nparmelee

Hello! We are on Nautica as of today. A few items- Previous cruise while in Haifa tours were called back to the ship early so they could set sail. Olife drink select drink package under SM (we did not upgrade to SM) decent selection, dessert wines included. Sommeliers are running like crazy during dinner, but we kept our glasses flowing. Inconsistency in when you are asked for the stateroom card, earlier it was every pour, but tonight it was only once at the end of dinner. Internet - butler said one account per stateroom, BUT hubby and I are both connected and handing off between phone and laptop for my account was easy. Both accounts for us active at the same time. 1 device per account at a time. Like the updates to the colors. We had an A1 to PH3 upgrade offer a couple of days ago and took it. Happy to try and answer any questions. Nadine

B&H.... I'm not allowed in there alone, hubby is afraid of what I might spend. Zabar's is also very fun! Just charged all the camera batteries as we head out for our pre-cruise in Rome tomorrow. Want to make sure I can hit the road shooting Saturday morning.

I have found you need to throw out the top 10% and bottom 10% of reviews. Then look at what the reviewer liked or disliked. Items you care about, pay more attention to. Items not important to you, ignore. Tastes are all subjective. If you get to the "still maybe" after that, give it a try and see if it works for you. No matter what, always have an open mind, be wiling to deal with issues as they arise and have a great time! I find that many negative reviews did not try to rectify the issue, if whoever you spoke to about the issue at the time dealt with it to your satisfaction, great! No longer an issue, just one off issue.

Our first cruise was largish family Alaska trip on Princess. We liked the idea, not necessarily the execution. Found X next.... Also enjoyed, but it felt impersonal. Then we found O and love the small ships, still friends with fellow pax from our first 2 O cruises. For us, it's about the itinerary. If I can find an itinerary on a ship I am willing to deal with the size of and with a line I am willing to deal with the quality of and then a price I am willing to pay, no brand loyalty as the first criteria.

It looked like Nautica left Haifa on schedule yesterday, or pretty close to scheduled time. Things had not gotten serious further north yet by then. Today looks to have been a sea day as they are coasting around just south of Limassol. I would imagine any tour operators (private or O booked) would have gotten pax back to the ship as soon as they possibly could yesterday as they would be monitoring the news. At some point we will hopefully hear from someone currently on board. Those of us getting on board on the 17th may be able to learn something when we get there.

Nautica was there in Haifa, supposed to head to Ashdod tomorrow from Haifa, but not..... We're on her next so watching her closely. Next stop is Limassol, not sure if they are doing a sea day on the way there or what yet... DanceMomma - Hope to meet you on board!

Some prefer to have everything taken care of for them, some like to do it themselves. Our first O cruise was a dozen or so years ago, Rome to Istanbul. We knew then we could do the visas on our own or through O. I chose to do it on our own, because I'm one of those crazy planners. Others chose to have O do the visa for them and they were happy. I disagree with the "sneakily" wording because some office person has to do the work if you choose to for through them. It's not a 1-1 transaction, they are paying someone to do this work for those who do not wish to do it themselves and opt or the simplest route.

According to our cruise docs (10/17 start AND still Olife) we get 2 account connections in concierge. I will be updating all about how the drink package process and the connections are working shortly after we are on board.

I would be more likely to assume covid outbreaks are now like noro and flu outbreaks....

Our cruise starts 10/17, I'm sure we'll hear from someone in the first days of SM. We had OLife with standard beverage package, OBC and shorex and did NOT convert to SM. Will post our experiences as soon as we can. We plan on testing it at lunch that first day.... 🍷

I too am the planner, what I find annoying is the questions from me of "what do you think about....?" Followed by the "just do what you think is best." Then a month later, "why are we doing that?" Have a wonderful time! I know I will on our trip in a month, the other 3 will just have to live with it at that point.

We do the open the bags and then they fit nicely under the bed, also. great storage method for things you won't need much. Hubby is the heavy packer in our family

Official site for 5 euro entry tickets is https://portale.museiitaliani.it/b2c/#en/buyTicketless And October Is now available. Tours and audio guides and be can also be pre-purchased through the church web site, but those don't include the 5 euro entry fee. It's a a pretty new process still, Since July 3rd.

We have romecabs.com booked for 4 of us at 150 euros.

Book early, I was happily surprised to be able to get our favorite, 7116 on Nautica, for this October. We booked in late December/early January.