Insignia review - 30/6 - 12/7 Istanbul to Venice

[silkman]

We were also on this cruise.It was our third cruise on the Insignia. The cruises we take on Oceania are all port intensive. We also like the casual dress code and the fact that it is NOT all inclusive. We drink very little and I plan all private tours(with others on the roll call .. where were you all when I needed others to join my private excursions?) so if we would take the "all inclusive " lines, obviously we are paying for things for which we do not take advantage.

That being said, we loved the cruise. All the ports were either extremely scenic, or very interesting(with the exception of Albania which my wife used as a sea day ..I gave her the day off). I particularly enjoyed the blue caves in Zakynthos and the Postojana cave in Koper,Slovenia. The cave was SPECTACULAR!

We are not "foodies" but we enjoy good food. I thought the food was excellent ..but of course as it is repeated so often on here , it is subjective. ..had no problem with the temperature of the food. We found the waiters very attentive.Actually all of the staff was very friendly and went out of their way to please. We only eat in the specialty restaurants, our suite, or the terrace cafe, so I cannot comment on the GDR. (we have only eaten there once ..on our 1st cruise).We like the terrace , because unlike most, we do not really enjoy spending a lot of time "dining". As far as the specialty restaurants being heavily booked, we eat early, and the specialty restaurants were 1/2 empty for the 6;30 seating.

 

Our owners suite was perfect , and our butler unbelievable. He knew what we wanted before we did:) We prefer the smaller ship's owners suite to the Marina's Oceania suite. We find it more comfortable .. I think the owner's suite on the Marina is more "glitz" and less comfort . The media room is kind of useless. Of course this is only personal preference. I also preferred the Insignia to the Marina ..once again more comfort than "glitz" and more intimate.

 

As was previously mentioned by others , the shuttle bus experience could use some improvement. Of course , O always denies responsibility for mishaps because they are run by the port;however they could help with the organization. I think in Dubrovnik there was an accident , and the bus could not reach the town . The other ships had representatives to help the passengers...Oceania had none. Also the boarding of the shuttles in Ravenna was chaos. More supervision by Oceania is definitely warranted.

I was a little surprised by the few Americans and the many Australians and Brits.

I think there was a special deal offered to Australians(i'm not certain) and their exchange rate is now good. The Australians were ULTRA friendly.

We never encountered children on oceania previously (maybe one or 2) but there were many on this cruise...mostly well behaved.However,there were 2 families with 5 or 6 small children who were pretty much out of control and quite annoying..very little parental supervision. I'm not sure if O spoke with them or not , but many passengers complained about them.Not really sure what could be done..but nothing was.

I wanted to do laundry one afternoon and they had all (well of course one washer was broken) washers and dryers tied up for 2 hours.

Everyone has their priorities as to why the choose a particular cruise line and particular cruise. This cruise exceeded all of our priorities and expectations.

[Winters Gate]

Thanks so much for taking the time to post your detailed review. I agree about the bathroom shortfall, but was very disappointed to read about the food experience.

 

It now has been some years since we sailed on one of the smaller Oceania ships, but our experience on both Marina and Riviera have been excellent in the food department, so this is very disturbing news.

 

I do not think you should be too disappointed :) I've just disembarked from Insignia after 10 days Venice to Rome, I will write a review later, but want to mention a little bit about what I think about the food and service on board the Insignia.

Food is of course always subjective and everyone has slightly different things one cares about.

Since I and my girlfriend just did small day trips, we ate all meals on board, breakfast, lunch and dinner and sometimes even afternoon tea.

I would say that over all, the food was delicious. The experience we had in the Polo was something extraordinary, both food and service was topclass and Maine lobster was cooked to perfection. The food in the GDR was also very tasty and the service was usually very good. In the Terrace Cafe there were some dishes that lacked seasoning and as mentioned earlier on a few single occasion that the food was not really hot but most dishes were very good and warm.

I think that on a buffet with many dishes and many cooks involved, there will always be some dishes that did not really comes up in standard

As for sommeliers where they generally good except sometimes in the Terrace Cafe where you got the feeling that if they were slightly understaffed and that sometimes you had to wait unnecessarily long for service.

[Techno123]

Thanks for your great review. Will be boarding Insignia in Sept and will report back about food temps' date=' etc.

 

Only thing I don't get about your review concerning the size of the bathroom - and others with the same complaint - is that the bathrooms are functional. They have the requisite accommodations for their purpose from our experience on two Azamara R ships and from O's Regatta. Yes, in my own home, I like my luxury appointments, but on a ship, I'd rather the space be pared down and put into the stateroom itself. JMHO, there it is.

 

Donna[/quote']

 

For me it is more to do with the strange angle of the toilet which meant I either sat with my face buried in the bathrobes or sideways across and the airline style flush system took some getting used to:p

[NCP]

Thank you for your honest reviews; we are preparing for our first O cruise on Insignia and are eager to read coments about it.