ak1004

We were on the old Crystal. From what I read, the new Crystal is similar. We enjoyed the OC very much, but I find the current pricing of the NC not competitive at all. The ships are still over 25 years old, and the cabins are still small. Not a big factor for us if the price was competitive, but paying 20-25% more for a 210 sqft cabin on a 25 years old ship is just not my definition of value.

You don't need to ass passengers. In fact, you can even invite friends to ride with you (in theory) as long as the total number does not exceed the specified capacity. We got one link to because I specified the same email for me and my wife. But it has 2 rides per direction, so we used the second ride to book airport-port (and wise versa).

While the new showers on Riviera are really nice, the old ones were perfectly fine too (which I cannot say about R ships). And some people actually like tubs. So personally I don't see this as an issue at all.

I completely agree about Marseille. Doesn't feel like France anymore..

We were able to book Airport- ship and ship- airport with Blacklane.

I would sign on every word that you said. This was exactly our conclusion. The problem is that for 2025, SS priced itself out of the market. In 2023/2024 you could find a fair amount of SS sailings with prices comparable or only slightly higher than O, but this is not the case anymore.

Well, for those of us who live in North America and book cruises to Europe/Asia, flights will definitely be more expensive if booked 3-4 months in advance, especially for business class. And if you book with points (like we do), then the best deals are when the flights are just released (usually a year in advance). So 3-4 months won't work for us, and if they caught better deals on the cruise, most likely this was offset by air prices (unless you don't have to fly too far). Makes sense, and this is why they published till June 2026. But I hope they don't wait till September to release rest of the first half of 2026.

I understand why they would not release September 2026 now, but why not full schedule for the first half of 2026? We usually book 2 years in advance. We are currently looking at May-June 2026. If they don’t release them till September-October, and other lines like Seabourn, Windstar, Explora etc release a good itinerary at reasonable price in the next 2-3 months, we will book them instead of O.

I posted a comparison a while ago: If PH price is similar, I would go with O. You get more perks, larger cabin, better food, comparable service. Especially considering you don't drink much, so included alcohol on SS is not a factor.

All valid points. I don't disagree. The ratio is far from perfect, but I think it is still a pretty good estimate. As an example, QM2 has a ratio of 55, and indeed it felt the least crowded of all mass market ships. The difference between 44 and 52 is pretty significant to be ignored even considering all other factors you mentioned, and to me, Regatta did feel slightly more crowded than Riviera. And if you compare Regatta with 30,000 ton and 700 guests to ships like Silver Dawn or Silver Spirit that have 40,000 ton and 600 guests, the difference is very significant, despite SS cabins being almost double in size.

Money aside, on R ships, we would go to PH (regular cabins are just a bit smaller than our comfort level). On O ships (and Vista), regular cabins are very nice size, no need for PH only to get more space (at least for us), but other perks are nice if you use them. Always better to be young, handsome, rich and healthy than old, ugly, poor and sick, so if you can afford PH, why not?

I just checked price of June 2026 cruise on Vista similar to cruise we are booked for June 2025. 12 nights from London to London in June 2025 starts at $6,699 CAD. Similar cruise in June 2026 (Barcelona to London) starts at $6,949, 3.7% increase. I believe the increase is higher at most other lines.

Good to know. But even first half seems not complete. For example, Marina sailings show till Apr.28 only. Allura till May 7.

Hank, thank you again for your reports, highly appreciated! Our first O cruise was in 2018, and then 3 more post Covid. Personally, I didn't notice any difference in food quality, but obviously this is a small sample. We haven't been on EJ yet, but I consider O food better than SS, Azamara and Old Crystal (and I don't even mention mass market lines non suite dining venues). As for entertainment - this is really typical for O, and to be honest, for port intensive itineraries, we don't really care, we are too tired and go to bed after the shows anyway. How is it on Seabourn?

This was our impression too. O class has space to passenger ratio of 52, O class 44. Numbers don't lie. And the new ships will have ratio of 61, the highest in its class and almost as high as most luxury ships. In terms of number of passengers, I doubt anyone will even notice the difference between 1,250 and 1,400, but I'm sure it will feel more spacious.

I could never understand how dress code is related to luxury experience. According to this statement, Cunard is much more luxury than Regent or Seabourn..

We found the service at breakfast in La Terrazza very inconsistent. It was consistently inconsistent on both our SS cruises, the Dawn and the Spirit. The idea of ordering some items like omelet from a waiter instead of standing in line is good, but the implementation is terrible. Sometimes we waited 15-20 minutes for some of those items. Also many times I had to wait a long time for Perrier (it was almost like they have to bring it from another ship), so at some point I gave up and just settled for their "in house" soda, which is pretty bad compared to Perrier. Around mid cruise they ran out of Perrier and Pellegrino anyway.. I was very surprised to experience such basic service issues on an ultra luxury line.

No 3 nights.

We booked a hotel in Barcelona for May 2020 at $1,210 CAD. Today the same hotel for the same period is $1,950. That's a 60% increase. Business class flight with Air Canada to Europe was around $3,500 CAD before Covid. Today you will be lucky to find a light to any European destination for less than $5,500-6,000. Do they take their customers for granted? This is just the new reality. When you compare cruise prices with comparable land tours, cruises still win, big time, if you compare apples to apples. So price wise, I don't think there is a better value than a cruise.

I suspect we will see similar increases on all lines not just O. Check out current Celebrity prices on the new ships.

We did 2 land tours with Gate1. While it does have its advantages, but packing/unpacking every 2-3 days plus spending 3-5 hours driving every other day more or less is just not our cup of tea. There are always cruises with extended stays, overnights etc. that allow you to deep diving. And if we really like a place - we just come back and see it from a different angle. While we don't drink and prefer private tours, SM doesn't really change the big picture for us. We still like O, but we also try other lines. We also check river cruises.

The itineraries are out, looks like a very partial release. Only up to June 2026, and very few itineraries in Europe.

I understand what edible is. To me, most meals on O are between very good and excellent, with some rare exceptions. Definitely much better than just "edible". Edible to me is Mcdonald's or fast food in a mall.

In our case, each one of the 4 rides could be booked with business car (3 people, 3 suitcases) or business van (5 people, 5 suitcases) at no extra cost.

Actually what we found out is kind of interesting. When I created a Blacklane account, I found 4 (four) transfers. I contacted Blacklane and they explained that each guest is eligible to their own transfer, so the transfer are not per cabin but per guest. So we have 2 pre cruise transfers and 2 post cruise transfers, and they can be use for any ride that is less than 80 km (50 miles), not limited to home to home airport. So even after we took air credit and not using SS flights, we can still use one of the transfers for port to airport ride. In fact, we can use those transfers to any ride (up to 80km) up to 30 days pre cruise and 30 days post cruise, even if the ride is completely unrelated to the cruise..