frankdp

Hi Seadog, looks like you and Mrs Seadog are off to a great start. Thanks for taking the time for the live review, it's just what I need to get me through this week. Enjoy each minute onboard.

Here's a few shots I got last week in the Tampa Bay area....

Enjoy the Reflection and please take good care of her. I will be on board Nov 12. I wish you following seas.

nooooooooo...not another old band who was finished years ago

Wrong on this one. I just saw them last month in Vegas and they were very good. But feel free to stay home if you like, more room for Moody fans to enjoy.

I had to watch the ad twice before getting the political message:-)

First of all I love the ad. I think it can only help to improve the image of the US in Europe. The message we get from one of the candidates now isn't very welcoming.

In general people here are following the elections with much more interest than usual, fearing about ideas like building walls etc.

I really like the message in this commercial and think most Europeans do.

I'm sure most Europeans do. After all, the candidate X is supporting would love to turn the US into New Europe.

It does bother me that X cares so little for my loyalty that they would risk alienating me with this sort of political grandstanding. They must feel very strongly that "their" candidate must win.

Obviously, I'm not alone in this thinking. My first thought was that 50% of the American folks on this board be of a like mind but after some thought on it, I would opine that it is quite likely that the demographic that frequent this board would result in well over 50%.

If getting 100 million impressions is X's motivation, this could have been done without choosing sides. This being said, X obviously has another motivation. Sad.

Enjoy your cruise, I look for ward to following along! When time permits if you could list the shows and entertainment on board it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks! Frank......

The casino is a big part of cruising for me. I am in the casino for several hours every day, my wife as well. I play BJ mainly and occasionally slots, my wife is strictly slots.

We take a certain amount of money for gambling and divide that amount by the number of days in the cruise and designate that amount as our daily gambling cash.

We have never spent all of our gambling cash over the coarse of a cruise and have come back with winnings several times. Granted we have lost more than we've won but that is how casinos stay open.

I would have just locked it in the safe

 

Are you traveling with huge equipment?

 

 

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Rather bulky, but I consider it carry on......:cool:

Deus, I hope you enjoy your cruise as much as we did ours.

Queen, no I don't recall the name but it is 4 or 5 doors down from the hotel. As you exit the hotel go left. The awnings over the outdoor cafe has Veuve Clicquot in gold script on them. Indoor or outdoor seating, I had the ribeye and it was very good. We shared truffle fries and they were very good too.

First let me say that his is not a full blown review, just a brief overview of our first cruise with Oceania.

A little about us to begin, My wife and I, both newly retired 66 year olds love to cruise. For the past 5 years we have found time around our pesky work schedules to sail an average of three times per year so while not cruising legends, we're certainly not rookies. Our previous cruises have been with RCI, Celebrity and Princess, all of which we will not hesitate to sail again.

We are Floridians living near Tampa so we can easily drive to four different cruise terminals in the state. Its very nice to not have the extra cost of airfare to factor into a good portion of our travel. Of course sailing out of Florida ports limits our itineraries a bit but we take great pleasure in the shipboard experience and love our sea days. For the past 2 years we have done one cruise per year that were more port intensive and did not depart from a Florida port. Of course the one I'm writing about now and an Alaska cruise tour on RCI Radiance of the Seas, last year.

This trip was on Marina from London (Southampton) to Copenhagen. The itinerary began in London. We arrived two days early and stayed at the Rembrandt Hotel in the Kensington area. The first day in we rested a bit and spent a few hours exploring the area close to the hotel. Had a nice pub lunch at a very cool little London pub called A Bunch Of Grapes. Very old and very good pub food. I had bangers and mash and my wife had fish and chips and of course we both enjoyed a pint of a local brew. The next day we did a "London in one day" tour, 10 hours of touring this amazing city by bus and boat on the Thames. Saw a lot but it was very tiring.

We got picked up by private car the next morning and made the two hour ride to Southampton to board Marina. This ride was a bit uncomfortable because our driver had the worst case of body odor I've ever encountered. Faith and I each cracked our windows (it was raining) to try to create a cross wind but it didn't help much. Oh well, we were on our way to a cruise ship, we'll get over it.

We got to the terminal right around noon and the place looked like bedlam but it went much quicker than I would have guessed. We were checked in and on board by 12:30 and our rooms were ready at 1:30. We had a drink in the casino bar while waiting for the room, our luggage was waiting at our room when we got there. We were on the concierge level and I think that might have helped getting our bags quickly. The stateroom was really nice, quite large with a very large bathroom which had a bathtub and separate shower. I will tell you that the bed and bedding are by far the best we have every slept on on board ship. Really incredible. That evening we ate at the Polo Grill and got our first real taste of Oceania food, and were not disappointed. We both had the filet and lobster tail and loved it. I had the foie gras puff pastry for an app and it was spectacular.

While talking food let me address the rest of our dining experience at this time. We ate in all of the specialty restaurants once and in all of hem the service was top notch and the food was very good for the most part. The exception was in Red Ginger where my wife, Faith got the red snapper dish and it was not particularly to her liking or mine. I got the scallop trio which was very good. One of the dining highlights for me was in Jacques, where I got the Dover sole. It was truly one of tastiest fish dishes I've ever had and I highly recommend it.

As much as we liked the specialties, the Grand Dining Room is not to be missed. Again great service and the food was very good. As always allow a good two hours for dining in the specialties or GDR. If you are in a bit of a hurry or just don't want to give up two hours of your day don't hesitate to go to the Terrace Cafe. By day five or six I was a bit over the event of GDR and specialties so I quickly learned to love the Terrace. First and foremost it is a served buffet, meaning that a staff member will serve you, meaning no dirty hands on the tongs or serving spoons. Oh and the food and selection is once again very good. Where else can you have a steak, lobster, swordfish steak or a mahi mahi filet grilled to order as you watch?

For lunch (or breakfast) don't forget to try Waves Grill, an outdoor (under roof) restaurant near the pool. Great burgers, paninis, hot dogs and salads. They serve a Kobe burger that I had twice. If you like burgers, don't miss this.

OK, enough about food, I'm making myself hungry. Day two was in Le Havre. Many folks went to Paris but we opted for a private tour of the Normandy beaches and the American Cemetery. This day was very close to the highlight of my trip, so moving. It was hard to imagine this beautiful beach that I was standing on was awash in the blood of allied soldiers, sailors and Marines 72 years ago. And the cemetery with the long line of crosses and Stars of David stood perfectly straight and upright like the men they signify did so many years ago. Thank you to Susan and Chris who made this tour happen and best wishes to them, their son Jack and daughter Katie and to Tom and Caroline, also on the tour.

Day three was in Zeebrugge Belgium. We did a panoramic tour of Ghent. What a beautiful city with it's spectacular town square and he gilded centuries old buildings. We had a "walking around" Belgian waffle here. This is a very light and fluffy waffle with a sugar coating. Very easy to handle and eat while walking.

Day four was Antwerp Belgium where we took a bus tour to Brussels a large, metropolitan city with a ton of old world charm. In Brussels we went to a cafe where we could sit and enjoy the other kind of Belgian waffle. Again, it starts with a soft fluffy waffle but this one is loaded with strawberries, whipped cream, chocolate shavings and comes with a small bowl of hot Belgian chocolate sauce to dip bites into. Decadent but a flavor party in your mouth.

By now, I was on sensory overload and my memory has faded a bit on exactly what we did. I need to look at my photos but my laptop which contains them is with the computer guy getting fixed. I hope to post some photos when I get it back next week. For now, I'll just cover the itinerary and any highlights that pop into my brain.

We continued on to Hamburg, Amsterdam, Kristiansand Norway, Oslo, Gothenburg Sweden and disembarked in Copenhagen.

Disembarkation was the quickest and easiest I've ever experienced. We were out of our room at 7:30 and out of the terminal with luggage in tow by 8:30. We stayed a couple of days in Copenhagen or Kobenhavn in the old language. Absolutely loved this city. Very large and active, great vibe. We stayed at the Scandic Palace, right downtown in the middle of everything. The first day we did a canal boat ride and saw a good bit of the city, went to the Hans Christian Anderson museum which was just OK and had an amazing steak dinner a few doors from the hotel.

Day two in Copenhagen we went to Tivoli Gardens, an amusement park/garden center (think Disney but a little less over the top). This place was very cool, so much so that we went back that night and were very glad we did.

Tivoli has entertainment stages in several locations around the park. Earlier in the day we saw a military type band, all boys ages 10 to 16 (my guess) performing Sousa like songs. They were very good. That evening when we returned we walked into the Pantomime Stage just in time to see the local Ballet company perform Cinderella. These were adults doing what seemed to me to be very high level ballet. I am certainly not a ballet expert but I thought it was a very good performance. The icing on the cake came during the second or third curtain call where they brought out the behind the scene folks like the choreographer, director etc. One of these folks was an older grey haired lady who designed the sets and costumes. A little later when speaking to a local lady who also saw the performance she told us this lady was the queen of Denmark, Margrethe II. Very cool.

After the ballet at another stage we saw a big jazz band playing many old American standards. The band was led by an amazing singer named Anders Blichfeldt. When he sang, you would swear he was from USA but between songs when he spoke he was pure Dane.

We really had a great visit in Copenhagen with but one complaint. It was unusually hot there, as warm as 85. The hotel and most cafes and restaurants have no AC. As I said earlier, we're Floridians and we get much hotter temps than this but we have AC. Oh well, we were certainly warm but we loved Copenhagen regardless.

To sum up in just a few words, this was a great trip. Loved the itinerary, eight countries and 10 cities in 10 days on the ship and another four days pre and post.

Absolutely loved the Marina, the food, the accommodations the staff were amazing. As an aside, I spent a lot of evenings in the casino. It is a small casino but very well run. Loved the staff in the casino especially the BJ dealers.

We booked our second cruise with Oceania on the Serina out of Papeete in Feb of next year. I hope to post a few photos in the next couple of weeks. Fell free to ask any questions you might have.

Thanks so much for taking the time to do this review. Like all of the others before me, I found it to be awesome and again like the others, your girls are just adorable.

We are taking this same trip on Escape in December with the whole group, Nana, Papa (me) all three of our kids, their spouses and 4 grand kids. The kids will be 11, 10, 7 and 3 when we cruise so your review was certainly informative.

I know at one point you mentioned a fee for "sessions" for the kids. Is that for the Splash Academy?

We are also Floridians, west coast, and love the fact that we can drive to 4 different cruise ports.

My wife and I are mid 60s, in pretty good shape. We did the train that goes around the island and enjoyed it. It offers 2 levels with a seat for all passengers on both levels. Lower level is air conditioned and all windows for viewing, upper level is open air with a canopy top.

I never fail to visit Barrachina when in OSJ. Great tapas and the best Pina Coladas. They "claim" to have invented them here...... I guarantee they have perfected them. Really like OSJ.

http://www.barrachina.com/

There are several threads on this. Do a search.

My, aren't we friendly?

Beautiful pictures!!!!

Thanks

I also did Michelle with Island Wings Misty Fjords tour. Outstanding. I did not use a cell phone for my photos. However, if you are using a memory card with your camera, don't do what I did. We landed, she was helping me take pictures, and I ran out of space on my memory card. Take a backup memory card-everything she shows you is wonderful.

I used my Nikon for most photos, just used the cell phone to send some home quickly. Nikon is in my hand in this pic.

sorry, ignore

I did the Misty Fjords flight tour out of Ketchikan with Island Wings. Michelle was our pilot and she is amazing. I recommend! Below is a cell phone photo.....

Here are a few shots from my recent Alaska cruise tour.....