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Oceania Riviera Cruise Notes April 4-15 2022


BellaOnline
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So sorry to hear that your Waves experience convinced you not to check out again on your cruise - we enjoy eating there several times on our cruises.   We like the variety of options and not having just burgers and fries....my favorite lunch is a large salad from the salad bar with a piece of grilled chicken or salmon!   Do give it another chance and check out the whole menu....

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Hi BellaOnline,

Thank you so much for your review. We’ll be on the Riviera for our first Oceania cruise this summer. Could you tell me if they keep the hot tubs open late? We occasionally like to hit the hot tub before bed. Thanks!

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Just now, Traveller94 said:

Hi BellaOnline,

Thank you so much for your review. We’ll be on the Riviera for our first Oceania cruise this summer. Could you tell me if they keep the hot tubs open late? We occasionally like to hit the hot tub before bed. Thanks!

We have enjoyed the hot tubs late in the evening, watching the stars and sipping a glass of port in the quietness

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1 hour ago, BellaOnline said:

Day 4 on our Oceania Riviera cruise was on Thursday, April 7th, 2022. This was an “at sea” day – really an “at ocean” day – as we cruised out toward the Canary Islands. On Thursdays I teach an Outschool teen writing class which on ship time was going to be from 8-9pm. That was my only external time constraint. On board I had a still life two-part session at 9am and then 5pm. So I couldn’t sleep in :).

 

I’m not really a breakfast person, so I just grabbed a few pieces of fruit and some OJ before heading down to my art class. By now it was the ‘usual cast of suspects’ – about 8 of us – coming to these. I was sad to find that someone had stolen my calla lily drawing from the previous sessions! How the art classes work is that each of us gets an open cubby on the wall to store our graphite, erasers, paper, etc. in between sessions. That way if we want to work on our art during quiet time we can come in to the art room (which is always open) and work on things. The ship doesn’t want us taking charcoal / graphite / etc. back to our rooms for sort of obvious mess reasons.

 

My cubby stuff was completely gone. Someone had taken my picture and supplies. I’d signed my picture, too, so it’s not like someone could reasonably have thought it was theirs. It was just gone. So I had to get fresh supplies from the instructor. Luckily, at least, the calla lily sessions were done and we were moving on to starting a fruit still life. I was sad, though. I’d worked hard on my calla lily and a friend of mine loves calla lilies, so I was going to give my drawing to her. I guess now I will need to create a new one for her.

 

In any case, the morning still life session was really wonderful, and I learned a lot. I stayed after class working on it. Then I asked Noel which painting on the ship he recommended I study. He suggested the one right near the art room which was of tree leaves. He said it had wonderful shading and contrast. That was “El Descanso” by Luis Armando Zesatti.

 

I decided to explore more of the ship’s art while waiting for lunch to open. Some of the art I found a bit iffy, like buxom naked ‘women’ without heads being hunted for consumption (“Feast of Love” by Ramon Vasquez):

 

I didn’t take a photo of the ‘man in lust with a horse’ painting :).

 

Finally it was lunchtime and I went to the patio at the back of the ship. It was pretty much empty. I sat down with my laptop and tarot deck to do some more card readings for people. I had a nice veggy selection of cucumber salad and spring rolls. The server even carried it out to the table for me when he saw my hands were a bit shaky. That was quite nice. The food was delicious and just what I like for lunch.

 

I did a lot more ship exploring and art-viewing during the afternoon. There is a wealth of quite intriguing art on the ship in all areas. There were all sorts of details on the artwork to draw you in. This is “Eden Before the Apple” by Ramon Vasquez, with then just one detail from it. How long must this painting have taken to create?

 

The artist Humberto Benitez had quite a few faces-hidden paintings around the ship.

 

Occasionally one would see a staff member on cabin levels wearing protective gear. I was glad they were taking precautions to clean things. Nearly all people wore masks while walking the halls, but all masks came off any time people were sitting either watching the tea-time music or in a restaurant or in a ‘cocktail area’. So there were lots and lots of people congregating maskless and talking.

 

Finally it was 4pm and time for classical music. They were lovely as always. Right when they ended it was 5pm and time for my next art session. We worked more on our still life. And right after that it was time for our dinner reservation at Jacques. This specialty restaurant was about half full. This was nice in terms of quiet experience, but again, was just a bit odd compared with normal cruising. So again a clear sign that the ship was fairly empty.

 

The food here was nice. It was not the mouth-nebulae level of Daniel Bruce at the Boston Harbor Hotel, but of the level of a nice regular-city steakhouse. I think my expectations were starting to settle in to what this post-pandemic Oceania cruise would have for food.

 

I had to go right from dinner up to Baristas to prepare for my teen writing zoom class. Again the wifi signal is really poor so I had to be really cautious about how I did things on my laptop during class, so I didn’t compromise the wifi signal in any way. Luckily the signal held on during the class – the wifi on the boat would randomly come and go without warning.

 

By the time class was over I was ready for sleep. I wanted to be sure to be fresh and ready for the Canary Island in the morning!

 

Ask with any questions!

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Was it the WiFi that was unstable, or the ship's internet connection to the satellites?  I ask because you were at sea.

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33 minutes ago, basor said:

We have enjoyed the hot tubs late in the evening, watching the stars and sipping a glass of port in the quietness


Thanks so much. I searched CC and googled Oceania’s pool hours with no luck. 

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4 hours ago, Traveller94 said:


Thanks so much. I searched CC and googled Oceania’s pool hours with no luck. 

On Riviera in December 2021, the pool hours were listed as 7 am to 10 pm (weather permitting) on the last page of Currents.

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On 4/25/2022 at 12:20 PM, basor said:

So sorry to hear that your Waves experience convinced you not to check out again on your cruise - we enjoy eating there several times on our cruises.   We like the variety of options and not having just burgers and fries....my favorite lunch is a large salad from the salad bar with a piece of grilled chicken or salmon!   Do give it another chance and check out the whole menu....

 

Basor -

 

I appreciate the time you took to post the Waves menu. I look at that menu and I am absolutely not interested in any of that. I had the maguro tuna at Waves the first day on board and I was disappointed. If they couldn't handle the ahi tuna I wasn't going to spend time on their other fish. We all like different types of foods and that is quite fine. For me, that is a hard pass :). That menu helps remind me why I never went back.

 

 

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The Oceania Riviera WiFi was awful EVERYWHERE we went. We could be at a dock on a bright sunny cloudless day and the wifi was absolutely atrocious. It was never good, ever, anywhere. I run websites and on every cruise I've been on I've had to repair servers, reinstall software on servers, you name it. I've never had the wifi issues on any ship, in any location, that I had on this one.

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Day 5 of our Oceania Riviera Cruise, on Friday, April 8, 2022, had us landing at Santa Cruz de Tenerife, in the Canary Islands. The Canary Islands are off the western coast of Africa, up by Morocco, but are owned by Spain. This island itself is named Tenerife.
 
Tenerife is a spiky-mountain green lush location. It’s known for a large volcano at its center, named Mount Teide, which is the highest point in Spain. It’s also the location of the Teide Observatory.
 
We had booked tours on Canary Islands 2 (Arrecife) and 3 (Las Palmas), so we wanted this first one to involve a relaxing stroll around the port town itself to explore on our own. We decided to eat lunch first so we wouldn’t have any issues with missing lunchtime.
 
As we disembarked and talked to the local contact, she advised us that most of the locations would be closed for the afternoon siesta from about 2pm to 5pm.
 
Indeed, as we strolled about town, most places were closed up. This downtown area featured a number of global names. McDonalds was there, and we were amused by a store selling “New England” clothing. The items within weren’t things we’d seen around Massachusetts for several decades.
 
Apparently in New England we all wear Izod alligator shirts. And Dockers shoes.
 
We at last headed back to the ship.
 
At 4pm we had our daily relaxing tea session with the string quartet. Here’s one of their songs
 
 
Here’s the type of items served at tea. As I’ve mentioned before for me they are fine to nibble on to pass the time, but it’s not what I would call “food” that I would want to eat for a full lunch. We are all different in how we approach food.
 
Today there was no art class for me.
 
Since, we had some time before dinner, Jenn and I did a set of laundry. Laundry is wholly free to do yourself, and the machines were always open any time we checked. The detergent is free, too. So we spent some time quietly watching the machines whirrrr.
 
 
Then it was time for dinner. We were feeling casual and not up for a specialty restaurant, so we ate in the regular restaurant. It was very quiet.
 
The food was ‘good’ for all that entails. I look at this and say “yes that’s nice” but I’m not sure I really say “that is quite special”. When I look at this, with the lace doily and the thin greens and the hanging shrimp, I sort of get that sense of a faded country club. It definitely could just be me of course.
 
Similarly, one night we ordered the petit fours. I was expecting beautiful little squares of cakes and such, exquisitely decorated. Instead we got six or so little cookies and pastry objects that were all dry, mostly boring looking, and fairly tasteless. So I had to ‘downgrade’ my expectations of the ship food and just become OK with them.
 
I’d expect to see this at a chain restaurant, but not at a high-end steakhouse.
 
To summarize again, it’s not that the food in general was in any way ‘bad’. It just wasn’t “special”.
 
Tomorrow was the big volcano tour, and I love volcanoes, so we went to sleep early!
 
Ask with any questions!

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I wanted to explain a bit more what I personally want in a lunch. That way people who read my reviews understand where I'm coming from. If you have an opposite point of view that is great! You can eat opposite of me :).

 

Here's what I ate at Waves on the first day, after a long - long - long travel night and day. Even now, looking at that photo, I'm just not keen on it.

 

I like fresh veggies for lunch. Cucumbers. Romaine lettuce. Spinach. Eggplant. Fresh red tomatoes (not bland pale ones). A caprese salad. Yum yum yum. Something fresh and crisp. Something bright and clean. Vibrant with spices. Mushrooms! Usually I don't want any meat at lunch. For me meat tends to be heavy and often greasy. I want to be full of energy after lunch. I want to be fired up to go out and do things.

 

I personally don't want buns. To me that is 'filler stuff' that is going to take up room in my stomach, add on calories, for no real reason. The thick fries fall right into that category, too, plus they are greasy. So those two things right there are a turn-off for me. I was quite interested in the ahi tuna steak - I adore ahi tuna - but it was just not cooked right. 

 

So that left me with focused on eating some of the ahi tuna plus the coleslaw, which is covered in mayonnaise and not really 'fresh and flavorful' as far as a veggie dish goes. It heads more into the 'bland and squishy'.

 

I know many people love to eat this way and that is fine! We are all different and unique. That makes our world wonderful. But that's why looking at those Waves options just did not send warm fuzzy feelings through me. I actively wanted to avoid having to eat there. I look at this and think, after I eat this I'm going to want to take a nap. 

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Sorry - I was not trying to belabor the point but wanted to make sure, for others not familiar with Waves, they know that there are options besides a burger and fries.....the food at Waves obviously was not to your liking and hopefully you were able to find a lunch time option that better suited you.

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Just now, BellaOnline said:

Here's the type of lunch I could get at the buffet - yum yum yum!! With a tall glass of cold water, absolutely perfect 🙂

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That is also one of my favorites...,.,.,spring rolls and some of their yummy salads!!  mouth is watering..

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Just to contrast a bit, here is the caprese salad I had on day 1 at the Toscana specialty restaurant. I eat a LOT of caprese salads and make them for myself at home quite often. So I've had a variety of styles. I found the tomatoes on this to be bland and pale. There wasn't much basil. Also, the tower construction meant it was a pain to have to 'disassemble' to eat it. There wasn't enough added 'prettiness' in the tower to make up for the hassle trying to dismantle it to eat it. And as much as I can often adore 'smears' of decorative liquid on the plate, in this case it just wasn't appealing. It could easily seem like I'm being picky. In my defense, the Oceania Riviera wasn't touted as a floating chain restaurant. It was touted as the best restaurant anywhere on the high seas. And I saw this and thought, huh...

day1-caprese.jpg

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27 minutes ago, BellaOnline said:

Here's the type of lunch I could get at the buffet - yum yum yum!! With a tall glass of cold water, absolutely perfect 🙂

 

I eat similar foods to you and my husband is a vegetarian. I would laugh when they gave me lettuce for a salad at lunch in Terrace; the lettuce serving bowl is smaller than my regular lunch time salad bowl. Waves has a salad bar that can make do for a late lunch with a small but decent selection of fresh veggies and fruit. I'm afraid I had a large salad and ice cream for lunch one day.

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Edited by AMHuntFerry
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AMHuntFerry - This was my lunch when we scrambled back from a long, long tour at Las Palmas and barely got back in time. I grabbed whatever seemed appealing before they cleared the buffet. I'm generally not much of a dessert eater at lunch, so I was able to avoid the ice cream ... but I suppose this was pretty much a dessert food ...

 

 

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On 4/24/2022 at 12:02 AM, BellaOnline said:

On the food, when I return from a tour starving I'm really not interested in tiny crustless jam sandwich bits :). I generally want a big fresh salad. The times we tried ordering room service it took over an hour to get to us and the steak was cold, so if I'm starving that doesn't seem to be a good result :).

 

We had granola bars and such in the room. But with the money paid to Oceania there should always be actual yummy food available quickly during daylight hours :). I've never had that issue on other cruise lines.

I've always had excellent room service food quality, and also very prompt service.  The filet mignon was perfectly cooked to my liking and the cheese platter was of gourmet quality.  

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FetaCheese - I'm curious if you had the good room service recently? Our ship seemed to have low staff and they were kicking staff off the boat as we went. Our string quartet went from four musicians to three musicians half-way through. We were suspicious at least some of the departures were due to COVID reasons. Then they'd bring on more staff at a later stop. You could see the new staff lined up with their suitcases. So it could be you got good service with a more full staff. We experienced hour-plus waits and cold steak when it finally arrived. 

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12 hours ago, BellaOnline said:

And as much as I can often adore 'smears' of decorative liquid on the plate, in this case it just wasn't appealing.

That “decorative smear” is the classic dressing for a caprese salad - olive oil and balsamic dressing.

 

It is too bad you had such a disappointing time on Oceania. What cruise line will you now go to - back to Carnival?

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It’s a shame you are not enjoying the food.Chefs do dishes in different ways.It is their way of putting a statement on a plate.How boring if every  caprese salad was the same everywhere in the world.! 
You could request a salad made up of all the ingredients  you have found satisfactory.Request extra basil,they won’t mind. The buffet is ideal for setting up your favourite plate.

 

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15 hours ago, BellaOnline said:

Just to contrast a bit, here is the caprese salad I had on day 1 at the Toscana specialty restaurant. I eat a LOT of caprese salads and make them for myself at home quite often. So I've had a variety of styles. I found the tomatoes on this to be bland and pale. There wasn't much basil. Also, the tower construction meant it was a pain to have to 'disassemble' to eat it. There wasn't enough added 'prettiness' in the tower to make up for the hassle trying to dismantle it to eat it. And as much as I can often adore 'smears' of decorative liquid on the plate, in this case it just wasn't appealing. It could easily seem like I'm being picky. In my defense, the Oceania Riviera wasn't touted as a floating chain restaurant. It was touted as the best restaurant anywhere on the high seas. And I saw this and thought, huh...

day1-caprese.jpg

 

We love the food on the Riviera (only ship we've been on thus far, with Oceania).  But that was pre-Covid, and obviously things have changed.  Unfortunately, the world seems to have changed. 😠

 

I'm more for protein than you it seems, but at Waves, I used to really enjoy the "surf and turf" without any buns.  However, it turned out that I really liked the flavor of whatever drippings or sauce was on the bottom bun, so I'd sometimes have that, too.  I'd get an extra large serving, and sometimes skip the fries.

 

I agree that the caprese salad looks odd.  I've never seen a tower presentation, but if they are going to do it that way, what you photographed isn't particularly impressive or even appealing.

 

We especially loved some items at Jacques, Red Ginger, and... prime rib is always a hit (and increasingly difficult to find these days, alas).  We made good use of our suite and butler for extra meals from Red Ginger especially... the sea bass... oh my! 🙂 

 

But I think I agree that the MDR food may be a bit over-rated (and again, this is pre-Covid).  I remember a presentation of filet of sole:  White fish and some white boiled potatoes on a white plate (the potatoes were the default, not selected specifically).  Nothing at all to garnish the food or the plate.  It was just odd, not even a pedestrian sprinkle of parsley.

 

The good food that we did have, however, was typically excellent, and that kept us very happy.

 

GC

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