Just back from our long awaited cruise from Barcelona to Istanbul. With 2 days in Egypt and 3 days in Israel. We did a private guide with 10 others from cruise critic in Egypt. Egypt is quite an experience and to see the pyramids was awesome. Oceania did a great job of the overnight we did in Jerusalem. There were only 5 couples and we had the most wonderful guide. We hope to return to Israel some day. We booked the penthouse suite and found it to be small compared to Regent. Even the balcony wasn't any larger than the standard suites. Our Butler was very helpful. He delivered dinner in courses from the specialty restaurants when asked. He was a better Butler than we had on Regent. The food this time was not up to par. The diningroom and Tapas Terrace was very repetative and not very good. The food in the speciality restaurants was very good. Over all, oceania did a good job but they are not up to the standard they were 5 yrs. ago. As usual, Brown & Keen did an outstanding job with all the arrangements. ;)

Glad you had a good trip - you weren't on the Nautica docked next to us on the Voyager for non-TUT in Athens were you? :)

We've been looking at Oceania. Would you book them again if Regent had a like cruise?

Jim&Ann

Jim & Ann, Is that a Bichon you are holding? We have 3 Bichons and had my cousin move in for 3 weeks to take care of them. I would do Oceania if they offered a Business upgrade for $995 like Regent does. We are low on FF miles and for a long trip Business class is a must for us. Regent has much bigger penthouse suites and each floor has a free laundry. However, on Oceania there is only 1 pay laundry on the entire ship. Traveling lighter than usual these days; you need to do at least one load of wash. Regent has good speakers in their theater. oceania did not. Both are very port intensive and you get tired; so shows at night didn't mean much to us. You can't go wrong on either line.

Peter, Our cruise didn't go to Athens. We were next to the Queen Victoria in Turkey though. A beautiful huge ship. Also next to Royal Carribean in Egypt. Have you done any of Regent's South America trips?

"Over all, oceania did a good job but they are not up to the standard they were 5 yrs ago."
Interesting you should say that as I was on Oceania back in 2006 and though I found the cabins small, I thought the food was the best I had at sea, and that included Crystal as well as RSSC (IMHO). But food is subjective ,right? Pat

We just missed you Judy & John.

Sorry about the delay - didn't see your post :)

No we haven't done any South America but they're "next" on the "to do" list since we've pretty much exhausted Europe for cruises.