. We took some ship excursions on both lines (but not on the Marina cruise). Overall, the quality was comparable. We had one mediocre excursion on Azamara, and one on Riviera, but for the most part, more or less of similar quality. Itinerary is generally the main factor in deciding what cruise we book. However, we are booked on a Christmas cruise on Vista chosen for the dates and the ship, not for the itinerary.

Re: engine. We were on the next 2 segments (getting off tomorrow in Seoul). No problems AFAIK. Our only delay was when Shanghai held us up for hours due to fog. We made every port more or less on time. Looking forward to reading your review.

Why my husband leaves it all to me 🤣 Glad you finally got it to work! Happy travels.

Take a screen shot of the reference code - don't just write it down. You need this to access the visa once approved. You will have to wait a few days and hopefully the email indicates you are approved and it provides the link to get a copy. The interesting thing is, after all the angst with the photos, there is no photo on the Vietnam eVisa, just a QR code. Whereas our visas for Cambodia have the photos we uploaded. And at least you should have current photos if required by your cruise line for online check in. (although you might have to resize them again......😁)

Can't help you there. We are Androids (and Windows desktop). My biggest challenge was the photo size. Rest was easy. I scanned our passports, saved as jpg files and used crop to just include the data page with the photo. That worked.

US passport size photo is 2x2. You need to adjust the size to a 2x3 ratio which is same ratio as 4x6. I took our photos with my smartphone, loaded them to my desktop computer (Windows) and opened them in the Photos app on the desktop. The crop function displays the ratio so I was able to get it to 2:3 and re-saved it. Hope this helps.

I would suggest a taxi as well. I had mapped out a walk but I looked a bit convoluted and the taxi ride seemed longer than what Google maps suggested.

I was on Vista in November. I have a small dual voltage flat iron for travel, brought it and used it on the ship.

OK, understand the confusion. Point #5 above is to allow a 1 time CHANGE of cruise. Point #6 is if you cancel outright. This was a change effective Sept 1, 2023. New and high fee. The discussion in referenced thread seems to be about O trying to cut down on people doing placeholder bookings while they try to decide what cruise(s) to keep.