Live from Riviera Miami to Miami Jan 23-Feb 2 2014

[RachelG]

Yes, Travelcat, definitely miss free laundry, internet, and the telephone time you get. My husband had some very stressful business issues to deal with on this cruise and ended up having to spend a lot of time while in port on his cell phone dealing with things. Would have been much easier to do with the included phone time on Regent.

 

While it is definitely possible to sail on Oceania for much less than Regent or Silversea, if you lux it up to relatively the same level, you end up paying about the same. I did the math which was pretty easy in this case as there was an identical itinerary on Navigator. All said and done, we did not save money. I don't have a problem with that. And our cruise could have been much less expensive if we wanted to sail without a veranda, did not use computer, didn't drink, didn't do excursions. I actually found the excursion prices reasonable on Oceania too.

 

A couple of additional thoughts: re kids. There were only three on this cruise. A little boy of about 1 1/2 yr, a cute little girl about 6, and another boy about 5. None were in the same family group, and all were well behaved and not bothersome at all. Parents were watchful and expected good behaviour. If the 1 1/2 yr old got restless, mom or dad took him out from the restaurant. So not a problem this cruise.

 

Attitude of some staff needs improvement. My friend and I were having tea in Horizons one afternoon. We were just enjoying our chat and not paying attention to the time. A female server came up and said that tea was over and she needed to take our dishes. She proceeded to take everything including our table cloth and napkins right from under our noses. In doing so, she jostled my friend's arm which caused her to spill her tea on her shorts. No "i'm sorry" or "excuse me". She yanked the napkin out of my friend's hand as she was trying to blot up the spilled tea. Really rude!

 

Unfortunately this wasn't the only example of rudeness among staff. We did write this up on the end of cruise comment card, so hopefully it will be addressed. I must say that they did at least acknowledge and try to fix the issues we raised on the mid cruise comments, so I know they do pay attention to this stuff.

[I_r_a]

Thanks for sharing, RG

 

Ira

[journeyfan]

Rachel,

 

We are on the Riviera now... our first time on Oceania although we are veteran Regent cruises.... and we were worried we would experience the rude behavior that you found last week. On the contrary, we have found everyone we have interacted with to be extremely pleasant. Was Thierry Tholon the GM on your cruise? He is on our cruise and from everything I've read, he is as capable as Franz Galzy is in that position on Regent. Perhaps that might explain the difference. Re the CD, though, we are not enjoying David Peterson. Trivia isn't much fun with him running it, though I guess we shouldn't complain as the 3 times we have played, our team has come in 1st once and 3rd twice. :-)

[Travelcat2]

Rachel,

 

We are on the Riviera now... our first time on Oceania although we are veteran Regent cruises.... and we were worried we would experience the rude behavior that you found last week. On the contrary, we have found everyone we have interacted with to be extremely pleasant. Was Thierry Tholon the GM on your cruise? He is on our cruise and from everything I've read, he is as capable as Franz Galzy is in that position on Regent. Perhaps that might explain the difference. Re the CD, though, we are not enjoying David Peterson. Trivia isn't much fun with him running it, though I guess we shouldn't complain as the 3 times we have played, our team has come in 1st once and 3rd twice. :-)

 

Just had to comment that we adore Thierry Tholon -- he and Franck Galzy are definitely wonderful (almost forgot to mention Davor -- currently on the Mariner) -- all top notch G.M.'s.

[RachelG]

Rachel,

 

We are on the Riviera now... our first time on Oceania although we are veteran Regent cruises.... and we were worried we would experience the rude behavior that you found last week. On the contrary, we have found everyone we have interacted with to be extremely pleasant. Was Thierry Tholon the GM on your cruise? He is on our cruise and from everything I've read, he is as capable as Franz Galzy is in that position on Regent. Perhaps that might explain the difference. Re the CD, though, we are not enjoying David Peterson. Trivia isn't much fun with him running it, though I guess we shouldn't complain as the 3 times we have played, our team has come in 1st once and 3rd twice. :-)

Congrats on the trivia wins. Good job!

 

And glad the rude behavior is hopefully gone. I did write this up on the post cruise survey, and I know they are proactive in addressing issues. I truly have no idea who the GM was. David Peterson was the CD, but I never encountered the GM.

[CintiPam]

Rachel,

 

We are on the Riviera now... our first time on Oceania although we are Re the CD, though, we are not enjoying David Peterson. Trivia isn't much fun with him running it, though I guess we shouldn't complain as the 3 times we have played, our team has come in 1st once and 3rd twice. :-)

 

We stopped going after the second day because he appeared to be on a race to get trivia over with as fast as he could. His insistence on control over the scoring of all papers plus adding the scores as a show of his mathematical prowess was a real turn-off. Fortunately, other members of the entertainment staff took turns running evening trivia, and they all were a delight.

[journeyfan]

Our team came in 1st again yesterday, but none of us can claim to have had much fun. David Peterson insisted after the game that we had to turn in our scratch papers.... separated into used and unused..... and he counted all the pens returned to make sure they matched the number he had given out and he got very hot under the collar yesterday when he found 8 were missing. That team, though, did eventually return their pens! He really is incredibly anal.

[JPR]

They should hand out cheap golf pencils instead. Demanding return of used scratch paper??

He must be a hoarder! Roy Perez was the polar opposite.

 

By the way, with one exception we found the staff to be very polite and personable on our Mayan Mystique cruise, Jan. 3-13.

[LHT28]

They should hand out cheap golf pencils instead. Demanding return of used scratch paper??

He must be a hoarder! Roy Perez was the polar opposite.

 

 

Maybe with the cut backs they come out of his paycheck if they go astray :D

[ORV]

Our team came in 1st again yesterday, but none of us can claim to have had much fun. David Peterson insisted after the game that we had to turn in our scratch papers.... separated into used and unused..... and he counted all the pens returned to make sure they matched the number he had given out and he got very hot under the collar yesterday when he found 8 were missing. That team, though, did eventually return their pens! He really is incredibly anal.

 

And I thought I was picky:)

[Mura]

I'm beginning to be glad that we don't do Trivia ...

 

Mura

[RachelG]

David did require return of all scratch paper ( used and unused), pencils, and score sheets. I actually presumed it was because he was trying to keep Martinis neat and clean as happy hour starts right after. I actually liked the way he ran trivia, but I am pretty OCD.

[TERRIER1]

And I thought I was picky:)

 

It's true. He actually tallied up our points and collected all our pens and papers. It was the last time I played trivia with him. I consider trivia a game. He was way too serious.