susie123

Try Eating Italy Food Tours (eatingitalyfoodtours.com) for a walking tours of off-the-beaten-path restaurants in different neighborhoods in Rome. We took the Twilight Trastevere tour three years ago and really loved it. It's a small group walking tour (I think we were 8 people) with stops for eats and wine at several different restaurants, plus a neighborhood tour, with an English speaking guide (ours was British). It was a great way to find a restaurant to return to for a full meal on another evening.

I have a question about the mechanics of tipping the server/bartender in Michael's Club "as you go" during the cruise. If we wanted to tip as we go, is there a chit that we sign so that we can charge the tip to our stateroom, or must the tip be in cash?

If there is something to sign, does the server give it to you with the drink or do you ask for it?

thanks for your help!

Hi Josie,

We used Luggage Forward on our last Oceania cruise. They shipped from our home in Florida to the ship in Barcelona. Service was excellent, our suitcase appeared in our room on Riviera even before the luggage that we had surrendered at the port. Like you, we were traveling before our cruise and didn't want to haul a large suitcase on trains. We saved some money by carrying our extra 50 lb suitcase back on the plane with us after the cruise--the airline surcharge for an extra bag was much less than Luggage Forward to ship back home.

Enjoy your trip,

Lynn

Sorry to belabor this, Flatbush Flyer, but we booked the 8/31/16 Panama Canal cruise in June 2015, without O Life. O Life is now available for new bookings only, if booked before September 30. We would have to cancel and rebook our cruise to get O Life, at an additional cost of $775 pp.

My point is that you cannot book this cruise, or most of Oceania's other cruises, right now without O Life. Happily, we booked this cruise early and didn't have to take O Life, but you cannot book it today without the added cost and added excursions.

I do hope it goes away after September 30 or becomes an option like the drink packages.

I’m very sorry to see that Oceania is including excursions in its fares. Included excursions are the primary reason why we have never travelled on Regent. As Oceania moves toward more and more inclusives, it becomes more like the all-inclusive lines that we have avoided because we don’t like to visit sights as part of a large bus group and we don’t drink very much. Included gratuities are welcome—everybody pays them—and onboard credits can be used for whatever you like, but we don’t appreciate being forced to pay for group tours that we don’t want. It appears right now that we can hardly book an Oceania cruise without paying for the unwanted tours, ie, without O Life. We’re Oceania loyalists but I’m dreading where this inclusive pricing is headed.

Thumbs down. We are regular Oceania and Celebrity Elite cruisers who just two weeks ago booked our first Azamara cruise. The reciprocal LCV benefits were a big factor in getting us to try Azamara. Sadly, we booked a 16 day transatlantic; after we paid our money, Azamara took away the free internet and free laundry, both sorely needed on a two week trip with only 3 port days. The other benefits were fun and would have made us feel good about Azamara, but were less important to us.

I don’t see any upside in the new LCV and there’s no reason to start accumulating points on Azamara when Celebrity gives us immediately useful benefits and Azamara does not. Oceania’s loyalty program is modest, but it’s dependable and you don’t have to spend money to get a benefit once it’s earned. We probably won’t cancel this trip—I refuse to believe that Azamara can also wreck its legendary on-board service before we manage to have our cruise—but I’m pretty sure for our next cruise we’ll be fleeing back to Celebrity and Oceania.

I've been trying for a couple of weeks, off and on, to look through Celebrity's 2014 cruises for something interesting to book. I can't get past the "book a cruise" or "find a cruise" tabs. The web site either comes up with a blank page or shows me the Thanksgiving promotion (but of course the "find a cruise" tab doesn't work on that page either). I'm using an iMac and an iPad, same results on both. Does time of day matter? Any other ideas?

Are the cruise gods telling me to try Princess instead?

We just got off Mercury in Baltimore yesterday. You can drop off luggage before you park the car. I don't think you would want to drop off passengers at the luggage drop-off, it's not very near the ramp to board the ship, but you should be able to drive right by the passenger terminal and drop off your passenger(s) at the door of the terminal before you park. It's not a very big facility. It was a relatively long walk up a covered ramp to get onto the ship, but we did see ship-provided wheelchairs going up the ramp so you might want to call Celebrity before you leave and ask about that.

Hope this answers your questions, and enjoy your cruise!