Marina oopses & kudos

[Ka Honu]

We just returned from French Polynesia on Marina and felt a few observations were worth making.

 

Our comparison point was Riviera in the Caribbean earlier this year and we were initially a bit frustrated. For the first several days we felt that Marina didn't quite measure up to her younger sister. The first level customer service staff (cabin attendants, wait staff, bartenders, etc.) was invariably cheerful and polite but they just didn't seem as well-trained or seasoned. Some examples of perceived differences follow and, taken in the context of the entire experience, were for the most part pretty inconsequential (but still bear mentioning):Computer issues (or crossing the dateline) apparently created a situation where many of the cabin keycards did not work on boarding - long line at the Purser's office to sort that one out. Also affected the phone system by retaining the names of previous passengers on the Caller ID feature.

• We received several incorrect orders in the Grand Dining Room - seemed to get better after the first few days.
  
• Fish (salmon) and lobster in Waves Grill overcooked/dry (also improved after several days)
  
• Flies in every dining venue (and twice in drinks). Don't know that there's much you can do about it and admittedly there weren't very many, but still…
  
• There was a time zone change but it was never applied to cabin clocks or the TV ship information channel. No adverse effects for us but a few people missed events because they depended on the information provided by those sources and didn't look at one of the (not very prominent) "official" ship's clocks.
  
• One of the Terraces staff was resetting tables during a meal and dropped the top placemat from a pile he was carrying. He stepped on it, realized what had happened, picked it up and used it to set a table. That's just wrong.
  

As noted, most of these "irritants" disappeared after a few days (possibly as my blood-alcohol level increased). All were relatively minor and overshadowed by our overall enjoyment (except the placemat incident).

 

The high points were the staff and their accommodating response to almost every request (except giving us the recipe for the Rack of Lamb in Red Ginger). Louis (Horizons) was one of the best shipboard bartenders we have seen; Julia was an excellent cabin attendant. Super props to Dechen (sommelier) for finding and returning a diamond earring my wife lost the evening before. It was under a blender at the bar - go figger. She will always have a place in my wife's heart (and my wallet).

 

All told - an excellent experience; we're looking forward to the Transatlantic in November.

 

[sitraveler]

Thanks for the report and update. We join Marina for Lima to NYC. No dateline and few time changes.

 

I hope to see you on the westbound TA, but don't remember seeing you on the roll call

[Andromeda93]

Ka Honu, thank you very much for posting these comments. We sailed on Marina in her inaugural 2011 season, and when booking another O-class cruise for this summer we wondered whether Riviera would have been assigned the more seasoned/experienced staff at Marina's expense.

 

Ultimately we chose the itinerary we liked best, hoping that O would try hard to maintain equality of service and passenger experience across both of the larger ships. It will be interesting to compare the 2013 version of Marina with that of two years ago.

 

It's also interesting that you had order errors in the GDR, as that was the only place we had problems with service errors/delays in 2011. At the time I had a sense that less experienced servers were working there and in the Terrace (compared to the specialty venues, where we found the service to be uniformly flawless). And to be fair, we did have an exceptional female sommelier one evening in the GDR, who we happily came across again in other venues during that sailing.

[bobndee]

We also just got back from that same cruise. I guess we were lucky or, this being our first Oceania cruise, didn't have the same expectations as the the OP. Regardless, we had a great cruise and very few snags.

 

We received notice of all time changes via a card in the daily announcements left in our cabin.

 

The only oops we had in the GDR was when a server dropped a plate while clearing the table. No harm done - these things happen. One morning my wife's eggs arrived while she was still finishing her fruit plate. We asked the waiter to hold them until she was ready. He did more than that - he sent them back to the galley to be remade so they wouldn't be cold when she wanted them.

 

We had more issues with the behavior of a (very) few of our fellow passengers than with anything the crew did (or didn't) do. We found the vast majority of our fellow cruisers to be great companions.

 

My wife sprained her ankle while on-board. Everyone from the cabin steward to the waiters and pool staff were very solicitous and helpful, fetching ice packs and drinks. Fortunately she improved after a couple of days and it didn't prevent her from enjoying the cruise.

 

Our only real snag came on debarkation day. We were permitted to stay in our cabin until noon. Yet our door keys stopped working at 9 AM, despite our having had them reprogrammed as instructed. Being able to stay on-board until 5 PM while waiting for a 9 PM flight was a nice perk.