DrKoob

Kathleen mentioned (and I totally agree) that we had a LARGE contingent of people using scooters and wheel chairs on board. Our guess is that the average age of the people on our cruise was either late 70s or early 80s. In one of those glass elevators, two scooters/wheelchairs fills that car.

I have been reading on the boards that this isn't working as planned for some people. But for us, it would still mean that if Kathleen texted me to say she was held up and the last login was on my laptop than I would be logged out on my phone so I would only get the text if I was looking at my laptop. This could all be fixed if they just said (as 90% of other cruise lines do) if you have internet access, then you have internet access. If you know tech, you know there is no value to the way they do things. They are just trying to make money by selling you a way out of your frustration. On a ship we normally use five devices on a VERY regular basis. With Simply More, I would only have access on two of those at a time. That is both stupid and wrong.

Six would have been fine but for two things. Four of those six an hold a full group of people (maybe 12 to 14) but the glass elevators forward can only hold 6-8 so they were already down one. And then at least one in each bank always seemed to be out of service. It is NOT a good elevator system if I can go up six flights of stairs (from deck 6 to deck 12) and then have to wait 10-15 minutes for my wife to arrive on 12. In some cases, she told me it took her 10 of those 15 minutes just to fine an elevator not so packed that she could get on. BTW: On V you can request a mattress topper and once we did, it was much better. And some people like hard beds. I am not one of them. I prefer a tempurpedic.

Thanks SoDakPirate! We do our own for two reasons. Even on Viking. On our 21 day Viking Sky cruise in the Med last year we did a lot of Viking excursions. All of them were horrid. We did one on our own which was the best day of the cruise. If you ever want to start doing your own, check out my buddy Mike's site at www.thepreismans.com. He is the god of shore excursions. If he finds a good one, it will be a good one. The Viking tour guides were awful. It was like they were being paid by the word. They would just not stop talking. And they ran ahead of the crowd with the first people off the bus. In Eze, France, the guide was halfway up the hill before the last person on her tour was even off the bus.

I know exactly why someone would eat in the World Cafe...the noise and the service. The ceilings are so low it just condenses the sound so badly, we could not hear the people across the table from us. That and the service was not bad, just very disorganized. Our first two times in the MDR on Sky we had waiters come to take our orders twice. Then they went away and didn't come back for 30 minutes. It was nuts. I blogged entire cruise (we had some real major problems) here: https://jktravelredmond.com/2022/09/30/expectations-not-met-but-thats-ok/

One thing a lot of people don't realize (and I didn't mention) is that if you one Viking cruise (river or ocean) that is fully paid for, you don't have to make final payment on any subsequent cruise until either a) six months before the cruise or b) you take the fully paid for cruise.

Thanks Gentleman Cruiser! I didn't use any of those, just saw them so it's good to have report from someone who did.

I compared Riviera with a Viking ship in the Med.

I got all my numbers off of O and V's websites. Keep in mind that like airline fares, things change by day or even by hour.

Thanks Patti. Stick around (or make sure to subscribe) we are off to Europe for a Christmas Market river cruise at the end of November.

We just finished a 15-night cruise from Montreal to Miami on Oceania's new Vista. I have been live blogging the entire cruise (as I did our Viking Sky cruise last fall) on my blog at www.jimbellomo.com if you are interested. Today I summed it up by comparing the two cruise lines. The rest of this is self-explanatory. I look forward to your comments. Let me sum up... This should be the last post on our Vista cruise from Montreal to Miami. I hope you have enjoyed following along and the photos I have posted. I promised a final review of what we liked and didn't. Also, since Oceania has decided to become more Viking Ocean-like with their new Simply More inclusions, I will finish by comparing the two. They both desire to occupy the same space and attract the same cruisers. When doing this post, I consulted all seven members of our party, and they mostly agreed with me. And please—realize these are my perceptions. Not yours. If you had a different experience on your cruise, let me know, but don't challenge me on my opinion of what I experienced. What we loved... Obviously, the food. Oceania promises the best food at sea, and in 90% of their venues, they succeed. Every single place to eat was as good or better than any place I have eaten on any other ship. If cruising is all about food for you—you want Oceania. The new-ship smell. Kathleen came up with the description. It was great to sail on a ship that was only six months old. Everything was bright and shiny. Of course, this won't be true in a couple of years, but if you get on board this year, you should have the same experience. Service was incredible. We haven't had service like this in quite a few cruises. Besides the crew members themselves their training, the way they are treated and how they are managed. What a massive contrast to our last cruise on HAL's Koningsdam, where no one was trained to do their job, and some of the things they did were just dangerous. Vista is beautiful. Great design. Some nice art. Just about every part of this ship is gorgeous to look at. The shower in my brother's stateroom. I'm not sure if he had a different shower than we did; I do get it. He is a big guy, and a big shower is important to him. Sadly, I disagreed because that oversized shower (a big square) meant there was less room in the rest of the stateroom and less storage space. What we thought needed improvement... Their entire system for doing WiFi. Come on, Oceania. It makes me log in and out and kick my wife off. Even worse, it meant she couldn't text me if she wanted to ask me something or let me know where she was. I totally realize that the new Simply More program (which includes two device logins) will be an improvement. But if you have more than one device on the ship with you (a phone, tablet and computer), you will have to log off one to get on the other. That means I have to log off or kick myself off before I can receive something else on the new device. Give us WiFi like every other cruise line if you get "FREE" WiFi. Quick messing with it. Even the guy in the digital center hates it. He said it is his biggest complaint. And from what I have seen on Cruise Critic, it hasn't worked very well since the Simply More changeover. Speaking of technology—they need to get an app! Every major cruise line has an app that you can text in (without having an internet package), you can see the daily program, you can check your account, you can see the menus for that evening, and so much more. In 2023, not having your own app says you are just stupid and living in the last century. The elevators. I touched on this when I wrote about the ship's public areas, but the elevators are ridiculous, and for a new ship, they broke down far too often. Thankfully, I don't believe anyone got stuck in one, but there are just not enough of them. Sadly, they can do nothing about this, but they can improve it on future ships. Very few spaces where you can see the sea. For a cruise line named after the ocean, they didn't want you to see the ocean when they designed this ship. If you don't have a verandah, you can't see the ocean until you are on deck 12. Below that, the only place you can see off the ship is the Grand Dining Room. That's nuts. All the other windows on decks five and six are covered with drapes, and there is no access to outdoor decks, let alone an actual promenade deck that encircles the ship. Again, this is one thing they can't improve on Vista but should make note of for future ships. The AC can't keep up. If you are in the Aquamar Kitchen, the Waves Grille and most of the Terrace Cafe and doing a warm-weather cruise—you better love hot and humid temps. Both the Aquamar and the Grille are open to the outside and have no air conditioning that we could see. On cold days, they have heaters but not even fans for hot days. On our last sea day before we got to Miami, the temperature was in the high eighties/low nineties and the humidity was close to 90%. Finding a place to sit in the buffet where you didn't get a blast of hot, humid air whenever someone came into or went out of the room was challenging. If you are from Florida, this probably won't bother you, but those of us from the northern climates were dying. Someplace to sit. There is really no place to sit and have a pre-dinner cocktail that doesn't have music playing in it. Piano player in Martinis, dance band in Horizons and string quartet in the Grand Lounge. This is especially true if you want to get together with new or old friends and talk. But this problem is one they can fix now. Just play excellent background music (like they play all day) in Martinis. No Bill Murray-style lounge singer with a grating voice who tries to drown out every single conversation. That should do it. If people want a quiet conversation pre-dinner, the only nice lounge is the Smoker's Lounge. So many convert that to a regular lounge and just make the entire ship non-smoking? That's about it. See, we really had a great cruise. Yes, we missed two ports, but O gave us a future cruise credit for the one they were responsible for, and the other was due to weather, so it was not their fault. On the list of all our cruises, I would put it up with our HAL cruise on Nieuw Statendam or one of our early cruises with Celebrity until they decided they didn't like cruisers our age anymore. Let's Compare Over the last six months, Oceania has been bringing out its Simply More program that incorporates much of what Viking Ocean Cruises does. It adds free wine and beer at dinner, free internet (but only two devices at a time per stateroom) and more. So clearly, Oceania sees itself competing with Viking Ocean for the same clientele. Since we left Celebrity, we have been looking for a new cruise line to lend our loyalty to. And so far it has come down to Oceania (O) or Viking Ocean (VO). So, since both O and I have decided to make a comparison, here is ours based on this 15-night cruise on O's newest ship and our 21-night cruise on the slightly older Viking Sky last year around this time. Here's how I see it. Again, please realize that this is MY PERCEPTION. If you had a different experience, please let me know but don't attack my reality. Stateroom Design (Viking wins). Staterooms on Viking for close to the same price are much bigger—there is a ton more storage space, which is important on longer cruises that we seem to take now. Bathroom Design (Viking Wins). Even though my brother likes his shower better on Oceania, I like the bathroom layout much better. No wasted floor space Internet (Viking Wins). I think I have been over this enough. From the minute we got on board Viking until the minute we got off, we had complete WiFi on every device we owned. I am not even sure if Viking offers an internet upgrade. Cruise Ship App (Viking Wins). Oceania has no app. Viking's isn't perfect, but I can at least see what is going on during the day without a paper copy, and I can check menus around the ship and text each other. Elevators (Viking Wins). Enough said. Kathleen never had to wait for an elevator on Viking. Ever. Lounges (Viking Wins). There were a number of places we could get a quiet drink and have a conversation. Closed-in Ship (Viking Wins). You can see the ocean from almost any public space on a Viking Ocean ship. Not true on Vista, where you can't see it until you get to deck 12. Promenade Deck (Viking Wins). If I am on deck five and want to know what the weather is like, I have to wait until I get back up to my stateroom to find out. There is no place below deck 12 (other than my verandah) where I can step outside. Plus, as a walker, I much prefer a walking track that is partially protected. With Vista's being on deck 15, they closed on a number of days to walkers and joggers because of strong winds. Interior furnishings (Viking Wins). This is really a matter of taste, but I just love Viking Ocean's Scandinavian design. Much of Vista's public space was beautiful, but some bordered on gaudy. I said bordered (the lighting in the Grand Lounge was really close to Vegas). Horizons/Explorer’s Lounge (Viking Wins). Horizons is a cocktail lounge/dance hall. Explorer's Lounge on Viking is on two levels. The top one is for quiet reading (I did most of my writing and photo processing up there), and the lower level has a bar and excellent seats for conversation. The entire spa (Viking Wins). I am the first to admit that even though we were in a Concierge stateroom, I never tried the Aquamar Spa, but in my mind, Viking wins this one because everyone has access for free. Not just those in Concierge or above staterooms. Outside activities (Oceania Wins). Deck 15 and 16 had so much you could do on sea days it wasn't even funny. From bocce to shuffleboard, from pickleball to mini golf (not to mention the golf simulator and cornhole), it was a veritable playground for those wanting an outdoor diversion. If I had one criticism, it would be that they need more barriers to the wind as they had to close these decks fairly often at sea...which defeats the purpose. Culinary Center (Oceania Wins). I don't even think Viking has a Culinary Center. It is undoubtedly a draw for me. Smoking Lounge (Oceania Wins). If you want to smoke on Viking, go outside in the weather. Vista's Smoking Lounge is gorgeous. How about both cruise lines ban smoking entirely, and then Vista can open up her Smoking Lounge to people who want to gather before dinner and not hear music? Casino (Viking Wins). Because they don't have one. The space they saved by getting rid of their casino went into the Wintergarden, a beautiful room where anyone can gather. With Viking, we were drawn to the things they don't have as much as to the things they do. No kids under 18, no casino, no ship photographers, no upsell in the spa, no indoor smoking, etc. Artist’s Loft (Oceania Wins). Another great extra on Vista. I didn't use it, but it was jammed every single day. Complimentary pressing (Viking Wins). Oceania said we got pressing of our clothes when we arrived. There were coupons in our stateroom. Five of them. That means that you can have five things pressed. On Viking (in the PV–the stateroom we had), you got free pressing all the way through the entire cruise. Free Laundry (Viking wins). We got about the same amount of free laundry on both ships, but the note on Vista said that it could take "up to three days." Well, if I have three pairs of pants and two are dirty and I send them to be laundered and then I spill something on the one I kept, I am out of luck for three days. I do realize that they were under-promising and over-delivering because many who sent their laundry out got it back one day later. But I can't take that chance. Launderettes (tie). Both have great self-serve laundries, although the ironing boards on Vista could be bigger. Beds (Oceania wins). This is a hands-down thing. My bed on Viking was almost unusable. It was way too hard for me. Our bed on Vista was excellent (Kathleen thought the pillows sucked, but they didn't bother me that much). Ships across the entire line (Viking Wins). We were on Vista, Oceania's newest ship. The entire line has seven ships, with one on the way in 2025. We have heard that Vista, Marina and Riviera are all about the same size and have the same features. But the other four are old R-class ships with some of the tiniest staterooms in all of cruising.—175 square feet in their verandah staterooms, and their Penthouse Suites are only 260 square feet—they call that a suite? Our Concierge verandah on Vista was 250 square feet. The staterooms on those ships are just too small. And those ships were all built in the 1990s. That's just too old. Viking has 11 ships, with one on the way in 2025. They are all identical—seriously. You go on one, you go on all of them. And all were built since 2014, with four of them going into service since 2022. Deposit and Final Payment Due Dates (Oceania wins). This is a total given. Viking is notorious for having the earliest final payment dates in all of cruising. For instance, if I buy a Viking cruise today (October 2023) that will sail in December 2024, my Viking Ocean final payment will probably be due on December 31, 2023. But by the same token, Oceania's final payment will be due 90 days before the cruise sales. Of course, you can still get all your money back from Viking before 120 days with only a $100 PP booking fee loss (and you can apply those to another cruise), but the biggest complaint I hear from Viking cruisers or those who want to cruise with Viking but haven't tried them yet is this early final payment date. When someone asks me why they have that early a date, I tell them, "Because they can." Their passengers are amazingly loyal. If people stopped booking Viking or their ships were sailing empty, this might change. But as of now, it isn't. Food! I thought this deserved a special category all its own Grand Dining Room/Main Dining Room (Oceania wins). I HATE Viking's dining room. There were low ceilings and a staff (at least on our cruise) who was totally disorganized, not to mention some food that wasn't really that good. O wins here big time. Specialty Restaurants (Oceania Wins). Was there ever a doubt? There are only two on Viking—Manfredis and Chef's Table. Manfredis is a sorry excuse for an Italian restaurant, and the Chef's Table has a fixed menu. It changes every few days. If you don't like what you get when you go on the day of your reservation, you are stuck. I was stuck. All four Vista specialty restaurants are better than either of these. Grille (Viking Wins). Surprise. But the Grille on Viking is so much better than the Waves Grille (for lunch) that it isn't even close. Buffet (Tie). I almost gave it to Oceania here, but cold desserts and serving entirely the same menu two nights in a row knocked it down to a tie. Mamsens/Baristas (Oceania). I have to get this to Baristas. I love Mamsens, but Baristas's pastries and coffees are so much better. Aquamar Kitchen (Oceania Wins). Because there is nothing like it on a Viking ship. And I want to eat lunch there every single day. Pricing (Tie): Here's a comparison of two different cruises in three types of staterooms. Here's a price comparison on a 2024 New England cruise. This is much like the one we did, minus Miami and Charleston. Viking Penthouse Verandah (338 square feet) for 15 nights in New England is $8999 per person. Per Night cost on Viking is $599 pp Oceania Concierge Verandah (173 square feet) 18 nights New England on Nautica (one of the older ships) $10,599 per person. Per Night costs $588 pp Oceania Penthouse suite (260 Square feet) $13799 pp, $766 per night pp. Or I did a Mediterranean cruise in the same time frame. Comparing a Rivera–10-night Med cruise in the fall of 2024 with a 15-night cruise in the Med on any Viking ship. On Viking: Penthouse Verandah for 15 nights Med (338 square feet) $ 11809 Per night $739 pp On Oceania: Concierge Veranda Stateroom (242 square feet😞 $6299 pp Per night $629. Penthouse Suite (420 square feet) $ 7599 pp Per night $759 Yes, each line offers different things with their base price, and they aren't all the same. I met a guy on Vista, an accountant who does an Excel spreadsheet for all their cruises. I am not that interested. A few dollars either way doesn't make that big a difference to us. Ultimately, it all comes down to what is important to you. If it's food, sail with Oceania (stick to their bigger ships), but if it is pretty much everything other than their final payment stuff, try Viking. All that said we have future cruises booked with both of them, so I guess we are still deciding.

Let me sum up... This should be the last post on our Vista cruise from Montreal to Miami. I hope you have enjoyed following along and the photos I have posted. I promised a final review of what we liked and didn't. Also, since Oceania has decided to become more Viking Ocean-like with their new Simply More inclusions, I will finish by comparing the two. They both desire to occupy the same space and attract the same cruisers. When doing this post, I consulted all seven members of our party, and they mostly agreed with me. And please—realize these are my perceptions. Not yours. If you had a different experience on your cruise, let me know, but don't challenge me on my opinion of what I experienced. What we loved... Obviously, the food. Oceania promises the best food at sea, and in 90% of their venues, they succeed. Every single place to eat was as good or better than any place I have eaten on any other ship. If cruising is all about food for you—you want Oceania. The new-ship smell. Kathleen came up with the description. It was great to sail on a ship that was only six months old. Everything was bright and shiny. Of course, this won't be true in a couple of years, but if you get on board this year, you should have the same experience. Service was incredible. We haven't had service like this in quite a few cruises. Besides the crew members themselves their training, the way they are treated and how they are managed. What a massive contrast to our last cruise on HAL's Koningsdam, where no one was trained to do their job, and some of the things they did were just dangerous. Vista is beautiful. Great design. Some nice art. Just about every part of this ship is gorgeous to look at. The shower in my brother's stateroom. I'm not sure if he had a different shower than we did; I do get it. He is a big guy, and a big shower is important to him. Sadly, I disagreed because that oversized shower (a big square) meant there was less room in the rest of the stateroom and less storage space. What we thought needed improvement... Their entire system for doing WiFi. Come on, Oceania. It makes me log in and out and kick my wife off. Even worse, it meant she couldn't text me if she wanted to ask me something or let me know where she was. I totally realize that the new Simply More program (which includes two device logins) will be an improvement. But if you have more than one device on the ship with you (a phone, tablet and computer), you will have to log off one to get on the other. That means I have to log off or kick myself off before I can receive something else on the new device. Give us WiFi like every other cruise line if you get "FREE" WiFi. Quick messing with it. Even the guy in the digital center hates it. He said it is his biggest complaint. And from what I have seen on Cruise Critic, it hasn't worked very well since the Simply More changeover. Speaking of technology—they need to get an app! Every major cruise line has an app that you can text in (without having an internet package), you can see the daily program, you can check your account, you can see the menus for that evening, and so much more. In 2023, not having your own app says you are just stupid and living in the last century. The elevators. I touched on this when I wrote about the ship's public areas, but the elevators are ridiculous, and for a new ship, they broke down far too often. Thankfully, I don't believe anyone got stuck in one, but there are just not enough of them. Sadly, they can do nothing about this, but they can improve it on future ships. Very few spaces where you can see the sea. For a cruise line named after the ocean, they didn't want you to see the ocean when they designed this ship. If you don't have a verandah, you can't see the ocean until you are on deck 12. Below that, the only place you can see off the ship is the Grand Dining Room. That's nuts. All the other windows on decks five and six are covered with drapes, and there is no access to outdoor decks, let alone an actual promenade deck that encircles the ship. Again, this is one thing they can't improve on Vista but should make note of for future ships. The AC can't keep up. If you are in the Aquamar Kitchen, the Waves Grille and most of the Terrace Cafe and doing a warm-weather cruise—you better love hot and humid temps. Both the Aquamar and the Grille are open to the outside and have no air conditioning that we could see. On cold days, they have heaters but not even fans for hot days. On our last sea day before we got to Miami, the temperature was in the high eighties/low nineties and the humidity was close to 90%. Finding a place to sit in the buffet where you didn't get a blast of hot, humid air whenever someone came into or went out of the room was challenging. If you are from Florida, this probably won't bother you, but those of us from the northern climates were dying. Someplace to sit. There is really no place to sit and have a pre-dinner cocktail that doesn't have music playing in it. Piano player in Martinis, dance band in Horizons and string quartet in the Grand Lounge. This is especially true if you want to get together with new or old friends and talk. But this problem is one they can fix now. Just play excellent background music (like they play all day) in Martinis. No Bill Murray-style lounge singer with a grating voice who tries to drown out every single conversation. That should do it. If people want a quiet conversation pre-dinner, the only nice lounge is the Smoker's Lounge. So many convert that to a regular lounge and just make the entire ship non-smoking? That's about it. See, we really had a great cruise. Yes, we missed two ports, but O gave us a future cruise credit for the one they were responsible for, and the other was due to weather, so it was not their fault. On the list of all our cruises, I would put it up with our HAL cruise on Nieuw Statendam or one of our early cruises with Celebrity until they decided they didn't like cruisers our age anymore. Let's Compare Over the last six months, Oceania has been bringing out its Simply More program that incorporates much of what Viking Ocean Cruises does. It adds free wine and beer at dinner, free internet (but only two devices at a time per stateroom) and more. So clearly, Oceania sees itself competing with Viking Ocean for the same clientele. Since we left Celebrity, we have been looking for a new cruise line to lend our loyalty to. And so far it has come down to Oceania (O) or Viking Ocean (VO). So, since both O and I have decided to make a comparison, here is ours based on this 15-night cruise on O's newest ship and our 21-night cruise on the slightly older Viking Sky last year around this time. Here's how I see it. Again, please realize that this is MY PERCEPTION. If you had a different experience, please let me know but don't attack my reality. Stateroom Design (Viking wins). Staterooms on Viking for close to the same price are much bigger—there is a ton more storage space, which is important on longer cruises that we seem to take now. Bathroom Design (Viking Wins). Even though my brother likes his shower better on Oceania, I like the bathroom layout much better. No wasted floor space Internet (Viking Wins). I think I have been over this enough. From the minute we got on board Viking until the minute we got off, we had complete WiFi on every device we owned. I am not even sure if Viking offers an internet upgrade. Cruise Ship App (Viking Wins). Oceania has no app. Viking's isn't perfect, but I can at least see what is going on during the day without a paper copy, and I can check menus around the ship and text each other. Elevators (Viking Wins). Enough said. Kathleen never had to wait for an elevator on Viking. Ever. Lounges (Viking Wins). There were a number of places we could get a quiet drink and have a conversation. Closed-in Ship (Viking Wins). You can see the ocean from almost any public space on a Viking Ocean ship. Not true on Vista, where you can't see it until you get to deck 12. Promenade Deck (Viking Wins). If I am on deck five and want to know what the weather is like, I have to wait until I get back up to my stateroom to find out. There is no place below deck 12 (other than my verandah) where I can step outside. Plus, as a walker, I much prefer a walking track that is partially protected. With Vista's being on deck 15, they closed on a number of days to walkers and joggers because of strong winds. Interior furnishings (Viking Wins). This is really a matter of taste, but I just love Viking Ocean's Scandinavian design. Much of Vista's public space was beautiful, but some bordered on gaudy. I said bordered (the lighting in the Grand Lounge was really close to Vegas). Horizons/Explorer’s Lounge (Viking Wins). Horizons is a cocktail lounge/dance hall. Explorer's Lounge on Viking is on two levels. The top one is for quiet reading (I did most of my writing and photo processing up there), and the lower level has a bar and excellent seats for conversation. The entire spa (Viking Wins). I am the first to admit that even though we were in a Concierge stateroom, I never tried the Aquamar Spa, but in my mind, Viking wins this one because everyone has access for free. Not just those in Concierge or above staterooms. Outside activities (Oceania Wins). Deck 15 and 16 had so much you could do on sea days it wasn't even funny. From bocce to shuffleboard, from pickleball to mini golf (not to mention the golf simulator and cornhole), it was a veritable playground for those wanting an outdoor diversion. If I had one criticism, it would be that they need more barriers to the wind as they had to close these decks fairly often at sea...which defeats the purpose. Culinary Center (Oceania Wins). I don't even think Viking has a Culinary Center. It is undoubtedly a draw for me. Smoking Lounge (Oceania Wins). If you want to smoke on Viking, go outside in the weather. Vista's Smoking Lounge is gorgeous. How about both cruise lines ban smoking entirely, and then Vista can open up her Smoking Lounge to people who want to gather before dinner and not hear music? Casino (Viking Wins). Because they don't have one. The space they saved by getting rid of their casino went into the Wintergarden, a beautiful room where anyone can gather. With Viking, we were drawn to the things they don't have as much as to the things they do. No kids under 18, no casino, no ship photographers, no upsell in the spa, no indoor smoking, etc. Artist’s Loft (Oceania Wins). Another great extra on Vista. I didn't use it, but it was jammed every single day. Complimentary pressing (Viking Wins). Oceania said we got pressing of our clothes when we arrived. There were coupons in our stateroom. Five of them. That means that you can have five things pressed. On Viking (in the PV–the stateroom we had), you got free pressing all the way through the entire cruise. Free Laundry (Viking wins). We got about the same amount of free laundry on both ships, but the note on Vista said that it could take "up to three days." Well, if I have three pairs of pants and two are dirty and I send them to be laundered and then I spill something on the one I kept, I am out of luck for three days. I do realize that they were under-promising and over-delivering because many who sent their laundry out got it back one day later. But I can't take that chance. Launderettes (tie). Both have great self-serve laundries, although the ironing boards on Vista could be bigger. Beds (Oceania wins). This is a hands-down thing. My bed on Viking was almost unusable. It was way too hard for me. Our bed on Vista was excellent (Kathleen thought the pillows sucked, but they didn't bother me that much). Ships across the entire line (Viking Wins). We were on Vista, Oceania's newest ship. The entire line has seven ships, with one on the way in 2025. We have heard that Vista, Marina and Riviera are all about the same size and have the same features. But the other four are old R-class ships with some of the tiniest staterooms in all of cruising.—175 square feet in their verandah staterooms, and their Penthouse Suites are only 260 square feet—they call that a suite? Our Concierge verandah on Vista was 250 square feet. The staterooms on those ships are just too small. And those ships were all built in the 1990s. That's just too old. Viking has 11 ships, with one on the way in 2025. They are all identical—seriously. You go on one, you go on all of them. And all were built since 2014, with four of them going into service since 2022. Deposit and Final Payment Due Dates (Oceania wins). This is a total given. Viking is notorious for having the earliest final payment dates in all of cruising. For instance, if I buy a Viking cruise today (October 2023) that will sail in December 2024, my Viking Ocean final payment will probably be due on December 31, 2023. But by the same token, Oceania's final payment will be due 90 days before the cruise sales. Of course, you can still get all your money back from Viking before 120 days with only a $100 PP booking fee loss (and you can apply those to another cruise), but the biggest complaint I hear from Viking cruisers or those who want to cruise with Viking but haven't tried them yet is this early final payment date. When someone asks me why they have that early a date, I tell them, "Because they can." Their passengers are amazingly loyal. If people stopped booking Viking or their ships were sailing empty, this might change. But as of now, it isn't. Food! I thought this deserved a special category all its own Grand Dining Room/Main Dining Room (Oceania wins). I HATE Viking's dining room. There were low ceilings and a staff (at least on our cruise) who was totally disorganized, not to mention some food that wasn't really that good. O wins here big time. Specialty Restaurants (Oceania Wins). Was there ever a doubt? There are only two on Viking—Manfredis and Chef's Table. Manfredis is a sorry excuse for an Italian restaurant, and the Chef's Table has a fixed menu. It changes every few days. If you don't like what you get when you go on the day of your reservation, you are stuck. I was stuck. All four Vista specialty restaurants are better than either of these. Grille (Viking Wins). Surprise. But the Grille on Viking is so much better than the Waves Grille (for lunch) that it isn't even close. Buffet (Tie). I almost gave it to Oceania here, but cold desserts and serving entirely the same menu two nights in a row knocked it down to a tie. Mamsens/Baristas (Oceania). I have to get this to Baristas. I love Mamsens, but Baristas's pastries and coffees are so much better. Aquamar Kitchen (Oceania Wins). Because there is nothing like it on a Viking ship. And I want to eat lunch there every single day. Pricing (Tie): Here's a comparison of two different cruises in three types of staterooms. Here's a price comparison on a 2024 New England cruise. This is much like the one we did, minus Miami and Charleston. Viking Penthouse Verandah (338 square feet) for 15 nights in New England is $8999 per person. Per Night cost on Viking is $599 pp Oceania Concierge Verandah (173 square feet) 18 nights New England on Nautica (one of the older ships) $10,599 per person. Per Night costs $588 pp Oceania Penthouse suite (260 Square feet) $13799 pp, $766 per night pp. Or I did a Mediterranean cruise in the same time frame. Comparing a Rivera–10-night Med cruise in the fall of 2024 with a 15-night cruise in the Med on any Viking ship. On Viking: Penthouse Verandah for 15 nights Med (338 square feet) $ 11809 Per night $739 pp On Oceania: Concierge Veranda Stateroom (242 square feet😞 $6299 pp Per night $629. Penthouse Suite (420 square feet) $ 7599 pp Per night $759 Yes, each line offers different things with their base price, and they aren't all the same. I met a guy on Vista, an accountant who does an Excel spreadsheet for all their cruises. I am not that interested. A few dollars either way doesn't make that big a difference to us. Ultimately, it all comes down to what is important to you. If it's food, sail with Oceania (stick to their bigger ships), but if it is pretty much everything other than their final payment stuff, try Viking. All that said we have future cruises booked with both of them, so I guess we are still deciding.

Great shot,. You do food really well.

Sorry, I don't think I took anything else. But my buddy Mike Preisman will as soon as his review is done. I will post when he does. Make sure and watch for it. Usually three weeks or so. And thanks for the comment about my photography. Your food shot is better than mine. I never take my Nikon to any food venue so all mine are taken as snapshots with an iPhone.

Hi Patti, Thanks for your comment. If you stick around for one more post I will be comparing V and O. Oceania seems to be trying to keep up with them so it should be interesting. I should have that online by Friday morning at the latest. Working on it now. Jim PS: I think you are smart to hold off on Explora. I never trust a new cruise line in their first year in business. And them being owned by MSC also gives me pause.

Speciality Restaurants...one is truly special Keep reading. This is the best dish I ate on Vista. More about it below. Vista has four specialty restaurants. Unlike most cruise lines, you get to eat there for free. No charge! But you have to make a reservation—in advance. Everyone gets four guaranteed—one in each restaurant. Unlike Viking, where you could get into one of their two specialty restaurants almost any night you tried. We tried to get another reservation for Toscana, but we couldn't. We really wanted it, but all they could offer us was 8:30 p.m. on the last night of the cruise. We were not doing that one. So the message here is: if you want to eat in a particular restaurant on a particular night, be online on the day you can make reservations at midnight EST and make them. I was lucky enough to get ones that worked well for us. Before telling you about the four of them, I want to reiterate the Steve Test from yesterday's post. The Steve Test After our disastrous Celebrity Millenium cruise in May of 2022, my brother Steve came up with a way to rate food and restaurants on a cruise better than I have ever been able to do it myself. From then on, I have called this the Steve Test. Here it is: If you eat in a food venue on a ship, be it the main dining room, buffet, grille or a specialty restaurant, and that restaurant were near you once you got home, would you go there again? That's pretty simple. I think it is the best way I have ever heard of to rate food on cruise ships, and I will rate each venue (and, in the case of some of them, by the dish or meal) using the Steve Test. Ember Ember (I keep wanting to put an S on the end of it and name it EmberS) is a new restaurant that is only onboard Vista. On Marina and Riviera, you get the French Bistro, Jacques, named after Oceania's menu-planning chef, Jacques Pepin. So we didn't get high-end French food; we got slightly higher-end Applebees food. Check out the sample menu on the Oceania website , which will give you an idea of what we ate that night. I had the lobster roll appetizer (mostly bread, very little lobster), salt-crusted beetroot salad (it was "fine"), the pork chop (Mine was OK but the sauce was watery, Mike's was tough), a side of "potato dippers" with no dip??? Not sure what that was about. I finished up with the fried Beignets (dry as a bone with very little sauce underneath them). All-in-all, it was a very unimpressive meal. Even though it wasn't my favorite meal on board, I do want to thank the maitre'd Raja (also the head of house in the Aquamar Cafe during the day) for taking such good care of us. When I made the reservation, I could only get a table for five and another for two. When I saw Raja in the Aquamar in the afternoon, he came up to me and addressed me by name and told me he would have a table for seven ready for us that night—that is service! My Steve Test Rating: Not a chance. Worst of the four specialty restaurants. Just not impressed at all. Would I go again—nope, I don't eat at Applebees. Never have, never will. How bad was it? I didn't even take a photo. Go down and eat at almost any American restaurant. You will see just what the food looks like. I can't wait to try Jacque's on Riviera. They should replace Ember with it as soon as possible. The Polo Grille This is Vista's steak house. I need to say upfront that I am not a steakhouse person. If I want a steak, I will grille my own. We don't eat that much beef—balsalmic ribs on Christmas Eve, etc. But I can count on one hand the number of times I have ever ordered a steak in a land-based restaurant...in my life. I thought this was the most impressive restaurant, ambience-wise. High on deck 14, with wrap-around windows and low lighting, it is beautiful if you come in pre-sunset. We barely got here in time to see the sun disappear. We didn't appreciate that this was the only restaurant where they didn't have a table for seven for us. They basically just pulled up another chair to a table for six. This made eating a little painful. The number of dishes they brought to the table would not fit on the table. Sides had to be quickly scooped onto entrée plates. And don't stick your elbows out, whatever you do. Here's a link to the menu on Oceania's website. I had the escargot, no soup or salad (None of the selections appealed to me), the rack of lamb (they were "fine" as rack of lamb goes), the truffle parmesan fries and the roasted asparagus spears. For dessert, I had the Polo Quartet. This is a small sample of all their best desserts. It included their chocolate fudge brownie, key lime pie, Bailey's cheesecake and Granny Smith Apple Crumb Pie—the best part of the meal. You can find more photos of the food at the Polo Grille on my personal blog by clicking here. My Steve Test Rating: Since I don't eat at steakhouses, I am not the one to ask about the Polo Grille. My brother loves steakhouses and often orders a good steak. I will let him give the rating on this one—I just texted him. He said he would go back, but it would depend on how much it cost. So I asked him if he had to choose between the Capital Grille and Polo, which would he choose if the prices were close. He said Captial Grille—hands down. Maybe compared to Sizzler 🤪? Red Ginger Red Ginger is Vista's Asian restaurant. Before we went, if I told someone we were going on Oceania, they would tell me that I would LOVE Red Ginger. That it was the best Asian restaurant they had ever eaten in. Having eaten there, I wouldn't say it was the best Asian restaurant I have eaten in, but it was very good. The ambiance in Red Ginger and Ember (located on Deck 5) is nowhere near as good as in Polo Grille and Toscana. Mainly because you can't see the ocean. But that's OK. The food made up for it. If you have been to Red Ginger, you know that their most loved dish is a watermelon and duck salad. I am sure it is wonderful but I despise watermelon, and Kathleen is highly allergic to duck, so we didn't even try the dish everyone raves about. And I am not a big soup fan, either. So that meant I got to try three appetizers instead of a soup and salad course. Yummy! Here's a link to the Red Ginger menu. So you can see what I didn't eat. I started with a special appetizer that isn't on the sample menu featuring my favorite food—octopus. I followed that with the spring roll and then the crisp ginger calamari. I think the pic of the ahi was Steve's, but I am not sure. My entrée was an easy choice as they had soft-shell crab on the menu, a dish I have loved since I had it in Bangkok. Theirs was excellent. I finished it all up with a steamed ginger cake. All-in-all, a wonderful and tasty meal. Here are a few photos from around the table. Again, if you would like to see photos of more of the food, head on over to my blog post at www.jimbellomo.com. My Steve Test Rating: I would eat there on a monthly basis if this place were nearby. Just about every dish was better than what we get when we go out for Asian food. The local place has much the same type of menu, but Red Ginger just seemed to up the game on every dish. For example, instead of calamari, they gave it a slight twist and added a bunch of ginger. Nice touch. Toscana Way up on Deck 14 aft, on the opposite side of the ship from the Polo Grille, sits one of the best Italian restaurants I have ever been to. Usually, we don't go out for Italian food. That's because I make a lot of Italian food. So I went to Toscana expecting another great Oceania meal. What I got was a wonderful Italian dining experience. One that I would put up against any place we have eaten in our four trips to Italy. It wasn't just the food (which was amazing) but also the service and the bread and the olive oil and balsamic pairings (by the wonderful Massimo from Milano) and so much more. This was more than a meal; it was the way I want to be treated at every restaurant I ever go to. Viking Ocean has an Italian restaurant called Manfredis. Toscana and Manfredis should never be mentioned in the same sentence (shame on me for doing it here). They will blow you away from the moment you arrive. You sit down; they bring you one of the most amazing bread services I have ever seen. Then they put bowls of superb parmesan cheese (big hunks of it) on the table for you to share. Massimo comes by to pair any of seven or eight incredible olive oils with any of five or six balsamic vinegars to dip your bread in. Then, the wonderful sommelier comes over and recommends some great Italian wine. While you are sipping that, your server takes your order. When you tell him that you would really love to try the lasagne, but you don't want to eat an entire order of it, and a few others around the table say the same thing, he says he will take care of it. Later in the meal, four entire orders of lasagne show up for the seven people. We all say we will try a bite, but when we finish dinner, there is very little left. Let's get on with the rest of the food, though. Click here to see the Toscana menu. I started with the stuffed artichoke. It was just fine, but it was the only thing I had that night that I wouldn't order again. Then I sampled (devoured) the lasagne and topped it off with my entrée—the best dish I had on the entire cruise on Vista, the Agnello Arrosto. There's a photo of this dish at the top of this post. Seriously it was that good. Here's the description from the menu: "roasted stuffed lamb loin, spicy soppressata sausage, spinach, aubergine stiletto, tomato jam." That sounded amazing to me when I read it, but to be honest, it was all about the sauce. I would give my right arm for the recipe for that sauce. But everything just came together for that dish. I can't say more great things about it. How good was it? I didn't even have dessert. I didn't even think about dessert. What I really wanted for dessert was another serving of roasted lamb, which was beyond amazing. When you do another Oceania cruise, forget the other specialty restaurants. I will book Toscana for four nights and order the lamb. Maybe the photos on my blog at www.jimbellomo.com will make you even hungrier. My Steve Test Rating: If this restaurant were within 100 miles of here, it would be our "celebration restaurant." It is the kind of place you go for your birthday or anniversary. If it was within 30 miles, I might go once every other week if I could afford it. I have to try and find out how they make that sauce. But it was more than just than just that one dish. It was the entire experience. I would sail on Vista again to have that Toscana experience one more time. I think that about covers food on Vista. If you have any questions about the food or the restaurants, please ask away.

Thanks so much. And order that poke bowl and I will be green with envy. And sorry, I didn't take any other pics in Aquamar. I was too busy eating. My bad.

We are just off Vista, and Aquamar Cafe is one of the best places for lunch we have ever eaten in 30+ cruises. Truly outstanding. I want to go back on just to eat their poke bowl, ahi tuna tacos or the sweet potato fries.

I have to say that I did not see anything about gluten free. The crusts were only thick on the edges. I like a thicker crust so you would probably like these. My Siciilian grandmother just rolled over in her grave with me even discussing a non-wheat crust 😁.

Jack, You are very welcome. Maybe it was just an off couple of nights for souffles. It was strange to us that even the sauce was served cold.

Thanks SSFrance69! We are in Seattle so that would be a long way to go for a pizza. My Sicilian grandmother taught me everything I know. Her and Nick Stelino. Everything from scratch. You can get pizza at lunch at the buffet but it isn't as good. Thanks for saying we are doing something right...but those are old pictures 🤣. I will let you know when Mike is done. His food pics will be even better.

It's All About the Food As is the case on so many cruises, it's all about the food. There is something about being able to eat out at a restaurant every single night during a vacation, and they never bring you the check (except for drinks). I wish I could have included all my food photos here but they are on my blog at https://www.jimbellomo.com. Within the cruise industry, it is common knowledge that Oceania is known to have the "best cuisine at sea." Is this true? My judgment is that I expected too much and that 90% of their food is better than 90% of the food on other cruise lines. Other lines we have been on have had some dishes or meals that have stood out over the years. The original United States Dining Room on Celebrity's Infinity was amazing, as was Qsine before Celebrity ruined it with their stupid Petit Chef. Some meals in Club Orange on Nieuw Statendam were as good as anything we ate on Vista. The grille on Viking Sky is better than the Waves Grille on Vista. But all in all, Vista has better food overall. The Steve Test After our disastrous Celebrity Millenium cruise in May of 2022, my brother Steve came up with a way to rate food and restaurants on a cruise better than I have ever been able to do it myself. From then on, I have called this the Steve Test. Here it is: If you eat in a food venue on a ship, be it the main dining room, buffet, grille or a specialty restaurant, and that restaurant were near you once you got home, would you go there again? That's pretty simple, right? I think it is the best way I have ever heard of to rate food on cruise ships and I will rate each venue (and, in the case of some of them, by the dish or meal) using the Steve Test. Please keep in mind that the Steve Test Ratings below are my ratings. Steve will (I hope) chime in with a comment about what he thinks passed his test. Editor's Note: Since this is about the food, I struggled to figure out how to cover it. I didn't want just to list things we ate. So let's take it venue by venue. And sorry, but I don't have the menus for every restaurant, but my buddy Mike will when he does his review. I am more about taking "pretty pictures," and Mike is about remembering that you want to read the menus. I will post a link as soon as his review is up. Is it done yet, Mike? The Grand Dining Room This is the best place to start. We ate dinner here our first three nights and never went back. It wasn't that we didn't like the food. It was because they had just about the same food in the buffet, and when we went to the buffet, we didn't have to dress up and put on hard-sole shoes. We also found that dinner took so much longer there. If we went to dinner when the dining room opened at 6:30, we never got out of there before 8:30. Sometimes that is fine, but when you are going to bed at 9:00, it leaves you stuffed and feeling bloated when you are trying to sleep. We also found that we ate too much. We would be seated; they would bring out some bread to keep us going while we went over the menus. They would take our order and bring more bread. We would eat it. They would bring the appetizers...and more bread. Then the same thing through the salad course, the soup course and finally the entrées. The only course without bread of some kind was dessert. And yes, I have absolutely no self-control when it comes to bread of any kind. So we switched to the buffet for dinner. I will say here that the dining room food and ambiance were far superior to Viking Ocean or pretty much any cruise ship dining room we have eaten in for quite a while. Here are some of the dishes we had in the Grand Dining Room. I tried to remember what they were, but it's been two weeks. I will mention if they were either exceptional, bewildering or just bad. We also had breakfast in the Grand Dining Room once because they serve lamb chops for breakfast, and we all had to try that—because we all love lamb—at least Steve and I do. Here's the pics on that. My Steve Test Rating: Nope, not special enough. Nothing really stood out. If this restaurant were next door to my house, I wouldn't go back. The Terrace Cafe (the buffet) In the buffet, we found pretty much the same food as the dining room but in a more relaxed setting, and we also found (much to our surprise) that we ate less. For one thing, a lot less bread. We would all go grab a salad or some sushi, have that, and then instead of eating bread and waiting for the next course, we would just walk back and get an entrée or two. When we were done with that, we went back and grabbed a dessert. And all of it was excellent food. We did have a couple of quibbles. First, the desserts were always cold. Even cobblers and bread puddings that should have been served warm were kept cold on purpose. It ruined a bunch of very good desserts. Second, sometimes, they would repeat menus/theme evenings. The last two nights had the exact same menu, and we actually think that some parts of what was available that evening were just leftovers from the night before. Sadly, this is what their parent company, Norwegian Cruise Line, is doing with their top-tier Haven product. They have the same menu every night in their Haven dining room, so why not migrate that idea to Oceania? It would also be nice if they had a couple of other large tables. With seven of us, we had only two tables in the buffet where we could all fit. Steve and Jamie would often go up and save one of those two big tables so we could all eat together. Other than those three rather minor things, we loved the Terrace Cafe. The thing I really loved the most, Terrace, was the service they gave our buddy Jocelyn, who was walking with a cane. Almost every time she would go to get some food, she would come back to the table with no plate in her hand...but she would be followed by a server or maitre'd with her plate in their hand. I loved how they took such great care of her—heck, of all of us. My Steve Test Rating: I would go back...for certain items and for the amazing selection of things. There was never a night (not even when we had the same menu two nights in a row) that I couldn't find something I really wanted to try. I also need to mention one amazing meal that we ate in the Terrace Cafe. Other than our night at Toscana, this was the most memorable food I had on board. I wish they had done this menu again and again. I would have eaten there every day. It was a Mexican-themed lunch. And the Chocolate Mole' Braised Short Ribs were the second best dish I had on the entire cruise...from any Vista restaurant. It is really hard to get a chocolate mole' sauce to work. So many chefs try it but Vista's chef hit the ball out of the park. That plus there were a lot of other great Latin-American dishes as well. My Steve Test Rating: If I could get this dish at home, that would be the only restaurant I would ever eat in again. Well, maybe not the only one, but I would get really fat if I could drive to this within an hour. The Aquamar Cafe My incredible Poke Bowl This is a new eating venue for Oceania (or so I think–please correct me if I am wrong) and other than the design (open-air to the outdoors) it is one of my favorites. The idea is healthy alternatives for breakfast and lunch. We never ate breakfast here but I can tell you, when these guys do healthy lunch, the knock it out of the park. We ended up eating lunch here at least eight days out of 15. Maybe more. They had a poke bowl that knocked my socks off. Easily in the top three things I ate onboard. They also had some of the best sweet potato fries with chipolte mayo. Only problem was, you had to order them again and again because they never brought enough 🤪. The crispy chicken burger was Kathleen's favorite. I had it once and really liked it but it was really hard for me to eat there without having that Poke Bowl. My Steve Test Rating: I could eat lunch at the Aquamar Cafe every day for the rest of my life. If it were next door to my house, I might never go anyplace else. Oceania hit it out of the park with this restaurant for lunch. Waves Grille On the opposite side of the ship from the Aquamar Cafe was the Waves Grille. They were really two restaurants in one. At lunch, they served burgers, paninis, one specialty dish (paella, chili, BBQ chicken, etc.) and had an ice cream counter. In the evenings, they turned into a great little pizza place with some pretty great pizza. As a grille at lunch, I wasn't impressed. Nice place (very crowded), burgers were OK. Paninis were "fine." Fries (thick steak fries) couldn't hold a candle to the sweet potato fries in the Aquamar Cafe. You could get the ice cream at the buffet, and the two times I had the specialty dish, I was unimpressed. But at dinner, their pizzas were excellent. They do New York style, but the crust was a little too thin for me. But the choices were excellent, and one of our favorite parts was that you could order a pizza and have it delivered to the buffet next door. One night, we decided to do a pizza night, but there is not a single table that would hold seven of us in the Grille. So we took up our regular table in the buffet (just inside the door to the grille) and ordered one of every kind of pizza they made. They gave us a number, asked where we were sitting and brought us every pizza...and a BBQ beef flatbread that was WONDERFUL! My Steve Test Rating: For lunch—FAIL! I would not go there for burgers. The grille on Viking Sky was far superior. But for dinner, their pizza was really good and that night was one of the most fun meals we had. That said, I probably wouldn't go back there either—I make better pizza 😁. That's going to be it for today. What's left here are the four specialty restaurants on Vista. I have some work to do today, and I want to get this post online. So tomorrow morning, I will hit those and then the final review and comparison. Again, you can see many more photos of the food on my blog that you can reach by clicking here.

Wander over to my blog at jimbellomo.com and you can pics of everything we made and the wines are right behind them.

I am working on it tonight and hope to get it online tomorrow or at the latest on Wednesday.

We are Elite Plus X cruisers who have never been on an E-class ship but we have one booked at Christmas. Would love to know if there are any specialty restaurants you feel are worth the money. We have heard good things about Eden, Prime Cut and Le Grand Bistro. On S, M and even back on C class ships, we could always get a reservation once on board but what is your experience with doing that? Are there some that we HAVE TO GET advance reservations for. Thanks in advance for your help.