Sea Do

As you can judge by the lack of response to your question, bridge is not overly popular. I have been on almost a dozen cruises, though, and there has always been some level of activity. On the larger ships your analogy of a small duplicate club is pretty accurate with six to eight tables. If there are a few days at sea there always seems to be an ACBL director who gives lessons and conducts duplicate sessions. On the smaller ships there will be a signup sheet in the card room which will lead to a few tables playing party bridge.

It is always a fun part of the cruise for us as you get to meet some nice people who share a similar interest.

Beyond the obvious reason that they want you to book their own ship tours, why doesn't Oceania do more to facilitate the "independent traveler"? It would seem that O. could very easily obtain information about the port shuttles (times, terminus location in the city, connecting bus and train schedules, etc.) and provide it at the start of a cruise rather than wait until the ship is at each port to do so. I realize that the local port reps provide this info, but that can be a hectic experience and valuable touring time is wasted waiting your turn in line and then planning your course of action. It seems to me that just a little effort on O.'s part could make for a much better experience for those of us who like to go out on our own.