Grrek Isles Cruise ship board review

[Rocket4Oh]

Greek Isles Odyssey, 10-22 Sep, 2010 onboard Oceania ship, Nautica

3 days in Athens pre-cruise and 3 days in Istanbul post-cruise

This is the “executive summary” or should I say, well expanded ES of our cruise. It will be a combination of “here’s what we did and liked/didn’t like” and lessons learned from first timers (it may be worth exactly what you are paying for it J))

Diane and I are not cruisers per se having only been on one 4-day NCL cruise in 2005. I am a retired navy guy so this is like a busman’s holiday for me. Don’t get me wrong, I love being at sea and the Nautica spoiled the heck out of both of us!

(Okay, I’ve just finished this Executive Summary and found myself on page 6. So the first part will be a bullet point of key items. If you care to drudge through the full write up be forewarned that I did say ‘drudge’.

I don’t mind answering direct questions and will read the Oceania board on Cruise Critic every so often should you have a question. Here goes….

Pre-cruise:

· Join and absorb Cruise Critic boards about Oceania, ports of call and the roll call for your specific cruise.

· Check out Tripadvisor dot com for city restaurants, hotel and site recommendations

· Open up a separate checking account with an ATM card. Deposit funds for the cruise – protects your main bank account funds.

· Use a 4-digit PIN for your cards. Do not start the PIN with a zero

· Learn some language words and phrases. Audio books In Flight {Greek} Learn Before You Land and great

· Pre-pack two weeks before the trip. Guys – no sports jacket is needed

On board the ship

· Concierge stateroom – 216 Sq. Ft including veranda; lots of storage space. Veranda a must

· Board early especially if this is your first time on the ship. Lots of activities that first day

· Get the small floral arrangement if you plan on ordering one

· Future Cruises presentation – don’t waste your time

· Coffee available 24/7 in Terrace Café, starboard side. Machine makes single cups of coffee, cappuccino or latte. Horizons coffee and Danish service opens at 6:15ish. Room service is QUICK! Enjoy the coffee while sitting on your veranda.

· In-room frig: you can get it stocked with your favorites

Restaurants:

· Toscana was favorite; Polo Grill excellent with unwavering menu. Grand Dining Room also excellent.

· Food was well prepared and presented well. Service was fantastic with one experience in the Polo Grill being a bit too much.

· Maximum time we ever waited to be seated was 3-4 minutes. Portion sizes were great.

· Tapas on the Terrace was most often the choice for breakfast buffet.

· Fruits and vegetables always fresh and plentiful

· Can order a bottle of wine and have it available in any restaurant.

· Additional reservations are made in Terrace Café at the start of breakfast. Line up early for better chance.

· Pastries & cake were uniformly dry.

Off ship activities:

Port tours: Ship tours are good but don’t cover as much as most privately arranged ones and are usually more expensive for what you get. Go with private tour guides who have been recommended on CC boards.

Tendering: Ship tour folks have priority boarding of tenders but usually space is available from the first tender on for DIYers Get tender pass in Nautica Lounge – try and be there about 15 minutes before first ship’s tour group is to arrive

On board comments and general demeanor by ship’s staff.

· Problems and requests are handled very, very expeditiously. The entire crew is warm, welcoming and eager to be of service to make your trip the best it can be.

Diane and I would rate the cruise 5 + stars

Pre-cruise

Planning help:

I joined Cruise Critic and absorbed every bit of information that I could about the ship and the different ports that we were going to. A world of experience is available for the taking (ask your question – you’ll get an answer! (in retrospect, I really don’t understand anyone who complained loudly about shipboard stuff – it wasn’t perfect but darn near) The roll call for our trip wasn’t as active as I thought it would be but those of us who did communication were able to set up our private tours very quickly and nicely. I also reviewed TripAdvisor dot com and found that the ratings of the hotels, restaurants, etc. were fairly spot-on.

Use of ATM on holiday

On the advice of a CCer (Cruise Critic blogger), we opened up a separate checking account at our bank, transferred funds to meet our ATM needs while on the trip and felt much more comfortable knowing that our primary checking account was safe. !Use a 4 digit PIN that does NOT start with zero for use with European bank machines!

Other stuff

Learn a few language words & phrases. In-Flight Greek (& Turkish) Learn Before You Land audiobooks (under $12 through Amazon) are an easy way to learn a few key phrases in {Greek and Turkish}. Simply learning how to say Please, Thank you, good morning (and for me, “Beer”) will bring you much warmth from those you come in contact with.

Prepack

Two weeks before our trip we pre-packed. Our goal was to travel with one (count ‘em) ONE medium sized suitcase each and a reasonably sized carry-on. Pre-packing gave us an unhurried opportunity to figure out what goes where, what was missing and what we needed to take out. We made our goal! Guys, you really don’t need a sports jacket! I took one but only wore it once. Next time it will stay home!!

Shipboard stuff

Stateroom

Stateroom 7063 (starboard {right} side amidships was our concierge home-away-from home for the 12 day trip. The size was reasonable as we didn’t spend very much time in it. What is nice – and I wouldn’t do it any other way – is the veranda. Now I know there are lots of folks who would rather spend the $$ ion something else on the trip but having that veranda to view the waves, watch the sun rise or set and other out-of-ship experiences while sipping coffee in the morning or a cocktail at night makes it all worthwhile. We slept most nights with the slider ajar and the soothing sounds of the ship and sea along with the fresh ocean breeze was priceless.

Our trip was a celebration of several milestones (we stretched the truth a tad on how close in time we were to those events}: Diane’s x0 birthday; our 25th wedding anniversary and two or three other minor occasions. In addition to receiving a Happy Birthday card and a Happy Anniversary card (and celebratory dinner in the Polo Grill complete with a special cake and singing wait staff) I ordered a floral arrangement for the room. It was a beautiful bouquet which livened up the room with color and fragrance but…after 3 days it simply was in the way. At 216 sq. ft. of floor space, including veranda, the floral arrangement assumed a disproportionate amount of space as time went by. (If you are going to get an arrangement for the room – get the small one)

Boarding time

Next time, we are going to board earlier.

On the day of embarkation, we took a private tour of Cape Sounion and the Temple of Poseidon and planned it so that we would arrive at the port of Piraeus about 3:30. Boarding and check in was quick and painless. When the limo pulled up to the pier area we were greeted by a Nautica staffer and a crew of stevedores (I think the Greeks call them that too). The luggage was checked against the manifest, tagged (I forgot to attach the ship’s luggage tags…oops) and whisked away within a minute. Carry-ons over shoulder, the security and passport check was perfunctory and the bus to take us to the gangway (FYI: It’s NOT a gang-plank…that’s whats ya gotta walk when yur feed to the fish…arrrgh, matey} Had we known the 10 minute wait on the bus, the 10 second bus start up and door closing and the 23 second ride to the ship could have been avoided by walking…another “next time”. Before actually boarding, our passports were checked again against the manifest, another package scan and we were escorted up from the deck 3 entry to deck 5 and the Nautica Lounge. There were 3 lines for checking in: Owner’s Suite Vista Suite guests (1 couple in line); Concierge level guests (3 couples in line) and all other staterooms (10-12 couples). Pictures taken, “World Cards” made and given – along with a nice amount of shipboard info to read (no test on the material was ever given). The World Card is a combination ID, room pass and charge card. (WARNING – make sure you keep the World Card from magnetic stuff or whatever causes them to go flat. We had to get new ones 4 times! What’s worse, if one person needs a new one both must get new ones.). The Nautica Lounge check-in took no more than 10 minutes.

Up two levels to deck 7, turn left then right to head aft on the starboard side to room 7063. A quick check out of the room and read of some of the info we were given along with more papers that awaited us in the room. Champagne was cooling in the ice bucket and the floral arrangement was beautiful. As luggage had not yet arrived our plan was to tour the ship top to bottom. Forward and up the stairs (on naval vessels those things which you climb taking you from one level to another are called ladders. On the Nautica they were STAIRS – too ornate to be plain ‘ole ladders.) to deck 11 – sun deck and cabanas – down the steps to deck 10, u-turn to walk forward and into the Horizons Lounge; back across the fitness track and visit the library and peruse the vast selection of books. Chatted with another couple we had met in Athens for a few minutes as we walked out to view the pool deck partial filled with passengers who were enjoying the sunshine and water in the pool... It had been about an hour since we boarded and so we skipped the rest of the self-guided tour and returned to 7063. Our luggage had arrived and was waiting impatiently for us in the passageway.

Unpacking time! There was plenty of room for all of our stuff. In fact the plastic hanging shoe bag that we were going to hang over the bathroom door wasn’t needed. Lots of wooden hangers in the closet, a safe for valuables and we were set. There were dual electric outlets: 110 & 220 on the desk and another in the bathroom so using the3-slot extension cord I brought it made recharging all of my electronics relatively easy (I had fried my outlet strip in Athens so I did need to change items to be charged every night). Just as we were wrapping up the distribution of clothes the call went out for the mandatory lifeboat drill. The Orange (lifejackets) stored in the closet were donned and all passengers made their way to the Grand Dining Room. A short presentation about how to put on the lifejacket was given and we trundled off to our lifeboat station on the outboard walking area of deck 5. There we listened while Leslie Jons, our fantastic cruise director, gave the “In case of emergency” lecture to all.

By the time we scurried back to our stateroom it was time to dress for dinner which was preceded by our Cruise Critic party held up in Horizons Lounge. This was a no-host event that one of the bloggers set up with the concierge ahead of time. Nautica provided us with simple snacks and the wait staff was very attentive to our need for much needed beverages. Dinner in the Grand Dining Room followed on the heels of the CC get together. Bill & Vickie from Palm Desert, California shared a table with us that first night (I was delighted to see that they were both beer drinkers!!). This night, like every night eating in the GDR there was absolutely no wait for a table. But we did linger over the scrumptious meal and waddled out about 9:30 fully sated and satisfied. It was perfect timing as the ship got underway about 10 and we watch Piraeus harbor fade from sight from the comfort of Tapas on the Terrace, aft on deck 9. As both of us were quite tired by then we shuffled off to our room and readied for bed.

Our heads were spinning with all of the constant activity that had gone on since we boarded! As we paused on the veranda – Diane with her evening tea and I with a final cocktail – we both agreed that “Next time” we will board earlier so that we can enjoy the ship and the day as a much more leisurely pace.

Other stateroom related info

Bashi, our room attendant, was great! Never did we see him without a smile or a warm hello. He (as well as a number of the staff) was kind enough to let us into his life. We learned about his home in the Philippines, he’s family and some of his life’s detail. It made us feel very welcomed. Bashi made up the room twice each day. (and even worriedly asked us if he could when we had the “do not disturb” sign on the door just so that he wouldn’t need to).

The room temperature/humidity was higher at night than we normally like. That was easily corrected by leaving the slider to the veranda ajar. That had the additional benefit of serenading us with the sounds of the ocean while we slept.

Room service is 24/7. The last day was the only time we used it for anything other than morning coffee. Which leads me to one of the absolute necessities - morning coffee. The first night neither of us slept particularly well. I finally gave up trying to return to the land of Morpheus, grabbed my Kindle and went looking for coffee. In the Terrace Café on the starboard (right) side just aft of Waves Grill there is a new coffee machine which makes decent single cups of your favorite hot beverage: coffee, cappuccino or latte. I wasn’t the only one who couldn’t sleep. If you want coffee and Danish about 6:15ish then the urns of caffeinated, decaffeinated and hot water (for tea drinkers) are set up in the back of Horizons Lounge on the starboard side (sorry about the starboard/port thing.. I just can’t bring myself to say left side and right side on a ship)

But there is an even better way! Room Service! Here’s how to:

Arise groggily from your deliciously comfortable bed, pick up the telephone handset, feel around on the floor to find the handset because you dropped it; press #02 on the telephone keypad -the metallic voice will tell you to wait a few seconds while it’s paging room service; hang up the phone and about 5 seconds later it will ring. A –much too cheery for this time of the morning – voice will say, “Good morning” and you can hoarsely mumble, “Two pots of coffee, quick”; hang up the phone and go put your bathrobe on. You’ll need to do that quickly because it never took more than 4 minutes (usually 2) for a smiling waiter to be at our door with our two carafes of coffee! THAT was well worth the 1 Euro tip that we gave him.

In-room frig

The under-desk refrigerator is stocked with an assortment of things: water, soda, wine; beer, hard alcohol, etc. You can ask your room attendant to stock it with your own personal choices. The water is free and the alcoholic beverages are a price similar to that which you pay on an airline. As has been described on the CC blogs you can bring your own booze or soda aboard and drink it in the room (or in a lounge area if you don’t flaunt it).

Restaurants

For us the choice of where to eat {I was going to list the 3 main meals but there are other times that you can eat/dine/sup that it begins to sound like Shire-like {as in Lord of the Rings}: “breakfast and then seconds, 3rd breakfast, 11 o’clock snack, lunch, tea……”)…our choice of dining venue was mostly driven by the day’s activities.

Breakfast was usually in Tapas on the Terrace (7:00-9:00) and the buffet line. There are two sides to the main hot buffet area, both mirror images. Between the sides is the daily specialties; French toast, omelets, pastries. On the aft side of the room the food choices are the fruits, cereals nuts and berries, yogurts, etc. Fill the plate and head out to the alfresco area (or indoors) to select an empty table and await others to ask if they can join you or select a table already in use and join them for conversation. The wait staff will get you coffee, tea, juice, etc. Diane always has fruit for breakfast and the selection of fresh fruit in Tapas was extraordinarily good & fresh. I occasional tried a pastry and quite frankly found them to be very dry. This was uniformly true in all dining venues for all pastries and cakes – the only real disappointment in eating on the Nautica. The Grand Dining Room was my choice 3 times as I absolutely needed to have the grilled lamb chops – I was in heaven. The GDR is sparsely used for breakfast.

Most days we were ashore at lunch time but we did eat in Tapas and Waves. Waves has burgers and good milkshakes and smoothies. My favorite sandwich was the Mahi Mahi burger with a side of French fries. Truth be told I found the fries to be a bit saltier than I like and the shakes to be a bit on the thin side. Never did eat lunch in the GDR.

Like the fruit, the salad and fresh vegetables were excellent and always crisp and fresh.

Dinner time is an adventure that we savored. Most of the time at home we are very plain eaters: grilled chicken (occasional fish or meat) and steamed veggies or pasta with a snippet of sauce. Dinner is over in about 20-25 minutes, max. On board the Nautica we lingered. Drawn by the multiple courses of the meal and conversation with new found friends resulted in supper being a 1 ½ - 2 hour event.

We made reservations in the Polo Grill and Toscana on line before the cruise. Choosing nights early on in the cruise would, hopefully, give us a better opportunity to snag additional meals in these specialty restaurants. Our favorite restaurant by far was Toscana. The setting is soothing, the service was impeccable and the food on both occasions was done and served to perfection. The first meal in Toscana was, in our minds, one of the top dining experiences of our life. The bread basket delivered to the table was a work of art and the breads were crisp on the outside and tender, moist and warm on the inside. Our largest challenge was the olive oil and vinegar choices. The condiment cart was wheeled up to us and there was a choice of 8 different varieties and flavors of olive oil. {I need to go back to school and take a course in oils!). Salad, appetizer and main course were all perfectly size – thankfully. The menu is reasonably stable but there are nightly specials. The choice of pasta (capellini?) with crab salad was heaven on a plate. Diane had it as an appetizer and I for the main course. The place settings on the table are beautiful and very much enhance the meal. (however, while at school studying up on olive oils I am going to take a refresher in which of the 47 knives, forks and spoons to use when). I did mention the service being impeccable. Between the head waiter, 2 or 3 wait staffers assisting, the sommelier and the maître ‘de being unobtrusively attentive we felt well cared for yet not hurried.

The Polo Grill has an Englishman’s den feel to it. Leather upholstered chairs and china that evokes visions of fox-hunting pay compliment to the wood paneled room. We ate here three times (third visit was a gift from the Maître ‘de, Georgios (sp??).

The food was good but first meal porterhouse steak was gristly . As I mentioned before, we found the portion sizes in the restaurant venues to be a good size (un-American like because the sizes weren’t gigantic). In the Polo Grill it was a bit different. The steak was put in front of me and I took one look at it and said, “This isn’t a Porterhouse steak, it’s a porter mansion!” and I ordered a small one. I simply can’t even imagine trying to wrestle with a 32oz steak! The first dinner in the Polo Grill also felt somewhat rushed. We were seated promptly (good) a menu was ready to be handed to us even before we sat down, drink order taken, and immediately the waiter was there to take our order. Bread, salad and main course seemed to come before we were finished with the previous course.

Both issues turned into positives, as far as I’m concerned: On our mid-cruise comment card I made mention of both negatives from our visit to Polo. That card was turned in at the reception desk on deck 4 in the morning. By that afternoon we had received a call from the Polo Grill chef and Georgios, the Maître ‘de. The chef said he was glad to hear of our problem and assured us it would be looked into and taken care of – all future cuts of meat were excellent. We didn’t get a chance to talk with Georgios about the rushed feeling but during our second meal in the Grill, 3 nights later, he stopped at our table and spoke to us at great length about our concerns. He apologized and then offered us another reservation, which we took. During the second evening in Polo the service was much better, less hurried. By the third visit we are positive that Michael, our head waiter, had been told to ensure that we were well cared for. We enjoyed Michael all three times there as he was very personable and very good at his job!

The Grand Dining Room dining was also very high quality. Naturally the room is a bit noisier than the smaller venues but still within reason. The wait staff was usually prompt and took good care of their charges. There was only once when it was necessary to ask about our food delivery. Food was generally very tasty, well presented and the right temperature. Twice we couldn’t decide between two entrees and opted to have both delivered together…made for a crowed table.

Room service meals – The only time we had room service for other than our morning coffee was the last day. While packing we ordered some cheese and crackers. It was delivered within about 10 minutes and was a nice arrangement of several types of crackers and a good assortment of cheese – including, as our video showed – Limburger. I haven’t tried Limburger since I was a pre-teen when my grandfather and I would take cheese and pistachio nuts down into the basement to share. It definitely is an acquired taste which we still have yet to accomplish….and really are not going to try.

While we are on the subject of dining:

There are several things which, in my opinion, make dining onboard Oceania Lines even nicer and one that’s not so great:

· You can order a bottle of wine with a meal and have it available later in most of the ding venues: Toscana, Polo, GDR and even Tapas.

· Tip is automatically included with drinks and, of course, there’s no tipping in the restaurant. It is very nice that when you are finished with a meal or a drink at the bar you simply get up and leave

· Michael the head waiter in the Polo Grill

· Making additional reservations in Toscana and the Polo Grill is cumbersome. The ONLY way to get additional reservations above and beyond your room’s allotment is to go up the Terrace Café and wait in line before breakfast starts. I tried it twice arriving each time about 15 minutes before the restaurant opened and was about the 7th to 8th person in line. Didn’t get additional seating either time. There’s got to be a better way.

Other shipboard related stuff

Tours at each port

It is not difficult to learn a great deal of information about most places that the ship will stop. Googling the name of the city/area will reveal a wealth of information. Tripadvisor dot com is a good site to find out information about restaurants, hotels and even places to visit. Of course, the tried and true book guides: Frommer’s, Rick Steves (excellent!) But the best spot is the Cruise Critic boards. There you can ask very specific questions and learn from the experience of well-seasoned travellers (ya might say that some are…wait for it…old salts!)

We decided, after extensive research on the various ports to do some DIY, some with a privately arranged tour and, to gain the experience of it, some shipboard tours. Most private tours that we took were much, much better than ships tour because we saw more sites, learned a greater amount of detail, could customize the tour to suit the tastes of the fewer number in the group and for the most part were less expensive that the ship’s offerings. With a ship’s tour there is always the necessity to ensure that ALL of the tourists in the group are on the bus or with the group as you explore. This means that the pace is CONSIDERABLY slower than a small group. Of course, due diligence must be taken when setting up the private tours: ensure the extent of the services that will be provided by you guide: transportation, dialogue while riding; qualified (and licensed) tour guides at major sites (Or at least arrangements for such a guide); itinerary and naturally the price. Confirm the arrangements about a month before the date of your tour AND confirm a day or two before. Using a cell phone is easy and relatively cheap in most places and well worth the dollar or two it costs to use.

The use of tenders by those who are DIYing it or taking a private tour is painless. As can be expected, these on a ship’s tour have first priority on the tender. However, if there are extra seats on a tender others may use them. We never found a day when we weren’t able to get on the first tender leaving the ship.

In the daily bulletin the ship’s tours will be listed along with the time to report to the Nautica Lounge to pick up the tender tickets. If you are taking a ship’s tour the voucher(s) for that tour will be in your stateroom when you board. Take the voucher to the Nautica Lounge at the appropriate time and trade it for a tender ticket that has on it the number of the tender to which you are assigned and bus pass. Wait in the Lounge until your tender is called (A nice Swedish voice will gently call out, “Those on tender #1 may now proceed to deck 3”. Follow the leader down to the debarkation deck, deck 3.

If you are DIYing or private touring and you want to get off the ship as early as possible be in the Nautica Lounge about 15 minutes before the first ship’s tour people. Go up to the check in desk and they will give you a tender pass. If there are seats on tender #1 that’s when you’ll go. We took private torus in 4 or 5 ports and were always able to get on the first tender. Most of the time when we DIYed it we didn’t leave the ship until an hour or two after the first wave of tenders departed so there was never any wait. In fact, the cruise director will announce when open tendering starts so you don’t even need a pass.

Returning to ship is even easier. Hopefully you’ve remembered where the boat pulled in (suggestion – take several pictures of the surrounding area so that on return from a long day of walking/shopping the location can be confirmed) There was always a welcoming Oceania umbrella with a table that had cool drinks of water or juice and a few chairs. Ship staff is on hand and greet you with a nice smile. The shore based staff will check your World Card to ensure that you are headed to the correct ship.

Of course, if the ship is pier side there is no restriction on when any passenger can disembark.

Other minutia and opinions:

Cost of “extras” onboard. DIY vs. Laundry service. Opinion – we were on vacation we did not want to spend our time in the Laundromat. Even with sending out underwear to be cleaned and several loads of shirts/slacks/dresses our total laundry bill wasn’t any more that $50 {yes we did rinse out our socks in tour bathroom}.

Booze: No more costly than could be found at a decent bar/restaurant. $4.50 for a ‘standard’ beer and $6.00 for the two or three premium ones (Guinness, Grolsche). $9-10 for a martini. {I recently went into a local bar complete with pool tables and one or two patrons drinking shots & beers (NOT a high class joint). My bourbon on the rocks cost $8} Shipboard booze cost is really not excessive.

18% gratuity automatically included: I’ll ask you this: If you got out to dinner at a nice restaurant and wait for your table at the bar with a martini or two, what will the bill be and how much tip will you leave? I see a $20 tab, I’m probably going to add 3-4 dollars – 15-20%. $12/day/person added to your ship’s invoice: Again consider what would it cost if you would eat breakfast and dinner at a restaurant (the adjective ‘nice’ is assumed). Breakfast would cost $15-20 and dinner $60-80 at a minimum. Total per day would be $75-100. A 15% tip would then amount to between $11 & $15. Considering all of the other services rendered $12 ain’t half bad.

Port touring: I had meticulously planned a combination of ship & private tours and several stops where we DIYed it. Those DIY days were to be lighter on the shore based activities. Alas we didn’t follow through with that plan. Reflecting back, we wished we did have more time on board the ship to lounge by the pool, join in some of the activities and just relax. NEXT TIME

Future Oceania Cruises presentation: If it is anything like the one they gave on our cruise, don’t bother. It was simply a reading of the list of cruises coming up. (If one of my students had made a presentation like that I would have flunked him/her)

Response to ‘suggestions’ (read: problems). Whenever there was an issue that was brought to the attention of a staff member it was addressed immediately. You will notice that I didn’t say “most of the time” because it was dome EVERYTIME. This is an extraordinarily superior service (and obvious mandated goal) of the ship and by extension the company... (The response was so good that one needed to be mindful of off handed comments because it may result in an unnecessary immediate response). Cases in point: Mid-cruise comments. This was filled out about the 5th day of the cruise and turned in to the reception desk before going ashore about 9 AM. When we returned in mid-afternoon, the door in our room was fixed; there was a note about reusing towels on our bed and a message from both the chef and the maître ‘de from the Polo Grill on our telephone’s voice mail. The chef spoke to us about the quality of the meat cut and assured us it would be watched - never had a problem in the next two visits there. We missed being able to take immediately to the Maître ‘de, Georgios (from Corfu) but he came to our table 3 nights later and we spoke at length about the service. This concern was attended to and we were offered an extra reservation in the restaurant – which we took. A mention to Bridget, the trainer in the gym about missing towels brought an instantaneous supply; a question about use of the equipment launched a full blown demonstration on the equipment and some good info on work out routines. Bridget, by the way, was delightfully upbeat and pleasant any time we saw her in the gym or elsewhere on the ship.

General ship’s crew demeanor: The treatment and pleasant willingness of ALL of the crew was another very strong point of the ship. Especially those with whom you have numerous contact; room attendant, waiter, bar tender they were not only pleasantly polite but genuinely happy in their positions. Learning about their lives and families made the trip even more special because you felt a bit like you were with your own family.

Was the entire ship-board experience perfect? NO, but then again perfection wasn’t expected. But overall, 99% of the time we felt pampered and felt that whatever we wanted we could have. It was delightful to be spoiled and for us…

NEXT TIME will definitely be Oceania

[LAexNY]

Very nice review, glad you enjoyed your first Oceania cruise.

You've covered all the reasons why we keep going back to Oceania.

[aohkay]

Thank you for posting; seems like we have another Oceania convert! :D

 

I completely agree with you in regards to the veranda and boarding the ship as early as possible.

 

Glad to hear you had a wonderful time!

[CintiPam]

Thanks for posting your review; I really enjoyed reading the details you included.

 

Our first Oceania cruise (also our first-ever cruise!) also was on Nautica; it was Istanbul to Athens and absolutely fabulous, so we simply never have looked at any other cruise lines because this one had it all for us and continues to do so. Glad you enjoyed Oceania as well.

 

We never have boarded early but rather are late boarders (so no lines) because the cities from which have embarked so far have been too fascinating to explore, and there always is more to see!

[Mura]

I, too, enjoyed your MOST thorough review. I didn't agree with absolutely everything, but why should I? We all have our own opinions!

 

I have come to the conclusion that DH and I are in the minority because we have always preferred Polo to Toscana. It's not that we're particularly steak people, because at home we really don't eat that much beef anymore, and I often cook Italian. But we just have found it to be the more interesting venue. However, it is clear from posts here and elsewhere that most people disagree with us. That's okay.

 

We HAVE come to prefer breakfast in the GDR. For one thing, I eat less when I have to order dishes! And those lamb chops are, indeed, just delicious.

 

Welcome to the Oceania family!

 

Mura

[orchestrapal]

Thanks for a most thoughtful and through review. We agree breakfast in the GDR is wonderful and un-rushed and that Oceania is a first class experience and that keeps us loyal.:)

[bw333]

Thank you for the detailed review. We are doing the same cruise this year. Did you have a private tour that was better than expected? Is there a port that you would recommend skipping in order to relax around pool? Thanks for any tips.

[yorkiemomjn]

Thank you for your wonderful review! We took our first O cruise last spring and, like you, fell in love with Oceania! We are taking a Baltic cruise on the new Marina in June. We hope to take one to Greek Isles someday soon.

Thanks again!!

Judy & John:D

[Rocket4Oh]

Thank you for the detailed review. We are doing the same cruise this year. Did you have a private tour that was better than expected? Is there a port that you would recommend skipping in order to relax around pool? Thanks for any tips.

I hope this answers part of your question...

Each of us has their own foci and that will dictate the places to visit and length of time in touring a port. That said, here’s what we did (or should have done) in the ports which could be quickie DIYs

Nauplion:

Lovely little town (covered very well in Rick Steves Athens Guide book). There are 2 (major) ancient sites to visit a short distance inland: Epidaurus and Mycenae as well as the Palamidi Fort overlooking Nauplion.

We took a 90 minute private tour of Mycenae guided by Patti Staikou (pstaikou at mail.gr)– found her name in the Rick Steves book - and contracted with Taxi Hellas (www.taxi-hellas dot gr) separately for the transportation up and back. Diane and I enjoyed Patti but two in our group of 9 weren’t altogether pleased (those two also groused about most everything). We did have a miscommunication with Vegallis of Taxi-Hellas which spoiled part of the trip. I would recommend Patti and next time we will use Taxi-Hellas but I can’t in all good faith recommend him. BUT I would reconfirm with both Patti and Vegallis the day before and call Patti on her cell the moment you stepped onto the pier. Patti’s cost was 100 Euro and the 4-person Mercedes taxis cost 80 E each (full up and back, wait time at Mycenae and drop off at Palamidi Fort). So if you have a group of 10 that amounts to 34 Euro each. If you can fill 3 cabs with 12 the cost per person drops to 28.34 E.

I would strongly recommend that if you want to visit Palamidi after your stop at Mycenae or Epidaurus have the taxi drop you off at the TOP of the fort. It is romantic to think about walking up those 999 steps but they are steep, slippery and in a lot of places need of repair. Do a self-guided tour through the fort. There’s really not much to see but the harbor views are spectacular and it is a wonderful example of an 18th century Venetian fort. The winding tour and walk down the steps took about 60 minutes.

Meandering through the old town section of Nauplion with a wonderful tomato and cucumber salad (we feasted often on these on our trip!) with a quick stop for the obligatory postcards and chachkies lasted about an hour and back to the pier for our tender ride back to the ship. Arrived at the pier at 8 AM and returned to the ship about 2.

Zakynthos:

It was Sunday so the town was just about closed when we set foot in the lovely little town square. Wandered around for a short bit and then decided to hike up to the fort. It’s a good(?), steep 5-6 Km walk and we only went as far as the lookout point (it is impossible to not see this) 1 KM below the fort. I wouldn’t do that again. If I wanted to go to the top I’d take a cab – not much scenery on the way up.

Unless you wanted to take a trip up to the turtle refuge or another side trip this would be a great day to go ashore, wander the town for an hour or two, maybe grab a bit to eat (After all it has been at least 3 hours since your eaten J) and then head back to the ship. Even more appropriate if you’ve spent several days in Athens or port of Zakynthos is at the end of your cruise.

Monemvasia:

Tender to shore, make your way over the connector to the medieval town, walk the town, shop and then head back to the ship (90 minutes). If you are adventurous hike up the hill to the Byzantine church ruins, see the harbor view and then hike back down (60 minutes). The view is wonderful but not much else there. Don’t bother beating your way all the way up to the top as we did. BTW – there is some beautiful handmade clothes in GUNYA Design studio in the old village. Gudrun Achterberg lives in Germany during the winter and summers in Monemvasia.

This might be a perfect day to do an alternate activity like swimming in the sea and lying on the beach after a pleasant stroll through the old town or simply head back to the ship for an almost full day aboard…after all there is a long list of martinis to taste!

Santorini

DIY: Tender to shore make your way to the top of the island, (choice between: funicular; donkey or walk); hop on a bus going over to Oia, do a walk about with lots of picture taking, hop on the bus back to Fira; shop, take pictures, eat, and then back down the hillside to the tender. Good full ½ to ¾ of a day. Taking the bus is crowded but interesting.

(I was not feeling well on the day we hit Santorini so I stayed on board the ship. We were the only ship there so DW found absolutely no lines at the funicular)

Mykonos

Just about the same itinerary as Santorini without the need to ride up and down the hill. Plan your stay so that you are in the Little Venice section about sunset and linger over a nice light meal and some wine (or, if you are like me, a beer or two…or three).

Don’t forget to find a small foldout street map. Use it as a general “The windmills are kinda that way” guide with full expectation that the map and where you wind up will never coincide.

There are two nice jewelry/gift shops on Mykonos that we visited: Delos Dolphin Jewelry (www.loukas dot com/delosdolphins.html); Diane bought some wonderful and inexpensive souvenirs there and Eliza’s Gallery (www.elizasgallery dot com). We didn’t buy at Eliza’s but we were well treated and they have some very nice things.

The remainder of the ports are places where you need to do a tour; either private or ship’s. More on what we did there in a later posting.

[Mother Country Cousins]

We had the great pleasure of sharing this wonderful cruise with you and I would like to thank you for the expertly crafted and superbly written summaries you have posted which bring back to us so many lovely memories of Nautica and the people on board her. We had the pleasure of meeting you and Diane at the M&G when we first boarded and are the 'tame Brits' that cruised with Billie (Mountain Grandma) and Ted from Prescott, Arizona if you can recall. They are currently back on board Nautica enjoying the Bangkok to Beijing cruise and we heard from them just yesterday telling us that it was like being back home!

 

We agree with everything you say about O and Nautica in particular and we are now looking forward to our first experience of Marina when we join her for the Colonial Crossing cruise in a few weeks time.

 

Thanks once again for fanning into life the dying embers of our memories of the Greek Isles Odyssey 2010.

 

Alan & Sue

[jperkin1]

Thanks for taking the time to do this very informative review! We will be doing just about the same exact trip (3 days before in Athens and 3 days after in Istanbul). What hotels did you stay in in those cities, and would you recommend them? I've been busily checking trip advisor, there are so many good choices, it's hard to decide!