ak1004

12 minutes ago, chrism23 said:

These comments are reinforcing my fears about SS moving up to bigger ships. You could see this coming.  The largest ship I have been on has been the Muse @500+.  I haven't been on the Ray or Nova, the new ships that are 700+. I have 2 cruises booked on the Whisper and Wind.  Perhaps this deserves a separate thread.  I feel the Muse is about as big as SS can handle. I always do dinner at 7:00 PM.  I have never had to wait, I didn't always get a table for 2 by the window but always went right in.  If I had to wait to get into Atlantide or The Restaurant as the MDR was always called at 7:00 PM I would throw a fit.  That is a deal breaker for the whole SS experience.  The other issue that is going to be a problem, I think, on the larger ships are excursions.  On the Muse there were a couple that had 3 buses going to the same place at the same time.  This is simply too many people for any excursion.  It's interesting that many of the fears expressed by SS regulars are coming to pass.  Unfortunately I do not trust RCL to correct these mistakes, they are only going to make it worse.  

 

I will give one of the new ships a chance, expecting the worst.  Notice that the 2 cruises I have booked on the Wind and Whisper. I also do expeditions, these on the older, smaller ships.  It will be 2027 when I book the next cruise which will be on one of the behemoths..  Hopefully their issues will be sorted by then.  

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.

7 hours ago, drron29 said:

On our last 2 Muse cruises we were asked if we wanted to share a table in Atlantide.

When we want to cancel a reservation at a restaurant we always ring reception and they cancel it.

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..

16 hours ago, Observer said:

 

Do you happen to know how many passengers are on the ship?  I cannot recall Atlantide's not being full by, say, 7:30 or 7:45 pm on a heavily booked cruise. 

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.

1 hour ago, Observer said:

 

Do you happen to know how many passengers are on the ship?  I cannot recall Atlantide's not being full by, say, 7:30 or 7:45 pm on a heavily booked cruise. 

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

4 hours ago, bohaiboy said:

Both  pre and post .  Atlantide overwhelmed by customer at 700.  Then customers sit around chatting   We arrived at 835 pm tonight. Not seated until 905 pm. Missed 930 show.  We just booked a SB cruise.  Fed up with SS and the RCL management

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.

2 hours ago, Vineyard View said:

I am surprised you are sailing on SS again. I was under the impression from your posts that you don’t feel very enamored with them in the first two. I hope you have a great trip. 

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.

8 minutes ago, ronrick1943 said:

We were on the Nova last December-Janurday cruise.  Service surprise me, just wasn't top notch like you'd expect.  They posted some of our laundry, run out of a white wine (non-alcohol) and even run out of lettuce for salads for the salad bar.  The port were pretty big cities, so it's not like they couldn't get it.  

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.   

2 hours ago, ronrick1943 said:

This why we stopped cruising Regent and Silversea--spending extra dollar for things we don't use.  We also don't drink and prefer to tour on are own.  Now back on "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.

13 minutes ago, highplanesdrifters said:

 

I think you hit the nail on the head and explained the current situation perfectly.  

 

Add in:

Along with new cruisers there are also the upgraders.  Will folks find the upgrade from Oceania, Viking, etc. worth it?

Lots of folks trying expedition, will all the new ships get supported?

Will the excessive marketing to a younger demographic work? Enough with all the influencers on board!

 

Although we currently have 4 expeditions booked I'm actively looking for alternatives. 

 

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

45 minutes ago, Hlitner said:

 

Getting back to O, I am not a fan of their Simply More program.  It forces us to book overpriced excursions that we would never consider...otherwise.  We talked to a few O fans who also do not like excursions and told us they will continue to cruise on O and just eat the SM cost.  Like us, they are not fans of cruise ship excursions.  My goodness, in Rovinji, we tagged along (for a few minutes) at the rear of a walking tour (about $100 pp).  These folks were walking on the same streets as us (we paid zero) and the few minutes of guide-talk we heard was just boring.  While I do understand that some folks like excursions, many others see them as boring.  Trying to force us to pay for excursions we do not want is not the way to build loyalty It just reinforces our desire to be on our current favorite line (Seabourn) that does not include any excursions in their pricing.

 

Hank

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! 

18 minutes ago, pinotlover said:

Bland dishes and sauces. Made up Americanized recipes. NoNos don’t like garlic, so don’t expect garlic even in dishes that call for it. Nothing new here folks. Remember the NoNo call all these dishes excellent. 

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.

4 hours ago, RetiredOnVacation said:

That's interesting to know! However we also avoid 1000+ capacity ships - just don't like to be around so many people especially boarding/ports etc, and much prefer the 400-800 passenger class but with high space ratios.  So 1400 or so on the newer O ships explain the greater choice of venues, due the greater capacity, but wouldn't work for us, but thanks for your info! Guess you won't be seeing us on O! 

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.

7 hours ago, RetiredOnVacation said:

For us it's not just cabin size - though that is what you're spending a good deal of time in, so you'll want comparative cabin sizes; it's more the space ratio (defined very well on cruisemapper). Not been on O so can't comment on how it actually feels, but comparing a typically similar passenger capacity O ship to SS ship (ie. O Insignia/Nautica, with SS Dawn/Moon) cruisemapper has space ratio of 38 for O, versus 56 for SS. Far more space per person on SS and that's an important consideration for us worth paying for! 

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.

3 hours ago, pinotlover said:

Not a similar cruise.

 

The missing link for O cruisers is port fees. Barcelona, Venice, Dubrovnik, etc., have been both drastically reducing the number of cruise passengers ( thus ships) allowed, but likewise drastically increasing port fees for those ships that do make it in. While labor, food, and fuel costs have all increased; it’s a worthless exercise to compare cruise prices without including port fees.

 

Recenting read a cruise industry rag talking about this issue. Those of us signing up for cruises two (2) plus years in advance may find ourselves more and more disappointed as many of the ports opt to reduce ship visits. 

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.

7 hours ago, Woodrowst said:

Neither the choir nor exclusive use of the Giant’s Causeway was listed in the tour descriptions.  They have been trying to delight us and exceed our expectations on a regular basis and usually announce any “above and beyond” a day or two in advance.

 

i have not been on the Dawn or Spirit so do not know if this occurs on both the Silversea expedition and traditional cruises.  I am sure there are cruisers on this thread who have and can provide an informed comment.

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.

1 hour ago, RetiredandTravel said:

 

I always compare a veranda on SS vs PH on Oceania and when I include a drink pakage , excursions etc I often find the price to be close to the same.  Full disclosure I've only compared a few cruises.  I'm actually looking at a South America cruise right now.

 

The main complaint I've read about Oceania is the food & service in the main dining room.  Comments?

 

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.

Just now, RetiredandTravel said:

Here is the dress code after May 26.  I think its a little different for the Nova.

 

Evening wear falls into two categories:

• Elegant Casual: On casual evenings, ladies may opt for trousers, a blouse, a skirt, or a casual dress, while gentlemen may wear an open-collar shirt and slacks. A jacket is optional.
• Formal Optional: May choose a more formal attire, such as an evening gown or cocktail dress for ladies and a tuxedo, dinner jacket, or dark suit with a tie for gentlemen. Alternatively, adhering to Elegant Casual dress code is welcomed, but a jacket is still required for gentlemen in all indoor spaces.

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.

29 minutes ago, yayoye said:

RE: Oceania issues - I won't mention them all as no one here wants a 9 page letter!  Just a few points.  We had afternoon tea twice.  The first time we had to chase down teaspoons.  We asked 3 times and finally got up and found them ourselves.  The second time, the water for the tea was cold.  I saw them remove an entire urn of water after we complained so obviously they did not put boiling water in it for tea.

We had issues with virtually all of the excursions - one guide broke the law (which we found out after the fact), one guide shorted us 1 hour on the excursion - 30 minutes of which was time at the highlighted site; and in Istanbul the guide did not want to allow any bathroom breaks on a 5 hour tour and, because the tour started late due to Turkish immigration, he wanted to cut out the visit to the Grand Bazaar on the basis we would return late to the ship.  Yes, but we started late and the ship was not departing Istanbul until the following day.  Everyone complained and he finally completed the tour. These were Oceania ship tours which we paid for.

Every bottle of white wine was warm - not room temperature, but actually warm.  Two bottles of red wine were corked.  I was not "allowed" to order a bottle of wine from the Jacques restaurant wine list when we ate in the steak restaurant.  Why not?  I was paying for it and I was told previously that all the wines are stored centrally. 

The steak teriyaki in Red Ginger was inedible and certainly not teriyaki flavoured (I am ethnically Japanese).  To give the chef credit, he came out to see what was wrong when notified that we wouldn't be eating the steak.  He admitted that he had trained in Japan and that he knew it was not a good teriyaki recipe, but he had to cook the "corporate recipe". 

 

The staff were nice and many tried their best, but these and many other issues just kept cropping up.

 

This is a small sample of the issues we encountered.  There were many more.

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. 

14 minutes ago, Woodrowst said:

So with great trepidation I thought I would post another couple of examples of luxury vs premium cruising.  Today, our cruise on the Silversea Endeavour stopped in Iona, UK and provided a complementary tour of the Iona Abbey.  The above and beyond was that they arranged for a Gaelic choir to provide a concert for us.  Just beautiful.  Tomorrow we are stopping in Portrush, UK and the ship is providing a tour to the UNESCO heritage site of the Giant’s Causeway.  The above and beyond is that they arranged for us to have the site exclusively for the cruise ship; we won’t have to compete with the thousands of daily visitors at the Giant’s causeway.  Premium lines such as Oceania do not provide these kind of above and beyonds - at least not on any of the six O cruises I have taken.

 

I am fully prepared for the first response to be: This does not apply to me because I don’t like Gaelic choir music or hexagonal basalt columns ☺️

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.

On 4/13/2024 at 11:07 AM, yayoye said:

In the last 2 years I've been on a 25 day Silver Dawn transatlantic crossing, a 10 day Mediterranean cruise on Oceania, and I just completed a 16 night cruise on Silver Nova from Fort Lauderdale to Lima.  The Silver Dawn crossing was wonderful and just like the Silversea I expected.  The Oceania cruise was so bad I wrote a 9 page letter of complaint to the President of the company (and got no response - not even a form letter of acknowledgement of receipt).  However, even though the Silver Nova cruise was much better than the Oceania cruise, it was not up to the standards of the 2022 cruise on the Dawn.  Note that all of these are post covid and post acquisition of Silversea by RCCL.  

 

My assessment is that Silversea went from First Class to Business Class.  My main concern is that while you can get pretty much anything you ask for, you need to know to ask and sometimes you need to ask the most senior staff person to get it.  Many aspects of the cruise were great and most of the staff were excellent, but some seemed to understand that they could have done things the old, proactive way, but were now constrained by corporate rules such that they had to wait to be asked.  Also the excursions were never more than 25 people in 2022, but in 2024, 40 became the norm, or perhaps even a few more if the buses could hold more.  Included excursions are no longer a luxury experience.  Staff became more sensitive to my concerns following the mid cruise survey, but I was also highly encouraged to fill in the end of cruise survey as comprehensively as possible as that is the survey that goes to head office.  

 

I have another cruise booked for this September on the Muse and hope that all of the changes will not have filtered down to that ship.  I also have another cruise booked on the Muse for 2025.  This is the first time I did not book a future cruise while on board.  I am now willing to try other cruise lines.

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?

38 minutes ago, Vallesan said:

 

Have to be honest in that we have never seen, or felt, a snobish attitude on any of our Oceania cruises or even on Seabourn  and Silversea. Could be we’re ‘class’ blind ’ but I don’t think so!

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.