At Sea - December 5-6

As we have a number of days at sea during our trip…and I do look forward to them… I thought I would take this opportunity to talk a little about our ship.  The Nautica (Oceania) is a 600-passenger ship and much smaller than other cruise ships I have been on.  They have a multitude of activities and nightly entertainment.  When you participate in their activities you earn Big O points, which you can exchange for merchandise (supposedly mostly logo-wear).  Trivia seems to be a very popular activity and the teams get quite competitive. 

The nightly entertainment has varied from singers from the West End in London (their Broadway), a comedian/magician, a mentalist (I got chosen as the audience member for his show one night and it was quite an amazing experiences…ask me about that sometime…too long to write about).

There is a great string quartet that plays everyday and afternoon tea is served formally.  There is a nightclub, which we enjoy during the day as it is at the bow of the ship and has comfortable chairs and a great view (I am writing this there now).

Chris and I haven’t earned any Big O points although he has attended a number of the enrichment lectures, which cover oceanography and the culture and other info about the places we visit.  Recordings of these lectures are shown on the TV, which is the way I prefer to watch them.

Chris has been spending a lot of free time doing email and I have been writing the blog, organizing pictures and listening to my books.

The ship has 4 dining rooms and is an open table policy, which means you, can dine anytime you would like and don’t have an assigned time. Two of the restaurants are “specialty” restaurants and require reservations.  We have eaten at the Italian restaurant twice and the steak house once (for Chris’s birthday).  We mainly eat at the buffet or the grand dining room.  You can request a table for two or share a larger table with others.  This is a great way to meet people and we tend to choose this option.  The smaller size and number of passengers on this cruise ship seems to encourage meeting and getting to know other, both passengers and crew; we have met some very interesting people! 

We have yet to meet anyone for whom this is his or her first Oceania cruise (like us). I always thought I was fairly well traveled but we are travel novices compared to the people on this cruise!!!  But we have gotten lots of good suggestions for places and trips to take.  I expect we are younger than the average age for passengers as a 30-day cruise only works best for those who are retired.

Compared to other cruise ships we’ve experienced, Oceania seems to be more quality-oriented; it is certainly renown for their food preparation and diversity -- and we agree that it is very good…. from their homemade pastries (croissants are superb) to the ice cream made on the ship with flavors changing daily it is a constant battle not to gain a ton of weight (we heard that it is not unknown to gain a pound a day!).  I am not looking forward to my first weigh in when I get home. To try and counteract this by walking on their outside deck 10 exercise ring for ~45 minutes (usually before 7am otherwise the tropical sun is too much); this comes with the wonderful pleasure of observing many different sunrises (given all the cloud variations) if we get started early enough.

This cruise line also differs from Princess and Royal Caribbean in what is “included.”  All soft drinks, specialty coffees, bottled water and ice provided in your room twice a day are all included…. you basically just pay extra for alcohol.  This is a definite bonus.

So…I would definitely recommend this cruise line!!  Not only great food…but interesting itineraries.  We have already signed up for our next one…from Auckland, NZ to Tahiti in spring 2016.