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Rating (out of 5):     Ship    Food    Service    Itinerary

We booked this cruise fairly last minute because it came up on the travel agent el cheapo list. After we had booked, Oceania posted a fairly competitive retail rate so Dave & Joan booked the same cruise. The ship eventually filled up, with 658 passengers (684 max double occupancy).

Oceania was great as usual - good food and good service. I gave the itinerary only 4 stars as we missed Norfolk due to inclement weather. It certainly wasn't the fault of Oceania, but it was disappointing just the same. The entertainment relied heavily on the ship's song and dance crew with only 3 guest performers for the 12 day cruise. That was OK though as we really aren't entertainment people.

The highlight of the cruise for me was discovering Bermuda. The island is absolutely beautiful and the houses and other buildings were freshly painted in wonderful pastel colours. The ferry and bus system was excellent and we enjoyed the scenery as we travelled around the island. We enjoyed three full days there and still didn't see it all. The only negative of the island is the cool ocean and the lack of good snorkeling. Docking in Hamilton (middle of the island) was superconvenient as we were right in downtown Hamilton, with the Royal Dockyards one hour (by bus) to the west and St. Georges one hour (by bus) to the east.

Day 4 - Today we were up at 8:00 for a day very similar to the previous one, at least through to the afternoon trivia at 3:00. We skipped the trivia to watch the sail-in to Hamilton, Bermuda. It was a beautiful day and a very interesting sail into the harbour. The only other cruise ship in town (actually the Royal Dockyards) was the Oceania Riviera, one of our favorite ships. The houses and other buildings were all freshly painted and so clean - it reminded me of Tenerife in the Canary Islands. We were docked by 4:00 PM and went ashore to use the internet (at the public library). Fortunately we checked our incoming email as there was an email from a snorkel company about a tour we were to do tomorrow that we had booked online. There was a bad weather warning, so they had canceled the snorkel. For dinner I had osso buco. Always good! We did the entertainment again, which was a so-so British comedian (Stevie Joe).

The Riviera had left the previous night, so there were no ships docked there. We had the dockyards to ourselves! It was really enjoyable walking around checking out the shops and the old buildings. Our first stop was at Island Center Tours to check on our refund for our canceled snorkel. We stopped for lunch at a bakery where we ran into D&J who had come over on the 11:00 ferry. We wandered a bit more and then caught the bus back to Hamilton (1 hour). We popped into the ship for 3:00 trivia and then back into town to use the internet at the library. We ran into Dave again as we were headed to a grocery store where we bought some Boddington's beer. Back on the ship there was an announcement that there was a storm brewing off the eastern US coast and we would not be able to make it to Norfolk, Virginia. In lieu we were being given an extra day in Bermuda. I could handle that! For dinner I had rack of lamb. The entertainment was a pirate party, but being pirate averse we went to bed instead.

Note: I should mention about a unique architectural feature of Bermuda. There is very little fresh water on the island. Each house or building has a special roof to catch the rain water and funnel it under the house into a cistern to be used for washing, bathing, watering, etc. Drinking water is provided by a de-salination plant and imported bottled water. The roofs are stepped wood lathes or stone with a finishing coat of plaster, and every roof on the island is painted white. The design of the roof assists in catching the rain water. The effect of all white roofs is amazing - I have never seen anything like it in all of our travels, except maybe Alberobello in Italy.

Day 9 - We were up at 8:00 as usual and headed to the buffet to eat. It was busy in the buffet and Marjorie and I were hogging a table for 6 when the comedian (Stevie Joe) came and sat with us. He was very interesting. It was still windy and cool. As usual Marjorie headed off to attend a port lecture while I went to the gym. We had lunch at the buffet and then headed off to a 2:00 lecture by the comedian about his earlier career with the British Police and Scotland Yard. It was really interesting. Afterwards, we did afternoon trivia. For dinner I had shrimp and linguini. We skipped the entertainment and went to bed.

Then we did a 45 minute tractor/wagon tour of the undeveloped areas where we saw light forests and swamps, wading birds and several huge alligators. The swamps were small lakes, covered with bright green duckweed. The fish life was plentiful enough to feed the wading birds and the alligators. Special "ramps" had been built in the lakes to allow the alligators to sun themselves We had really enjoyed ourselves. The plantation is strictly tourist oriented now, there are no longer crops of any kind grown here other than for show. We found a nice picnic area to eat our muffins and Coke from the ship. We wandered around the grounds and gardens some more, and then spent some time in the gift shop. At 1:30 we were driven back to the tour HQ where we transfered vans again to one that was doing the city tour. The tour involved driving up and down most of the streets, pointing out all of the famous or interesting buildings. We stopped at one point to walk along the sea wall in the Battery area. We learned a lot about Charleston. We were dropped off at the ship by 4:00 PM. We caught the end of trivia and then shared a beer with D&J. For dinner I had lamb chops. We did the final evening trivia session (tomorrow was "collect your prize day"). We skipped the entertainment (comedian again) and went to bed. No rocking and rolling tonight as we were overnighting in Charleston.

The main area was a pot pouri of museum buildings, various rockets and an imax theatre. The space shuttle Atlantis was shipped here after retirement, so some of the site was featuring the exploits of Atlantis. The IMAX theatre was wonderful, featuring Atlantis and touching on some of the future space program endeavers. In one of the plazas there were (mostly real) rockets from all of the programs (Mariner, Mercury, Gemini, Appolo, Skylab, shuttle, etc). We also got to walk across a real gantry walkway (from the Apollo era), although it was only a few feet above the ground rather than 310 feet high. We had a couple of hours to wander around the buildings and exhibits and then it was time to return to the ship (5:30). The drive there and back was across a totally flat wetland. No hills of mountains were visible in any direction. We saw lots of wetland animals, including a number of egrets and a small alligator. We were back to the ship by 6:00. We decided to go to the MDR for dinner as they were serving turkey. We went to the entertainment. It was a pianist (Peganini) who had excellent skills, but a poor presentation. He tried being a Victor Borge, playing parts of pieces, purposely hitting wrong notes and his English was not very understandable. By fluke he also repeated pieces that the lady pianist had played a few evenings prior. Enough! Time to put our bags out and head to bed.