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Oceania Cruises to send three ships to Europe in 2013
March 12, 2012

Oceania Cruises will send three ships to Europe for the summer of 2013, one less than this year.

The line announced this week that the 1,250-passenger Riviera will spend the summer of 2013 sailing in the Mediterranean, while the 1,250-passenger Marina and 684-passenger Nautica will split their time between the Mediterranean and Northern Europe.

Gone from the Continent in 2013 will be the 684-passenger Regatta, which instead will head to Alaska for the summer. Read about Oceania's new Alaska itineraries. Oceania says the Riviera will offer a range of seven-, 10- and 12-night itineraries in the Western and Eastern Mediterranean. Among them: A 10-night "Italian Escapade" from Civitavecchia, Italy, (near Rome) to Venice that features stops in Italy and Croatia; and a 12-night "Paths of the Byzantines" voyage from Venice to Istanbul that features stops in Italy, Croatia, Montenegro, Greece and Turkey.

Marina also will sail several itineraries including a new, 10-night "Baltic Odyssey" routing from Stockholm to Copenhagen that includes stops in Helsinki, Finland; St. Petersburg, Russia (for three full days); Tallinn, Estonia; Gdansk, Poland; and Warnemunde, Germany (for Berlin). Departure dates for the itinerary are June 25, July 5, Aug. 24 and Sept. 3, 2013.

Nautica will sail a number of cruises out Dover, England including an 18-night "Voyage of the Midnight Sun" that offers 12 ports in Norway with overnight stops in Honninsvag (North Cape) and four sea days. Nautica's July 22 "Medieval Marvels," a 10-night cruise from Copenhagen to Stockholm, features the new-for-the-line port of Klaipeda, Lithuania.

The newly announced Europe schedule is notable in that every single sailing includes at least one day at sea, a change for the port-focused line. Oceania president Kunal Kamlani tells USA TODAY the line added the sea days after hearing from customers who wanted more time to take advantage of the expanded facilities on the line's two new ships -- the 1-year-old Marina and soon-to-debut Riviera.

"Our guests came back (from early voyages on the Marina) and said, 'You've built these gorgeous ships, but you make it difficult to spend time on them because we're in port every day,'" Kamlani explains.

Kamlani noted that the line will offer more shorter, seven-night sailings in Europe in 2013 to accommodate vacationers who want to pair a cruise with several days of touring on land.

Source :- http://travel.usatoday.com/cruises/