pinotlover

What would you propose be the policy? Who is going to be the administrator judging whether someone is worthy of a HC cabin? Same criteria as all those getting HC placards for their cars so to park in HC spots? I wouldn’t doubt that a third of Oceania cruisers don’t already have one of those! How long should Oceania hold the cabin open? Permanently, if not specifically requested or needed? The devil is always in the details. If you don’t want that cabin then cancel the cruise, or upgrade.

Did they actually have Blantons? On our Marina cruise, ending 3/19, they had neither Blantons, Knobb Creek, nor any higher end bourbon at any price in any venue. Maybe they restocked in Miami??

Any such postings would approximate communications . FDR and Oceania find most all types of corporate communications to be abhorrent. Cruise Critic and most other social media venues believe such notices constitute good customer relations. Oceania obviously believes it’s frivolous activity.

It’s a weekend. Please read the countless posts on Oceania doing maintenance on its website over the weekend. Countless. No one will be able to actually book your cabin while the system is down for maintenance.

What latitude 22 demonstrated is that she certainly needs an experienced Oceania TA. Since she doesn’t seem to understand the pre booking options the professional TAs have, regardless of her Marriott experience, she is undoubtedly missing opportunities.

Ah! A DIYer! Buy’m books, and buy’m books! 😂 Good Luck. 🍷

The Jazz man, our friendly moderator, refuses to make this a sticky! 😂 Oceania’s website goes down nearly every weekend. Wait until Monday and things will be fine.

As a consideration, if one is disabled perhaps they would do better to book cruises upon release letting their professional TA clearly understand the extent of their disabilities. I believe Oceania will attempt to facilitate them in obtaining an HC cabin. I don’t believe it’s logical to expect Oceania to keep any cabins unbooked indefinitely and open just in case someone needs that class of cabin. This is particularly the case now with the cruise lines wallowing in debt. When one understands the “ pre-booking “ drill of the TAs, prior to cruise release, they’ll understand the opportunities for customers needs to be addressed.

Two years is a long time. Lots of opportunities to change cabins, within your cabin category, will occur between now and particularly shortly after the final payment due date. Have patience. Your need to do anything now is ZERO!

The discussion is about on the day of the special Brunch which was a sea day. The GDR didn’t open for breakfast that day, or at least until 9:00 when the Brunch began. All other days it opened for Breakfast. As is typical, the GDR openings for breakfast rarely facilitated early port calls and shorexs. That’s a different story.

Ours on the Marina, in March 2023, was 9-1. The GDR did not open for breakfast ( who needed breakfast), but opened at 9:00 for the 4 hour Brunch. Waves and the Terrace were opened regular hours for both meals.

If it’s not a sea day I wouldn’t expect one. When they have them, it’s normally 9:00-1:00. Starts out more breakfast, then gradually changes over to mostly lunch.

2 recent Post Covid ( New Oceania) cruises, one 17 days, the other 20 days: The GDR was only open for lunch on sea days. Also lunch for b2b on change over days.

This issue can be one of many of why the Terrace is for Teatotallers! When the one assigned wine steward, to your area, disappears for 15+ minutes to retrieve a wine bottle from storage, everyone else suffers. When that bottle got left in Jacques, instead of being returned to the normal storage, and the wine steward has to spend extra time finding it, many of us in the Terrace have finished our meal before the steward reappears to take our orders! 🤬

SothrnGary’s point is right on. One’s experiences are often shaded by their expectations, and sometimes greatly exaggerated expectations at that. Oceania overall does a very good job in the food area with some inconsistency. It is definitely not Michelin Star quality and when posters start making claims otherwise those claims need to be called out otherwise expectations can/will become distorted. This then shades experiences. I generally find on these boards when customers board Oceania, with reasonable expectations, they are most often rewarded with an enjoyable experience. However, similar to life, things happen on occasion. To us, Oceania’s greatest area of needed improvement is not the shipboard experience; food, service, etc, but management communications both aboard ship and from Miami. Part of that begins with their woeful website.

1. Could be airfare difference. 2. Could be directed marketing. Appeal to Euro passengers. They have done this pre Covid with success . Maybe they’re trying again. With all the various sales going on who knows what the real price is.

Itinerary, itinerary, itinerary! We travel on a cruise ship for the itinerary. Oceania often has very good itineraries that meet our wishes. They don’t always have the better itinerary for certain areas. When they don’t, we travel on different lines We have cruised on Viking. I agree the food overall wasn’t as good as we typically get on Oceania. It was OK and still edible. The itinerary on that cruise far surpassed anything Oceania chooses to do. We certainly didn’t starve on that cruise, plus as is similar to Oceania, we ate many fabulous lunches ashore of fresh local authentic cuisine. Dinner became a tapas ( small plate) after thought. There are times and occasions when we enjoy vibe and energetic surroundings. As a fellow passenger commented on our recent Marina cruise “ There is a totally different definition of 80s music on Celebrity or Princess compared to Oceania!” After certain of the geriatric cruises on Oceania, we’ve needed a more vibrant atmosphere to regenerate. Oceania is definitely a very good cruise line, however we never expect ourselves to be tied to it solely.

A lot there rolled into one question! 😂 We are currently booked for the Riveria 4/1/24 cruise in Japan. This cruise has a decent itinerary and you get to see many of the main sights. One can typically find tours, meetings their physical criteria, with a combo of private tours via the Roll Call or Oceania ship offerings. Oceania cruises are commonly comfortable, enjoyable, and they offer good food. Other cruise lines offer more variety in itineraries, such as a Japanese circumnavigational, along with more immersion into the food and culture of the country visited. Riveria, sailing in Japan, will offer the exact same foods as the other O ships sailing in the Caribbean or doing a TA to Europe. Any local offerings, typically in the buffet, will be highly Americanized to suit the palates of most O travelers. This is the reason we always do large regional on shore lunches when we cruise Oceania. To get the flavors and the variety of the visited countries. The best meals we have on a cruise is rarely aboard ship. This isn’t to downplay play Oceania’s food, but we don’t pay to fly to Japan , or elsewhere, to eat Americanized French, Italian, or other dishes. But that’s just us. Our cruise is 14 days. We will fly in 3-4 days early to do some sightseeing and tackle jet lag. Highly recommended to all. We will then stay 3-4 days post cruise to travel and visit some sites/cities our cruise omits. With flight times and time zone changes, one should reasonably expect this trip to be 23-24 days minimum.

Funny, I have never eaten in any of the dining venues that were in the 90s! 😳 I bet that was really uncomfortable. Now dining in one of the restaurants where it was outwardly cold, that’s another issue.

I always bring a sports jacket. My wife always brings a sweater and/or Shaw which we wear to the Specialties. If the venue is warm, I slip it off. However, there have been numerous times I was extremely happy to have it. Sometimes the restaurants are like a meat locker and it is extremely cool/cold. My DW has left with her toes nearly blue and me glad I had on socks and regular shoes. Taking a sports jacket is very inexpensive insurance for what may be a very uncomfortable environment. Fwiw, we dined twice in March in La Reserve on Marina. 100% of the men wore sports jackets at both dinners.

A couple comments on the two hour dinners . We found them far more common on Sirena 10/22, than on the Marina 3/23 especially in the Specialties. It seemed they were purposely over reserving the two Specialties, that is putting far more people into the restaurants than in pre Covid days. The staff couldn’t handle the overload. Food would sit under the warmer far too long and waits were extensive. This additionally made more stops and fewer visitations by the wine steward! The restaurant manager would come by apologizing for the situation, yet overbook again for the next night. I had never seen every table full in the Specialties at 7:00 before! 😳 The old Oceania had a system of table and time management that didn’t occur on that sailing. We had a 6:30 in the PG one evening and left at 8:40. People with 8:00 reservations were still standing outside waiting to be seated, alongside those with 8:30s. IMO, and I’m sure some disagree, people on two tops have no inherent right, and should have no expectation, to be served more quickly than all the others in the venue. For those of us sharing tables, and engaging in friendly conversations with others, the time seemed to have gone more quickly than for those only wanting two tops. That latter group seemed to protest the most. Only once on the Marina did they seem to jam the restaurant which had the same results as was the case every evening on Sirena.

The old Oceania preference for non communication of facts. Humm 🤔 My only comment is not to blast paying customers for any random speculation when Oceania refuses to disclose even minor details of upcoming cruise details. Is that fair?

Which one of these is most appropriate? I’ll take the below thst came first!

Actually I’m quickly losing interest in the affair. Typically, we book our tours, then La Reserve and Privee, around those. Then we book our Specialties based on our remaining schedule. Now, on undisclosed nights, they will have some dinner options we won’t know about until boarding. Also assuming those on the preceding cruise ( B2B) will have already had the option to sign up. Therefore, for such a low capacity venue, the available desirable options will be slim. Yawn. Whatever.

For our Vista cruise commencing on June 11, there are NO La Reserve or Privee dining options listed available for booking on the entire cruise. Oceania’s deserved reputation is providing the absolute least amount of information possible. They continue their practices. If other options were going to be offered, for that evening, good customer relations would have suggested offering those to us first since we had a paid reservation. We were merely told our reservation was canceled.