PinonNoir

We ate at Toscana tonight. The Calamari was excellent! The white bean soup was very good. I had the Tortelloni Alla Genevese again, and asked for 6 Tortelloni versus the standard 4. No issues! It was awesome! My wife was very happy as well. Our only complaint was the dessert....we got the sampler and it was blah. Now if they had brought me the Key Lime Pie! Wifi continues to be excellent! I keep waiting for the ***** to hit the fan....knock on wood!

Gotcha, thanks for the explanation.

Basor, the Beverage Packages in Currents lists a House Select and a Prestige Select package. Wouldn't House Select be "house" wines? Are you saying that Simply More jumps straight to Prestige Select?

This is stupid. Fix the areas that don't have good speaker coverage, don't punish the rest of us. There is this thing called an "in-line volume control" that can be installed in every public space, and they can have individual volume control. It would cost them less than $10k for the entire ship. They'll make that on drinks and wine tonight alone!

So why did they have to have it that loud? I have a sound meter with me and the next time I'm in a common area I'm going to get the db level. It's ridiculous!

As info, you can have as many devices as you want on the wifi if your cell phone plan allows for "Mobile Hotspot". I just started using it today and am currently on my laptop with the wifi via my cell. My wife is also on the wifi on her cell, so we have three devices connected. The wifi onboard Insignia is working very well....shockingly so. They must have connected to Starlink recently.

I'm going to comment on the wifi again. I have my cell hooked up to the wifi with "Mobile Hotspot" turned on, and my laptop using the Hotspot, and it's working very well! If you have a plan that includes Mobile Hotspot, you can use the wifi on as many devices as you want. The only throttling I can see is streaming. Websites work great! I wonder if Insignia is now hooked up to Starlink? I've been uploading numerous high-res photos for my travel blog, and they upload quickly. Videos, not so much.

I know what the website states. However, nobody can define "casual jeans". It can be inferred, as you have done, but since the color "blue" is not defined as casual, I'm going to keep wearing them. 💙 Once seated, nobody is looking at your pants, as they are mostly under the tablecloth.

We had lunch today at Terrace Cafe, and they were making burgers to order. The beef patty was larger and tasted MUCH better than I experienced at Waves on Riviera. I'm wondering if sourcing beef (and other proteins) from Canada is just much better than it was in Europe? That was a damn good burger! Calamari was also good.

A real Sommelier has to undergo extensive training and must have a wide-ranging knowledge of the wine world. They also have to pass a rigorous test combining wine knowledge and wine tasting. The wine stewards on the ship have minimal wine knowledge outside of the wines they carry onboard. I have chatted with quite a few of them and it's obvious they aren't real Sommeliers, it's just a title given to them by the ship. If you are curious there is a short series called Somm that follows a group of trainees trying to get their certificate. It's quite good!

We brought our own wine, so our interaction with the wine steward was minimal. However, there were two stewards (they are not Somms) in our section, and one guy seemed to flitting from table to table constantly. I don't think wine service is slipping, but I'll pay closer attention tonight in Toscana and report back.

We sat down shortly after 6:30 when they opened. By 7:00 it was nearly full, and by 7:15 it was packed. A couple sat down next to us at 7:15, and despite being packed they were serviced promptly. Everybody was hustling. It was nice to see. Our dessert showed up within 5 minutes of ordering.

I agree. I think food quality has a lot to do with who is managing the kitchen and overall food operations at any one time. There is a reason some restaurants are consistently good and some go out of business. On Riviera, we had dishes that were over cooked, under cooked, bland and under seasoned, and some fish dishes that should never have been cooked as the fish was definitely past it's "sell by" date. One lobster dish in particular was so bad that I can't imagine how it made it past the chef! It was clearly meant for the trash and not a plate! A lot of the issues were due to timing...cold coffee and cold eggs are a huge no-no, and that was in an empty GDR! Cold food that is supposed to be warm, and food that is rotten, is not subjective.

Dinner tonight in the Grand Dining Room is continuing the trend of excellence on the Insignia! My wife and I both had the chilled shrimp with cocktail sauce, the Muligatawny Soup (wow!...just add some shrimp and it would be a 10!), and the signature Salmon (grilled...pretty good, just a step below excellent). They even had the always awesome Key Lime Pie in the GDR! This was an "at sea" day so the place was packed, but the service was excellent and the dishes came out quickly and at the right temperatures. We continue to be very impressed! A huge step up from Riviera....so far.

The food on our Riviera cruise this past July was NOT outstanding. It was mostly fair to poor. So far, our impressions on the Insignia have been quite a bit better. Our dinner tonight in the main dining room was excellent, and they were packed, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed for the remainder of the cruise. I want to love Oceania, I really do, but they need to stay consistent. So far so good!

I'm not sure. We were told by our Butler it was because we were in a PH suite. I'll ask him tomorrow and let you know.

If you had covered up the drains as we have, there is no way a mosquito could have made their way into the cabin. I've not heard of any sewage coming up through the drain. It's Terrace Cafe, right next to the swimming pool. Nobody goes to Terrace Cafe for the luxury ambiance. Jeans are allowed in Grand Dining, Toscana and Polo Grill. They just can't be "casual jeans". Nobody knows what "casual jeans" are, but jeans are indeed allowed. I've worn jeans to dinner for 4 nights now. PH suites include two devices per cabin. My wife and I have both been on the wifi all day. I've been connected to either my cell or my laptop all day, and have had no disconnects like I did on Riviera. It's been consistently fast. Maybe something will happen between now and the end of the cruise, but so far I'm impressed. You state you are single, so I'm curious why you would care if it was indeed limited to one device? Switching from my cell to my laptop (while my wife remains on her cell) has been effortless. I have arranged Shore Excursions for multiple people, and then used Cruise Critic to fill the spots on my excursions. There is never a reason to go alone on any excursion...as people are always looking for an alternative to the costly crowded trips provided by the ship. Blinds....drapes....same thing. They are indeed blackout blinds (drapes if you must) and they work fine. They are almost touching the floor, they couldn't be any longer.

They tried pouring stuff down the drain....didn't take for more than a few hours. My solution is working for now.

We are on Insignia now: The food has been better than expected, so far. We are on Day 3 of an 11 day cruise, so we'll see. We had lunch in the Grand Dining Room today. The chilled shrimp and avocado starter was very good, and came promptly. The Nicoise salad with Tuna was excellent! The tuna was seared to perfection and there was a LOT of it. I'm very impressed, and I really didn't want to even try the Grand Dining Room after the fiasco we had with breakfast there on the Riviera! A dress code in Terrace Cafe?? What were they wearing, a thong bikini or a moo-moo? Our cabin, a PH2, is in excellent condition. We have blackout blinds, they aren't too short, easy to open and close (but then maybe I've got great dexterity?), nothing is ripped, loveseat is comfortable, cushion clips aren't broken, no issues with hot water. However, there is a smell coming from the drains in the bathroom...swamp gas smell. We ended up covering up the drains with wet washcloths and so far that has worked quite well. The Wifi is impressive! Why can't Riviera's work like this?? We do get two accounts due to being in PH2, so if internet is important to you I'd try an upgrade in the future. We rarely use the ships Shore Excursions. They are vastly over-priced and very crowded. If you plan ahead you can book all your excursions on your own. Tours-By-Locals has always been an excellent resource for us.

Quebec City - Insignia offered a shuttle from the dock into town. I think it depends on where you are docked though. Our dock in the commercial port area was two km away from the city center. The huge Jewel of the Sea was docked just below the city center.

Hello fellow Cruise Critic members, we are on the Oceania Insignia right now, enjoying a beautiful day at sea. I figured I'd write a little about our experiences so far. We are on our 3rd day and the cruise has been going quite well! We have visited Quebec City and Saguenay so far, and will be in Corner Brook, Newfoundland tomorrow. We are traveling with one other couple. First up, the food has been a marked improvement from our Oceania experience on the Riviera this past July. We ate at Toscana our first night, an extra reservation for the four of us we were able to make with the help of the Reservation Desk and our Butler. The Octopus Carpaccio and the Tortelloni Alla Genevese were both excellent. Interesting that the Carpaccio looked completely different then it did on Riviera, but it was good, so I'm not complaining. My wife had the Agnello Arrosto (lamb loin) which was just ok. She wouldn't order it again. The next night we ate at Terrace Cafe, and we were surprised with how good the Sushi was! We had a few other dishes, but the Sushi was the best part of the meal. Night 3 was in Polo Grill, and I had the "Surf and Turf". The steak (filet) was good, not great, and the lobster was overcooked, which seems to be the Oceania norm. The Shrimp Cocktail starter was excellent! The always perfect Key Lime Pie was just as good as I remember it being on Riviera! Worth noting, the staff in Toscana would NOT let me order the Key Lime Pie from Polo Grill, unlike Riviera where I had it each time we ate in Toscana. They share a kitchen, so I don't know why it's such a big deal. The wifi on Insignia is MUCH improved over the "two tin cans with a string" wifi we had on Riviera. Hell, I couldn't even post this from the ship on Riviera! The crew is all wearing masks....none of them knows why. Very strange. There were two N95 masks in our stateroom upon boarding, which promptly went in the trash. Not that Oceania has had anything to do with it, but upon departing Montreal the weather has been perfect. Hopefully it stays that way...I don't want to end up missing any ports this time! We have the dreaded John Clelford as our Cruise Director again....how we managed to get him on back to back cruises is beyond me. Man does he like to hear himself speak! I have been wearing jeans to dinner each night. I'm still trying to figure out what "casual jeans" are, and until they define it for me, I'm going to wear mine to dinner. Nobody has said a word or even given me a look of any type. The crowd on this trip seems older than the last trip from London to Reykjavik. Perhaps it's just proximity to the United States? It's nice to actually be considered "young" for a change! Curious, the PA system in the common areas is SUPER LOUD!!! YOU HAVE TO PLUG YOUR EARS WHEN THEY ARE TALKING!. Why? Even the deaf people have hearing aids! Let me know if you have any questions. Chris

Or better yet don't plan to visit the Faroe Islands with Oceania. They've already made their political stance clear with the locals.

Sorry, we were actually driving around Ireland. I was just trying to give you some info on what to see in Waterford since you stated you planned to do it on your own.

We visited Waterford last year. This link is my write-up on our experiences there. http://petersontravels.com/index.php/2022/10/03/waterford-irelands-oldest-city/

This was what we received in our suite this past July. It was decent. The Ruinart I brought onboard blew it away though.