Psoque

We have never done a hop on/off bus in Oslo, but we’ve been there twice. On our second visit, we just took the subway and visited a few attractions on our own. If I remember correctly, we did a backstage tour of the Opera House (We thought it was worth the effort to get the ticket…an excellent tour) and visited a few art museums. We thought we saved a lot of time by taking the subway.

The first question is easily answered by looking at your itinerary. The official disembarkation time should be listed there. However, that time could slightly change. Since you will be overnighting in Istanbul, you should be able to get off the ship before the official disembarkation time, as long as you ask for it in advance, if you need to do so. If you are flying to Cappadoccia, you can take a flight either from the new big international airport (farther) or the domestic one (closer).

I think the OP was asking about transportation from the port to a hotel in Istanbul. As long as the taxi is already waiting for you at port, I don’t think it makes any difference whether they had any difficulty getting to the port or not. We’ve only been to Istanbul once, but we had no trouble finding a cab at the cruise port in December of 2023. There was a long line of them waiting to pick passengers up on our day of disembarkation. If I remember correctly, there was a sign for taxi boarding area. The pricing was exactly the same as what the taxi fare calculators online said. We also asked the hotel for private transfer and they we asking about 20 times more than we paid the taxi driver, so we declined that offer. The same with the taxi fare to the airport from our hotel in Sultanahmet. The private transfer arranged by the hotel was unreasonably expensive (about 20 times as much as a cab), so we just took a cab. The hotel still called and got us a cab for pick up.

We were able to catch a taxi at the Istanbul cruise port in December of last year. We took this taxi to our hotel in Sultanahmet. We did not have to pre-book this. There was a line of taxis picking people up there.

There are two different things that makes this whole “premium” designation rather fluid and very elusive. One is the actual usage of the terms such as “premium” and “luxury.” There appears to be a disagreement about which line is “premium” and which line isn’t. Celebrity Cruises, for example calls itself a “premium” line. On the other hand, some travel agencies, especially those who sell a lot of Oceania itineraries, love to say that Oceania is special because it is a “premium” line, with an onboard experience much better than the “mass market” lines, including Celebrity, etc. I also read here some of the Oceania fans comparing Oceania to a german luxury car brand. And on some of the brochures, Oceania likes to call itself a luxury brand. And for an obvious reason, Celebrity/HAL/Princess will never call itself a “mass market” cruise line. I personally consider anything that I can reasonably afford to be a mass market cruise, since I consider myself nothing more than a typical consumer of cruises. The other is that, cruise experience, at least based on my personal experience, is somewhat unpredictable, because most cruise lines execute their “luxury,” “premium,” etc. service in a rather inconsistent manner. There are major overlaps in what you experience on a “luxury” line and other lines. And each line excels in one aspect or another. For example, I consider cabin design of Riviera to be as good as on a Crystal ship. However, the gym on Riviera is maintained in a much poorer condition than what I have seen on Celebrity/HAL/Princess ships. The level of dining service inconsistencies we have experienced on Riviera is something I can’t even forgive on a Celebrity cruise. So, the labels do not mean much, in my opinion. Being on a “luxury” cruise does not mean all aspect of that cruise is better than a “premium” cruise. The same can be said about an experience on a “premium” line… some aspect MAY be “premium,” some may be “luxury,” and some may be more consistent with “budget.” So we can go on and on about labels. But in my mind, they don’t really mean much.

With the great hoards of tourists visiting Japan in record numbers, I generally discourage people to visit there during the Golden Week. I disagree that this is by any stretch of imagination “a great time” to visit Japan, especially in this context. Over-tourism in Japan is a seriously real problem in Japan at this time. However, if you must visit Japan during this time, look out for some of the festivities associated with one of the holidays during this week. May 5 is a traditional Japanese holiday called “Tango no Sekku,” now popularized and also called “Children’s Day” or “Kodomo no Hi.”. There are a few cultural traditions associated with this seasonal holiday, including chimaki and kashiwa mochi. There is also a tradition of people flying carp-shaped windsock called koinobori for this holiday. But I have a small koinobori hanging in my house 365 days a year, and one can find chimaki and kashiwa mochi any day of the year while visiting Japan or one of the more bigger Japanese communities around the world.

Everything/everywhere will be super crowded during the Gold Week. Most businesses that caters to tourists will definitely be open. Maybe it is OK if you are taking a cruise, but I personally never visit Japan during Golden Week because of the crowds.

Since the pricing of Oceania cruises are typically higher than that of Celebrity/HAL/Princess, etc., often overlapping with those offered by the lines more known for a real luxury experience, I think it is completely reasonable for a newcomer to expect a much higher level of service on an Oceania cruise, especially in their dining rooms. In our experience last November, we thought Oceania did a very poor job in their dining rooms. We don’t know if this was a fluke, or maybe all cruise lines are struggling with a huge influx of new workers. But as long as Oceania wants to differentiate itself from Celebrity/HAL/Princess, they need to work on more consistent dining service.

I haven’t had a chance to save the pre-April 1 pricing on these selected itineraries, but I wonder if this “promotion” is a way to soften the initial blow of fare increases on some of these itineraries. I’m just hoping that Oceania is not going to make the pre-cruise hotel booked through them as compulsory. Despite what some of us say, in my experience, the cost of hotel booked through the cruise line (which are typically priced “per person”) is typically 2-3 times the going rate. Some of us may like to still book the hotels with Oceania, but I personally don’t.

Thanks for letting me know. I somehow could not find this thread. However, looking at the thread, it has already been hijacked into a different topic (cruise air and deviation fee.). Anyhow, my point is this: Oceania (and really, other cruise lines as well) have always been selling pre/post cruise hotels with a ginormous mark-up, so I can't imagine Oceania offering pre-cruise hotel with less mark-up. Based on that, there's no way this inclusion is "Free" or "Generous" in any way. It just makes the whole cruise fare even more opaque, which was exactly the problem with how Oceania has been marketing their products. However, I guess there will be enough customers who are either blissfully unaware of this, or either unwilling or unable to make their own pre-cruise hotel arrangements, and for them, this is of value to them. To me, this makes no sense.

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/oceania-cruises-offers-free-pre-cruise-hotel-stay-on-a-range-of-sailings-in-2024-and-2025-302098868.html According to this and other reports I have read, Oceania is experimenting with a bundled cruise fare that includes a hotel night before the cruise on some itineraries. I tried to look up how Oceania is presenting it to the consumers on their website, but so far there's no indication of this happening. Anyways, I was very happy that the pricing table became a bit simpler when Oceania switched from "OLife" to "Simply More," (though I'm not necessary consider this transition to be all good) it appears they are again trying to complicate their pricing model. Looking at the press release above (written by Oceania), they are calling this bundling offer a "free pre-cruise stay" and "this generous offer," giving a false impression that somehow, a customer will come out ahead when Oceania bundles their pre-cruise hotel into the cruise fare. I had some hopes for Oceania when they started to make their marketing a bit more honest, but I'm afraid they haven't really changed. I realize that most of us can tell the difference between "free!" and bundled pricing, but it still begs the question who exactly is Oceania hoping that would actually believe that these add-ons are a free gift from the cruise line?

Clicked on the link. There's nothing that specifically addresses air deviations.

I guess this is where a new roll call comes to wither away.

I just cringed a bit with the use of the word “loose” in the posted FAQ entry.

As long as you don't value the ability to book the restaurants sooner, you may not value the extra cost of concierge class to be meaningful. I would rather spend that extra cost on a nicer dinner before you get on the ship or something like that.