Just got home...

[J&W B]

We just returned from the May 22 Rome - Athens cruise aboard the Insignia. This was our first cruise ever (and our 25th Anniversary).

 

To sum it up in one word: WOW. It was fantastic. The entire crew was friendly and helpful. It was actually a disappointment to have to leave the ship. My wife was jealous for the next people to have our stateroom (A1 level) because of the pampering they were about to experience.

 

And the ports! We had heard that the cruise was "port intensive". Well, we enjoyed every port. Where we did not book a tour, we walked the towns.

 

And we had unexpected bonus. In the town of Valletta, Malta, in the city museum, they had a display of the Chinese terracotta warriors. We actually stood within touching distance of 5 of the figures, and they also had two horses and a carriage with four horses.

 

The tours were well organized with the logistics of moving that many people from the ship to tour busses well thought out. And we really appreciated that the tour busses were not packed, but about 80% full. This allowed some breathing room on the trips to and from the sights. When we returned from the Pyramids in Egypt (13 hour tour), the Insignia crew had a reception line outside the ship, with wet hand towels and cold drinks, which we really appreciated.

 

A word of caution about the on-board photo storage. I take a LOT of pictures at the maximum resolution of the camera. My wife's camera also has a video function. We had stayed in Rome for three days before the cruise started. By the time we reached the Insignia we already had over 500 photographs and several movies, which totaled over 2GBytes of space. Well the on-board account allows for 1.5GBytes of space, so we were over our limit right away. Luckily I had brought a portable USB hard drive (160GBytes) and was able to do a transfer from the camera memory cards to the USB hard drive. The total for the trip was just over 3,500 pictures using about 12.5 GBytes (3 DVD's, or had we burned CD's on board, 18 CD's).

 

It was a wonderful trip, and for anyone new to Oceania, we highly recommend taking a cruise with Oceania.

[merryecho]

Sounds like you had a wonderful time, but please don't invite me to your slide show!

[zutalors]

It is great to know what a fabulous time you had, as we are booked on the exact same cruise for our 25th anniversary also, the Sept. sailing in reverse - Athens to Rome!

 

Did Oceania offer any transportation only options to places, such as Messina to Taormina?

 

What did you do in Crete?

 

Thanks for the info!

[potterhill]

We did our first cruise in 2005 for our 25th as well. We went from Lisbon to Venice, an itinerary chosen to meet our friends criteria and then they didn't go! Ah well, we had a wonderful time, and are now addicted to cruising.

 

Mo

[zu zu's petals]

We were on this cruise as well.

 

Transportation only tours were not an option. For Messina, we hired a tour company to take us to Etna and Taormina. We were glad we did as the port stay was shortened due to a scheduling change and thus the ship's excursion to Etna had to be cancelled.

 

As for Crete....we liked this port least of all. Found the core run down and shabby. We did manage to make it to an aquarium, the Cretaquarium. It was nice, albeit somewhat costly considering its size.

 

Hope that helps.

[brian_uk]

J & W B

 

I am really impressed.....3,500 pics in say 17 days.

 

This equates to 205 per day.....assuming that there were say 2 Sea days when less is happening to film, the real average is 233 per day or say 10 per hour. BUT......assuming you sleep or are in the cabin for 8 hours per day then the real average is 15 per hour.......BUT assuming 3 hours a day are spent Dining then you are up to 18 per hour. I have not even calculated the travelling time on buses, taxis etc or even just walking.

 

It appears to me that you are taking a picture every 3 minutes of your touring day. Progress must be very slow.

 

Just imagine now wanting to show your friends your holiday pics showing your progress every 3 minutes on your trip ..........zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

 

Oh well......just a joke......not to be taken seriously.

 

We generally manage 100 pics over 14 days and nobody ever wants to see them......even US !!!!

[zutalors]

Thanks alot! that really helps! Would you mind posting the tour co. you used in our roll call area?

 

We also had Rabbit from your roll call come over to ours and volunteer to give us some info when he returns so we are looking forward to hearing from him too!

 

How was Cyprus? It is a short stop there...

 

Robin

[Rabbit of Caerbannog]

Hi all,

 

We are back - actually got back late Wednesday but were quite tired Thursday from the long flight home and have had a ton of yard work to catch up on!!!! Yes, back to reality!

 

I will - as promised - post to the roll call for the Athens to Rome cruise to give any info. We had a fabulous time. And I am sure the other folks who were on the cruise will provide the stuff I may not be able to.

[J&W B]

It is great to know what a fabulous time you had, as we are booked on the exact same cruise for our 25th anniversary also, the Sept. sailing in reverse - Athens to Rome!

 

Did Oceania offer any transportation only options to places, such as Messina to Taormina?

 

What did you do in Crete?

 

Thanks for the info!

 

We bought a tour in Crete, the Knossos Palace, well worth seeing. The tour also included an "authentic" lunch in a local village. Quite good actually with a different tasting wine. Plus a taste of raki, which is quite potent.

 

The only tour options were with a guide.

 

At every port Oceania brings a local tourist guide on board who has good knowledge about the area along with maps and suggestions.

[J&W B]

J & W B

 

I am really impressed.....3,500 pics in say 17 days.

 

...

 

It appears to me that you are taking a picture every 3 minutes of your touring day. Progress must be very slow.

 

Just imagine now wanting to show your friends your holiday pics showing your progress every 3 minutes on your trip ..........zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

 

Well I am sure that other people remember me ckicking away, the guy with the white Tilley hat.

 

And it was 20 days as we stayed a few days in Athens, plus my wife also had her camera. She took 300 with the other 3,200 being mine. Plus a few movies on her camera.

 

I take pictures of EVERYTHING. I want those memories. I take pictures of the port from the stateroom. I take pictures while the bus is rolling. I take pictures of the local culture (people, housing, animals). I want to capture the "flavour" of the area. Some are duplicates because the composition changed. At one place two women decided to sit down inside a triple arch. I took the picture but kept an eye on them while the guide talked. When the women got up I quickly took the picture again.

 

In Rhodes at Lindos there was a small port which looked to be entirely closed in. I got four shots of a motorboat going through the rock wall, with the final shot showing the boat and its wake. All within the same minute.

 

And we would never inflict this many pictures on any one. We will be going through the pictures to pick out the gems to create a slide show.

 

And some of the pictures will be doctored. I will remove construction cranes. To appear together with my wife, quite a few are paired, one of my wife standing to the right, then she takes me standing to the left (of some "thing"). I then cut and stitch the pictures together so that it appears we are standing side-by-side.

 

I also take panaramic sequences, where I start from the left, take a shot, rotate about 1/3 through the view-finder, then take another shot, repeat until done. This produces several pictures which I will then stitch together into a single wide picture. Or where I cannot backup enough, I take a grid:

1234

5678

Which then becomes a single picture.

 

Digital photography is free once you have the equipment. With today's multi-gigabyte storage, I do not really monitor my picture taking. I was quite surprised when the totals came up. :rolleyes:

 

Plus it gives us something to do during the rainy days here in Vancouver. I plug the computer into our large screen TV, we pour some wine, and we go through the pictures.

[lahore]

For Messina' date=' we hired a tour company to take us to Etna and Taormina. [/color']

 

Zu zu, would you mind sharing any details of the company - name, cost, name of tour please? That would be very helpful as I really want to see Etna too. Also any details of how close you got, any climbing involved, is it still spewing lava (it was a couple of months back) etc? thanks in advance

[merryecho]

JW- hope you understood my comment was entirely tongue in cheek- just my obxcure sense of humor.

[zu zu's petals]

For lahore and zutalors,

We used "Sicily Life" (www.sicilylife.com) and basically emailed them with what we wanted to see (Etna and Taormina) and they quoted us the price. There were 3 of us (me, hubby and 10yr son) and the cost was 360Euros. We were really interested in seeing Etna, otherwise we'd never have paid that much to do a tour!

The guide was a young man named Luca, he was very knowledgeable about the history of eruptions and the land (never knew the Normans built fortresses in Sicily!). One word of caution, as with other guides, Luca led us to sites where his friends just happened to be...and they just happened to be selling stuff!

The car was very nice and comfortable as well and Luca met us on time...just keep in mind, private tours aren't allowed to come into the port area, so we needed to exit the gates to find our guide.

Etna- for us, well worth the cost of the tour....Mars-like landscape, amazing. I've got a bad knee, so the uneven footing found me sitting and people watching, while husband and son explored extinct craters. There was an option of cable cars to go up to higher elevations and then vehicles to go higher still....we didn't have the time to do this, so I didn't inquire about price. Only at those higher elevations would you see active vents. Had our scheduling change not occurred, we would have gone higher for sure.

Let me know if you want more info....Rabbit, is hubby as mentioned above and is doing a review as well.

[Florida1]

Hi zu zu

Just wanted to say that your son was sooooooooooooooo well behaved on the cruise. Must have been hard for him to be around adults all the time. He sure is cute!

[J&W B]

JW- hope you understood my comment was entirely tongue in cheek- just my obxcure sense of humor.

I did.

 

But when you crunch the numbers it does seem that all I did was take pictures. Somehow I do not have that recollection. And going through all of them and classifying them will take some time. :p

 

Anyway it was a good trip with lots of good memories.

[zutalors]

Hi Zu Zu's Petals!

 

That is sooooo funny - I guess you DO know Rabbit - LOL - I see creative names run in the family!!!

 

I wasn't sure you could post tour co.s on this particular board is why I mentioned visiting the roll call.

 

I think your son is very, very lucky to have experienced such an adventure at such a young age and will remember it always - one of the best educational experiences!

 

We took our 2 boys to Morocco and Canary Islands when they were 10 and 13 and it was an amazing experience for them (plus they could practice their French)

 

I will definitely be interested in any info you are so kindly willing to share! How was Cyprus?

[mk0520]

We were on the same cruise and saw your wonderful family a few times on the ship. In fact, we were the couple in the cabana next to you on the sea days. We were very impressed with your son. He is a credit to you and your husband. You should be very proud of him and the job that you have done with him. We had a wonderful time on the cruise and can't wait to book another one with Oceania. This was our first time with Oceania and it won't be our last.

[lahore]

Hi Zu Zu - thanks for that. Unfortunatley 360 Euros is too much for us, so we'll have to find another alternative. Great to know about you experience with the various levels too.

[zu zu's petals]

:o For Florida 1 and MK0520, thanks so much for your comments about our son...we know he's a good boy, it's nice that others saw that too. I'm going to show him your comments so he can realize that his good behaviour was noted and appreciated. Thanks so much.

 

Lahore, trust me, 360Euros was too much for us too!!LOL. However, my hubby's dad was born close to Etna and this trip was a chance for us to see where our parents were from, that's why the itinerary struck a chord with us...my mom's from Italy and my dad was from Malta....had this not been the case, we'd never had paid that much. One thought...the vehicle we took was large enough to hold seven so if you can get some other couples to share, I think the cost was a flat rate, vs per person...good luck.

zutalors-Cyprus is a beautiful country and from what I can tell, financially sound...their pound is very strong against the CAD. We went to a water park since there wasn't anything we really wanted to see and it was a chance for the boys to have some fun (I"m not a water person!). Wish I could give you more insight as to what to do there...just know it was quite costly...even the cab to the water park (a 10 min drive) cost us $21 CAD each way and it was a Mercedes to boot. This may be one port where the ship's shore excusion is very worthwhile.

[zutalors]

Thanks Zu Zu - I am not a water person either - but appreciate the input!

 

J&W B - Thanks for the info on Crete - how about your experience of Cyprus? It seems to be difficult to find info about that one somehow!

[lahore]

Hi Zu Zu, well family and history are always important, so I can understand your preparedness to part with the money. For me, it's just a fascination with volcanos. I think there is a train that goes from Messina to Palermo and back, called the circumetna or something similar. I am thinking of just catching that and watching the world go by, as long as we can do it in the period that the ship is in port. thanks heaps for the info anyway.

[aneka]

Hi J&W B,

Don't ever apologize for taking too many pictures. I for one love photography and digital photography is fantastic. I spend hours editing my pictures after a trip and only print out my favorites, but have wonderful memories. I have created slide shows using ProShow Gold and people really enjoy them. I would be very happy to see your pictures, all 3500 of them! Please post a link when you are ready to share!

 

A fellow Photography nut,

Annette

[ladysail2]

I would love to see all 3500 of your pictures as well. I love looking at pictures....it makes me want to go and see the real mccoy!!

Please do post a link when you're ready!

[J&W B]

J&W B - Thanks for the info on Crete - how about your experience of Cyprus? It seems to be difficult to find info about that one somehow!

We walked around the town by the port (after taking the free shuttle bus). There is a nice boardwalk by the beach, and we stopped at a liquor store where we had a few free samples, from which we bought some wine.

 

If you go to the museum, beware that you cannot take any pictures inside and it is only three rooms.

[J&W B]

Hi J&W B,

Don't ever apologize for taking too many pictures. I for one love photography and digital photography is fantastic. I spend hours editing my pictures after a trip and only print out my favorites, but have wonderful memories. I have created slide shows using ProShow Gold and people really enjoy them. I would be very happy to see your pictures, all 3500 of them! Please post a link when you are ready to share!

 

A fellow Photography nut,

Annette

All 3500 take up 12GBytes, a bit much to post to a web site :)

 

We will be creating a slide show. But right now, family, home, and work are back, and the time pressures are mounting. Sigh.