Well, less than a month to go before we depart LA for Istanbul and I'm beginning to get excited. Went to Costco and bought some new luggage, their black TUMI copies. (I know that sounds tacky, but I'm NOT going to pay to have my Hartman set repaired yet again!) :mad:

Docs will arrive in a couple days, and then a little "doc dancing" will be in order. We're traveling with a group of about 35, but only know a few of the group really well. I hope that any of you nice folks here on LCT who are also on this cruise will I.D. yourselves so we can say hello.

Several of us are going to bring fine wine from our collections. I researched the Turkish government's website, and the best I can determine, visitors are allowed 5 bottles of spirits without duty, so we'll bring 10 very special bottles for corkage on the ship ($20). I know this sounds a bit cheap on our part, but since Oceania is a non-inclusive product as compared to RSSC, I think it makes some economic sense. For example, an outstanding vintage wine that possibly sold at time of purchase for $85 would be treble that amount on the ship's wine list, if available. So we're bringing that stuff for special evenings, and will purchase a few items off their menu for the casual evenings.

We also plan to buy bottled water from time to time at ports of calls...since the notion of paying several dollars for bottled drinking water on a cruise goes against my grain. (Again, got spoiled on RSSC :D )

We've arranged for private tours in Istanbul, Kusadasi, Rhodes, Santorini, and Athens. The rest of the ports, we're going to wing on our own.

I look forward to reading the review of Regatta from one of our esteemed LCTer's one she gets caught-up, and I'll do my own review one Hiro and I return from the trip...

Hope to hear from any of you fellow LCTer's!



Eric