The last night of a cruise is always bittersweet. We look forward to going home, but we know we will miss the elegance of the ship, its gourmet meals, the interesting fellow passengers we have met,
and the friendly service of the staff. As David asked one of our stewards, "Who will take care of me now?"
Oceania advertises itself as having "the finest cuisine at sea". Travel magazines suggest other contenders, but Oceania is always included in the top group, and the other brands are all premium cruise lines. Dave and I found Oceania's food to be delicious, both in the main dining room and in the specialty restaurants.
Oceania has no water parks, ice skating rinks, or golf putting links. It does have beautiful art throughout the ship, good speakers, good (but not extravagant) entertainment, and good music. A quartet played chamber music before dinner every evening.
Like all cruise lines, Oceania has expensive shops, which I was (thankfully) able to avoid.
Ditto on the casino!
The Nautica has a capacity of 650 passengers, but there were only about 500 on our cruise. The auditorium for entertainment is more like a cabaret than a full-size production house.
We enjoyed our cabin, with its veranda, comfortable sitting area, and large, crisply made bed. I spent much of sea days in the cabin, reading or working and looking out at the sea I enjoyed just being alone in a beautiful place. Dave preferred to find a nook in the library or on deck. We both learned a lot from the cruise's resident speaker, a former lawyer for the World Wildlife Fund and an avid birder, who taught us about the natural history of each place we visited.
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