Eloise4Ever

This is a pic of the toiletries we currently have in our B2 balcony cabin on Riviera. It's the White Tea version which to me has an almost imperceptible scent. As you can see the shampoo and shower gel are one and the same. Personally I wouldn't use cruise ship toiletries on my hair so I can't comment on its performance as a shampoo. But as a shower gel it's fine although not at all luxurious. Our shampoo/shower gel and body lotion have been replaced as they were getting low.

On a positive note, I had a call from Cruise Director John yesterday morning in response to my mid cruise survey comments about the entertainment in Martinis ending at 11. He apologised and said this should not have been happening. He said common sense should dictate to the entertainer that if there are a number of customers in the bar, he needs to keep playing. John said he had published later hours in the Currents for Martinis last night to make this crystal clear. We were very glad to hear this and grateful for John's follow up. As an result, we had a very enjoyable night of entertainment. After a late dinner we attended karaoke in Horizons and chatted with some lovely folks. We ended the night in Martinis where Abner knocked it out of the park with his performance and choice of songs. We were delighted with it all and had a great night.

We finally received a response last night to the shuttle issue we reported to Reception 6 days previously at which time we were told it would be escalated to Management onboard. As we hadn't heard anything back after 5 days I mentioned it on the mid cruise survey. After 6 days I'm afraid the response was pretty pathetic. A voicemail was left on our cabin phone by Destination Services. The lady stated they had been made aware of the shuttle comments we made in the mid cruise survey. (So clearly the initial escalation was filed in the bin). She said they were sorry to hear what had happened but that we should rest assured all complaints are filed with Head Office. Given how little concern was shown onboard about the issue, I don't expect Head Office to bat an eyelid. And the worst thing about this response was the cowardly way it was done. I happened to be sitting at the dressing table desk when the message light on the phone started flashing. The phone did not ring so clearly a choice was made to dial straight into our voicemail and leave a message instead of risk engaging in conversation. All we wanted was to talk to somebody about this.

I believe staff have given feedback to Management about the unsuitability of the current umbrellas but it has fallen on deaf ears. Apparently the umbrellas came as a job lot with the new chair covers and that's what they're sticking with.

Good to know about the full cover on Vista. I'd be surprised if they extended the cover on Marina when they didn't do it on Riviera, but of course you never know. I believe the umbrellas they used to have were so heavy they needed 2 staff to lift them. Such a shame they switched to cheap and ineffective ones after the refurb. I agree about the Toscana lasagne and planned on ordering that as an appetiser last night. But that chef's special sounded so good it was impossible to resist and indeed it was amazing. Hopefully I will get to try the lasagne again in a couple of nights time.

We had a wonderful late dinner in Toscana last night. We enjoyed chatting with the Maitre D', Luigi. He's a real character and an old school professional. The chefs tortellini pasta special was the stuff of dreams. We enjoyed a couple of drinks in the Martini bar after dinner. One of the onboard singers joined Abner at the end for a couple of songs which was great. He is a lovely young man and seems to be getting into his stride. We realised a couple of days ago that his voice is not miked up, which is odd. He told us he's going to sort that out. The weather continues to be amazing, hot and sunny. We've spent today onboard relaxing. We had hoped to have lunch on the outside dining area of the Terrace café. However, 50% of the tables were unusable for us (and for most other passengers also by the look of things) because they were in the full glare of the sun. All the umbrellas out there were closed and when we asked for one to be opened the staff said it was too windy. There was a light breeze, nothing more. We spoke to a passing restaurant manager who confirmed that the current umbrellas are too light and blow over and into the sea at the slightest puff of wind. We were frustrated at having to eat indoors when so many tables were lying empty outside.

We had good fun onboard last night. The Broadway Musicals show in the Theatre was great. The singers all performed very well and the Les Miserables medley was especially good. Some of the songs earlier in the show were quote obscure though. The show was followed by karaoke which was very popular and had no shortage of volunteers (including yours truly ☺). There was a great atmosphere and energy in Horizons and we enjoyed chatting with some lovely young folks who are travelling with family groups. After karaoke finished we programmed some songs on the jukebox and danced a bit. Happy to report the bar was open later than usual 👏.

I think some confusion might have crept in along the way. I have no skin in the cookie game and was just answering a question another poster asked. My "battle" is against the early to bed culture on Oceania and I don't think it's a battle that just two passengers can win. This is the path O have chosen and it works for many.

Thanks for your comments. Because we live in Europe we are not focussed on going ashore in ports we have visited before either on a cruise or a land trip. So this cruise is not "port intensive" in our case. O should not assume anything about their customers behaviour. As to what other cruise lines we may consider as an alternative, that's the million dollar question. We like Azamara and they do have good nightlife. Even Viking, which has low-key entertainment, has a very nice, dedicated night club. Of the cruise lines we've already sailed and would sail again, Celebrity and Azamara would be tops for entertainment. Of those we haven't sailed, from what I've heard, Crystal may fit the bill.

Thanks for your comments and your review.

Apologies for the double post above and also I may to be having problems with font size. I am posting from my phone and the small screen makes it hard to judge how it looks in the real world.

No, as per my reply to mauibabes, I don't think there's much point going into battle on an issue which is of concern to us but is part of O culture.

My answer today is different to the answer I would have given yesterday! I had two cookies from Baristas which I found moist and tasty, possibly containing macadamia nuts but they weren't labelled. Today I got one that looked very prim and proper and tasted exactly like that. Dry and flavourless. Matches the description from the "Cookies" thread. I did see cookies that looked like this impostor on the buffet at lunchtime and they were labelled sugar free so maybe that's the issue. I will continue to report my findings on this important matter 😀.

That is amazing! You must be so proud of her. You won't believe your eyes when you see how brilliant it is. Amazing to hear about 10 wig and costume changes but not surprising as you can feel that level of detail while watching the show. I was thrilled to come across a group of the performers in the hall last night so I could tell them in person how much I enjoyed the show. They are doing Broadway in Concert tonight so I'm in a state of excited anticipation for that. Last night we watched an English comedian called Jeff Stevenson and we enjoyed him. His material was "modernised old- school" (I just coined that phrase 😀). Fast paced and good fun. He certainly had most of the audience chuckling. We watch a lot of live comedy and have found some of the younger English comedians on O to be very forced and cheesy. This guy was a natural.

Thanks mauibabes. Vista does look interesting and I enjoyed your posts about her so thank you for that. I hear what you're saying about speaking to Management and we did find them to be responsive when we raised issues on our first O cruise. But in regard to the early closing times of entertainment and bars, I feel it's just too hard to change this culture which is ingrained on Oceania. I don't want to have to spend my energy fighting that battle while I'm trying to relax on vacation from a very busy and stressful job. That's why we're thinking we may have to book on other cruise lines for the foreseeable future. Graham Denison is the Artist in Residence so I will pass on your message if I bump into him.

Thanks for commenting sunlover. This is indeed a port intensive cruise but funnily enough, there are more guests in Martinis at 11pm each night than we saw on our last two Riviera cruises which were transatlantic crossings with many sea days! At a rough count last night there were 30 guests in the bar at 11. Some left when the pianist finished at 11 but many remained. Perhaps the passengers on this particular sailing are behaving differently on this port intensive sailing to others. But I always dislike generalisations and believe that each customers preferences should be accommodated wherever possible. And in the case of a ship with plenty of staff available, they should be able to keep the bar open for guests who wish to stay up past 11pm. I spoke to a Senior Bar Manager about this on our first O cruise and he told me that the bars should stay open until the last guest leaves. But that's not what happens in practice. Now, the bar did have to stay open last night as there were so many guests present and some even arrived after 11! But with no music playing, there was no atmosphere. O needs to read the room better on this sailing. They also shouldn't schedule bar staff breaks for the same time as the main show ends. We had to wait 15 minutes for drinks when we arrived last night as one of the bar tenders was on break. This is indeed a port intensive cruise but funnily enough, there are more people in Martinis at 11pm each night than we saw on our last two Riviera cruises which were transatlantic crossings with many sea days! At a rough count last night there were 30 guests in the bar at 11. Some left when the pianist finished at 11 but many remained. Perhaps the passengers on this particular sailing are behaving differently on this port intensive sailing to others. But I always dislike generalisations and believe that each passengers preferences should be accommodated wherever possible. And in the case of a ship with plenty of staff available, they should be able to keep the bar open for guests who wish to stay up past 11pm. I spoke to a Senior Bar Manager about this on our first O cruise and he told me that the bars should stay open until the last guest leaves. But that's not what happens in practice. Now, the bar did have to stay open last night as there were so many guests present and some even arrived after 11! But with no music playing, there was no atmosphere. O needs to read the room better on this sailing. They also shouldn't schedule bar staff breaks for the same time as the main show ends. We had to wait 15 minutes for drinks when we arrived last night as one of the bar tenders was on break.

Thanks ORV, hope you have a great cruise. The General Manager is Emma Smith and John Clelford is the CD.

My DH and I are currently onboard Riviera, a 10 night round trip from Southampton to France and Northern Spain. This is our 3rd sailing on Oceania, all on Riviera since March 2022. Just wanted to share some thoughts and musings on our experience so far as I always enjoy reading onboard posts. Warning, this may be a long and rambling post. We were very excited to sail on Riviera again and hoped to meet some of the crew that we sailed with before. Indeed, we have had the good fortune to become reacquainted with some of those wonderful people which has been a delight. Sadly, many of them are leaving the ship before the end of this cruise as their contracts have ended. I don't think we've experienced such a big staff turnover mid cruise before. It will be interesting to see how the new crew bed in and hopefully service will not be affected. Speaking of service, it has generally been very good so far. Staff are very friendly and eager to please and we really enjoy connecting with them. We certainly have noticed an improvement in wine service in the restaurants which we often found very slow on previous cruises. The food has been excellent. We ate in the Grand Dining Room on two nights and Polo Grill one night. I felt like I'd died and gone to heaven on night 1 when we had the pleasure of being served by one of our favourite waiters and I got to eat the soufflé I've been dreaming off for months for dessert. It was a definite "aaaah" moment. Our B2 balcony cabin is in great shape, naturally after the recent refurb. The only issue is that we are at the very back of the ship and the noise and shuddering in the cabin when docking in the morning is quote extraordinary. The ship was anchoring yesterday so I thought we wouldn't be disturbed but no, even that was very noisy. We generally book aft cabins and haven't experienced that much noise and movement on other lines. We cruise more for the ship than the itinerary so have only gone ashore once so far, in Le Havre. There was a shuttle bus running between the ship and the town centre so we took that. Unfortunately we were abandoned at the end of the day when the last shuttle didn't turn up. It was scheduled for 5:30 and we arrived at the bus stop just after 5. It was an unpleasantly windy spot and there were no taxis passing by. Luckily for us there was another couple there who had the number of a taxi driver they'd used earlier in the and they were able to call him to complaint with Reception on the ship and were told our comments would be escalated to Management. Disappointingly, nobody from Management has reached out to us. Overall it feels like a very "hands off" cruise in terms of Management as we have not seen any officers around the ship. I know officers are generally less visible on Oceania than other lines but here they are completely invisible! Yes, there would have been officers at the Captains Cocktail party but we feel its important for officers to walk around the ship regularly to make sure everything is in order. We heard from several sources that the tendering operation in St Malo yesterday was a disorganised mess. The ship didn't prioritise the tendering of guests on Oceania tours so tour departures were delayed (30-45 minutes) with guests sitting on tour buses waiting for other guests to arrive. Entertainment has been mixed so far. The production show "Lights Camera Action" last night was exceptional in every way. The song choice, performances, choreography and set design were of such a high standard I had a big silly grin on my face the whole way through and didn't want it to end. The band and pianist are ok. I think there may be issues with the sound in Horizons as the band sound very sharp. The pianist is a great player and plays a good selection but his singing could be improved. Our biggest issue with the entertainment is the time it ends, i.e. too early! This has been an issue on our two previous O cruises but has reached a new low this time round. The pianist finishes in Martinis at 11pm sharp as opposed to 11:30 in the past. (Even that was still earlier than the published times in Currents.) The bar staff then start cleaning down the bar and guests start to feel unwelcome. The band in Horizons is also scheduled to finish at 11. We knew before we sailed with O the first time that it was not a late night cruise line but 11pm closing is just silly for an adult oriented cruise line. We are in our 50s and enjoy late night music and drinks and with this latest experience we feel we may need to wait until we're older before returning to O. It's a shame as the line has many excellent qualities but we just don't enjoy feeling we're being packed off to bed at 11pm. Apologies for the long and rambling post. Happy to answer any questions anybody might have about Riviera.

Good point! 😀 Thank you!

We will be on Riviera in early June with an overnight in Bordeaux. We are planning to go ashore on the first day, spend the night in a hotel and reboard the ship the next day before she sails. We wondered if we need to let the ship know about this in advance? I'm thinking we should let our stateroom attendant know in any case so they don't worry about us on day 2 when they see our bed hasn't been slept in!

Heartfelt thanks for your review and wonderful photos. It takes a lot of work and it's much appreciated 🙏

Thanks so much for posting the updated beverage menus Rob. I was disappointed in the variety of white wines available by the glass on our Riviera cruise in December 2022 so I am delighted to see a better selection is now available (IMO). Interesting to see the new cocktails also. I was longing to try something new by the end of our 16 nights onboard.

Can anybody tell me if I can cancel shore excursions online please? I can't see any way of doing it, but I could be missing something.

No need for sarcasm, I understand that the area is not exclusively for staff use. I just think O should provide an indoor area for staff to smoke elsewhere if they feel such a facility is necessary.

So basically O provide an indoor staff smoking area in a place designed for paying guests?😲