Viking versus Oceania

Here's my comparison of the two lines. If you have been on both, please post something on your thoughts between the two cruise lines.

VIKING and OCEANIA

Having been a fan of Oceania for some time and having just come back from the initial Viking Sea Cruise, I wanted to share my thoughts on some differences between these two cruise lines.

DINING

This is the main reason we go on cruises. In general, Viking exceeded Oceania's very high standards for dining.

World Cafe versus Terrace Cafe

We pretty much eat at the buffets for lunch and dinner. There is significant overlap between what is served in the main dining room and the buffet for Oceania. For Viking, almost anything being served in the main dining room is also available at the buffet. Viking has a greater selection and so there is even greater enticement to eat at the buffet. Oceania excels in the grill -- it offers grilled vegetables, steaks and lobsters; Viking excels in the sushi department -- matching Oceania's sashimi offerings but far excelling in the sushi offered. Both offered King crab legs, but Viking also has a great seafood salad every night that includes scallops. Desserts are about the same level at both cruise lines with the exception of Viking's gelato which is significantly better and a little more varied. Viking fish was often overcooked at the buffet. Oceania seemed to be better at this. We are not much for eating red meat, but did try the prime rib at the Viking World Cafe buffet once (it was offered three times during our nine day cruise) and it was excellent. We also had the Beef Wellington which was much better than the Beef Wellington we had on Oceania. We also liked how Viking had a more local offerings including a great offering of Greek food one night. We had moussaka twice and it was excellent both times.

Speciality Restaurants Oceania has 2 or 4, depending on the ship. We ate at Viking's Manfredi's twice and could have gone a third time but opted not to. The food at Manfredi's is slightly superior to Oceania's Toscana, though one definitely misses Oceania's selection of olive oil and balsamic vinegar. We skipped our reservation at the Chef's table as the menu didn't directly appeal to us. We had wished we had ate there the night before for the Nordic menu, but our reservation was scheduled one night later for a Chinese menu that had beef as the main entry and was not appealing to us.

Tea Tea on the Oceania is far superior. Viking Tea is minimal in comparison. When sailing Oceania, we usually missed tea time -- not easy to do as so many good desserts -- but we put a higher priority on having a good appetite for dinner -- impossible when partaking in Oceania tea. On Viking we looked at the tea offerings and skipped them and also looked at what Mamsen had (which is open during tea) and tried the dessert once from Mamsen, which was quite good. I had a waffle at Mamsen, but never tried the Nordic sandwiches. The looked good, but not good enough to interfere with the food we could get during lunch and dinner.

Pool Grill There was a little more variety at the Pool Grill for Viking with the exception that Oceania provides a surf and turf plate, with no such feature available on Viking. We only tried the grill twice, but were happy with the quality. If you like lobster, Oceania is a better choice, for sure, but Viking's food is excellent and generally superior.

Included beverages with meals Viking offered wine, beer and other beverages free of charge with meals. The free wine offerings ranged from not-so-good to fair (though the Greek white wine one night was pretty good), so I often chose the beer option -- or grapefruit or orange juice -- their fresh squeezed orange juice was terrific. They offered three dark beers and Carlsberg on tap -- and a non-alcoholic beer also. Both Oceania and Viking offer free sparkling water. Since Viking's fares are slightly more than Oceania's, one can splurge for the Oceania beverage package and get better wine choices.

Heathy foodViking was more up-to-date in providing truly healthy dining options. They had whole grain breads (something one can request on Oceania, but not normally offered), lots of vegetable offerings, good vegetarian choices and desserts that often had lower sugar content than Oceania desserts. Great desserts don't have to be loaded with sugar -- many times Viking had great dessert choices that were tasty but not as overly sweet as most of Oceania's offering. Both lines offered great desserts, but Viking seemed to do it with less sugar. I think in general, Viking dining is more up-to-date and more in line with a younger, more health conscious consumer.

Room Viking seemed to have more bathroom space for the standard verandah -- but had significantly less closet space. Very happy with either line's accommodations.

Staff Viking staff seemed more relaxed and happier and I believe they had a lesser work load than Oceania. Staff for both lines were friendly, but Viking seemed to make life a little easier on their staff, which in turn, translated to better staff engagement with guests.

Included excursions Viking offered included free excursions. We attended all but one offered (Istanbul to Venice cruise) and were very happy with the offerings. Free excursions were from 2 to 4 hours, generally, providing additional time to explore ports or just spend on the ship.

Flexibility Though Oceania's motto is "Your World, your way", Viking does much better at living up to this promise. We just found the staff at Viking much more flexible. On Oceania, guests are not allowed to play the grand piano; not so on Viking. Viking is more flexible on special dining requests. It seemed like staff on Oceania were not empowered to stretch the rules or know when to go outside the box. Rules seemed to take precedence over customer service. Not the case one Viking. For example, on Oceania, if you were one minute early for the buffet or main dining room you had to wait until the "correct" opening time. However, on Viking they would seat you early and not blink an eye. Viking staff were generally more helpful and seemed empowered to make decisions.

In summary, I found Viking to be the better experience and the better value. Given the same itinerary, I will pick Viking over Oceania -- if only for the great Sushi offered at the buffet, and the generally more flexible approach -- Viking is really more entitled to the "Your world, your way" motto than Oceania.

Thank you for this appraisal, it is very informative and helpful. We are just back from our 4th cruise on Oceania "Marina" (in French Polynesia) and as much as I love Oceania (Marina) and really couldn't find anything significantly negative to report, the positive reviews of Viking and Baltic itineraries are drawing us to book Viking for 2017.

I do agree about the desserts on Oceania; found them over sweet and not much individual flavour.

The itinerary is important to us, but so is the level of comfort and ambience.

Oceania has provided both and I can see that Viking will do the same.

Looking forward to any further comments that will help justify us "jumping ship"!!

I agree with your review. We really enjoyed the ship and service once we were on board. The home office is terrible and you get a lot of misinformation at Viking. We had excellent fish on Viking and poor on Oceania. We also found the quality of food better on Viking.

I am interested that the Viking bathrooms are bigger than those in the Oceania balcony cabins. Are you talking about the Marina or Riviera, or only the smaller Oceania ships?

I am interested that the Viking bathrooms are bigger than those in the Oceania balcony cabins. Are you talking about the Marina or Riviera, or only the smaller Oceania ships?

We were in a Deluxe Veranda on Viking. The bathroom is nicer and larger than than the same category on the R ships (smaller Oceania). There is no tub in either. The veranda on the Riviera and Marina have a tub and Viking does not. The bathroom is a good size on Viking and has storage and heated towel bars and floor..

Mumofnine,

If you enjoy Oceania, I think you will really enjoy Viking!

Terrier1, thanks for the posts.

hermioneb, I totally agree with Terrier1's post on the information on the bathroom. I am glad Terrier1 mentioned the heated floor is this was a very nice feature. Though, Marina and Riviera include a tub, for us that just takes up room. I think it's accurate to say the Viking bathroom is not quite as large but without the tub being there, it seems more spacious.

I want to add, that as nice as the bed on the Marina and Riviera are, I think the Viking bed is even better. For us, the Oceania cabin gets a bit warm at night -- we didn't have that problem with Viking as the climate controls seem to work better on Viking.

If the Viking beds are better than the Oceania ones they must be amazing ; I love the Oceania beds!

I am interested to read that two of you think the food is better on Viking, rather than Oceania, which I think is delicious. Is there anyone else who has been on both lines who has an opinion about the food? Food is an important part of the holiday for us.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

We just booked our first Viking Ocean cruise for June 2017, "Into the Midnight Sun" which is a 14 night cruise from London to Bergen. We booked a Penthouse Jr. suite. We generally travel in an Owners suite (on the small ships) or Oceania suite (on the big ships) both of which have 2 bathrooms and lots of space. Only the strangely configured Owners suite (a conference room with a table seating 12) on viking has two baths. One feature we like on Viking is that our suite has a dividing curtain so the living room can be isolated from the bedroom.

We've already completed 23 Oceania cruises, plus 7 Regent cruises among our 60+ cruises. After Oceania's recent outbreaks of Norovirus - and their really poor handling of the situation we have decided to look at other cruise lines for future cruises.

We'd also like to book Viking's New England cruise in October 2017 as soon as it is offered.

We're looking forward to our first viking cruise next year.

We booked our first Viking Ocean cruise, the West Indies Explorer, this morning. We've been planning to book this cruise for a couple of months - ever since our three days of abhorant winter weather in February.

The OP pushed me to have our travel agent check cabin availability in our desired category and the possibly of deferring payment. Only three of our desired cabins were available and final payment was deferred till the end of July. Just had to do it!

Having cruised both lines, I disagree with a lot of the opinions of the original poster, especially when it comes to food and willingness to say yes. However, I recently posted my thoughts on the Oceania board and so won't repeat them here. One thing is perfectly clear, however: both lines offer a wonderful experience and I'm looking forward to the time when Viking (hopefully) branches out with their new ships and offers cruises in other places besides Europe and the Caribbean (West Indies). I believe they are going to do a world cruise which covers a number of new places, but I can't afford that. Hopefully, though, they'll use the World Cruise to gauge people's interest in other ports, gain experience in those ports, and start offering new itineraries. I will gladly sail again on either Viking Oceans or Oceania Cruises.

When Viking first announced they were building an ocean cruise ship we booked it the first day you could book back in 2013. We waited over 2 years and last year we took that cruise. We have also cruised on Oceania. I have two Oceania cruises booked and another Viking cruise booked so would not hesitate to choose either line. For us it is mainly about the itinerary. They are different but both are really good.

We just booked our first Viking Ocean cruise for June 2017, "Into the Midnight Sun" which is a 14 night cruise from London to Bergen. We booked a Penthouse Jr. suite. We generally travel in an Owners suite (on the small ships) or Oceania suite (on the big ships) both of which have 2 bathrooms and lots of space. Only the strangely configured Owners suite (a conference room with a table seating 12) on viking has two baths. One feature we like on Viking is that our suite has a dividing curtain so the living room can be isolated from the bedroom.

 

We've already completed 23 Oceania cruises, plus 7 Regent cruises among our 60+ cruises. After Oceania's recent outbreaks of Norovirus - and their really poor handling of the situation we have decided to look at other cruise lines for future cruises.

 

We'd also like to book Viking's New England cruise in October 2017 as soon as it is offered.

 

We're looking forward to our first viking cruise next year.

We are also taking the same trip in June but from Bergen to London. The itinerary looks great. We've also are waiting for the New England and Caribbean cruise out of New York. Since we live in New York City , that would be so much easier for us

I think that there are a whole lot of us waiting for their North American/Caribbean 2017 itineraries!!!

We have sailed several different cruise lines, but not Oceania - we loved Viking - so this thread has been very informative to read.

.

 

Flexibility Though Oceania's motto is "Your World, your way", Viking does much better at living up to this promise. We just found the staff at Viking much more flexible. On Oceania, guests are not allowed to play the grand piano; not so on Viking. Viking is more flexible on special dining requests. It seemed like staff on Oceania were not empowered to stretch the rules or know when to go outside the box. Rules seemed to take precedence over customer service. Not the case one Viking. For example, on Oceania, if you were one minute early for the buffet or main dining room you had to wait until the "correct" opening time. However, on Viking they would seat you early and not blink an eye. Viking staff were generally more helpful and seemed empowered to make decisions.

I was very interested to read what you said about Oceania's inflexibility. I have not been on Viking but on Oceania several times and you know what, I noticed that kind of thing happened on Oceania too. When I wrote a comparizon between Azamara and Oceania http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?p=49812596#post49812596

I mentioned:

"Generally, one gets the impression that they think "management is always right, and they know better than customers". So, on Oceania if you have some comments or some constructive criticism about the ship and you approach the staff, don't be taken aback when they give you the kind of "Well, nobody has complained about that before, so how dare you approach us" attitude. Also, things seem so set in stone on Oceania (almost everything has to come from the top!) , even if staff wishes to change anything, they felt they could not do so."

Another reader replied:

"Amen to what you said about Oceania. It's part of the reason why we stopped sailing with them after 8 cruises".

Initially, I thought it was me being too sensitive, but now having noticed it being mentioned and supported by others, there must be more people who observed that or had similar experiences with Oceania. And it was a relieve to feel it was not just me who felt that way!

Cahpek,

I think you are very accurate. Oceania management does sometimes have an attitude of they knowing best. Never saw that on Viking.

All,

A lot of great posts here -- adding much more value and information than my original post.

I want to add, we do eat meat as a poster on another thread referred to me as not being a meat eater. I much prefer duck, lamb, fish and shellfish to beef, so opted out of the Chef's table as stir fried beef for the main course didn't particularly appeal. My wife and I loved the Steak Florentine at Manfredi's and the prime rib served several times at the Buffet.

We thought we would have had a few meals at the main dining room, but that just never seemed to occur. One day we planned to eat lunch at the main dining room based on the menu displayed on our television screen showing Monte Cristo sandwich. I really loved the Monte Cristo sandwich on the Oceania Riveria, and wanted to see how Viking compared, but the dining room was closed for lunch, despite the menu being shown for that day on the television. Very odd to close the main dining room for lunch, but not a big deal for us personally.

I really loved the Reuben Sandwich on the Viking and thought this was better than Oceania. Very much missed the grill (lobster, lamb chops, grilled vegetables) that Oceania provides at the buffet and the lobster (surf and turf selection) Oceania provides at the Pool grill.

I think the cuts of meat were about the same quality -- clearly the buffet prime rib was not as good as Oceania's Polo Grill prime rib. I think the sashimi at Viking was fresher, but Oceania was pretty good also. In general, I found that Viking did a better job of seasoning food and providing regional food. I have had oversalty veal on the Oceania once, but usually Oceania is pretty stingy with spices, particularly at Red Ginger -- which has some great quality dishes, but lacks the spark of authentic Asian food. Nonetheless, I love the watermelon and duck salad and the lobster avocado salad at Red Ginger. The lobster Pad Thai is a great idea, but in execution, it falls short of even standard Pad Thai that one gets at the better Thai restaurants we go to.

I do appreciate high quality of ingredients, but even more interested in how the food is seasoned. To that end, eating at moderately priced regional restaurants provide us greater satisfaction than cruise food that gets toned down to avoid overwhelming more conservative diners. Would be great to have food as spicy as we could get in Turkey or East Asian restaurants, but we understand the food has a more continental European bias, so we accept the food on those terms. Given that, either the Viking or Oceania provide a dining experience that ranges from very good to excellent. Our limited experience with Viking (one Viking cruise compared to four Oceania Cruises) showed Viking to be more consistently good, but I feel Very fortunate to be able to take a voyage on either line.

We booked our first Viking Ocean cruise, the West Indies Explorer, this morning. We've been planning to book this cruise for a couple of months - ever since our three days of abhorant winter weather in February.

 

The OP pushed me to have our travel agent check cabin availability in our desired category and the possibly of deferring payment. Only three of our desired cabins were available and final payment was deferred till the end of July. Just had to do it!

What date are you sailing The West Indies Explorer?

WAPAVO from Colorado

I think that there are a whole lot of us waiting for their North American/Caribbean 2017 itineraries!!!

 

We have sailed several different cruise lines, but not Oceania - we loved Viking - so this thread has been very informative to read.

Why wait till 2017.. Just booked the "New York to the West Indies "

Oct 14, 2016 - 15 day cruise with free air, Denver to NY. and San Juan to Denver. There is still room on the ship for you and any other CC cruiser.

WAPAVO

We already have a huge trip booked this year - but trust me WAPAVO - I looked at that one - it is a great itinerary - and tempting!!!

The wife and I have not cruised in over 15 years, now both retired we are taking our first cruise with Regent later this month to Alaska in a Penthouse cabin. As we speak, I have a Viking Ocean Cruise catalog on the coffee table. We did a Viking River Cruise a couple of years ago, all in all, pretty happy with Viking. If anyone has done Viking Ocean and Regent, can you please give me your thoughts? I like the "all inclusive" concept. Thank you in advance.

I'm really surprised to hear negative things about customer service attitudes on Oceania. In 11 cruises, we've never noticed anything like that - either on board or on the phone. So many things we've put on the comment card or evaluation over the years end up being improved the next time we step on one of their ships, so they obviously take those things seriously. We'll continue to cruise on Oceania, plus keep our eyes open for some good itineraries on Viking. (Right now that "Into the Midnight Sun" itinerary is tempting me, although it's pricier than the cruise on O that's closest to it. I would love to go back on Viking, though!)

As for Regent, I think there's a separate thread on that, with a few responses. We have never sailed with them since the money we would spend on all-inclusive cruises would be wasted on us. However, if you like ships even a little smaller than Viking Star/Sea/Sky with great service and food, it may be for you. We DO love the small ships. I have to say, though, that VO ships seem to absorb 930 passengers pretty well without it seeming crowded.

I'm considering booking the 2017 Into the Midnight Sun cruise. I welcome any info on it as to how the included excursions were (Orkney Islands, Bergen & other Norway ports, etc.) as well as a guess as to how far Greenwich is to London and to London Heathrow.

Is it worth it to buy the "Air Plus" option? I imagine getting to London is easy but Bergen is a real question mark to us. Did anyone in the DC area fly to either city using Viking air? How was it? Is the weather likely to be any better in late July than it is late June? Sounds a little cold...

Did anyone do a blog on Into the Midnight Sun last year, assuming it was offered? Is anyone going this year who could tell me anything about it?

Thanks.

I'm considering booking the 2017 Into the Midnight Sun cruise. I welcome any info on it as to how the included excursions were (Orkney Islands, Bergen & other Norway ports, etc.) as well as a guess as to how far Greenwich is to London and to London Heathrow.

 

Is it worth it to buy the "Air Plus" option? I imagine getting to London is easy but Bergen is a real question mark to us. Did anyone in the DC area fly to either city using Viking air? How was it? Is the weather likely to be any better in late July than it is late June? Sounds a little cold...

 

Did anyone do a blog on Into the Midnight Sun last year, assuming it was offered? Is anyone going this year who could tell me anything about it?

 

Thanks.

I booked this cruise with our friends, air plus is nit available on this cruise because Bergen is too small and not enough flights go into it.

I'm considering booking the 2017 Into the Midnight Sun cruise. I welcome any info on it as to how the included excursions were (Orkney Islands, Bergen & other Norway ports, etc.) as well as a guess as to how far Greenwich is to London and to London Heathrow.

 

We just returned from a Viking Star sailing (Barcelona to Bergen). We were supposed to do an overnight at Greenwich, but that stop got dropped due to a "Code Red" situation on board (a serious GI outbreak) that halted the voyage for a day at Bordeaux.

We were looking forward to the stop at Greenwich, and I did a lot of research on it. You can get into London proper in about 45 minutes, depending on time of day. The most scenic way is on the Thames Clipper, sort of a river bus. They run every 20 minutes.

Or you can take the DLR (Docklands Railway) from Greenwich Pier which connects to the London Tube at Canary Wharf. The tube gets you everywhere (including to Heathrow on the Piccadilly line). It's probably an hour and a half by DLR+tube to/from Heathrow.

Of course, a taxi is an option, but they're not cheap.

We took the Thames Clipper last year. It was easy, efficient, on time, a scenic trip, and gave us flexibility in scheduling (no reserving) our times to go into London and back to the ship.

First, I need to apologize. I don't know what happened, but apparently I just posted in the middle of this thread instead of starting a new thread! So I apologize to the original poster and others who were discussing Viking versus other cruise lines.

But thanks for the great info on Greenwich. I may start another post, but you don't have to repeat the same info there for me! It sounds like Greenwich will be fairly easy. Getting from London to Southampton was NOT!

Sorry to hear about the GI outbreak - ouch. It does happen to just about every cruise line, though, at one point or another. I've checked the CDC website on occasion to see how cruise lines are doing.