Vallesan

Just read an article in Cruise Hive where the president of Greece is now looking at limiting the number and size of cruise ships in the Islands specifically Santorini and Mykonos. Looks like there will be more and more tender ports in the future. Wonder what all the ‘behemoths’ will do!! Maybe smaller ships will become the norm?

Thank you for a comprehensive and very interesting review. Reading through I started to wonder about Ember replacing Jaques, the introduction of the ‘not quite as healthy as it seems’ Aquamar kitchen together with Waves becoming a ‘pizza parlour’ in the evenings. These together with the reduction in ‘high end’ foods just makes me wonder if Oceania is moving towards a new and different demographic. Maybe the next generation of cruisers are not looking for ‘fine dining’ experiences preferring the familiar ‘fast foods’? Maybe there is no stomach for ‘adventure’ and people are happier to have ‘organised’ trips? I don’t know I’m just surmising. I can’t believe that Oceania would introduce SimplyMore and reduce the quality of food purely as a cost cutting exercise. At the end of the day no business wants to alienate ‘repeaters’ just in the ‘hope’ of enticing new cruisers. The ships are full through autumn so maybe at the moment the strategy is working. Time alone will tell! Anyway, I’m glad that you enjoyed your cruise overall because that’s the most important thing.

@daydreamer62 so pleased you enjoyed your cruise overall. Unfortunately we can’t pick the people who are travelling on the same ship but we can choose to ‘avoid’ them! I don’t think you were ‘just lucky’ I think, as you said you ‘don’t go looking for something to complain about’. I guess it’s back to that old chestnut of ‘having realistic expectations’! Thank you for your reports and thoughts they have been interesting. Happy cruising!

Ahh! Yes we definitely speak different languages! I hadn’t read your post as you being ‘courteous’ to others, to me it read as you being ‘condescending’. But, in the sprit of having ‘good natured banter’, let’s just put this down to a misunderstanding.

You seem to constantly imply/assume in your posts that anybody who is not 100% able bodied needs to eat at 6.30pm so they can be in bed by 9pm at the latest. I actually, as a person with mobility issues, find you quite offensive. I think you should refrain from assuming that anybody who can’t run a marathon is ‘gaga’ which is what you’re implying.

With the new system?

Think the system in the UK is different to the US. We pay far higher rates!

OK. I did read your posts. Yes can book air at the time of booking a cruise but Oceania can’t give you a price for that flight until they released by the airline, usually 11 months before. Which bit have I misunderstood?

In the UK we regularly get 10% discount on all cruise lines, well, Oceania and the ultra luxury lines. So I’m guessing they get maybe 20% commission here. Could be wrong about the agents commission because they have high volume so could be less?

Funny how we all read things so differently! I read that prices are available ‘the moment flights are released for sale’ rather than the cruise itself! I think we will all have to wait and see what Oceania have in mind when the new policy is actually published, rather than just the ‘hearsay’, which is all we have at the moment!

So you can book a a flight when you book a cruise but you won’t know the price of said flight until the flights are released for sale, usually 11 months prior to the flight. Why would anybody want book a flight ‘blind’ unless of course you have the option to cancel when the prices are released?

Thank you for all your comments but we have decided not to take the Vista cruise. Maybe next year!

Looking at Facebook this looks like it’s come from a TA.

It seems that more and more ports are trying to limit the number of passengers docking each day and also the number of ‘behemoth’ ships docking. The overall number of cruisers is expanding rapidly and it seems obvious that something will have to give in the not too distant future. Whilst cruise passengers might be good for trade in some areas it must be very difficult for small towns, in or near cruise terminals, to be suddenly inundated by thousand upon thousand of ‘day trippers’!

I had to ‘google’ ‘dynamic pricing’ and now that I know what it is I just can’t see how it would work with flights for cruises. Time will tell. As it happens we never take cruise line flights but it will be interesting to see if prices for ‘cruise without air’ increase!

Just one thing to think about with Santorini is the possible/probable number of people who will be visiting on the day you are there. The island is tiny. If there are 10,000 people visiting that day you will be walking in very slow lines down very narrow roads. The wait for the cable car can be way in excess of an hour in searing heat. The other route is the ‘donkey track’ which is very steep and very slippy with donkey ‘poo’. Lots of things to consider if you are on a tiny island with 10,000 other people maybe not the best time to see Santorini?

I booked this cruise back in March and have just had the price reduced because of the upgrade sale. If you want a particular cabin I would suggest you book it now. There’s no guarantee that it will be available in 4 months time.

Thank you I’ll take a look.

Me too!

What are RFID sleeves? Not heard of them before. Thanks.

Sailed on the Marina mid May for 14 nights. Generally the food was fine. My favourites were and still are: Red Ginger duck and watermelon salad, red Thai curry in fact most dishes we tried we enjoyed. My misses: Only two both in Toscana. I don’t eat much pasta but really enjoy a linguine with prawns that we have our favourite restaurant in Portugal. So I thought I’d try the past, Lobster tail with Tagliolini and linguine cioppino, with seafood. The pasta served with both dishes was way over cooked and stodgy. Really disappointing. But hey we are only talking about two dishes!

Thank you. Jaques is our least favourite restaurant so we won’t miss that! I agree with you any of the Oceania ships, old or new, are a joy to travel on!

Thank you. Very interested in your thoughts. We have sailed on the smaller ships too but we like the variety of speciality restaurants on the larger ships. The only only other issue is that we have to have a PH on the smaller ships so the cost becomes an issue too!

In the UK we only had ‘electronic’ information until April of this year. Obviously it was different in Canada.

Another couple of questions please …. have you sailed on other Oceania ships? Would you sail Vista again? Thank you and enjoy your cruise. Sorry just looked again and I see you have sailed on several Oceania … how does Vista compare?