Oceania Cruise - Day 1 - 3

We are on an Oceania Cruise boat called Nautica. It is a smaller boat with only 650 people compared to over 2000 on the Celebrity cruise we took 20 years ago.
There is everything you could ever want on these boats, 4 dining rooms, Barista bar, swimming pool with bar and restaurant, gym, spa & wellness centre, library, walking track, mini golf putting course, card room, concert venue, boutique shops, casino, destination services that deals with all travel off the boat. Our room has a verandah with deck chairs and the bed is so comfy!
Each morning they refresh the water, towels etc, each evening they come in and turn your bed back and replace anything you might need. They do everything they can to make your journey enjoyable and comfortable.
So many activities to do, would be impossible to take part in them all. We did enjoy the captain’s cocktail shout when they had music pool side with free drinks and he introduced his managers on the cruise. We have used the pool every day to cool down when we get back from sightseeing. The food is amazing, you never go hungry on a cruise boat, quite the opposite!
Neil and I do not usually take part in the organised excursions, mainly because they cost so much and secondly Neil hates not being able to do his own thing. Quite often they involve 2-3 hours on a bus, 1 - 2 hours at the destination, leaving at 8 and getting back about 3 or 4 o’clock. In the heat we have been having some people have been coming back a bit worse for wear.
Our first stop was Dikili in Turkey, we needed the tender boat to get us ashore and we walked around the town and visited the beach. We found it rather dirty and untidy, cigarette packets & butts everywhere. I needed to get some new undies as I had left about 4 pairs in a drawer in Istanbul 🤦 came across this tiny shop that had some ladies fashion out front, went in and in a glass cabinet he had a selection of cotton and bamboo undies. 3 pairs for $6NZ. I was a happy girl. As it was about 35 degrees we didn’t venture too far and got back on the boat to swim and enjoy everything it had to offer.
2nd stop was Izmir where we visited got a taxi to the bazaar, it was huge, so many little alleyways with everything you could ever want, once we left the bazaar I realised I hadn’t taken any photos, I am getting a bit slack. Walked to a lovely park but seeing it was in the vicinity of 38degrees we headed back to the boat, walking about 4kms. I did have a toilet stop on the way back which turned out to be a flat on the ground one, another interesting experience.
Today we are in Samos, one of the Greek Isles, it is beautiful. We got a taxi to take us to Kokkari and asked the young man to drop us at what he thought was the best beach. He chose Lemonakia, it was stunning, everything we imagined a Greek Isles beach would be like. 10 Euro for a recliner with umbrella. I went for about 4 swims, the water was so blue and warm. We lay in the sun, then in the shade and just soaked up the atmosphere. Had the most delicious bruschetta, dark bread with tomato and feta, then anchovy with a whipped feta spread.
The young man at the restaurant organised a taxi for us to bring us back into Samos. As all the beaches have rocks instead of sand most people have beach shoes to wear so when we got dropped off we found a shop and bought some because getting into and out of the water was painful & inelegant, totally worth it though.
We have met some lovely people, two American couples that we have had a great time with and last night a couple were sitting beside us at dinner and they were speaking Afrikaans but it turned out they were from NZ, have been there for 29 years.
The temperatures have been between 33-38 degrees so far, we are actually getting acclimatised, but that doesn’t mean we don’t come back from our excursions bright red in the face with sweat running down our backs 😆 Straight into the pool or cool shower.Read more