Newest Marina Reviews?

[gillianrose]

Whew, I hope I have explained things well enough. :) Sometimes things sound differently when typing them rather than being able to 'say' them. I didn't want you to think that I was upset about your post.

 

Thank you very much for that. I am glad to know my post didn't upset you. :)

[yorkiemomjn]

Thank you very much for that. I am glad to know my post didn't upset you. :)

 

I also wanted you to know that I did not intentionally misquote you, too!:)

[cbb]

I rise to defend the "R" library. The very first thing we do when we board is to visit the library. Many times during the cruise I refer to the atlas there to see where we are as it adds to my enjoyment! I also think doors on a moving library are practical; a cascade of books could be a problem!

[Mura]

I don't think you need to defend the library on the "R" ships. As far as I can tell, the complaints have all been about Marina's Library ...

 

Which evidently doesn't begin to compare.

 

Mura

[cbb]

My defense was because of the person who wondered "what the heck a library is for" . Like CintiPam I think libraries are amazing places.

[LaCroisiereS'amuse]

Check out some of the luxury lines forums they can get right down right nasty:eek:

 

I think anyone that loves a specific line likes to defend it

I admit to also do that;)

 

I agree......just pop over to the Cunard forum for a reality check & see how bitchy things can get. Certain posters over there seem to get away with things whilst others are banned for lesser "crimes" - it's just another thing that's put me off sailing with them for good (in addition to the cost cutting, falling standards in the suites, poor quality furnishings.....).

[pacheco18]

I agree......just pop over to the Cunard forum for a reality check & see how bitchy things can get. Certain posters over there seem to get away with things whilst others are banned for lesser "crimes" - it's just another thing that's put me off sailing with them for good (in addition to the cost cutting' date=' falling standards in the suites, poor quality furnishings.....).[/quote']

 

The Regent board is pretty interesting too! LOL

Lots of passion - but there seem to be several factions.

Some very furious with Prestige Holdings and FDR for "destroying" Regent at the expense of Oceania = ie gradually bringing Regent down from a luxury line to a mere premium line like Oceania. Great reading on a slow day.

[ORV]

Are you kidding me? Somebody was offended by the word damn? By all means let's get rid of the post with the word "bitchy" in it too.

[peapod2]

Our feelings about the ship were somewhat mixed, but as others on this board have periodically said, no ship or cruiseline is completely perfect and, as I would add, there is always room for improvement. We felt the ship and our stateroom were lovely, the bed fabulous, the attitude of the crew wonderful and welcoming, and our stateroom stewards DeJon and Mil were outstanding. The bathroom was beautiful but I agree the shower is almost hilarious on a functional level, forcing a number of "interesting" choices and occasionally creative solutions upon the user.

 

Food is sufficiently subjective that I'll reserve most comment, both pro and con, except to say that the quality of the basic ingredients seemed consistently high. The recipes I'll leave for others to judge for themselves, but I will say that during our evening at Jacques all our main course and side dishes arrived at our table inexplicably cold. I think quite a few of the service staff on the restaurant side and in every dining room would benefit from some more experience and training, but that is something that can be remedied over time and in the meantime, and IMO importantly, most of the staff did seem to have been well-selected for having a good attitude. I feel compelled to make special mention of Boris, the restaurant manager, who is IMHO a truly wonderful person who will go well out of his way to make something/anything right. (If I were in the restaurant business, I would want to steal him away from Oceania.)

 

There were a couple of areas in particular I felt O. could work a little harder to improve upon. One is in communication with passengers, especially with regard to destination issues. There was no excuse for us arriving at the port of Queensferry for Edinburgh, for example, instead of the scheduled port of Leith, without passengers having first received at least some notification of this significant port change. In the case of some passengers, much valuable time was lost and certain advance plans wrecked because the ship arrived (unannouced to passengers and therefore to those waiting onshore to meet them) somewhere completely different from where the ship had been scheduled to arrive. Likewise both port information and, most specifically shuttle-availability (or not) information came almost too late to be useful.

 

One other area for improvement I would recommend is to ask Oceania to make more of an effort to enforce the use of hand sanitizers. We noticed that very, VERY few passengers (to the point of being almost nil) ever used them, whether at the bottom of the gangway upon returning to the ship from port or at the entrance to any of the ship's restaurants, and we also noticed zero effort on the part of staff to encourage their use. (We noticed this in particular because some of the other cruise lines we have traveled on in the recent past have been much more proactive in enforcement about this, especially at the bottom of the gangway and when returning to tenders, and the contrast seemed stark.) Fortunately there didn't seem to be any gastroenterological problems occurring on this particular voyage, but there sure was a lot of coughing and sneezing going on among a lot of passengers, and by the end of the cruise (fortunately it wasn't till the very end) both my husband and I came down with colds. (I realize this could have happened anyway, but my comment on essentially nonexistent enforcement of use of hand sanitizers still stands.)

[sldispatcher]

After reading some of these comments, I'm going to be VERY careful posting any reports from an Oceania Cruise Ship in the future......

 

 

 

...on second thought, I'll probably just post what I want to....

 

:)

 

David

[Mura]

One other area for improvement I would recommend is to ask Oceania to make more of an effort to enforce the use of hand sanitizers. We noticed that very, VERY few passengers (to the point of being almost nil) ever used them, whether at the bottom of the gangway upon returning to the ship from port or at the entrance to any of the ship's restaurants, and we also noticed zero effort on the part of staff to encourage their use.

 

 

We did a TA with NCL in April 2010 and while NCL doesn't begin to compare with Oceania in virtually all respects, it's true that they were far more meticulous about encouraging the use of sanitizers. When you walked into a dining room you were exhorted to, "WASHEE WASHEE". I didn't mind except when you had to walk through the buffet to get to another restaurant, and they wanted you to do so both times ...

 

Mura

[pacheco18]

Celebrity is also pretty ferocious about insisting on sanitizing. They often have staff at the entrances to dining venues squirting out the stuff into your hands -- in other words, they bring the sanitizer to you.

 

Maybe O ships have not had their share of norovirus. Once they do, they might get more aggressive in this regard. A ship, like a plane, is just one big germ factory.

[CintiPam]

One other area for improvement I would recommend is to ask Oceania to make more of an effort to enforce the use of hand sanitizers. We noticed that very, VERY few passengers (to the point of being almost nil) ever used them, whether at the bottom of the gangway upon returning to the ship from port or at the entrance to any of the ship's restaurants, and we also noticed zero effort on the part of staff to encourage their use.

 

That's an excellent point, peapod, and one suggestion that I have not seen previously on this board. (And most of you know that I have been very addicted to this board since my first cruise.:)) Spouse and I used them a lot but noticed that no one else seemed to do so.

[gillianrose]

We did a TA with NCL in April 2010 and while NCL doesn't begin to compare with Oceania in virtually all respects, it's true that they were far more meticulous about encouraging the use of sanitizers. When you walked into a dining room you were exhorted to, "WASHEE WASHEE". I didn't mind except when you had to walk through the buffet to get to another restaurant, and they wanted you to do so both times ...

 

Mura

 

I noticed on the most recent vessel sanitation report that FIVE NCL ships scored a perfect 100, and there isn't a single Oceania ship there.

 

http://wwwn.cdc.gov/InspectionQueryTool/InspectionWith100Score.aspx

 

Only two of Oceania's ships appear on the green sheet (because two of the ships weren't in the U.S. which is where they are inspected), and the new Marina scored only 92, which is not as high as I would expect to see for a new ship, especially one I expected to see much higher on the list.

 

 

Green sheet of all inspections is at

 

http://wwwn.cdc.gov/InspectionQueryTool/InspectionGreenSheetRpt.aspx

[pacheco18]

That is great information! I am going to bookmark that site.

 

We sail on the Celebrity Eclipse next Friday and I was delighted to see it scored 100!

 

New York now requires all restaurants to post their sanitary inspection grades in the window. If it's less than A, I'm not eating there. Maybe these numbers should be required in all cruise advertising!

[LHT28]

One other area for improvement I would recommend is to ask Oceania to make more of an effort to enforce the use of hand sanitizers. We noticed that very, VERY few passengers (to the point of being almost nil) ever used them, whether at the bottom of the gangway upon returning to the ship from port or at the entrance to any of the ship's restaurants, and we also noticed zero effort on the part of staff to encourage their use.

On previous O cruises we noticed many people would stop at the sanitizer on the way onboard & in the dining rooms ..to the point there was a backlog to wait to use them

On our most recent cruise in March did not see that many people using them

 

Also noted this was the first O cruise we have been on with a GI problem

 

 

Maybe a sign of Oceania being more popular ...more people that are less cautious

 

Lyn

[gillianrose]

That is great information! I am going to bookmark that site.

 

We sail on the Celebrity Eclipse next Friday and I was delighted to see it scored 100!

 

New York now requires all restaurants to post their sanitary inspection grades in the window. If it's less than A, I'm not eating there. Maybe these numbers should be required in all cruise advertising!

 

I noticed that the only luxury line that appears on the list of ships that scored 100 is The World of Residensea, and that Oceania's competition, the Azamara Journey, also received a perfect score.

[Mura]

In reading the posts it seems to be "here and there" as to responses. DH has always been meticulous about using the sanitizer every time he sees one. Me not so much, but I have reformed.

 

It also seems to me in reading various posts (not necessarily on this thread) that O passengers have not reported a lot of cases of intestinal problems. But that is to say that NONE have! I seem to remember Lyn saying that on her Marina cruise there was an outbreak. If it wasn't Lyn, it was someone else -- and if someone else, not necessarily Lyn's cruise.

 

It seems an easy way to prevent having a miserable cruise (!) so I shall do better in the future! Actually, I do have to admit that NCL cured me of my reluctance to use the stuff. They nagged us, but it got results!

 

It's also true that if there's a long line waiting to spritz hands, it's easy to rationalize just skipping that step ... But maybe we should rethink the need of saving 2-3 minutes. :)

 

Mura

[LHT28]

I seem to remember Lyn saying that on her Marina cruise there was an outbreak. If it wasn't Lyn, it was someone else -- and if someone else, not necessarily Lyn's cruise.

 

Mura

It was me:D

It seems the bug was on the previous cruise but we were not informed

Quite a few had the bug but some of us did not report to the doctor so maybe it was not recorded

I first thought it was the heat or something I ate but then talked to others that had it

 

Surprised on the new ship but then thinking about it ..maybe not so surprised

 

Lyn

[sldispatcher]

 

Like the two reviewers who are being cruise-cified on this post' date=' we had just enough dissapointment to decide that our next cruise will be back on a smaller river ship. Maybe the dissapointment is a result of such high expectations after reading sldispatcher's glowing comments on the inagural cruise. Or maybe we just miss the smaller ships. Time will tell.[/quote']

 

Well, I think I was adequately critical where I thought I needed to be. In fact, I made critical lists. Was just reporting what I saw. It's how I felt. I think I was pretty harsh on Red Ginger.

[vaitape]

Oh my goodness.......

Please fellow passengers, use hand sanitizer!

Hand hygiene is the most effective way to prevent the spread of infection.

Bring your own supply.

There won't be a need to queue at hand sanitizer stations if you carry some in your handbag or backpack, shirt or pant pocket, and offer it to your fellow table or excursion mates.

[cbb]

My husband and I use the sanitizers twice; the 1st time as we enter Terrace/Tapas. Then after acquiring our meal and handling tongs and spoons we return to the sanitizer and use it again. (Yes, we often eat all 3 meals there.) Our motto is "1st time for the ship, 2nd time for me." We also carry hand sanitizer and my husband says he now has a Pavlovian response to the smell!

[Benita]

That is great information! I am going to bookmark that site.

 

We sail on the Celebrity Eclipse next Friday and I was delighted to see it scored 100!

 

New York now requires all restaurants to post their sanitary inspection grades in the window. If it's less than A, I'm not eating there. Maybe these numbers should be required in all cruise advertising!

 

Have a great time on the Eclipse. We have it booked for Thanksgiving week. People recommended the Aquaclass cabins, because the assigned dining room was Blu. I would be interested in hearing your thoughts on the cruise when you return.

[pacheco18]

Have a great time on the Eclipse. We have it booked for Thanksgiving week. People recommended the Aquaclass cabins, because the assigned dining room was Blu. I would be interested in hearing your thoughts on the cruise when you return.

 

And that gives you the option of eating everywhere because you may eat in the MDR if you choose and of course in any of the amazing specialty restaurants.

 

This is our 3rd Celebrity cruise but our first on an S class ship (our second S class adventure will be to Australia/NZ). We are very excited about the ship itself -- especially Qsine and the i-lounge (we are Mac people). We will not be in AQ - we book CC for cabin location (we have a triple sized balcony on the hump), but I will happily report back. I have friends who have been on the Eclipse (whose opinions I trust) and they just raved!

 

It's very different from O but wonderful in its own way. When I showed my husband a video of the ship he got really excited about the trip -- a first.

[LuAnn]

And that gives you the option of eating everywhere because you may eat in the MDR if you choose and of course in any of the amazing specialty restaurants.

 

This is our 3rd Celebrity cruise but our first on an S class ship (our second S class adventure will be to Australia/NZ). We are very excited about the ship itself -- especially Qsine and the i-lounge (we are Mac people). We will not be in AQ - we book CC for cabin location (we have a triple sized balcony on the hump), but I will happily report back. I have friends who have been on the Eclipse (whose opinions I trust) and they just raved!

 

It's very different from O but wonderful in its own way. When I showed my husband a video of the ship he got really excited about the trip -- a first.

 

Solstice and Equinox I'm sure you will just love it! We have a "hump" balcony booked for the TA this November on the Equinox and will be trying AQ in Feb '13 when the Millie sails to Asia for the first time...after the Millie is "solstized"...while we would love to sail O all the time the price difference as well as the quality of Celebrity ( and the fact we have Elite status with all the great perks) keep us in the Celebrity "stable" part of the time...Haven't been on Eclipse which has those additional features of Qsine and the i lounge so bet those will be fun as well!! Enjoy!! LuAnn