Harters

Ah, yes. Just re-read the FAQs and see that "casual jeans" are not acceptable which presumably means "non casual" ones are fine. Now, that could be an interesting debate as to what is casual. A Michelin starred place near me is more specific with its dress code "our dress code is smart and informal. Sportswear, ripped denim or shorts are not accepted."

Which I think also means no jeans.

Absolutely. It's why I never diss another persons food/restaurant choices.

As such, I've nothing against dinner taking two hours. We go to a number of restaurants at home, where multi course tasting menus are served and a 2 - 3 hour slot is indicated. I know what to expect in those places and am fine with it. But I wouldnt expect dinner to take that long for three courses in a well organised restaurant, on shore or at sea. But, yes of course, if I was having a couple of starters, main course, cheese, dessert and then coffee, it would be taking a lot longer and I'd be fine with it. It's the gap in between courses that can ruin an evening when it's overly long - we went to one place last summer (just before it got a Michelin star) where there was a 15 - 20 minute wait between each course. Not through anything of a hitch in service but simply becuase that's the gap the chef thought appropriate. Michelin or not, he's wrong.

Of course, you don't know there's going to be an issue till you've eaten the dish but it would be something to consider for a future visit. Although the fact that a number of dishes seem to be westernised creations or heavy adaptations, rather than a traditional dish which just needs tweaking, makes it tricky. It's no biggie to miss out RG.

Indeed so. But tough veal is tough veal, so I've made a mental note of that. And I've also made a note of the beef carpaccio - I've had it before but only in a European style so what I assume was an East Asian version that you describe sounds great.

Red Ginger was our only disappointment on Marina. Found the food very dumbed down in comparision to what I'd find in East Asian restaurants at home, whereas the other three specialities were on par with equivalents. Probably wouldnt bother with RG again.

We have an upcoming cruise on Nautica, so I was interested to read the OP. This will be our second O cruise (previous was on Marina in 2017). What has drawn us to O is the "finest cuisine at sea" claim. Dinner is an important part of our lives, whether at home or on holiday. And, certainly, I don't want to rush it when I'm on holiday. But two hours does seem quite a long time for what I assume would have been three or four course meals, perhaps followed by coffee. That must involve quite a lot of waiting time between courses and would surely detract from my enjoyment of a meal. I don't recall that on our Marina cruise so wonder if there's been specific issues on Nautica. I suppose I'll find out in a few weeks.

I've only done one cruise with Oceania (back in 2017). O's dress code of "country club casual" was meaningless to me as we don't have country clubs in the UK. So, I took advice from folk on a different non-travel forum that had lots of American contributors. Got such a mixed response because different clubs have different dress codes, so that didnt really help either. Ended up deciding to use the British term "smart casual" which often applies to higher end restaurants that might have a dress code here. So, that was chinos and polo shirt which was absolutely fine - that was what lots of blokes were wearing. Mrs Harters packed similar casual clothes - trousers, blouses, etc. FWIW, that cruise in 2017 was in July and was also to Norway. Generally good weather but, of course, you're talking about Northern Europe here, so you might need to pack a light jacket. And, of course, you may well get rain. But July should be the best we have to offer for weather.

8021 on Nautica upcoming. Fingers crossed this'll be fine.

On a cruise last year that we were cancelled on, due to catching Covid, we planned to visit the Guggenheim and had booked lunch there. They have two restaurants - a Michelin starred one (which is where we'd booked) and a more casual one. Both seemed to focus on local food.

We've stayed twice in Bardolino. Nice place with decent restaurants. The ferry service is excellent for visiting other towns on the lake.

Shame. I knew I should have changed them for doubloons when I had the chance. I think they do well against the Kazak tenge of late.

I have a number of "Pieces of Eight". Does anyone know the current Euro/PoE exchange rate. TIA.

Correct. Pound for all parts of the UK. Euro for Ireland. Bear in mind that Scottish bank notes may not be accepted elsewhere in the UK, particularly in smaller outlets.

We started with shortlist of places mentioned positively on this thread. Checked locations (all good). Cross-referenced Tripadvisor reviews (removed several - reports of it being noisy and, in one case, mentions of steps in the room). Checked price for our two nights pre-cruise (deleted one as being well over what we wanted to pay). Left us with three. This afternoon, booked the Avenida Palace as looked like the best bet for us. My thanks to all for the help you unknowingly gave us. CC is a great planning resource. John

I'm sure it's do-able. But it will be multi-staged and, no doubt, very expensive. I think it'd be a modern day equivalent of "Around the World in 80 Days", where Fogg uses a variety of transport. I think you'd need to work backwards from October to identify the final stage of the trip arriving in Oz. Then find another that preceeds the final stage, etc. I have a friend in Melbourne who did do it in reverse, using cruise ship to Hong Kong, then train north to Vladivostok. Then train right acorss Russia, before train further south to some ferry port in Western Europe. Took them about three weks each way. That route obviously isnt possible right now because of the situation with Russia.

rojojacko - I've previously looked at parking arrangements at Portsmouth (didnt do the cruise in the end). But it looks very straightforward with a multi-storey car park, opposite the terminal. It's not entirely secure but is "under constant supervision". My recollection was that there's also a parking company who have a "meet & greet" next to the terminal

You'll find lots of London/Southampton transfer threads on the UK ports sub-forum and the subject is regularly well covered in those discussions.

Seemingly not in my case. The cookies on O's website presumably knows that I'm in the UK, so always displays its prices in sterling. So, for a PH1 on the cruise we just booked, it shows the brochure price as £6999 and the "promotional price" as £4187 which I calculate is a 40% discount which by any standard is, to me, an extraordinary saving.

Snapped up a June cruise on Nautica, this morning. Price for a PH1 about what we'd have expected to pay for a concierge cabin. We're booking our own flights, as we have an airline voucher for a flight they cancelled so, effectively, we're flying for free. And the TA gave us a very small discount of their own. I never thought I'd say this about O - but it's actually a cheap cruise. Relatively speaking, of course - a friend is booked on a Marella cruise at nearly half the price of our cruise.

Crab offered at Dartmouth is most likely to have been landed at nearby Brixham. To the best of my knowledge, "Cromer" crabs are not a specific variety but are just our native brown crabs, given the cachet of being landed at Cromer. That said, "Brixham" crabs definitely have something of a local cachet. It's good marketing, IMO. Enjoy.

My experience was also at the QE2 terminal. The whole boarding process took only a few minutes. After check-in it was straight through security and on to the ship. None of the issues faced by Cliff-FLL.

We had been looking at a cruise which had Le Havre as its first port after leaving Southampton. As the OP has spotted, it's a long journey to/from Paris (which we've visited before). And we also had no interest in the D-Day sites. The area around Le Havre is also reasonably well known to us from previous visits in connection with my interest in the Great War (my local Territorial battalion landed there in September 1914, going into action shortly after). The town itself is not very interesting,as it was extensively bombed during WW2 and later rebuilt. So, we decided that, if we did take the cruise, we'd probably stay on board most of that day and just chill out, with maybe a little stroll round the town centre.

I suppose each cruise terminal might have slightly different arrangements but, when we were there in 2017, it was all very straightforward. I presume not much will have changed. We arrived in our car. Dropped off the luggage at the terminal with one of the porters, then drove round to the car park opposite and left the car with the parking company (parking4cruises), then walked back to the terminal. Check-in was almost immediately inside the main terminal and wasnt crowded (although that will depend on, say, whether a coach party has just arrived - we just beat one). There was one set of check-in desks but my recollection is that there were three queues for them - suites, concierge cabins and the rest. Check-in staff took people in order of cabin type - so if there was ever one person in the suites queue, they would be called forward before anyone in concierge, regardless of how long the concierge queue was. It all moved quickly and was, generally, moving much faster than my airport queues move.