nparmelee

Hello! We are on Nautica as of today. A few items-

Previous cruise while in Haifa tours were called back to the ship early so they could set sail.

Olife drink select drink package under SM (we did not upgrade to SM) decent selection, dessert wines included. Sommeliers are running like crazy during dinner, but we kept our glasses flowing. Inconsistency in when you are asked for the stateroom card, earlier it was every pour, but tonight it was only once at the end of dinner. 

Internet - butler said one account per stateroom, BUT hubby and I are both connected and handing off between phone and laptop for my account was easy. Both accounts for us active at the same time. 1 device per account at a time.

Like the updates to the colors. We had an A1 to PH3 upgrade offer a couple of days ago and took it. 

Happy to try and answer any questions.

Nadine

B&H.... I'm not allowed in there alone, hubby is afraid of what I might spend. Zabar's is also very fun! Just charged all the camera batteries as we head out for our pre-cruise in Rome tomorrow. Want to make sure I can hit the road shooting Saturday morning.

I have found you need to throw out the top 10% and bottom 10% of reviews. Then look at what the reviewer liked or disliked. Items you care about, pay more attention to. Items not important to you, ignore. Tastes are all subjective. If you get to the "still maybe" after that, give it a try and see if it works for you. No matter what, always have an open mind, be wiling to deal with issues as they arise and have a great time! I find that many negative reviews did not try to rectify the issue, if whoever you spoke to about the issue at the time dealt with it to your satisfaction, great! No longer an issue, just one off issue.

Our first cruise was largish family Alaska trip on Princess. We liked the idea, not necessarily the execution. Found X next.... Also enjoyed, but it felt impersonal. Then we found O and love the small ships, still friends with fellow pax from our first 2 O cruises. For us, it's about the itinerary. If I can find an itinerary on a ship I am willing to deal with the size of and with a line I am willing to deal with the quality of and then a price I am willing to pay, no brand loyalty as the first criteria.

It looked like Nautica left Haifa on schedule yesterday, or pretty close to scheduled time. Things had not gotten serious further north yet by then. Today looks to have been a sea day as they are coasting around just south of Limassol. I would imagine any tour operators (private or O booked) would have gotten pax back to the ship as soon as they possibly could yesterday as they would be monitoring the news. At some point we will hopefully hear from someone currently on board. Those of us getting on board on the 17th may be able to learn something when we get there.

Nautica was there in Haifa, supposed to head to Ashdod tomorrow from Haifa, but not..... We're on her next so watching her closely. Next stop is Limassol, not sure if they are doing a sea day on the way there or what yet...
 

DanceMomma - Hope to meet you on board!

Some prefer to have everything taken care of for them, some like to do it themselves. Our first O cruise was a dozen or so years ago, Rome to Istanbul. We knew then we could do the visas on our own or through O. I chose to do it on our own, because I'm one of those crazy planners. Others chose to have O do the visa for them and they were happy. I disagree with the "sneakily" wording because some office person has to do the work if you choose to for through them. It's not a 1-1 transaction, they are paying someone to do this work for those who do not wish to do it themselves and opt or the simplest route.

According to our cruise docs (10/17 start AND still Olife) we get 2 account connections in concierge. I will be updating all about how the drink package process and the connections are working shortly after we are on board.

 I would be more likely to assume covid outbreaks are now like noro and flu outbreaks....

Our cruise starts 10/17, I'm sure we'll hear from someone in the first days of SM. We had OLife with standard beverage package, OBC and shorex and did NOT convert to SM. Will post our experiences as soon as we can. We plan on testing it at lunch that first day....  🍷

I too am the planner, what I find annoying is the questions from me of "what do you think about....?" Followed by the "just do what you think is best." Then a month later, "why are we doing that?" Have a wonderful time! I know I will on our trip in a month, the other 3 will just have to live with it at that point.

We do the open the bags and then they fit nicely under the bed, also. great storage method for things you won't need much. Hubby is the heavy packer in our family

Official site for 5 euro entry tickets is https://portale.museiitaliani.it/b2c/#en/buyTicketless And October Is now available. Tours and audio guides and be can also be pre-purchased through the church web site, but those don't include the 5 euro entry fee. It's a a pretty new process still, Since July 3rd.

We have romecabs.com booked for 4 of us at 150 euros.

Book early, I was happily surprised to be able to get our favorite, 7116 on Nautica, for this October. We booked in late December/early January.

We had OLife, did not convert it to SM.

Just received our cruise docs for our 10/17 cruise and it clearly shows that as of Oct 1, 2 logins are provided per stateroom and each can be used on 1 device at a time.

Watching these threads as we get ready for our next O cruise in October. We have a Princess (family group), 2 Celebrity and 2 O in our past. We like the R ships, especially the aft A1 balcony cabins. We'll be back on the Nautica. For us Simply More is not much of a factor since we booked before that and had OLife so had $600 on board, 3 excursions each and the standard bev package. For us. the O food was SO much better than Princess and X, we compare line to line more than anything but food is also very subjective. We have friends joining us this time so we are hoping the food is still better than X. Our friends have been on a number of Royal Caribbean so we expect this will be a better experience for them as well. Missing ports, especially tenders, is a thing that happens to all lines, that's when picking your itinerary is important. If there is a tender port that we really want to visit, we typically find a land way to do it. Maybe I've read these boards too much, but I always assume tender ports have a good shot of being missed.

OP, I hope you enjoy the rest of your trip. Curious if you asked for something else when you had something (beef mole was it???) that was not as expected. If so, how did that go?

We are traveling with friends in October, was able to easily get 7:30 dinner reservations for both specialty restaurants (Nautica) for the 2 reservations we were guaranteed for each. We ahvealso found that going to the restaurants or res desk while eon board also can work wonders.

We have limited longer vacation times so 1 Princess with a larger family group, 2 Celebrity and 2 Oceania with another Oceania in 2 months. We like the R ships, especially the aft cabins. Taking friends with us on this next cruise and we have our aft cabin. For us, the small ship is great, you get to meet people, see them often and create relationships. Still friends with people from our first 2 O cruises. The food is so much better than Princess or X for us. Also prefer the little annoyance like paying for "specialty" coffees from Princess and X. Always open to other itineraries, but O is a preference for us.

And if you put in shared to get the time you want, you still may be able to get a 2 top when on the ship or when you get to the reservation.

We did ferry one way, hiked and train on the way back. Loved it!!!

Rome Cabs!

The cart has been very glitchy. I was able to get a few things through, but not others and in the same session. Now, whatever does not work, I just call. I mention it to whomever I speak to and say something along the lines of if you fixed this, I wouldn't have to call and you could deal with more important matters....

Interesting, we have an October 17th booking, will watch for any info on this. We already had Olife added from one of the promotions, OBS, drink package and certain excursions up to $600 for the stateroom. We may re-evaluate our excursions, but will wait and see what the official word is.