OleMissSamfordMom

My husband and I loved the class we took on Marina last year! I think it was definitely worth it. Lots of fun…easy to follow and delicious food accompanied by wine throughout. We have made the entire meal about 7 or 8 times at home for friends since returning home because you get all the recipes. We enjoyed it so much that we signed up for 2 on our upcoming cruise on Riviera.

I don’t know if any are ever added, but on our sea day they’ve got one from 10-12 and another 4-6.

They are $89 per person for each class.

We did a 4-6 pm class and had so much fun! So delicious! We just stopped by the buffet for a few bites later on since we had eaten Steak Diane, salad with homemade creamy vinaigrette, green beans almondine, and pots de crème (plus they served wine throughout!). I just wouldn’t suggest eating at a specialty restaurant that night. It was a highlight of our time onboard!

Thank you so much for your lovely response. I hope you enjoy tonight's show, as well as the 2 remaining production shows. And yes, I am so very proud of her! What an amazing job...getting to travel the world doing what you love to do!

I'm happy to hear how much you enjoyed the "Lights Camera Action" show last night, as my daughter is one of the Riviera singers, and she loves that show too! It's definitely a challenging one, since she tells me she has 10 wig/costume changes in the 40 minutes! She'll be so excited to hear you loved it! My husband and I are looking forward to seeing them all when we sail on Riviera this fall. Those kids certainly work hard! I hope you enjoy the rest of your cruise!

I have no experience either! This one had lots of great reviews, and I liked that it started in Campo de' Fiori, which was right around the corner from our hotel, and ended near the Pantheon. The first stop was for meats, cheeses and wine. Then we had stops for suppli (which was amazing), pizza, fried artichokes (delicious!) and ended with gelato. But the stories our guide told us as we explored just made the tour!

My husband and I loved the one called “Rome Street Food Tour with Local Guide” by Raphael Tours. You can find it on Viator and Trip Advisor. We did the evening one on our night in Rome before our cruise. The food was delicious and our guide was terrific! She told amazing stories about the history of Rome and the food. And it is only about $50/person. I highly recommend it.

My husband and I stayed at the Hotel Damaso in November before our cruise and loved it. Fantastic location and the absolute best breakfast! We really liked the rooftop terrace too. Nice, clean room and very helpful and pleasant front desk staff.

I hope it works out for you! Good luck!

Thank you for all this info. Our cruise is an NCL (Oceania) one too and I thought it might possibly work just like you mentioned.

Thank you so much!

Thank you for this! Good to know.

We are about to book a cruise for next fall that disembarks in Trieste. For those who have done this, what is the quickest way to get to Venice to fly back to the US? Private transfer? Who would you recommend and how long is the ride? What is the approximate price? I'm a bit concerned because the ship docks at 8:00 AM but most of the flights I'm looking at all leave at about 1:15 PM...don't think we could possibly make this so maybe the best thing would be to stay overnight. Would prefer to leave that day due to husband wanting to get back to work. Thanks for any advice!

Thank you so much, and yes, I will be too!!

The only other one was Royal Caribbean for our honeymoon in 1990! I can't believe we took so long of a break! I've definitely been bitten by the bug and hope to make this a regular thing!

Yay! That would be awesome! She's the singer named Emma from the US. Is that the one through the Drake Passage? It should be an experience! I hope you have a wonderful time!

Yes, that's what we're hoping for too! 😃

My husband and I took a western Mediterranean cruise onboard Marina from Nov. 11 - 19 and just loved it! We hadn't cruised since our honeymoon 32 years ago (with 4 kids we mostly take family vacations we can drive to!), but when our daughter took a job on the production team of Marina as a vocalist, we knew we had to cruise again! It was an amazing time! First, the food...outstanding! We ate once at all the specialty restaurants and loved them all. I think our favorite was a toss up between Red Ginger and Jacques. The watermelon salad at Red Ginger is really as good as everyone says it is! Polo Grill and Toscana were also delicious though. The main dining room surprised us with how good it was! We started each morning with a light breakfast and cappuccino in Baristas, and it was lovely to sit at the window bar and gaze out over the pool and whichever pretty port we were in for the day. A late lunch at Waves after our excursions as incredible too! My husband's favorite there was the surf and turf sandwich, while I rotated between burger, reuben and panini. All very good. The service was incredible! Boy, did I feel pampered and special! Everyone on staff did an amazing job. I celebrated my birthday onboard and was delighted to find a special birthday display on my stateroom bed after dinner, complete with balloons and towel animals! Speaking of staterooms, ours was a B1 veranda room and we thought it was very roomy and nice. We loved the balcony for reading in the late afternoon or for our first glimpse of the new port. Plenty of storage space and room in the bathroom also. My husband and I really enjoyed all of our excursions as well. We did all Oceania excursions since we're new at this and decided to keep it easy. They ranged from very good to great. We mixed things up...vineyard in Tuscany from Livorno, Portofino and Santa Margherita tours with ferry ride from the port of Genoa, Tapas, sangria and flamenco dancing in Palma de Mallorca, the aquarium (absolutely fabulous) and city tour in Valencia, visit to to the French village of Ceret and art museum from Port Vendres, highlights of Corsica, and ending with a city tour of Barcelona. A couple of our tour guides were absolutely exceptional and were rewarded with many good tips! Of course a highlight for us was getting to watch our daughter do what she does best...performing each night. All of the cast members were extremely talented young people that filled the stage with lots of high energy, beautiful singing and terrific dancing. We thoroughly enjoyed the production shows! The entertainment team also assisted with mini golf, afternoon tea, ping pong, cornhole, etc. and were always extremely cheerful and helpful. We thought these types of activities were just perfect for us. We hit the fitness room each morning, played paddleball, shuffleboard and did trivia as well. We're very active 56-year-olds, and though we knew the ship tends to serve an older clientele, there were actually quite a few people around our age as well. We met many lovely people at dinner and on excursions. After a busy day exploring, we actually liked to relax a bit when we returned onboard. The O-points we earned got as some great free merchandise at the end of the cruise too! One of our favorite onboard experiences was the cooking class we did! It was "In the Kitchen with Jacques" and it was so well done! We've come home and made the entire meal twice already and are so proud of ourselves!! I have nothing but great things to say about our cruise and can't wait to sail again with Oceania!