MarkWiltonM

St. Vincent has a very old botanical garden near the town center that's worth a visit. There are other nice gardens and beaches that you would need to take a taxi to, or which can be visited on an excursion. There is a lot of poverty in St. Vincent and the downtown area is perhaps not the best city to potter around in if you're used to tourist-oriented ports like St. Maarten, St. Thomas, etc. There's very little in Roseau near the cruise ship dock.

Those are some significant negatives. Food is very important on a cruise. I don't blame you for looking at other options. We cruise in veranda cabins and have found Oceania's fares to be close to Celebrity's or not much more. The food is a bit better and more consistent but it is a small ship without a ton of activities. Depends on what you like. We currently have 3 Oceania and 3 Celebrity cruises scheduled. A couple of those are booked around the same time and will be either/or depending on how our next cruises on the two lines go.

Ageism is rampart in Western culture. One day I believe (hope) it will be as taboo as saying something racist is in most of society today, but people have to learn and indeed be called out. People who wouldn't dream of saying anything racist or even sexist or homophobic have no problem disparaging the aged. Most of them probably aren't aware of the crassness of their verbalized biases, and that what they are saying is discriminatory and, indeed, quite hurtful to others. I agree it is surprising to encounter so much age prejudice on a cruise message board. You would think this would be one of the last places you'd find it. May all beings be free of enmity.

We find Oceania to be much quieter than Celebrity and for us that's a good thing. Even out by the pool when the loungers are nearly full O's vibe is more chilled than on X. (It helps that you don't have to fight for a lounger on O like you do on X.) People on O are friendly but a bit more reserved/introverted perhaps than on X.

I like it. The chairs are different and now have a floral pattern that is typical of French fabrics, and the brownish walls are now more of a "French blue," oui?

I read about it right here on Cruise Critic. I'm not interested in searching for these threads/posts, but I'm sure you could find them yourself. I'm also not suggesting this is widespread; we had no issues on our cruise on Sirena last year. I'm not sure what to make of your comment, "When asked to share a table we have never been asked for preferences for our table companions." I didn't write or imply that Oceania was asking people if they were "okay" dining with gays. From what I remember of the CC comments I was referring to it was the guests who made it clear they were not comfortable. I can't remember the details now and I don't care. This was just a small part of my original post.

We dine in the MDR and buffet because in my experience Celebrity's specialty restaurants aren't very good (neither are HAL's). I'm a former food-industry professional and cook and I do have to lower my expectations on cruise ships compared to good land-based restaurants. This is easier for me to do with the food that's included in the fare. Once I start paying for what is supposed to be the "good stuff," I get more critical and have almost always been disappointed. Fortunately, when I cruise it's because I love to be on the ocean; If I only cruised to eat good food, I would never cruise. But I can always find stuff in the MDR and OVC that are fairly satisfying.

I logged into Oceania's website last night at midnight and made our specialty dining reservations for a Riviera cruise (March 12-22, Miami - Bermuda RT). We have been on one previous Oceania cruise, on Sirena last year. We are in a B2 Verandah stateroom so the pickings were slim. My spouse and I like to dine early and alone whenever possible. We don't drink alcohol, and although we don't mind if we are with people who are drinking (as long as they aren't also drunk), the consuming of cocktails, wine, and after-dinner drinks can slow down the dinner beyond what we prefer. We are also gay and we've heard stories on these boards of some Oceania cruisers not wanting to share their table with "the gays." We were able to get an early table-for-two reservation in Red Ginger, but could only get 8:30 or 9:00 pm reservations in the other specialties for a two-top. That's our bedtime, so those hours are not going to work for us. Instead, we booked Jacques and Polo Grill for 6:30 for tables shared with others. We didn't book Toscana because we did not enjoy Tuscan Grill on Sirena, which is an understatement (it was horrible--food and service; main dining room was much better). Questions: (1) If I go to the specialty dining reservations desk upon embarkation, is it realistic to think I may be able to change our shared-table reservations to tables-for-two at an early time (6:30 or 7:00)? I imagine it will be busy on that first afternoon so if it's unrealistic I won't bother. (2) Is there any strategic value in booking a reservation in Toscana if we don't plan to dine there? For example, might it be possible to explain our preference for Red Ginger and Jacques to the desk and trade that for a second night in one of those restaurants? (3) Has anyone used Roll Calls to find people who might want to "trade" one restaurant for another once on board? For example, I know not everyone likes Asian food, and we aren't huge meat eaters so we could trade Polo Grill or Toscana for one of the other restaurants. Alternatively, might the specialty dining desk keep a list of people who are interested in trading? (4) Has anyone used Roll Calls to "pre-meet" other cruisers who may make compatible dinner companions? Then we might be able to amend our shared-table reservations to shared tables with specific passengers. (5) We are scheduled on Vista later this year. Do you think there's any chance those specialties will have more two-tops since there is apparently strong demand and insufficient supply on Oceania's current fleet? I worked in restaurants in my teens and twenties and some of the finest dining rooms I worked in had many tables for two that could easily be converted to four-tops, six-tops, eight-tops, etc. if necessary. It's obviously more efficient to scale up up the party size by putting smaller tables together than by seating two people at a four-top, for example. (6) Any other tips or suggestions for the specialties? Thanks!

When we were on Sirena in November, we had shampoo, conditioner, body lotion, and bar soap. There was no liquid body soap. I'm not sure if there ever is, and I didn't care enough to remember to ask the room attendants. But it was a first for us for a cruise. We'll be on Riviera in March and see what they have then. I would prefer that they put wall-mounted dispensers in the showers for shampoo, conditioner, and body wash to reduce the use of plastic bottles.

I'm glad to hear this is on the schedule! We are booked in late November 2024 on the first Caribbean cruise after the TA from Europe to Florida. I was half expecting our cruise to be canceled because they usually are at the beginning or the end of the European swing so they could have booked the dry dock in November/December with a rescheduled TA and other cancellations. Sorry for those whose cruises were canceled but hopefully Oceania is offering you some sort of credit and suggested alternative sailings for your inconvenience.

It's a shame they aren't serving Indian food at dinner. They always had a stew or two which, by their saucy nature, aren't dried out as many things can be on a steam table. I assume they still always have an Indian station at lunch.

I almost booked a cruise with the $1 deposit, on Rotterdam. But it was more expensive per night than Celebrity and about the same as we're getting now on some Oceania cruises (comparing veranda cabins, not suites), and, to be honest, the food and service we had in the main dining room on Rotterdam in April 2022 was so poor that I just decided I don't want to sail on HAL right now. I do love and miss HAL's buffet for breakfast and lunch (pastries and sandwiches especially), and we also utilized the buffet for dinner a lot after so many bad meals in the dining room. I haven't written HAL off completely for the future but right now the value and quality compared to other lines isn't working for us.

I wonder if the $9.95 service charge for room service is because Celebrity figured the reduced offerings in the Oceanview Café would lead people to order room service instead?

The Oceanview Cafe looks so bad it would be hard to imagine Celebrity isn't on the verge of bankruptcy. Nice look, Celebrity!

The food choices really do look appalling in the Oceanview. They should at least add back items that hold up well in a steam table, like the curries and stews. Those "dinner entrees" looked so dry I'd be afraid I'd choke on them. And how about a sandwich so we don't have to pay $11 for a couple of club sandwiches delivered to our room? We have 3 Oceania cruises and 3 Celebrity cruises scheduled currently. Oceania has fantastic 24-hour room service at no charge to any class of guest and you can even order from the main dining room menu during lunch/dinner hours. Guest which cruises we'll be canceling?

Post photos! Please.

They canceled the Marina refit for 2023 and have not said whether it will be done in 2024 or not.

We found our current agent from that website. Prompt communication is of paramount importance to us, even more so than the perks. The agency is an Oceania Cruise Connoisseur member, though I didn't know that at the time.

I would not work with that agent again.

Everyone is so different. We have sailed recently on Celebrity, HAL, and Oceania. We only care about four things when we cruise: (1) being on the water; (2) food; (3) the stateroom; (4) itineraries. We are not interested in entertainment on cruise ships so can't comment on that. We always take a veranda; haven't been in a suite in years. But I can tell that the suite life on Celebrity would be preferable to HAL in what is offered. As for food, we like the buffet on the Pinnacle-class ships on HAL. IMO it's far superior to Celebrity's buffet. On the other hand, on our last cruises on HAL and Celebrity, the food and service in the main dining room was better on Celebrity. HAL also has a nice afternoon tea if you care. In the main dining room, Oceania has better food overall, and it's more consistently good (with a couple of misses, always) than Celebrity or HAL. The food in HAL's main dining room is very inconsistent. There's usually one great meal per cruise (it's called the Culinary Council Dinner), a few that are fine but not great, and some that are terrible. On Oceania, some cruisers prefer the buffet to the MDR, but it's fairly small (because they are small ships) with limited variety so we tend to eat in the dining room for all three meals on Oceania. Oddly, on Celebrity and HAL we tend to eat more in the buffet than anywhere else.

I slightly bristle at Oceania wanting me to take precious time near the end of my cruise to do the evaluation. It's an imposition. Moreover, even if I had done the evaluation, it would have been before our final evening and last morning so I would not have been able to tell management what a crappy dinner we had in Tuscan Grille on our last night and how disembarkation was much worse than we've experienced on any other cruise line. (Still can't figure out why disembarking 600 passengers took longer than cruises we've been on with 3,000 passengers.) Prior to these glitches, we had mostly good things to convey about our cruise and would have been happy to do so via an online survey after the cruise.

We like both sizes. In non-suite staterooms on the smaller ships the bathrooms are exceptionally small (especially the showers), but we found adjusting to this was quite easy. The rest of the stateroom is also smaller but they have everything you need and have been nicely updated. You have more specialty restaurants on the larger ships and a bit more space for wandering. We choose whichever has the itinerary we want.

This seems like a no brainer to eliminate. If you have a tote bag, bring it on board. If you're used to getting a new one for every cruise, why? It's incredibly wasteful and bad for the environment. An empty tote bag can be easily fit into regular luggage and weighs very little.

Oceania ships are exceptionally quiet. Not a lot of activities. Most of the people who cruise with them want that peace and quiet, but it's not going to be to everyone's taste.

On our first Oceania cruise recently (Sirena), we were surprised by how dark Horizons was. It's a great space with tons of windows and we enjoyed morning coffee and afternoon tea there but it's very dark. The walls are dark, the upholstery is uniformly drab. And they cover nearly half of the floor-to-ceiling windows with light-killing roman shades. I figured out that the shades were nearly halfway down so that people don't butt their head on the windows, which slant down and out toward the bow. On Holland-America ships' Crow's Nests, the windows actually slant slightly up and out toward the bow, so that's not an issue. It will be interesting to see what Horizons is like on Vista.