BAMA_BOY

6 hours ago, pinotlover said:

 

We’re booked on the September TA. We definitely won’t buy airline tickets for this cruise until at least six months before hand. In fact, it may be smarter, for this cruise, to use O Air thus eliminating that risk. At this point, an Allura September cruise is still 50-50 imo.

We're also booked on the TA.  Good idea to wait until final payment date to think about booking air!

Here's the wine list from Riviera 

Wine list from Riviera Oct 16-Dec 4

We recently completed our first Oceania (Riviera) cruise in an A2 cabin.  We've been cruising over 30 years, more than 30 cruises on almost every major cruise brand.  Since the pandemic we've sailed on Azamara, Regent, Viking, Holland America and Oceania. We choose our cruises first on itinerary and then we try to find the best value.  Everyone has a different idea of what they want in a cruise/cabin/etc.  Our preference in cabins requires at least a PV on Viking, a Concierge or above on Oceania, Club continent on Azamara - so size matters.  We find that in 2025 Viking prices for  a PV are almost as expensive at a deluxe veranda on Regent (Splendor/Grandeur) and most itineraries would permit booking a PH on Oceania for about the same amount.  We've enjoyed Viking cruises, great product.  But dollar for dollar I'd have to rate Oceania (based on our Riviera) experience more bang for the buck?  Terrace  Cafe buffet not quite as good for seafood selections (sushi/sashimi/crab)  as Viking but the service and table arrangements plus the grill give Oceania the edge in my opinion.  And if Regent has one of its newer ships doing the same itinerary at a similar price there wouldn't be a choice.  

Just off the Riviera.  No problem ordering 2 for 1 and sharing with spouse

On 7/29/2023 at 6:12 PM, PinonNoir said:

I recently wrote a review about our stateroom experience on our Riviera cruise, and I wanted to write a review about our cruise experience overall.  This was our third Oceania cruise, so we had some experience and expectations going in.  I will try to remain balanced in my review.  We just disembarked 9 days ago, so I'm writing this while my memory is fresh.

 

First the positives:

 

1. The multitude of restaurant options is great.  There is something for everybody, and for a 12 day cruise it was nice to be able to eat in a variety of spaces.

2. The ship has a lot of common spaces to enjoy, and none of them felt overly crowded.

3. The Barista's spot makes excellent coffee....the best on the ship in our opinion.  We were regulars there.  Really fantastic...even staffed by an Italian!

4. The Oceania staff is excellent.  They always seem to go above and beyond with limited exceptions (sticking to positives here).

5. The ship was clean everywhere we went, including common area bathrooms.

6. Embarkation went smoothly, and we were in our stateroom quickly.  Our luggage showed up fairly quickly.

7. It seemed that the Bridge crew went out of their way to sail in such a manner as to keep the ship's movements minimized as much as possible.

8. We had dinner in Privee 3 times, and two of those times were outstanding (remember, this is the positives)!

9. Our Butler and support staff were top notch, cordial, professional and just outstanding in every way!

10. Fellow passengers all seemed to be well seasoned travelers, with mostly positive attitudes.  This is important to us.  We hate being around people who are "fun vampires".

 

Ok, now the negatives...which I'm going to be as honest as possible about.  I am not piling on here, just telling it like it is:

 

1. The food has slipped.  We noticed this in pretty much every restaurant, with the possible exception of Toscana.  However, on our last night , we ate in Toscana, and I ordered a Maine Lobster dish.  It was bad...very fishy...as if the lobster was way past it's prime.  I returned it immediately and ordered another pasta I had ordered previously, and it was of course excellent.  Why did they serve lobster that was unworthy of an Oceania customer?  It was really bad!  This is my last night on the ship, and it remains a solid memory.  Bad form.

 

2.  The wifi.  Holy mother of God what in the world is Oceania doing with this wifi?  I could hear my old 4400 baud modem clanging away as I tried to log in, but the wifi on the ship was no match for my 4400 bauds!  I write a travel blog for fun....and I couldn't even upload a photo without waiting an hour!  Fortunately we were near land on occasion and I could use my international plan to do some work, but I'm still a week behind thanks to their "Pony Express" wifi!  We had two "at sea" days due to canceled ports of call (coming up on #3), and I can't tell you how many hours I wasted trying to write one blog post!  Also, when you are logged in, you get logged out repeatedly.....over and over....never for more than a few hours at a time.  It was a constant struggle, almost like they would log you out on purpose!

 

3. Ok, here is a rant with a conspiracy theory.  Our ship pulled into the Faroe Islands, turned around in the harbor about a dozen times, very slowly, and then abruptly left.  The Captain said it was due to weather, but it was sunny and calm.  We were supposed to be there for two full days, and I had a private excursion planned (for 10 people) that I ended up losing over $2000 on.  A week prior to this the Faroe Island populace had a pilot whale hunt where they killed a bunch of them in front of another cruse ship.  It's my firm belief that Oceania Corporate told the Captain to pull into harbor, make a big show of the fact we were there, and then depart, sending a political message.  The company I was working with on the excursion advised me they had no idea why the Captain didn't dock, as the weather was calmer than usual.  If Oceania wants to take a political stance with the Faroe Islands, fine, but don't impact my cruise experience!  I was really looking forward to this port!

 

4. We had a habit of getting iced tea every day at the Waves Bar by the pool.  Our last day on the ship, we stopped by the bar and there was nobody there, during their opening hours.  We went up to Horizons to see if they could help us.  They told us they didn't have iced tea, go back to Waves Bar.  When we told them nobody was there, they said "oh well".  This was a group of 3 guys at the bar.  W T F?  This is not the service we have come to expect from Oceania!  One of these guys should have said "what is your stateroom number, I'll get some and bring it to you!"  I think the fact it was the last day on board lended itself to staff taking a lazy attitude towards the customers...."oh well, they are about gone, I'm done hustling for these guys".  I hope that's not the case, but it sure seemed like it.

 

5.  The Grand Dining Room.  We ate here for breakfast one time.  Once!  The food was cold, the coffee was cold, the service was terrible...and it wasn't even crowded!  Again, W T F?  Why is the service in the main dining establishment on the ship so crappy?  How can it be that hard to bring warm eggs from the kitchen to the table?  We ended up eating 10 of 12 breakfasts in our suite.

 

6. The "internet guy".  This guy had the worst attitude on the ship.  We couldn't get logged into the wifi (not that it was worth logging into) on our first day so we went to see him on our second day.  He really doesn't want to be there.  After taking care of us he walked away, and there was somebody waiting behind us.  We realized his "working hours" had ended at the same time he took care of us, so screw that guy behind you, he can wait until tomorrow.  Again, W T F?

 

7. The Best of Oceania!  One of the 3 nights we ate in Privee we picked the "Best of Oceania" dining menu.  It was terrible.  Every dish was lackluster.  It's been too long to remember details at this point, but the entire group of 10 was disappointed.  If you do Privee, stick with the Polo and Toscana menus.

 

8. The "Sommeliers".  The wine people on the ship, while they are nice, don't know how to pour wine in equal servings.  Now I know pouring one bottle for 10 people is difficult, but this is likely a common occurrence and it should be practiced. We always ended up with one person who had almost twice as much wine as another, and with high end wines and high end enthusiasts, this is not a fun vibe!

 

9. Dress code.  I know the dress code says no jeans to dinner, or around the ship after dinner, but this code is broken so often without consequence that I wonder why it's the dress code?  I would prefer to wear jeans every day....just my thing, but I didn't.  Kinda weird to see what was accepted in the restaurants in the end.  Maybe just allow jeans?  I know, you purists out there want us all in tuxedos.

 

10. Stemware.  Ok, this is just going to be me most likely, but stemware matters.  Double the amount of decent Pinot Noir glasses you currently carry.  Schott Zwiesel makes some excellent Pinot glasses that are actually made with Titanium, and they are super hard to break.  I know, these are my daily drinkers at home, and I've barely broken any over the last 15 years!  Buy a bunch of these so your high end red wine drinkers are happy.

 

Ok, I think I've mentioned everything here.  I'll have my wife review tomorrow....she has the good memory in the family...and will add anything she brings up.  Again, thanks for reading!

 

Thank you very much for your comprehensive review.  We are booked on the Riviera in October and it's helpful to be forewarned about some of the issues you mentioned.  It's our first cruise on Oceania and we have a TransAtlantic booked on the Vista next year so I was very interested in your experience.  We have cruised a number of times since covid including Azamara, Regent, Viking, HAL etc.  It's our (shared) experience that you cannot get decent service or food in the MDR on most cruise lines these days.  We're hoping for a good experience and of course we have time to cancel the Vista cruise if we're less than satisfied with Oceania.  We've cruised almost all of the cruise lines since 1990, we're now limiting ourselves to fewer cruises each year and looking to book higher categories and/or more luxury lines - and feeling blessed to be able to do so. 

Perhaps someone on the Rotterdam can tell us where they are disembarking on Sun 21 August.  I and two other couples are sailing on the Rotterdam and thus far we haven't been notified by our "big box" travel agent nor HAL of any change in port. 

I have see the following notice on CruisePortAmsterdam:  

Update ms Rotterdam  Tuesday 16 August 2022 Message from the HAL :
For the rest of the Europe 2022 season, the Rotterdam will divert to the port of Rotterdam instead of Amsterdam. This concerns the departures and arrivals on Sunday 21 August, Sunday 28 August, Sunday 11 September, Sunday 18 September, Sunday 25 September and Sunday 2 October.
Navigator App and Boarding pass
 

It is currently not technically possible to change the embarkation port from Amsterdam to Rotterdam in the Navigator app on the boarding passes. So, despite this change of port of embarkation and/or disembarkation, Amsterdam will always remain on it. The boarding passes and embarkation times remain valid for embarkation in Rotterdam. As a reminder, the boarding passes are the same as the travel documents. We do not send separate documentation. Guests will receive the boarding passes upon completion of Online Check-in via www.hollandamerica.com.
Guests will be officially informed by the HAL as soon as possible. It is expected that this will be sent out as soon as possible. More information about transport options will also follow in this reporting.

Anyone booked on this cruise checkout the Roll Call, we're looking for some people interested in small group tours during Israel port calls.

On 5/9/2022 at 1:48 PM, willoL said:

 

Deleting and re-installing the app didn't solve my problem, either.

 

BUT, here is one good thing to say about Verifly. Their Help Desk responded very quickly (within an hour) and explained *my* issue. You can't upload your vaccine record until within 30 days of a cruise!

 

Of course, a better app would have responded to my attempt to upload documents outside the allowed time period with a MEANINGFUL MESSAGE that explained the problem. Instead of "unexpected error," Verifly should pop up "It's too early to upload this document." Then, I would've had a more positive impression of the product overall.

 

--willo

Hallelujah, thanks for the answer.  As I said in an earlier post this is what I expected - but glad to have the info.

I have an upcoming cruise on the Rotterdam in August.  I've tried to upload copies of the vaccination records but the link in Verifly doesn't work for records, it does work for adding the picture of my wife.  I've uninstalled and reinstalled, no change.  Perhaps there's a window of days prior to the cruise before it works?  I'm not going to fret too much, I've used Verifly with American Airlines and Viking Ocean, it worked but many port agents just ask for the paper copies anyway??  

26 minutes ago, Ladys Mom said:

You should be getting your hard copy cruise docs soon.  We are on from Athens on 11/11 and we received them last Friday.  Welcome to the Regent family from two of your AL neighbors.

Norma and Mitch

I called our "Big Box" TA and apparently the package was mailed by Regent on Oct 20 for our 11/23 cruise but cannot be located/tracked at their office?  I've requested a PDF version be emailed but I'm not even sure what documents other than our boarding pass and luggage tags would be required.  I have received numerous email attachments with most of the info (excursions, dining reservations, etc).  

2 minutes ago, Turn 8A said:

You will get them with your cruise docs from your TA.

Thanks, I would have spent more time looking at FAQs etc.

We are about to experience our first Regent Seven Seas cruise and just received our boarding passes.  I would have expected to also have printable luggage tags as part of the boarding passes but I've looked and can't locate where I might be able to print them.  I'm sure this forum will save me some time and answer my question.

10 hours ago, jelayne said:

 Cruise with Confidence will allow you to cancel and receive a FCC so you don’t lose your money.  The catch is that the FCC must be applied to a cruise booked by April 30, 2022 and the cruise must sail by September 30,2022.  So a small window to use the FCC.

We  booked our Nov 6th cruise on the Pursuit in 2019.  May 6 2020 the email for Cruise with Confidence permits booking a future cruise up to 12 months from the date you cancel the cruise....

We've not cruised on Azamara, we were really looking forward to the Nov 6th itinerary which we've had canceled twice in the past 3 years on Azamara.  Now with the loss of Israel we're certainly not going to be taking this cruise and it seems Azamara is going to force us to cancel rather than them putting it on the canceled list when the remainder of the Pursuit's cruises were canceled.  We'll just have to hope that we can try again another time?  I realize that all the cruise lines have been through so much but I don't feel like we've been treated fairly?  

Where is it going?  We're still "booked" on Nov 6 from Athens!

53 minutes ago, mrstanley said:

Bama Boy:

 

A mock turtleneck worn under a sport coat is a great look. My husband always brings a sport coat on all our cruises.

In fact all our friends do. 

I'm going to test the "look."  IF everything goes according to schedule we'll be coming off a 15-day cruise on another line and I'll definitely have been wearing that combo (mock/jacket) to dinner occasionally.  

We're booked on our first RSS cruise in December (Splendor Transatlantic) so I'll jump in here with this question:  "Is a mock turtleneck shirt worn with a jacket acceptable on Regent?"

Just finished the 14 day westbound from Copenhagen on the Getaway. It was our first transatlantic and we liked the cruise. There were more children than I would have expected, but they were not in great numbers. Cruisers were pretty typical, all ages, all nationalities. We had a Spa Balcony cabin on Deck 14 forward and were never bothered by the rolling of the ship. It was, at times, pretty rough with high winds due to various storms and some passengers were bothered. The lack of warm sunny weather on the first few days of the cruise kept people from utilizing the many pool decks on the Getaway so the common areas felt crowded at times. The pools had to be emptied for a few days due to the rocking/rolling of the ship. The Thermal Spa was also heavily used the first week but the second week it was pretty normal. Exercise equipment was heavily used every day the entire cruise until afternoons. Entertainment on the Getaway was spectacular, the best I've experienced. Food, especially the specialty dining rooms was excellent. Garden Cafe (buffet) was also way above average in my opinion. Lots of sea days, lots of relaxation, easy body clock adjustment. We wouldn't hesitate to do another TA.

I've also done it from Canada Place. Takes 30 minutes and you can buy tickets to Capilano on-line. Also you can catch bus back to town right at the park. Can't remember the bus cost but not expensive (if you don't want to wait for free shuttle).

Sent from my SM-G950U using Forums mobile app

BTW, glacier landing was fantastic

Sent from my SM-G950U using Forums mobile app

Used Talkeetna last May, top notch operation!

Sent from my SM-G950U using Forums mobile app

I have been closely following this review since I will be on the Escape on Saturday. I am sad to see that smoke is such a problem in the casino. The casino is where is spend a lot of my time and have problems with smoke, hopefully I can handle it.

 

I did read that they are trying to find a fix for the smoke problem. The last NCL cruise I was on, the casino had the best smoke eaters I have ever seen. They weren't noisy and you couldn't smell the smoke hardly at all in the casino. I commented to the casino manager and he said they had just been put in and had really helped with the complaints about the smoke.

 

Candie

I'm sure they will be doing something about the smoke, perhaps those smoke eaters are the answer. It's a shame because the Skyline Lounge (Deck 7 next to the Casino) is the one bar with tables/chairs to relax but not for us with the smoke. The smoke in fact was so prevalent in the Atrium area that it impacts the Al Fresco area of the Le Bistro Restaurant. We made sure we had a table inside so as not to have to smell the smoke during our dinner.

My wife and I and two friends were also on this cruise. Your review is excellent and I find I have very little to add to the points you have made. Everyone has their favorite cruise lines and their favorite ships within those companies. We are now 70 and we love cruising. We loved the Escape, the cabin (mid ship mini-suite Deck 13), the entertainment (Simply Outstanding), the specialty restaurants and the Waterfront. The touch screens at the lobby areas (elevator/stair areas) made it easy to see what was happening, menus, etc. The interactive tv in your cabin also easy to use to check your scheduled events.

The things we didn't like were well covered in this review. Crowds in the buffet, crowds at/near the pool, even the H2O Spice area was crowded at times. Noise was "distracting" anytime you were near the Atrium area especially if there were activities taking place. The smell of smoke from the Casino on Deck 7 can be noticed on decks 6-8 anytime you're near the Atrium area and is IMO inexcusable. Reservations in the specialty restaurants are extremely difficult to obtain/change, make them early. We would like a "Martini Bar" area with tables/chairs for pre-dinner rendezvous.

If you have children or teenagers traveling with your group I'd think you'd love this ship, it is obviously designed to appeal to families. You can see from our future cruises we're booked on the Getaway in Oct 2017 and we expect a different experience on a longer cruise away from vacation schedules. We wanted to experience the newer NCL ships and we had a great cruise.

Thanks for the great review, detailed enough to help me with planning our Escape cruise on July 16 and short enough to be interesting start to finish. It will be our first cruise on a "mega-ship" and we have some misgivings about crowds, etc and as we are both 70 we probably won't spend much time on the rope torture but we are looking forward to the cruise! Especially appreciated the tips on extra tipping for UBP and iConcierge.