Wol

The (present!) definitive answer came when we decided to apply for the Canadian ETA anyway, just to be sure.

The second question asked whether we were entering by air - yes/no. On clicking "no" the application terminates, saying that we do not require the ETA.

Most of the advice we've received from the industry has been wrong!

Sorry I was wrong I clicked on the "Transit Visa" option :o

 

On the Canadian Gov site there is a link you can send a question to them

You could ask if you need the ETA if coming by sea for port stops

 

How much is the ETA ?

It may be worth peace of mind just to get one & not have to worry about if you will be denied entry or boarding

It's only CA$7 I believe - not significant. It's just that every time one applies for something like that there's a chance of rejection which can foul up everything from then on.

I've just renewed our US ESTAs which would be out of date during our next cruise - and Mrs Wol's wasn't issued for some reason. The US ESTA application form gets longer and longer each time we apply, with questions from one's past that we can't remember - I suspect the algorithms compare the new application with the old issue and think there's something fishy if some answers don't match up - but it's a real worry anyway.

on the Visa link site it says you do not need one if you arrive by land or sea

http://visalink.com.au/requirements

scroll down the page

 

so i guess point that out to the cruise line

 

Enjoy the cruise

Not on MY VisaLink page it doesn't!

Entering with Australia and NSW as the state, Tourist Electronic (The only real option) it says that we DO need visas - the box "Arrival by sea or land" just has an exclamation mark on it: clicking on the box does nothing.

Stranger and stranger....

I know that the Canadian site says it's not needed but I just wanted to find someone who has recently been through Canadian ports on a cruise to confirm.

As I mentioned, the cruise line and VisaLink both indicate that the ETA IS required.

It's part of the ongoing problem that so many countries have no conception of cruise passengers who are only in a port for a few hours.

This one starts in Singapore and ends in Miami!

We will be cruising next June with several stops in Eastern Canada. There are new requirements for visitors - Electronic Travel Authority, a la the US ESTA.

It specifically says on the Canadian government website that these are ONLY needed for entry by air and not for sea or land entry.

The cruise line and VisaLink both say the opposite! (That we WILL need the ETA!)

Anyone have recent first hand experience? I believe that what was "voluntary" changed in September to "compulsory".

(Australian passports)

OFF TOPIC:

 

For those of you sailing on Sirena now, are there DVD Players in your stateroom? And, if so, do they work? Also, what size TV do you have? Thanks! (I'm Inside) :D

Yes, yes and the width of the diagonal cabinet!

However the TV is apparently ex Princess and the remote doesn't work completely with it - the only way to access anything above channel 12 is to enter 12 and then go up and up. We were told brusquely that nothing will be done about it.

Going back to the DVD it's not easy to work out how to get the input into the TV.

Everyone bar a couple who have experienced Tuscan Steak on Sirena agree that it's a huge downgrading from Toscana and Polo.

The decor is a matter of taste but for us it's reminiscent of a motel diner.

The menu is a very truncated mixture of the Polo and Toscana ones, with the emphasis on "very". There's no olive oil choice or "big cheese". All the ambiance and welcoming atmosphere has gone.

The staff are excellent as usual, but cannot rescue the combined restaurant I'm afraid.

Oceania, in their wisdom, are apparently set on converting all the R ships to this during refits.

Everyone I've talked to says they are planning to make their views known to Miami - please do the same thing if you agree, and post here as well so that I can pass on your views. It might be possible to get them to rethink - and save money into the bargain!

I am on Sirena at present, on a back to back ending in New York.

Complaints about such trivia as the number of olives (!) don't merit a response, but there are some issues that give us concern about the direction that Oceania is taking.

We are not foodies, but one of the pleasures on Oceania has in the past been walking into Toscana or Polo and enjoying the ambiance and atmosphere. Now that Toscana has been eliminated - or, to be precise merged with Polo - this experience has disappeared.

The new Tuscan Steak is to us, and almost everyone I have spoken to, a dramatic downgrading of the Oceania dining experience. The decor, with its faux wood floor, unattractive walling minus any decoration is decidedly unwelcoming. The menu is a mess - almost none of the appetising offers of either of the previous restaurants are there - the olive oil choice and the big cheese are gone and the ambiance is now non-existent.

I can sympathise with those who missed Red Ginger on the R ships, but to shoehorn it into a much smaller ship thereby wrecking the two much appreciated dining venues is a disaster. I know that Red Ginger seems to be popular - it's actually our least favourite outlet, and I know we are not alone - but this is not the right road to take.

As far as the rest of the ship is concerned the staff are well up to the standard of attention, efficiency and friendliness that we take for granted. The maintenance is excellent - small problems have been attended to almost immediately, and the ship looks immaculate.

The is an issue which seems ongoing with vibration: unlike the other R ships there has been a 2 - 3 Hz "tramping" vibration very much in evidence at the front at certain speeds. There is always some vibration on all ships, but this has been sufficient to make sleep or reading not easy. Whether it's due to a prop, stabiliser flutter or something else I don't know - the officers prefer not to discuss it - but I hope it's attended to before our next booked Sirena cruise.

As always 90% of the enjoyment of being on a ship is the attitude of the officers and staff and in this respect you will not be disappointed!

Same with us in July. Tried to give our Butler and cabin staff extra but could only do it in cash. Which we did. Too bad because we would have given a lot more if we could have used OBC for them. Just had to spend it on shirts and stuff we did not really need. Too bad since i think the crew could have used it more than us getting a bunch of extra stuff. :confused::confused::confused:

We were left with $1500 unspent OBC on a recent cruise and they did allow us to put it into the crew fund.

Off subject, but we are embarking tomorrow in Lima - who IS the captain on Marina at present?

And is Dominique the hotel manager?

Your post well written.* I think most of us would agree.

* Except for the "obvious" typo!

Incidentally I have just seen the headings of the reviews in the 2015 Berlitz "Cruising and cruise ships" for some of the fleet:

"Premium country club style for mature-age cruisers" (Marina)

"This is an informal premium ship for mature age cruisers" (Regatta)

"This premium ship has traditional decor, for mature age cruisers" (Nautica)

There must be clues there, somewhere ;)

.

Agree 100%. It is interesting that whenever there is a thread regarding children, some people will inevitably bring up adults, seniors, etc. The thing is, this thread is about children. Anyone can start a thread about seniors or misbehaving adults if you so desire. In the meantime, I'm sticking to the topic.

 

To restate something that seems to have gotten lost in this long thread is that there are some children's programs during school breaks and summer. If someone sails on Oceania during these times and they do not want to encounter children - it was their decision to book at what I feel is the wrong time of the year.

 

We will be traveling this July (something I generally avoid doing) and am prepared that children on the airplane could be unruly (even in Business Class), the airports will be chaotic, etc. While I may not like traveling in the summer, it is my choice and I will force myself not to complain:o

I think you are missing the point, with respect.

Nobody hates children. They just do not want their peace to be shattered by unruly behaviour - whether it's from old or - let's face it, more often - young.

The choice should not boil down to *when* you book: it's really more about *where* you book. There are plenty of lines - Disney comes immediately to mind - that cater for families and children: there are others such as Oceania which pretty obviouly do not, and the majority on these would not book if they knew their voyage would be ruined by noisy behaviour.

.

Surely the fundamental issue is that Oceania is not really appropriate for children?

There is very little for them to do, unlike lines such as Disney and others. where to a greater or lesser extent the ships are designed around children or families.

No-one objects to a small number of well behaved and quiet children on board - or in the restaurants. I've seen some delightful ones. On the other hand, I have also seen some that are well out of line in their behaviour for an adult-oriented cruise ship.

.

I'm very surprised that any cruise line would tolerate that kind of behavior from any staff, but especially from reception--that's a passenger's first interaction on board! I'll definitely be aware of that now when we sail in March.

I think most people would agree that on all O ships the reception staff can be the least friendly - obviously with exceptions.

Overall the ships' staff are fantastic - one of the best things about Oceania - but I have seen and experienced less than comfortable reception attitudes. Possibly the reason is sometimes the origin of the staff behind the desk: what is condescending for most passengers may be normal at "home".

Having said that, one can see incredibly rude behaviour from some passengers - behaviour that would see me leaping over the desk and murder committed!

Thanks for the replies!

After I had posted I looked at our other bookings, and as several said, it depends whether you are on the big or small ships. I have to confess that I don't remember in the past there was a difference or whether it's a new "feature" (A la Windows :rolleyes: )

I have been looking at our future booked cruises: the first one in Marina, 30-odd nights in Concierge level. I am surprised to see that only one speciality booking is allowed; I don't remember this being the case on Marina or Riviera before.

That faster through thinner air concept makes sense - as drag would presumably decrease; but doesn't lift also decrease in thinner air, also thrust from the prop turning in thinner air? Wouldn't there be some optimum altitude for a given aircraft?

We're probably getting a bit outside the intention of Cruise Critic (!) but, very simply (because there are several more layers) airspeed is measured quite crudely by the difference between "static" pressure and "total" pressure. The former is the outside air pressure as seen by the airspeed indicator through sideways ports, the total pressure is seen from a tube pointing straight ahead. The difference gives a measure of the air pressure due to forward speed.

As the altitude increases so the outside air pressure decreases, and this indicated airspeed no longer reflects the actual speed through the air. But since lift and drag are both related to the indicated airspeed, effectively what you see is what you want - speed in relation to stall, etc.

True airspeed (actual speed through the air) is only of use for navigation purposes, not control. Except that taking off and landing TAS can be rather high at high level airfields!

Ground speed, of course, is entirely different although related to TAS.

No, charts assume a sphere and project onto a cylinder (for the most part). Lines of latitude are parallel and equally spaced, and measure 1/360th of the distance between the equator and the pole on a sphere. What is distorted are land mass shapes caused by not only the non-spheroidal shape of the planet, and the projection from a sphere to a flat cylinder.

 

I'm neither a flight navigation or marine navigation instructor, nor even a navigator, but this engineer knows enough that regardless of what chart is being used on the bridge, if I measure something to the scale on the right side of the chart (latitude), but not the scale on the bottom (longitude), I get nautical miles.

Whichever projection one uses, polar stereographic, Lambert's conformal conic, mercator or whatever if the globe is assumed a perfect sphere and each ground position is mapped to the chart's lat/long I assume that a chart distance measurement would be fractionally - and I mean MINUTELY! - different from the actual ground measurement.

But, as I say, that's my take. It's a long time since I did spherical geometry and I can't say I found it easy then!

Most aircraft and ships seem to find their destinations despite, if I'm correct, being a couple of inches out :D

Incorrect - minutes of latitude are consistently one nautical mile each all the way from the equator to either pole. You are thinking about minutes of longitude which are just over one nautical mile each at the equator and diminish in length as latitude (north or south) increases - until right at the pole all 21,600 minutes compress into nothing.

 

PS - But no so much a navigation instructor.

Without researching it, I would think that you are both right - and wrong.

The earth's geographic poles are at exactly 90' North and South, and the equator is at 0' latitude. Those are exact and fixed numbers.

A chart is necessarily inexact, whichever projection is used, but each geographic location is mapped to a point on the chart. Since the earth is a modified oblate spheroid and not a sphere it seems to me that yes, actual precise distances as measured on the chart will necessarily be very slightly different to actual ground measurements since the chart will assume a sphere - if it didn't, the lines of latitude would vary very slightly on the paper in separation.

Shoot me down if you like but that's my take on it!

We had a 18 foot wave hit along the side of the Celebrity Solstice, we felt the hit. The seas did not seem to be that rough, you never know when they will emerge.

Apparently the CCTV shows a wall of water something like 60' high appearing out of nowhere. It smashed the outside ceiling lights on the "hit" side on deck 5 so must have been something like that.

Very little is known about freak waves - they are very very infrequent, can't be forecast so are almost un-studied. Eastern South Africa is one place that seems to occasionally get them.

The date that appears there is the date the final payment is due, regardless of when it is actually paid.

Thank you, Mike - that's what I thought must be the case but I did want to make sure that the payment had actually gone all the way from my wallet to that of Oceania!

sorry I never really noticed on my account I go by my CC statement

 

you could email Mike Moore he may have the answer

I hadn't thought of that - I have sent him an email and link to this thread.

Thanks.

Did you pay by CC or cash to someone?

When I make a payment via my TA is shows on my cc statement paid to Oceania

This is Australia, things are never quite what they seem!

We always pay by CC but weeks later there's still the "Pay in full by" field in the "My account". I am just wondering if this is the same for everyone - ie. just a standard reminder, or a "receipt".

Terry Bishop is absolutely the best enrichment lecturer as well as entertainer. He packed the lounge for every single lecture and when he performed in Horizons one night it was standing room only. Don't miss him if you can help it! We were fortunate to have him for 21 days on Regatta - SFO to NYC with lots of sea days and lots of lectures!

His "Shed" song makes you weep with laughter - at least, for the Bits and Aussies!

If you go to your account in the Oceania site and look at your booked cruises, there is an entry showing when you paid the deposit and just below it one saying "Full payment by" (or similar).

We are in the habit of paying in full when booking (gets rid of the currency exchange worries) but even weeks later the "Full payment by" date is still up there, as if Oceania haven't received it

Anyone know if that date is merely a reminder of when you *have* to pay, or does it reflect that Oceania has actually received payment? If the latter, someone in the middle is hanging onto our cash!