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| Barb and Bart O'Brien - Proprietors - O'Brien Estate Winery |
On a "lark," we signed up
OF COURSE my preconceptions were wrong, and to my surprise, I ended up liking cruising. Enough that I looked forward to the next one, which didn't come until two years later, this time in February of 2012, and this time in The Caribbean (on Princess' Ruby Princess). On both of these cruises we were with family. Anyone who had experience gets that Alaska and the Caribbean are two very different experiences. But the common denominator is still the onboard cruise experiences - and there are a lot of similarities there. We have since been on many cruises - both warm and cool weather - and on balance, I have to say that I enjoy the warm weather for the onboard experience. After the Ruby Princess experience we were ready to do more cruising. Following our Alaska adventure, that view changed dramatically. Since then we have been on 20 cruises - and counting. Over a period of 15 years, our cruising has eventually divided up into 3 different categories. Our "sun and fun" cruises are in the Caribbean. Our other cruises are in as many different parts of the world as we can find - and are our exploring the world cruises. The third category is more of a special event type cruise. We have had two of them (so far), and both have been sponsored by Bart and Barb O'Brien and The O'Brien Estate Winery, in Napa, California.
My thoughts for vacations at that time leaned toward traveling on terra firma
OUR THIRD cruise would be a bit of a new adventure. But first, some background. Our daughter moved to San Francisco in the mid-2000's. My wife and I were married in October, and we had begun to make the September/October time of the year a kind of travel/anniversary trip tradition. It doesn't always happen, but it has made that time of year a time we plan for. It doesn't hurt that in most parts of the world that is some of the best weather also. In 2011, we decided to travel to San Francisco in early October to visit our daughter. In part to celebrate the "anniversary" part of the trip, we booked an overnight in Napa, with a private guide - wine tasting. We visited 3 vineyards, and had private tastings, in two cases with the owners of the facilities. We thoroughly enjoyed that and I ultimately became (albeit long-distance and mostly "electronic") friends with those owners. It would turn out that they actually had a connection, though neither they nor us knew about our very insignificant touch on that. More on that later. We signed up for their "wine club" allotment system in both cases, and began receiving periodic shipments of their wine.
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| O'Brien Estate Winery - Vineyards Copyright Andy Richards 2011 - All Rights Reserved |
ALONG WITH the wine shipments, The O'Brien Estate, included a newsletter, with news about the vineyard, notes about the included wine, and often a recipe for a meal that paired well with the wines. Sometime in 2012, the newsletter contained some interesting "news." The owners, Bart and Barb O'brien, had decided to initiate some group travel opportunities for members. They enjoyed travel themselves and thought offering a travel experience which included tastings (or perhaps "seminars") about wine - and in particular - their wine might be an experience members would enjoy.
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| Obrien Wine Cruise - Celebrity Reflection 2013 Copyright Andy Richards 2013 - All Rights Reserved |
WHEN YOU first meet Bart and he does a presentation, you will hear the clever and novel "story" of the O'Brien Estate wines. It is a love story, in which they have named their wines commensurately, from the newest wines to the medium to bold reds, to their dessert wine. Appropriately, their Sauvignon Blanc is called "Fascination," the Chardonay: Attraction; a series of reds from "Romance of the Heart," "Seduction" (their signature blend), "Passion of The Soul," and "Devotion."
THE FINAL chapter of the story is their dessert wine: "Reflection." It is well worth saying that these wines are not just some quirky, cheesy (although they do pair well with cheese - just sayin') sales and marketing gimmick. The Obrien Estate Wines are first and foremost, very high quality (consistently scoring in mid-high 90's in sources like "Wine Spectator"). They are also delicious. I am red drinker myself and I generally switch hit between the signature blend Seduction and their very smooth and tasty Merlot. If you happen to be in Napa, do yourself a favor and book a tasting with them. You will thank me.
NOW BACK to (our regularly scheduled programming) cruising. The O'brien Estate inaugural cruise was scheduled for February, 2013, a 7-day cruise out of Miami, with ports of call in San Juan, St. Maarten and St. Kitts. The "new adventure" for us was two-fold. We had 2 Princess Cruises under our belts and were pretty sold on the Princess experience. We still like to cruise on them. But this cruise was on a cruise line we had seen in ports, but had no familiarity with: Celebrity. Why Celebrity? Celebrity had 2 primary ship classes at the time: the older Millenium Class (starting with the Celebrity Millenium), and the newer "Solstice Class (starting not surprisingly with the Celebrity Solstice). In 2018, Celebrity launch their third and newest class of much more modern ships: The Edge Class. We have cruised on all 3 classes; more on Solstice and Edge ships. The 5th and final ship of the Solstice class was launched in 2012 and sported a few additional amenities, making it a (still) great favorite of Celebrity cruisers; the Celebrity Reflection. What better ship to initiate the O'brien cruise experience than with a brand new ship, whose namesake just happened to be the same as their ultimate desert wine: Reflection?
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| Engaging in some silliness with our new friends O'Brien Wine Cruise - Celebrity Reflection 2013 |
ON A lark, we signed up. The second "new experience" for us was going on a cruise by ourselves, with very little planning. We wouldn't know a soul on board. But that would soon change. The good thing was that onboard activities were pretty well planned for us. There being only 3 ports, we really didn't need to do much planning. We did plan our own excursion on St. Kitts (having been there previously without really doing anything). We took their narrow gauge railway around the high elevations on the island, and finished with a catamaran cruise back to the cruise ship. It was really fun.
I AM one of those "loyalty guys." If you show me good stuff I am impressed. If you continue to show me good stuff, I become a loyal patron. As such I was certainly moving in the direction of loyalty to Princess. At the same time I was prepared to not like Celebrity as much as Princess. Pre-cruise and at the beginning of the cruise, I made some unfavorable comparisons. In reality they mostly showed my bias (which in fairness wasn't based on all that much: 2 prior cruises).,In reality most of them weren't good vs. better, but just different. There are things Princess does better. There are things Celebrity does better. that is always going to be true. In the next couple years we would cruise again on Princess two more times, with a couple Celebrity Cruises mixed in. Later, we would cruise again on Princess (because the itinerary and opportunity was right). Over time and with more data, I do lean a bit toward Celebrity (enough so that we have The Reflection 5 times, and would gladly sail it again, given the right itinerary). But we wouldn't hesitate to sail on Princess (or Holland America - which we have sailed once), again if the ship, itinerary and opportunity was right. The Celebrity Reflection, though is most certainly our favorite "Solstice Class" ship. We have history with it.
The Wine Tower in the MDR - Celebrity Reflection
O'Brien Estate Wine Cruise - 2013
DURING OUR at sea days, we had several "seminars," which involved tasting and drinking Bart and Barb's wines. They brought I don't know how many cases aboard as part of the program. We got to hear the O'brien wine Romance story (again 😁). We signed up for the ship-sponsored Reidel Tasting, which was an hour-long tasting of some of the ship's better wines with the goal to demonstrate why there are different shaped and designed glasses for drinking different wines. Who knew? One good part of the deal was that each participant got a voucher for 4 Reidel wine glasses. We still have all 8 of them in our wine bar area. The Reflection had a wine tower that dominated the main dining room and went 3 full stories. It was full of hundreds of wine bottles and from time to time you would see the somoliers climbing up to retrieve different bottles. At that time, Celebrity had branded itself as a wine-centric cruise line (sadly, I am not sure they could deservedly say that today). That is perhaps another reason the Reflection was selected for the inaugural cruise.
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| Our Table-mates from the O'Brien Reflection Cruise - 2013 |
IN 2013, most of the mainline ships (other than NCL) still mostly went by the standard model of assigned tables and times for dining. The O'brien group were assigned 3 of their own tables. We were placed with six other travelers who were friends and family. Lou and Penny (you have ocassionally have seen their name here), a couple who were their friends, and Penny's mom and her boyfriend. Lou and Penny were the club members. We hit it off right away and ended up meeting for drinks before dinner and going off the ship together in San Juan. They introduced us to another club member, John and his girlfriend. In 2014, the 6 of us rented a house in Napa for 3 days and did independent wine tasting. On one of our evenings, we visited the O"Briens at their vineyard and had a cookout. Lou and Penny have been to our home in Florida a couple times. We all keep in touch today.
THE CRUISE was short but fun. Following a farewell wine reception I chatted with Barb (perhaps my first personal conversation with her of any length). Up until this time our conversations and interactions were cordial, but we hadn't really gotten to know either of them well. In this conversation with Barb, she asked a little about our trip to the vineyard in 2011 and that led to where else we had done tastings. In the small world department, the other vineyard we had made a connection with (and signed up for the allotment) was another small, local vineyard called Aonair. Back in the early days (around the time we visited there), the proprietor, Grant Long had a very small operation and owned no property. All his grapes were grown on very small rented plots, all on high mountain areas. The Aonair wines were all organically grown and fermented. While Grant has moved on, purchasing his own land and moving his base of operations there, at the time we were on the Reflection, it turns out that he had his wine bottled at the O'Brien Estate. Small world.
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| More New Friends - Obrien Estate Wine Group - Kilkenny, Ireland |
FROM THAT brief conversation with Barb, and some other events, our friendship with the O'Briens grew. Proud of his Irish Heritage (Bart is a descendent of Ireland's most famous King: Brian Boru - the name O'Brien means "of Brian"), Bart is a member of a society dedicated to the history of that monarchy. In April we again joined the O'Brien Estate group on a multi-day (land-based) journey through Ireland, following the lifeline of the King. It was a great trip with a small group on a tour bus and in small bars in the towns we stayed in, and we not only got to know more of the members (unfortunately, Lou and Penny weren't with us on that trip), but we got some one-one time with Bart and Barb again, getting to know each other even better. In October, we did the trip out to Napa. Whew! that's a lot of "Bart and Barb" time. 😀
Did I mention that these are some of the best wines in the world?
OVER THE years since, the Obrien Travels have included several other cruises, including a couple river cruises. They always center around wine, with trips to local vineyards and wine country being a prominent part of the itineraries. For numerous reasons, our own travel and cruising has not meshed with them for much of that period. Until 2023. Sometime in 2022, the Newsletter included the newest upcoming cruise for the wine club members, this time to South Africa. I wil say from the outset that I would not consider South Africa a prime cruise destination. My own recommendation is that if you want to visit South Africa a land-based tour would be more fruitful. Having said that, it appears that at this time few cruise ships port there and when they do they tend to be the smaller (and perhaps more exclusive) ships. In this case our cruise would be on the Oceania Nautica.
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| O'Brien South Africa Cruise - Oceania Nautica - 2023 Copyright Andy Richards 2023 - All Rights Reserved |
OWNED BY the large, mainline cruise line: Norwegian Cruise Lines (NCL), Oceania is deemed by them their "luxury" cruise line. The ships tend to be smaller (though the newest ships are certainly trending larger). Our "sweetspot" Celebrity ships have a passenger capacity of 2,500 - 3,000. The Nautica's capacity is 670; a quarter the size of our accustomed ship. We found that the accomodations were commensurately smaller. Our balcony room was small but nicely furnished. Our only quibble was the very tiny bathroom. Too small for comfort. There were not as many spaces on board. But the spaces that were there were all very nice. The ship was very traditional in its decor, but also very clean and well kept. A so-called "luxury" line, it was also commensurately more expensive than our normal fare. While there were some very nice touches, I would not judge it worth the significant difference in cost. But this was an "event" cruise, and if you want to participate in the event, you do not get to choose the ship. Besides, it was a new adventure. There were enough positives that I would "never say never," about cruising on an Oceania ship in the future.
We made a few new friends and caught up with some old
ONE THING that I will say is that the food was (mostly) the best we have had on any cruise. Particularly the food in the main areas like the main dining room, buffet and the poolside grill. Ironically, the one exception to that was the so-called specialty restaurants (which were part of the all-inclusive cruise - but very difficult to get into). Our group had one night in one of the two specialty restaurants. We were fortunate to be invited to join another couple we had become friends with on this cruise in the other restaurant. Each night the food in those restaurants was marginal. On the other hand, we ate in the main dining room all but once on the balance on the cruise. The food was excellent as was the service!
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| "Martini's" - The main bar on the Oceania Nautica O'Brien South Africa Wine Cruise - 2023 |
WE ALSO enjoyed the rather small (by comparison to, for example, the Martini Bar on the Celebrity Edge class ships) comfortable "Martinis" Martini Bar. It was pretty much in the middle of the ship - fore to afte and up and down - and was flanked by the very small (an not much occupied) casino and a very nice seating area. Our group often used it as our before meal meeting spot. In general, the cruise was nice - but what made it special was the O'Brien group. We made a few new friends and caught up with some old friends. Craig and Georgia were on the inaugural O'Brien trip - on the Celebrity Reflection. And, I believe they have joined every one of the subsequent trips. I didn't remember meeting them on the Reflection, but we did sit with them for dinner the first night of the Ireland Trip (where we first heard about their son, Benji). On the Nautica, we met Benji and his partner, Clay and had cocktails and conversation somewhat frequently on board. We learned from them that Clay and Georgia had quite late flights out of Cape Town on our last day, as did we. We had booked a driver and guide to pick us up from the ship and spend the day touring around the Cape and my wife was easily able to have them added to our little group of two. The four of us spent a great day - although and exhausting one at that - seeing the sights of the cape: Table Mountain, Table Mountain National Park, and the vicinity of False Bay where we saw magnificent views, took a boat ride to see the harbor seals, saw the penguin colony, ostriches, and baboons and of course, the obligatory stop at The Cape of Good Hope. We had a delightful lunch with an incredible view and then finished the day seeing the colorfully painted houses of Bo-kaap. 
Craig and Georgia Boehlke
O'Brien South Africa Wine Cruise - 2023
IN SOME ways, the South Africa trip was the trip of a lifetime for us. While we fully intend to go back there someday on a land-safari based tour, as we age, we never know whether and when that will really happen. In the meantime, we were able to make the best of what we had, taking a couple daytime tours of animal parks and getting some pretty nice wildlife photos. We also continued to make new friends along the way. And of course, there were the "mandatory" 😆 Seminars. Twist my arm. These seminars involved the excruciating experience of having to drink some of Bart and Barb's delicious wine, and hearing some history and "war stories" about The Obrien Estate history and experience. And of course, the "Romance" story (again ).😉 The price we had to pay. Did I mention that these are some of the best wines in the world, ranking high on critic reviews - but more importantly, ranking high on my palate? And, I am not a true wine expert but I can say that I get the same reaction time and again when I serve one of the O'Brien wines!
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| O'Brien South Africa Wine Cruise Seminar Copyright Andy Richards 2023 - All Rights Reserved |
IT WAS interesting for me to compare the experience on this smaller ship versus our usual medium to large Celebrity, Princess, and eventually, HAL cruise ships. The upscale, kind of "clubby" decor was nice. The smaller buffet with fresher and in general better, foods was really nice (though there was a time or two when seating was a challenge). The dining room was my favorite main dining room of any ship I have been on so far.
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| Michael and Lisa - great and fun new friends O'Brien Wine Cruise - South Africa 2023 |
THE ONBOARD amenities were mostly pretty good and included some very good "enrichment" programming. Rather than just having the cruise director talk about ports, the Nautica brought two South Africa experts on board and the programming went well beyond the "this is what you will see when you are on shore" kind of talks. In particular, one of the speakers was a university professor from South Africa who gave us some great and in some cases unfortunate, insight into the state of South Africa today and into the immediate future. Both of them delved into the history and culture of the country. Typically a day late and a dollar short, I read Michener's "The Covenant" after I returned from the cruise. I wish I had read it first as it would have brought much of what we saw and heard into a very different light.
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| My favorite entertainer aboard Nautica Obrien South Africa Wine Cruise - 2023 |
THE ONBOARD entertainment was pretty good. They had a much smaller cast and orchestra for the evening shows, and while they weren't the huge, extravaganzas we were accustomed to on Princess ships, they were reasonably well done. The theatre was tiny. But of course a full ship would be less than a quarter of the bigger ships, and this ship was well under capacity on this cruise. To me, there was one "shining start" among the entertainers. There was a combo group which appeared to be lead by my buddy in the photo. I was a musician in high school, particpating in a couple different bands and playing three different brass instruments, so I alway love the small combo bands, especially when they play jazz and similar music. These guys played in one of the large bars with a dance floor nightly, and on sea days for a couple hours out on the pool deck. This guy played several different instruments expertly, and I thoroughly enjoyed them. On our last night I made it my mission to introduce myself.
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| Two of my new "best buddies" - Michael and John Obrien Wine Cruise - South Africa - 2023 |
MICHAEL HAMMER and I met on board at our first dinner with the group and we hit it off. Probably because I am just so darn likeable. We got to know Michael and his wife, Lisa pretty well during the week. Shortly after the cruise, Michael (a physician) took a job just south of where we live in Florida and we have been able to catch up a couple times. We also met John and Debbie and joined them on one of our "Safari" days. We spent a fair amount of time with them on board also. This was a pretty small and pretty close-knit group and it made being on the very small ship a lot of fun. As always I did meet a couple other folks who were not part of our group but were fun to talk to - not surprisingly in the smoking area where I spent some time with my cigars. Just as a side note, the cigar/smoking accomodations were not among the best I have experienced. But we got by. 😈
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| Barb O'Brien and (as Jimmy Buffet once said) "Just a few Friends" Obrien Wine Cruise - South Africa - 2023 |
TO TRY to bring this long-winded account to a close, I want to say that when I first joined the O'Brien Wine Club, it was about business. And about wine that I thought was pretty darn good! When Bart tells the "romance story," he starts by talking about friendship. The story, he says: "is our story and it is your story." I love the wine (and so will you - I guarantee it). When I think about my own experience with The Obrien Estate these days I don't really think about wine. What I think about is friendship. We have been rewarded with the frienship of Bart and Barb O'Brien for sure. But the friendship has been an ever-growing circle and we count friends like Lou and Penny, John Mossop, Michael and Lisa, John and Deb, Craig and Georgia, and others who haven't been named but are certainly in that mix. Thanks to Bart and Barb and their O'Brien Estate Winery. And thanks to cruising - which for us brought this all together!
If you like pictures and want to see more of the adventures we have had on Obrien Estate Member Trips, you can see them on my personal photo website: LightCentricPhotography.com (they are not specifically labeled or identified as "O'Brien" trip photos, but the galleries in The Caribbean, South Africa, and Ireland contain many photos that were made during those trips).
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