ak1004

We sailed on Oceania Riviera 3 times which has 1250 guests. Never had any issues with getting into the dining room. Never felt any more crowded than the Spirit. Those comments about 700 Guests ships being too large are laughable. It’s all matter of how they are designed, how many dining venues they have and how large the dining venues are. but Oceania also has evening buffet which releases a lot of the pressure from other venues. A big plus for many people. And the service on a 600 guests ship is not necessarily more personal than 1200 guests ship.

Exactly. I think some of the issues mentioned here are really non issues. I don’t know why people are looking for negatives all the time. I’m really not a cheerleader of any line, but on our current sailing on the Spirit I couldn’t find any significant negative if if I looked hard (and I don’t). We are just enjoying our cruise. Of course it is also related to the price. Maybe if I didn’t pay just $400 per night, I would see things differently..

According to our butler, there are currently 520 guests on board the Spirit. On our previous Spirit sailing in December 2022 there were only 390 guests, and the service now is actually much better.

I will ask tomorrow but most categories were waitlisted months before the cruise started.

we had dinner yesterday 7pm. Group of 6. The service was excellent. The place was not full. Menu more limited than previous sailings, but still plenty of choices.

We are on the Spirit now. I must say that the level of service improved significantly compared to our previous two cruises. But the menus in Atlantide shrank. And black caviar is not in the menu anymore, although it is still available on demand. But overall a better experience due to better service.

We sail based on itinerary and pricing. This is a great itinerary at unbelievable price (around $400 USD per night). We enjoyed cruising on SS very much (except for the crazy dress code which is now more relaxed), I just didn't feel that they are in a different league compared to O (the whole luxury vs. premium discussion). But at that price plus fantastic itinerary, with one overnight and 4 late stays, it was a no brainer.

We had exactly the same experience on the Dawn in December. They ran out of Perrier and Pellegrino mid cruise, also most diet drinks. Except for cabins which are much better, I didn't see anything that justifies their current prices. Service was very good overall, but not better than O.

We will be boarding SS on Monday, our third SS cruise and probably will be our last. Their current prices are almost double compared to O, just cannot justify it.

We will be boarding our third SS cruise on Monday. All three times we booked GTY Vista. The assignment happened around 12-14 days before the cruise. It was pretty consistent in terms of timing. We got upgraded to Veranda on the previous two times, but not this time. We are perfectly fine not to have veranda, otherwise we would not book Vista GTY.

We don't consider SS a real upgrade from O, definitely not worth 50%+ higher price.

I agree with you Hank. At least with SM you get just few hundred dollars credit for excursions (probably around $30-35 per day per person on average?) while on SS and Regent all excursions are included, which bumps the price significantly. But people who don't drink still would be paying for something they don't use on all premium/luxury lines. At the end of the day, it's all about the total price and how it compares to other lines. I enjoyed your reports very much, thank you very much, and glad that you enjoyed O!

I guess I'm one of those NoNos because I considered food on on our Riviera cruise last May excellent. And for the record, I like spices and absolutely love garlic, and I never found the food bland.

On our cruise in November on the Marina, the minibus full day tour in Casablanca is $1,000, up to 10 guests. This is very reasonable I think, even if you have only 6 people, it's around $166 per person for a full day private tour. For 10 people, it's only $100 pp, I would consider it cheap.

Riviera and Marina are 1250 guests. Never felt more crowded than Spirit or Dawn, and it took around the same time to get on/off the ship. Honestly, if we didn't know the numbers, we probably couldn't tell the difference. But that's fine, everyone has their preferences.

I agree that space ratio is a significant factor, but you are comparing older O ships. To me, they are less attractive (smaller cabins, tiny showers in standard cabins, so PH is almost a must, less dining options etc). We sail on the newer ships only (Riviera, Marina and Vista), and those ships have much better space ratio (closer to SS), good size cabins, more dining options etc. Riviera never felt more crowded than Spirit or Dawn - in fact, I would say that the buffet on SS felt a bit more crowded than on Riviera. If you looked at the older O ships, I can completely understand why you looked at PH (and the pricing is really not competitive in my opinion), but on the newer ships standard balcony is 240 sqft, which is more than sufficient, and if it's enough for you, I believe it's a better value than SS.

I understand about port fees, but the cruises I compared are very similar. Same period, same region, both have overnight in Bordeaux plus Saint Malo, Brest and Paris. So considering the fact the port fees have increased, you would expect even higher price increase than 3.7% increase.

Well, this is exactly my point. Your example is definitely very nice and if it was done on a regular basis, this is something I would definitely be willing to pay for. But I'm not sure how often does it happen on SS traditional cruises on ships that are 3 times larger. Also don't forget that when you are talking about service in general, Endeavour also has much almost 1:1 guest/crew ratio, much higher than other SS ships, and I'm sure it is reflected in the service (but also in the price). So Endeavour experience is probably more luxury, but does not necessarily representative to luxury/premium lines discussion.

I agree that comparison really depends on the category you select. SS veranda is between O veranda and O PH in terms of size, so it's hard to do apples to apple comparison. However, around 80% of the cabins on any ship are standard veranda cabins, so this is what most people book. For us even OV is fine, so we compare OV (or French veranda on Vista) with Vista on SS, and the difference is very significant, especially for 2025 sailings. Also, O now includes drinks with meals and some excursion credit, and we prefer to book our own tours anyway. Food in O MDR is excellent in my opinion. Service is usually between very good and excellent, with some occasional misses, but we found SS to be the same, so I would say comparable. To me, the biggest advantage of SS is larger cabins, but it's much less significant for us. Most other areas they are comparable, so paying 50-60% more for SS just doesn't make sense to me, especially considering we don't drink. But this is very personal decision of course.

I didn't sail on SS pre Covid so cannot compare. But when comparing service on SS and O, I would say that general service on both was between very good and excellent, with some issues that I would consider relatively minor. But the problem is that since SS is significantly more expensive, you would expect it to be much better. To me, I would say they were comparable. Excursions were mixed bag on both. Both squeezed around 40 people into buses, on both the guides were not consistent.

But if eating in any outdoor venue, even jackets are not required. Also, I believe outside of the restaurants (theater, bars etc) they don't enforce jackets even on formal nights.

Thank you for sharing. If chasing down teaspoons was among the worst things from the 9 page letter, then I'm not really worried about Oceania future. btw, on our 2 SS cruise we had to "chase down" Perrier, cappuccino and sometimes even plain water many times. Would never cross my mind to call it a bad cruise, but I guess it's matter of attitude.

This is fantastic! Did the tour description indicate that the activities will be exclusive to SS guests? We will be on Silver Spirit next month, and I didn't see any excursions that indicated some exclusive activities. Maybe one of the reasons is that Silversea Endeavour has only 200 guests? Endeavour sailings are also much more expensive even compared to other SS ships, so might be not so fair comparison.. I'm not sure if this "above and beyond" happens on Dawn or Spirit.

We sailed twice on SS and 3 times on O in the last 3 years. We had a great time on both, and considered SS a very small step up compared to O, definitely not worth the huge premium they charge for 2025 cruises. To me, they are in the same category, and O food is better in my opinion. We had similar experience with excursions (close to 40 people on both lines), but with O you at least have an option to take private tours, while on SS the excursions are included. I'm curious what was so bad about Oceania?

Maybe one of the reasons is that unlike Celebrity, Cunard and other mass market lines, everyone is treated equally once outside your cabin. There are no dedicated areas or separate restaurants for suites on lines like Oceania, Seabourn and Silversea.