CTCruiser76

Not to highjack, but on topic for the Beyond, can someone explain exactly how the 4-restaurant concept works?

We will be a party of 5.

Do we go at whatever time we want? - is it all 'My time Dinning' or do we have a set time?

The reason for the confusion is that we booked this cruise before they switched us to The Beyond, so all our documents and the App still say we have 6pm dinning. 

Do you just show up to whichever of the 4 restaurant you want at any time you want?

Thanks in advance. 

Awesome - keep em coming, as we are headed to the ABC island for the first time ever in June. 

Yes, we just booked Oceania for the same price as RCCL, Royal was a 5 night and O is a 7 night. Also compared O to same cruise on Celebrity which both are 7 nights and Oceania was cheaper.  

1 hour ago, nitny1 said:

These are great questions.  This too is my first Oceania cruise 

I agree - thanks OP for starting this post. 

Hope to learn before our first O cruise July 2025. 

Real world example - as posted earlier - was considering X Retreat for our 2025 cruise, but booked Oceania instead....lower priced and more included.....not sure why such high prices on X Retreat and RCCL Suites now. 

For those of you who chimed in, we just wanted to provide an update..... we booked it !

We are officially no longer loyal to Royal/Celebrity. 

We are now a part of the Oceania family ! 

We are in an A1 on the Insignia headed to Bermuda July 2025...it's a long way away, but we are excited to try something new and different. 

Awesome you finding that on their website.....Ive been looking for something like that but was having no luck. 

Thank you for the explanation. 

Can someone explain how Specialty dining works on O?

For example, if on the Insignia and in Concierge Class, how many times can one visit the 2 specialty restaurants on a 7-night cruise? 

or just explain how it works overall, as I can't find an explanation on their website. 

3 hours ago, AMHuntFerry said:

Workarounds that I or others have used are:

Open the two shower doors into the shower when it's not in use, effectively making the sink/toilet area larger.

Open the two shower doors into the sink/toilet area when using the shower if it's too confining; there is a floor drain in the sink/toilet area (probably want to shut the door to the room though).

Use the much nicer showers/locker room in the spa (all cabin-levels have access so don't need concierge); if you like to use the sauna/pool/hot tub, this can be part of the routine.

 

Before you write off the bathrooms, search YouTube for "Oceania Regatta Veranda Stateroom". A top result will show you a person of your height in one of the showers. (Can't post link due to CC rules)

Oh, and the shower wand is removable which helps when rinsing hair.

Thanks for pointing this out!! I missed that the Regatta is basically the same ship and Danny does great room reviews!!  He stepped into the Concierge level shower and shut the doors, so I got a good size aspect and now feel MUCH better. 

Call me a O newbie, as I should have known about the Regatta similar size and Danny's walk thru. 

More research needed but getting closer to commitment. 

@CurlerRob thank you VERY much for posting this link! Up until page 3, there was a very good discussion, then it shifted to O vs Viking....LOL - but anyways......based on you and MANY others, the bathroom may be a 100% deal breaker for us with Concierge class. 

I am not a small guy.....6'3" therefor I may struggle with the shower and even possibly the toilet just based on my long legs alone.

The upcharge of 3k to a PH suite, seems a little steep for a 7-day cruise, so we may be back to the Celerity Silhouette.  

Thanks for everyone that has responded so far.....we are going sleep on it tonight and watch more YouTube videos tomorrow on our day off. 

As far as trying other larger ships with Oceania, that is/was sort of our thought process for 2026, if we liked 'this' cruise/CruiseLine, then we would look for a different sailing on the Vista or another 1200 passenger ship in 2026 on Oceania. 

My DW had her mind set on Bermuda next year and typically 7 nights is about our limit for vacation days with work/dog sitting etc...so we are looking at 5 Nights on RCCL Liberty or 7 nights on Celebrity Silhouette or this 7 night on Oceania Insignia. 

A little background, we are in our upper 40’s and have been loyal to Royal/Celebrity cruisers for a number of years, but based on recent cruise experiences, we are ‘looking around’ at other cruise lines for summer 2025.

We would like to go to Bermuda, but due to work obligations, we cannot go until June or after. While searching other lines, I found Oceania travels to Bermuda in July of 2025.

The O ship that travels to Bermuda is the Insignia. It holds around 670 passengers which seems VERY small from what we are used too. We are concerned that this ship will be very boring for us, even though we are not ‘party animals’ by any means. Also, the room sizes seem very small. We tend to spend a lot of time in our room/balcony reading and relaxing and the concierge class staterooms are around 200 sqft with a very small bathroom and shower.

We are considering a PH room, but its 3k more than the deal we can get on the Concierge level room. We are not sure if the room size justifies the 3k upcharge?

Current O line cruisers, can you help us decide if we should take a chance on this small ship and get out of our ‘comfort zone’?

Tell us why O and its small ship experience is superior to the larger mainstream cruise ships. 

Thanks!!

We have been considering booking retreat level Bermuda cruise for 2025....these reviews have me seriously reconsidering.

2 hours ago, gallagher123123 said:

So, who's excited for the Northeast deployment this week? Ready to see what will be offered out of Boston on the Brilliance.

I think Royal missed the boat on the release time........ my wife spent all pre-game looking at cruises and kept on saying if 2025 Bermuda was released ... she would be booking now. 

YouTube Vloggers and RCCL Ambassadors. 

Trev & Chels bought one. He has been wearing it on all his vlogs. 

Just wondering if the release date of the 2025 Bermuda/Canada-New England/short Caribbean cruises are later than normal this year? It is strange that they are not out yet ??

We are here in the freezing temperatures and researching cruises and want to book a 2025 cruise to Bermuda, but nothing is available yet.......seems late to me, but this could be normal timing?

Wouldn't RCCL want cruises available now during wave season?

We just booked the $6.99 upgrade for our ABC cruise in June....Whoo Hoo!

1 hour ago, island lady said:

 

With the suites concierge?  

Agree ... you shouldn't have....GS and above. 

9 hours ago, JanNSteH said:

Hi, am quite confused.  From what I've been reading a few have said that there is no assigned dining times and that we need to online and select our dining times within the 4 MDR venues.  When I look at my app, under Dining it says: "Celebrity Select Dining Early 6:00 pm.  Please refer to the dining reservation card found in your stateroom for location and time."  So does this mean that Celebrity has chosen a time, etc for us already and I don't need to do anything further.  If this is the case, that'll be great since we are a group of 12.  If not, I need to fix this now so that when we board, I don't run into any complicated issues as I'm sure it will not be easy getting all of us situated then.  Would rather fix it now than deal with it onboard.  Thanks.

Ours says the same thing - guess we have fixed early at whatever restaurant they choose for us?

5 hours ago, carbon said:

I just booked our times for October-November 2024, doing b2b. Just rotated our 7pm reservation through all 4 dining rooms. Hopefully we like it.

Not sure how you did this.... We are on the "repurposed" Beyond ABC cruise in June 2024...and there is nothing for me to book. 

It shows...Main Dinning Seating Time - Early 6pm.

1 hour ago, loman said:

I think i will be calling one for my next cruise 😉

That makes two of us !

1 hour ago, harryfat1 said:

I was surprised to read that Port Canaveral is now the busiest cruise port.  I would have thought either Miami or FLL would have that title. What caused the growth from that port? Not like Orlando is next door and people just wander over when visiting WDW or Universal?

Not a scientific answer, but rather my observation .... It's because the RCCL ports are super easy. For the most part, you drop off your luggage right in the parking garage where you park....no shuttles like in Fort Lauderdale. They also use facial recognition....no need to have your passport out, if you did all the pre arrival stuff. Just walk down the hallway and they monitors give you the green light. 

The breakfast in Chops every morning is fantastic.