sailfar

We recently returned from a 4 week trip on each of the ships:  Regent Splendor and Oceania Marina.

On Regent you serve yourself at the buffet that is covered.  I personally like the extra protection during possible outbreaks of Covid 19 and norovirus.  Also, several times I found the large serving spoon in a dish like lasagna too heavy and awkward to reach my plate.  I like to be served, especially on a rocking ship.  

On Regent, there were more daily choices of where to eat, as one of the specialty restaurants, Prime 7 or Charteuse, were open each day in port in addition to the pool deck restaurant and the buffet.  There was no extra charge for the lunch in the specialty restaurants and the service and venues were fantastic as well as the food.  

I found the bread better on Regent than Oceania.  For whatever reason the breads were too dry on Oceania and tasted almost day old.  Regent breads seemed fresher.  However, I missed Oceania's sticky buns when I was on Regent.

There were more choices of included wine on Regent than Oceania.  Also if you like to start with a cocktail before dinner, Regent has a bar in each specialty restaurant and fast nearby bar service in their other restaurants.  Cocktails are included on Regent and you pay for all cocktails on Oceania with Simply More. It is difficult to find out what included wines you like the best on each ship.  Regent has an included wine tasting event, but it is a stand up event in the lobby.  When you do find a wine included that you like, make note of it and order it again.  Regent had more wines that we liked, and more varieties.  Oceania needs to expand their list offered with Simply More.

I liked the Asian restaurant on Oceania better than Regent.  Also there was wonderful sushi available each night at the Oceania buffet.

You can't go wrong with either Regent or Oceania as far as food.  It helps if you know what you like and read cruise critic to find out what items at each venue are best.  Lobster, veal and cuts of steak have varied wildly in quality.  So much of this is caused by supply chains and location.  

We sail both Oceania and Regent for the quality of food and the extremely comfortable beds.  We would never go back to Princess, Celebrity of Royal Caribbean.  Happy trails to you!

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Vacations are about choices and freedom!  O life was a wonderful selling point. And the motto "your world, your way."  Someone should be held accountable for this deletion/change. Over the years we have spent hundreds of days and thousands of dollars on Oceania going to wine tastings, and excursions to vineyards around the world. We enjoy trying new wines,craft beers, and new cocktails.  None of this is included in Simply More! Why should we pay for free, inferior wines we do not like or excursions that we do not want or will possibly be cancelled because of sea conditions. We have about 100 more days booked under O life, and won't change back,  Our onboard credit can be used for what we want!  We haven't booked a new cruise since SM was shoved down our throats.  We still love Oceania and also our second choice Regent.  However, you need to seriously adjust your forward thinking.  We would like to gain some money on NCLH shares and this is not going to do it from everything we are hearing from colleagues onboard!

Big mistake to replace Jacques with Embers.  Need venues with high quality food.  If you replace library with a creperie and gelato, Yuck!  Oceania needs to keep its competitive edge in the areas where they have a chance to compete:  the top knotch beds and high quality food.  Think about what you value when choosing a cruise ship.  Not willing to go back to Princess and Celebrity in quality!

23 hours ago, clo said:

I hope you adore BA. We've been there twice and would love to return.

had 2 for one rusty nails I believe during hh

On 1/12/2024 at 9:15 PM, ORV said:

This was never the case before. I'll check it out. 

just got off Marina in Buenos Aires and had HH  2 for 1 Martinis in Martinis with our favorite Big O. no  problem, 

Enjoy Oceania Marina.  Great ship for our 39 day cruise, Miami to Buenos Aires.

 

We all have our rankings of needs.  High quality internet, a comfortable bed and top quality cuisine.   Hopefully Regent and Oceania our two frequented cruise lines are researching the things people want.  We are frequent cruisers on both lines and the internet continues to be the weakest element.  Hope they finally get it right and use their resources wisely.  I don't care about the art in the hallways, the decor in the rooms and on the ship, but I do care about what is important to me! 

Thank you for your significant participation on this board.  Your pictures and story line is fantastic!

We are returning to Regent from Oceania and appreciate all the advice we can get and your pictures and information has been great!

We need your help.  We are booked on Splendor for 30 days in Jan/Feb and ironically, are booked in your friend's cabin 846  with the noise incident at 3:30 AM.

I know this is not what you are expecting as a response, but how did the incident end? Should we find a new cabin?

I was on a 3 leg Marina cruise in a PH cabin commencing in Fall 2022   I received 3 laundry forms per each leg.  The room steward supplied them for me.  I had to ask her for the forms for the final leg, otherwise they showed up in the closet clipped to the hanger with the laundry bag.

I am thankful that Oceania is using a TV channel for restaurant menus, port information, lecturer coverage, sea location and conditions etc.  This is all in large print,  assessable and very useful in our cabin.  I like having a printed schedule with the daily activities and port info in case one needs to contact someone in a difficult situation.  This piece of paper always goes ashore with me.  I use apps for just about all entities in my life, some are more useful than others.  However, I hope that we on Cruise Critic use our voice to  really focus on why we cruise and shape what are the top priorities to us.  While an app may be more important in the future, as we evolve as techies, right now I want to encourage Oceania to keep high quality cuisine, super comfortable beds, excellent  lecturers, friendly well trained staff, and work towards high quality connectivity on the internet.  Thank you all for your thoughts and ideas in trying to improve our sailing adventures.

How much of this is Oceania trying to be environmentally responsible?  Do they try to fill up empty bottles, and limit the number of bottles in existence. This plastic is possible going into our drinking water eventually.  Not a fan!  All our supplies: soap, shower gel, conditioner, lotion and sha!ve gel/conditioner were furnished regularly on our Nov../Dec Marina cruise.  No complaint!

All I can say is "ship happens".  You can't expect the terminals to be everything you or Oceania want. If there are a few items missing, it may be because of logistics, health concerns or some political issues like in Brazil currently.  In our 30 Oceania cruises throughout the world, our experience is that they try their best .We were on Marina from the beginning of November to the first week of December.  The ship was in tip top condition and the staff, General Manager, Concierge, butlers, food, etc. were wonderful.  At the end of the cruise a passenger needed to get medical help ASAP.  Consequently the Captain announced we were going to sail at max speed and arrive in Miami shortly after midnight instead of 8 am. Emergency responders met the ship and transported the patient away in the middle of the night before our previously scheduled arrival time at 8 am in the morning.   Oceania cares about people an  they were not worried about additional port charges or fuel costs!

Tom Drake is excellent.  Picks up material onboard for humor.  Truly talented.   Creates great material and leads great how to do comedy lectures.

On Marina Athens to Miami:

No problem with water pressure, center floor 10

Staff was dedicated and energetic after the covid furlough. New staff recruits were actively being trained as part of the teams.  Loyalty level cruisers went back to eating with staff.

Most importantly, the public areas including restrooms were kept very clean. No norovirus outbreak procedure required for this crossing!  Fantastic!

The food variety has something for everyone, I believe.  You just have to find what works for you.  For me it is the Asian sushi, sashimi, Indian food special buffet, Red Ginger miso sea bass, The Polo Filet mignon, etc.  I like spicy food so I asked for hot pepper flakes located next to the pizza table and availed myself to the sauces near the Terrace grill.

USA San Juan immigration needs improvement and the NCLH Miami management needs to step in:

     San Juan port authority needs to waste less money on air conditioning in terminal waiting room.    Many people moved chairs to sunny side windows to stay warm. 

     A speaker system in the waiting room needs to be available.  The destination service people spent considerable time walking row by row to find missing excursion participants.  Also, keep people informed about how things are proceeding. 12 noon,  the expected time to be all cleared to go back on the ship, finally became more like 1 PM.   Old San Juan with its lovely narrow streets and stores is just across the street from the terminal and would have been a better option for the able bodied passengers than sitting in the waiting room. San Juan lost a lot of potential revenue and, noted on  this board,  Oceania lost considerable approval.

The onboard internet needs urgent attention.  The online,  onboard evaluation access is too complex.  There were special sessions for helping people do it and long lines of people at Oceania at Sea trying to figure it out.  Ridiculous waste of time.  The internet shut done while filling it out and people lost everything they had entered and had to start over.  One person said, "after that, I just put down a lot of negative comments and rating scores."     Also,  it should be easier to sign off the internet.  Many people stay online continuously instead, think that shutting down their computers takes them offline.  

All in all it was a wonderful cruise with a great staff.  We are looking forward to several more booked Oceania cruises!

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We are booked on three additional Oceania cruises for a total of 53 days.  We will cancel if the 100% vaccination requirement is lifted.  A covid outbreak could overwhelm a otherwise limited healthcare staff onboard.  They already have enough to deal with heart problems, outbreaks of the flu, norovirus and broken bones.  The ship would be limited with onshore hospitalizations and emergency medical care in many ports.  Lets keep things as safel as possible by good planning ahead of time!  Our lives could depend on it! 

Pro planet!.  We are not going anywhere if we use all our energy to bicker, blame and politicize this virus.  We were given good brains and education, also as Christians, the majority faith of our nation, it is important that we care about others. There are too many selfish attitudes being set forth here.  The discourse on this site needs to rise above this low level! 

After having 5 cruises cancelled because of the pandemic, we have finally booked four new Oceania cruises for the end of 2022 and beginning of 2023.   Hopefully things will improve by then.  However, it will take the world working together and the US needs to be setting an example.  The news out of Miami Beach and the maskless overpopulating spring breakers that are not being controlled by the state or local governing agencies does not bode well.  The CDC is supposed to give guidance to the cruise lines early in April and the Port of Miami and the Miami airport look like hot spots out of control.  If you wish to go cruising again, please support policies that get us vaccinated and the covid spread under control, especially preventing variants from developing.  Until then, our country as well as others will forbid the unvaccinated from entering their country.    You or the cruise lines will have no choice.  

Today we received another portion of the cancelled Oceania Marina May 1, May 15 and May 25  fully paid cruise funds.  We are in the USA and funds were directly deposited into the credit card we used for payment.   The excursions we charged on another credit card have not come in as of yet and about 10% of additional paid funds are yet to be  paid to the other card.  

Our first recommendation to all is:  be patient and hopeful.  We have not called our credit card companies or our Travel Agent.  It was all Oceania's action.

The closer we get to a vaccine, the happier we will be.  We have so many more cruises we would love to take.  And, we have so enjoyed our Oceania experiences over the years.  Our second recommendation is to start early in your adventures because you never know what things will come your way:  personal health, pandemics, etc.  

Best wishes to all of the wonderful staff and cruisers we have met over the years!

We may get to sail out of our country later this year but will other countries accept people from countries  with covid 19. The United States is not looking well in new cases and the upward curve.   Surges in  UK and Sweden that have a growing number of cases because of late shutdowns. will prohibit people from cruise ships or require 14 day quarantee as they try to catch up..  There are a lot of states like TX and Arizona that areas would not accept you. We will  have a huge upsurge after opening up based on what is happening in the rest of the world.  If you want to cruise again,  do something to curb covid and follow advice  to shut down. If you want to cruise again!  We are citizens of the world.  Both crew and passengers, need to protect themselves and support science and the vacince effort. 

We are in Wisconsin.  We are 23rd state in number of cases in the  50 United States of America with a lower numbers per population ratio.  Our governor shut our state down early.  Today many people were forced to go out and vote, and stood in long lines exposing themselves to others, Pole workers were in short supply and since they tend to be older volunteer workers, many polling places were not open.  Fortunately, we were able to vote early by absentee ballot in our smaller township area.  However, many people in Milwaukee, did not receive their absentee ballot they requested 3 weeks ago, and were forced to vote in person. Our state houses and state supreme court refused to stop our election.  Our cases are surely going to escalate in the coming weeks.  While our area has few cases, we have an ageing population that will now be greater at danger as more people were out and about today and bringing the disease home.  This disease spreads rapidly among the elderly,  Our major county nursing home has 12 covid cases and 2 deaths so far.  It is exponentially spreading each day. All of our currently active cases in our county are related to this nursing home.  Why is this important to cruise critic:  If retired people die off at too high a rate, the cruise lines are going to surely go bankrupt.  We are all in this together.  Time to work together!

I think the cruise industry is in big trouble.  Older people are not going to feel safe booking future cruises either out of a sense of being rejected because of health risks or changing age restrictions.

It is going to be more difficult to hire crew.    Also the crew is getting less money because the automatic gratuities have meant less money than what they got before these policies went into place.  On top of that, some stingy passengers have figured out they can cancel gratuities, if they wish.  (They should be so very ashamed!)

The return to sailing date of April 12 by the NCLH company is a joke!  Country after country restricts entry from certain countries.   The epidemic in the USA looks like it will peak in mid to late April.   Lots of luck having Spain, France, Portugal, UK or Italy letting us in from our by then high level covid-19 country.  We will be the new China, Korea, Italy with restricted entry to other countries.

Oceania now has two ships docked in Miami, 2 docked in the Bahamas and 1 on the way from HNL to Los Angeles.  Looks like they are being wise and hunkering down near safe places to return passengers and crew to their homelands.  Kudo to you Oceania

Management, looks like you are trying to take care of your wonderful workers.

While I hope to sail again, it is a sad time now for all of us, and the strength of the cruise industry and the joy of cruising  may be changing.

This will be are 29th cruise on Oceania starting in February, and we have  3 more cruises booked on Oceania  in May/June.. 

As we engage in cruise conversations back  home  with various friends we hear several major themes:

1. They have loyalty with their current cruise lines and they  are given perks, therefore they like their current cruise line. They value their loyalty perks. Oceania keep your loyalty program going.  It has kept us sailing for over 300 days with you now!  It worked!  

2. Why do they like their current cruise line:  it is what they know and they have good lecturers, interesting and low or no cost excursions,  wine or beer included with meals. Please take note Oceania, this is why they like Viking and Azamara and it is hard to argue with them.

3. When I try to tell them about why I like Oceania, I say it is because of the comfortable beds, and the food.  That is what we spend the most time experiencing.  Lately, less people have responded with the bed issue. I wonder how comfortable they sleep.  I suspect other cruise lines have improved their bed comfort just as many hotel chains have.  Most people have upgraded mattresses at home if they can afford them and travel accordingly, avoiding certain hotel chains or lower end cruise lines.  Comfortable beds are deal breakers for us. Keep up the great Oceania beds!

4. As far as food, it is quite subjective.  We are a couple who looks for 4.5 to 5* food venues, and are gourmet aspiring cooks ourselves.  We are definitely "foodies" and Oceania meets our needs.  High quality food, international cuisine, and a wide variety of choices.  Riviera and Marina especially, have a great choice of food and have 4 high quality specialty restaurants along with the variety at the Terrace..  Oceania's smaller ships also have great cuisine.

Sail on friends and enjoy your life, whatever destination and venue you choose!

I am currently on Marina and the free laundry room is working just fine.  No more wait than normal.  This in addition to the 20 item per bag free laundry service in upper cabins is a welcome amenity.  We use our 3 free bags and supplement it with a load in laundry room each week for the excess.  Less laundry to do means more time to spend on excursions, onboard activities including ones that cost much more than approximately $4 per hour laundry activity.  This is a win-win for both passengers and Oceania!

You never know what you're going to run into when you sign up for a cruise. This is our 27th Oceania cruise and they just keep getting better and better. 

What a pleasant surprise to find so many people on the staff that we have known from previous cruises.  Today we stood at the bottom of the gang plank with our two heavy roll- ons loaded with our usual medical and electronic gadgets that weighed a ton, thinking how we were going to climb all those stairs from the dock to the 5th floor, when all of a sudden our favorite General Manager, Dominique Nicolle came bounding down the stairs to greet us with a big welcome smile and carried our bags all the way to the onboard registration desk at the front of the ship.  

Next we found that our favorite Oceania Captain, Luca Manzi is guiding the ship.  He is a delight, as those who have sailed with him previously know well.

After a delicious lunch we headed for our room.  On the way, we ran into our previous butler, Mani, who told us about our new butler, also from India, named Grince.

By the time we got to our room, our luggage was already at the door, as well as our room steward, named Suresh who we had on a previous cruise on Nautica several years ago.  He was happy to see us again!

At dinner we ran into a "floating", so to speak, restaurant manager named Nino from Sicily who we had just met on our November 2018 Riviera cruise.  He stopped to chat at our table and, like so many of the staff, Nino pitched in just like Dominique Nicolle, mentioned above, wherever he was needed.  Nino noticed right away that our white wine glasses were in need of filling and he retrieved the bottle from the ice bucket.  Fortunately, we had chosen an Italian wine!

So on day one we truly felt that we were back at our home away from home!

We always take the excursion choice.  Especially if they are more than $100.  On long cruises. there are usually ports cancelled and we get our money back immediately in the form of OBC.  We have seen people lose hundreds of dollars in private tour costs, especially when an overnight destination is cancelled.  Also if you read the roll calls on cruise critic, you will see all the stress and changes people are subjected to.

I laugh when I see people brag about how small their vehicles are. I don't like traveling in those small seated tight uncomfortable vehicles.  Recently we traveled on Oceania excursions in France and were on two brand new buses supported as the guide announced, by the French taxpayers.  They floated thru the air with wonderful suspension, they had a bathroom on board, and a great sound system. THERE WAS A BACK DOOR AND ONLY 25 ONBOARD.  It took us no time to get on and off.   We had  guides with

PH.D'S. And we just had to click on the Oceania site without all the research time and stress!

So it is excellent to get rid of all those plastic bottles.  One thing that concerns me is something I witnessed on my last cruise, the room stewardess dumped the somewhat empty and full water glasses in our room into the ice bucket. This was a shortcut in time for her, but the possibility of passing germs from one roommate to another, and ice bucket exchanged with another room  a chance for norovirus spreading room to room like wildfire.  After I witnessed this, I stopped using ice from the ice bucket and escaped getting norovirus on several cruises.

It would be nice to get rid of all the paper with ink and lamenated notices that we get in our room each day also, while we are trying to save the planet.  We need a dedicated channel on the TV with all the advertising.   All we need is the schedule of the day on a channel. and a reminder to put the port authority numbers into our smart phones. Our account on TV would also save a lot of paper and time spent at the desk downstairs.e

In any event we fully support this effort and will bring a small bottle of dish detergent to use with hot water to keep our bottles clean.  We do this at home.

Keep up the good work Oceania.  We love cruising with you and are on our 26th cruise!