A Long Time Princess Cruiser Tries Oceania

[azbirdmom]

I just submitted this review of our recent cruise on the Oceania Nautica and thought others might be interested in reading my comparisons with Princess.  In short French Polynesia was a wow, the O experience more eh....

 

________________

 

We’ve been on over three dozen Princess cruises and until recently we didn’t have any reason to stray from them.  But the dream itinerary that we wanted to do was no longer offered by Princess.  We booked the 10 day French Polynesia cruise a couple of times with Princess during Covid and it was cancelled.  The final cancellation was because they sold the Pacific Princess and Princess no longer had a small enough ship to do this itinerary.  So after some research we booked the Nautica, a “sister” ship of the Pacific Princess to do the Tahitian Legends cruise.

 

Having those prior arrangements with Princess helped us zero in on a room category to book.  On Princess the cabin we wanted was a mini suite on deck 8.  On Oceania this translated to a PH suite.  We booked a PH3 guarantee on the first day the cruise was for sale and chose fare only (we used miles for flights and this was before Simply More pricing existed).  The actual cabin was assigned 4 days before the cruise, an in-category upgraded PH1.

 

Pre-cruise arrangements did not take much adapting.  Excursions and specialty reservations were done through the O website, no app to fuss with.  O included a paper description of all excursions along with the cruise documents which made it easy to review excursion features at a glance.  I frequently saw the abbreviation “UPC” and upon further research I learned that it was an unlimited excursion program.  Some quick math revealed that we would benefit from paying the $519 PP as all of the excursions that were appealing to us were included at no additional cost and we would have paid more than double without the package.

 

A few weeks before the cruise we received a package from O including a brochure about what to expect on the ship and our luggage tags which were pre-printed plasticized displaying all of the pertinent details.  They stated “guarantee” as the cabin but we simply wrote our cabin number on them after it was assigned.  We also received a notice to check in online and printed off our boarding passes shortly before the cruise.

 

Pre-cruise we stayed one night at the Intercontinental Hotel which was a lovely resort very near the Papeete airport.  They were very accommodating and helped us with transportation to the port, about 10 minutes away.

 

Check in was easy but different.  The taxi dropped us off at a tent where we handed the porters our luggage.  We were asked to sit in chairs for a short while and then were directed to the ship for check-in, which was done in the Nautica Lounge.  We were handed our key cards and told that rooms would not be ready until 1 so we had a drink and lunch.  They announced that our rooms were ready early and we were glad that our room steward was right there because our key cards would not work.  And the same thing happened to a majority of passengers making for a huge line at the Reception Desk to replace the errant cards.  Not sure what happened but it was our first issue on the ship.

 

Our room was lovely.  Very clean, not a speck of rust or mold, no stains in the carpet.  Lots of power and USB outlets including over each bedside table.  There was plenty of storage but oddly our soft sided 29 inch suitcases would not fit under the bed like they do on Princess.  No worries, we just moved out the table and two chairs and stood them up behind it so they were out of the way.  Except for the bed, the other furniture was comfortable.  The bed was on the hard side, a surprise as I expected it would at least be as comfortable as those on Princess.  The pillows also weren’t as fluffy as we’d like.  The toiletries were Bvlgari, nice but strongly scented, and the towels were plush.  The refrigerator was stocked with soft drinks and would have been replenished daily at no charge had we drank any.  There were two complementary stainless Vero water bottles in the room for us to keep and three tall glass bottles filled with water.  They replaced those daily but Vero water machines could also be found all over the ship.  Finally there are blue lights in the bathroom that are less intrusive at night than the blazing white lights that come on when you move about the cabin in the dark on Princess.

 

Our room steward Ruslana was outstanding.  The stewards actually have assistants on this ship which seemed to work well.  We also had a Butler but aside from meeting him on the first day when he was a bit cranky we had no reason to interact with him.  During our initial meeting we did mention that our room was way too cold and we were unable to adjust the temperature to make it warmer.  On day 2 it was still the same so we called to speak to someone else and they immediately had someone come up to fix it.  The Butlers will arrange room service delivered by course or will make reservations if requested but we didn’t need any of that.  We did use one of the three complementary laundry bags and I think he delivered that back to us (it took 2 days instead of the advertised 3).

 

Around the ship I kept having to remind myself that the amenities weren’t what I’d come to expect because of the size.  The Terrace Café was small but there was usually enough food to satisfy us.  They serve you, it’s not self-serve like the buffet is on Princess and it seemed so much more hygienic that way.  The food was mostly good at the Terrace Cafe but the hours were odd.  For example they would close breakfast at 10 and wouldn’t open up again until noon for lunch.  Not having access to food under normal circumstances is usually fine but when you have two excursions scheduled as we did in Bora Bora with limited time to eat in between it was a problem.  In that instance one of the managers at Waves Grill told the chef to open early so that we and others in the long line behind us could eat and make our afternoon excursions.  Shouldn’t have to be that way.  Waves by the way was good but only open at lunch.  And the pizza served through a window at the Terrace Grill was hideous.  Thin crust with a strong yeast taste and tasteless toppings.  Princess blows O away on the pizza front.

 

The Grand Dining Room had its hits and misses.  It opened for dinner at 6:30 every night and was open for 3 hours.  We tended to get there early and it was obvious most people were like-minded.  So service initially would be great and then degrade as the crush of people filled the tables.  Opening an hour earlier would probably help ease the crowds.  The food was good some nights, not so great others.  Like getting a tough steak or being told upon asking that a dish would be chicken breast only then have it be delivered with mostly dark meat.  I was subsequently told that pretty much every chicken dish would be mixed white and dark and they couldn’t offer only breast meat.  Seemed a bit inflexible.  Soups like Lobster Bisque were tasteless.  Desserts were fantastic and I was happy with the smaller portions.  We expected to be wowed by the food on Oceania but it didn’t turn out to be much better than that on Princess if at all.

 

One plus is that we got to make 4 reservations at the specialty restaurants at no additional charge.  The food at the Polo Grill was fantastic and better than we’ve had at Crown Grill for an upcharge on Princess.  Toscana was very good but on par with Sabatini’s on Princess.  We went to Toscana on the first night of the cruise and thought our waitress looked familiar.  Sure enough Ana has previously worked for Princess for 9 years.  Ana was outstanding and greeted us by name whenever she saw us around the ship.  She also made sure they made my birthday special when we returned there on our subsequent visit.

 

We had thought that the nightly dress code of Resort Casual would mean that the dress would be slightly relaxed compared to Princess but that was not the case.  We found that most people were dressed better, with some men wearing suits and ties every night to dinner.  We saw a man in nice shorts turned away from the dining room one night.  It wasn’t a problem for us but given the climate I was really surprised at what the dress was on this cruise.

 

On Princess we’ve been buying Princess Plus which includes drinks, gratuities, and WiFi.  Our travel agent comped gratuities and O includes standard WiFi access for each guest so that left drinks.  We chose not to buy the standalone drink package and it would not have been economical for us to buy one.  The drinks cost from $14 - $16 each including tip although they had 2 for 1 drinks at happy hour in two bars each night.  There was also the Captain’s party with complementary drinks and we attended another event for first time O cruisers with complementary drinks so paying for the occasional drink beyond that didn’t break the bank.  Standard WiFi worked pretty well for us as we didn’t need to stream anything so again no additional fees needed to be spent for us to do what we needed online.

 

There was a small deep saltwater pool with a ladder that we used when returning from excursions which happened to be the only time that we were able to find open chairs in the shade.  Chair hogs were out in force and nothing was done to move belongings when people hadn’t been in their chairs for hours.  It was hot and sticky the whole time so the shaded areas were in demand.  We didn’t even try to go to the pool on sea days, it was just too crowded.  There were two hot tubs that didn’t seem to be very popular as they were way too hot and given the weather folks just wanted to cool off.  We also could have used the Aquamar spa hot tub at the front of the ship but again the pool was a lot more desirable in that climate.

 

Entertainment was lackluster.  The shows were all at 9:30 and consisted of a couple of production shows, a comedian, and musicians.  There was a well-attended local folkloric show while we were in Bora Bora.  There were also three talks by an excellent port lecturer while we were at sea and I didn’t miss one of those.

 

There were some events like trivia but other than that not much to do on the ship.  The shops did have some events which we tend to avoid on Princess too.  The shops had higher end merchandise and there wasn’t anything that they were selling that we were interested in buying.

 

The casino was tiny as you might expect on such a small ship, not even 30 slot machines and a couple of table games.  The manager / cashier and the dealers were very friendly and welcoming.  On both of the sea days they held tournaments (slot, blackjack and holdem).  That was really the only time that crowds assembled in the casino.  The casino blended into Martini’s bar so you could hear the piano player, sometimes good and sometimes not so much.

 

As I said early on we went on this cruise 100% for the itinerary and it did not disappoint.  The islands were stunning and the colors of the water were mesmerizing.  The excursions we chose were mostly good.  However there were no excursions in Fakarava (very tiny island) and only one offered in Nuku Hiva which entailed 3 people sitting side by side in the back seat of a vehicle and 1 in the front with a non-English speaking driver moving in a caravan of similar vehicles.  While driving down the mountain over switchbacks our driver at one point took a phone call and chose to hold her phone and Facetime.  While she was driving.  Very peculiar.  The rest of the excursions we booked were good though and the excursion staff was very helpful and friendly.

 

Disembarkation was uneventful occurring over a 1.5 hour period with times assigned based on what guests requested.  There was a very long taxi line but with two ships in port not much could be done to prevent that.  From the disembarkation sheet it appeared that O sold transfers which included the use of a conference room at a resort where one could stay until their evening flights (most flights leaving PPT are late evening).  I couldn’t see this option on the O website and we did make our own arrangements.  We originally booked a day pass at the Intercontinental Hotel pool which included lunch but then decided to just book a room and check out early.  This option worked out well for us as it allowed us to clean up and enjoy some air-conditioning before heading to the sweltering airport.  O should have options for day rooms and / or other debark excursions, I was told they used to but not sure why they don’t any longer.

 

All in all I feel like Oceania fell short of what I expected the onboard experience to be.  With the premium cost of this cruise I just expected to be wowed onboard and I wasn’t.  Unless they have an itinerary that we couldn’t do elsewhere I don’t think we will be going on another Oceania cruise.

[Host CJSKIDS]

What an incredible and detailed review.  I really enjoyed reading the comparisons between the cruise lines. 

 

Happy Birthday!

[PacnGoNow]

That was interesting.  Thanks for taking the time to do it.

[SCX22]

Have to agree with the entertainment.  It's severely lacking on the smaller luxury ships.  Most of the apologists rooting for those lines cite that the itineraries are too port intensive and that they are too tired to participate in entertainment after immersing themselves while in port.  In reality, they need to admit that they are old and tire easily.  

[Ken the cruiser]

Thanks for sharing your experience on the Nautica! It brought back memories of when we did a Northern European cruise on it for 32 days during the summer of 2018. For us we rarely ate in the GDR, but rather most of the time we ate outside up at the Terrace Cafe, under the covered area. Since most folks ate inside in the evening, it was quite peaceful out there. 😁

 

We had booked one of the A1 aft-facing balcony cabins, so we only got two specialty restaurants included. Back then the food was quite tasty. But we did notice the food quality and variety start to slip, especially up at the Terrace Cafe, when compared to when we first started cruising with them in 2015. We attributed it to management changes resulting from NCLH taking over O in late 2014. But on all of their cruises, they always provided quality enrichment lectures on sea days! 
 

But they do offer some awesome cruises, but usually for a price. I know on our NE cruise in the A1 aft-facing balcony, we paid around $710 pp/day. But that included economy air and OLife. Our favorite cruise with them was on the Sirena on a 16-day B2B around Cuba, during that short time cruise ships from the US were allowed to visit there.
 

[azbirdmom]

5 minutes ago, Ken the cruiser said:

Thanks for sharing your experience on the Nautica! It brought back memories of when we did a Northern European cruise on it for 32 days during the summer of 2018. For us we rarely ate in the GDR, but rather most of the time we ate outside up at the Terrace Cafe, under the covered area. Since most folks ate inside in the evening, it was quite peaceful out there. 😁

 

We had booked one of the A1 aft-facing balcony cabins, so we only got two specialty restaurants included. Back then the food was quite tasty. But we did notice the food quality and variety start to slip, especially up at the Terrace Cafe, when compared to when we first started cruising with them in 2015. We attributed it to management changes resulting from NCLH taking over O in late 2014. But on all of their cruises, they always provided quality enrichment lectures on sea days! 
 

But they do offer some awesome cruises, but usually for a price. I know on our NE cruise in the A1 aft-facing balcony, we paid around $710 pp/day. But that included economy air and OLife. Our favorite cruise with them was on the Sirena on a 16-day B2B around Cuba, during that short time cruise ships from the US were allowed to visit there.
 

 

It is definitely quieter up in Terrace Cafe at night.  And we found that several of the items featured on the dining room menu were up there too but DH really wanted to go to the dining room most nights.  They do still grill steaks and some other things to order at night there too.  I liked that you could see the menus for both venues on the TV to compare offerings (I forgot to mention that).

 

Interesting that you were noticing a decline years ago.  Obviously we don't have an earlier point of reference other than what others have reported.  We did hear some of this during "pool talk" (what I call chatting with other passengers while bobbing in the pool).  I tried to keep others' experiences out of my review though but suffice to say that there were people who were really unhappy about the O experience.

 

And yes, they definitely have unique itineraries.  We missed the window for Cuba, hope the situation changes some day so that we can go there.  Princess  used to have more unique itineraries but they have gone mainstream in terms of most of what is offered which is sad.

[AZjohn]

3 hours ago, SCX22 said:

Have to agree with the entertainment.  It's severely lacking on the smaller luxury ships.  Most of the apologists rooting for those lines cite that the itineraries are too port intensive and that they are too tired to participate in entertainment after immersing themselves while in port.  In reality, they need to admit that they are old and tire easily.  

lol, yes I will be the first one that owns up to that🤣

[LACruiser88]

Thank you for taking the time to write your detailed report.  We have been on one "O" cruise about 10 years ago.  We went with friends that cruise once a year on "O."

 

We had an okay time, but for the cost of the 10-day cruise we could have cruised on Princess for at least 20 days.  In the end, we did not find it cost effective to cruise again with them.

 

 

 

 

Edited March 4 by LACruiser88

[charliedalrymple]

Thanks so much for this excellent review!  All of the details really provide a sense of what life is like onboard an Oceania ship.  You write extremely well!

 

As you may know from my recent postings, we are planning to move away from Princess and try other lines.  Oceania is one we are considering, so your review is quite timely and useful.  Based on what you've written, I'm guessing that the atmosphere on Oceania is more subdued that Princess (i.e., not as noisy, and fewer shrieking children).  Is that the case?

 

We've decided we are willing to pay more for a relaxing experience that Princess doesn't seem to provide any longer.  Then again, maybe Princess hasn't changed but we have just gotten old and cranky.

[rebeccac]

Just a little side note, we were on the Sirena (sister to the Nautica) over the holidays and were able to lift the bed up a little and fit our full sized luggage under the bed as it was just the frame that was preventing it from going underneath.  

[azbirdmom]

10 hours ago, charliedalrymple said:

Thanks so much for this excellent review!  All of the details really provide a sense of what life is like onboard an Oceania ship.  You write extremely well!

 

As you may know from my recent postings, we are planning to move away from Princess and try other lines.  Oceania is one we are considering, so your review is quite timely and useful.  Based on what you've written, I'm guessing that the atmosphere on Oceania is more subdued that Princess (i.e., not as noisy, and fewer shrieking children).  Is that the case?

 

We've decided we are willing to pay more for a relaxing experience that Princess doesn't seem to provide any longer.  Then again, maybe Princess hasn't changed but we have just gotten old and cranky.

 

You're welcome!

 

It was definitely quieter and subdued with one exception.  The band at happy hour in Horizons was a bit on the loud side surprisingly.  It wasn't so much on the first day when they didn't have the speakers turned  but after they turned the speakers on it was too loud to talk.  Seemed odd.  We moved to Martini's where there was only a piano player after that but lost the nice view up in Horizons.

 

I saw one small child and she was well behaved.  I spoke to her mom in the pool and she said that she had asked for activities for her child and was told there were none as it's rare for a child to be on the ship.

 

Keep in mind that what I had experienced was on their smallest ship.  During "pool talk" some veteran O cruisers said that there was more to do on their newer larger ships (also more restaurants, bigger pool, etc.) and some were in the "never again" camp for the R class ships.

 

As for your final comment, Princess really has changed but it seems like all of the lines have.  At least for us our experience on O allowed us to appreciate some of the things on Princess a bit more and maybe we will tolerate those we don't care for a little better.  Time will tell!

[azbirdmom]

4 hours ago, rebeccac said:

Just a little side note, we were on the Sirena (sister to the Nautica) over the holidays and were able to lift the bed up a little and fit our full sized luggage under the bed as it was just the frame that was preventing it from going underneath.  

 

Thanks for the tip!

[pauon]

Great review and mirrors our experience as well.  We found "O" lacking in the same areas.  We found the passengers a little full of themselves too.  One and done for us.  We have sailed a lot on Princess, HAL (1), Oceania (1), and Windstar (4).  Oceania is the only one that left a bad taste during and after the cruise.  

[PescadoAmarillo]

Thanks for your great comparative review!  I’ve often been tempted to stray (and expect i still might, for the itineraries if nothing else).  The Nautical is one of the R-ships, I think, and you didn’t say if you had ever been on one of those ships while Princess owned them, but they are definitely a different cruise experience from the mega ship).  I think I could live with everything you cited except the 6:30pm dinner time. That’s late for us. 
 

When the economics of cruising are leading to larger and larger ships visiting too crowded ports, it’s nice to know that there are still some smaller options visiting more off the-beaten-path locations. I guess if I choose to cruise a small ship again, I should look more seriously at Azamara. 

[rebeccac]

2 hours ago, azbirdmom said:

 

 

I saw one small child and she was well behaved.  I spoke to her mom in the pool and she said that she had asked for activities for her child and was told there were none as it's rare for a child to be on the ship.

 

From what we were told, the only time O provides any type of children's activities is for the Alaska sailings.  And we were on over Christmas/New Year's and there were 50 children (we were told that was a record even for a holiday sailing) and there were still no specific children's activities.  Personally, I would never bring a child on O, unless they were the type of kid that can easily amuse themselves.  

[mtnesterz]

2 hours ago, azbirdmom said:

At least for us our experience on O allowed us to appreciate some of the things on Princess a bit more and maybe we will tolerate those we don't care for a little better.

Thanks so much for your review and especially adding this part. We too are longtime Elite Princess cruisers, and with changes, loss of perks and increased costs have wished to try other lines

As with any good travel experience, or those not so good which we constructively label an adventure, things are learned. An appreciation, objective perception and tolerance. Though, I still want my free internet back.

[BabySarge]

Great review.

[Ken the cruiser]

Our cruising addiction has taken us all over the map!   But I will say this diversity has allowed us to experience a wide variety of cruising atmospheres, which has helped us not to get too burned-out cruising with just one or two lines. Well, except maybe when it comes to Oceania, which is an entire story all in itself. 😂

 

2012 - Our first cruise was with HAL and had a great time on the Ryndam.

2013 - 1 each with HAL and Celebrity.

2014 - 1 with HAL and tried RCCL (which was our first and last).

2015 - 1 each with Oceania, PCL, and Celebrity.

2016 - 3 with HAL along with 1 Oceania and 1 Disney.

2017 - 2 more with HAL, 1 with Celebrity, and 1 with NCL.

2018 - 1 HAL and 5 with Oceania.

2019 - 1 HAL, 2 Crystal, 2 Celebrity, and 1 PCL.

2020 - 1 with Celebrity and 1 PCL before cruising stopped.

2021 - 7 with Celebrity.

2022 - 4 with Celebrity, 2 NCL, and 3 PCL.

2023 - 4 with Celebrity, 4 PCL, 1 NCL, and 1 Disney.

2024 - 2 with PCL with 5 more booked, and 2 booked with NCL.

2025 - 3 booked with PCL, 2 NCL, 1 Crystal, and 1 with HAL again.

 

Edited March 4 by Ken the cruiser

[azbirdmom]

3 hours ago, PescadoAmarillo said:

Thanks for your great comparative review!  I’ve often been tempted to stray (and expect i still might, for the itineraries if nothing else).  The Nautical is one of the R-ships, I think, and you didn’t say if you had ever been on one of those ships while Princess owned them, but they are definitely a different cruise experience from the mega ship).  I think I could live with everything you cited except the 6:30pm dinner time. That’s late for us. 
 

When the economics of cruising are leading to larger and larger ships visiting too crowded ports, it’s nice to know that there are still some smaller options visiting more off the-beaten-path locations. I guess if I choose to cruise a small ship again, I should look more seriously at Azamara. 

 

Yes, it is an R class ship.  We never did get to sail with one of those Princess ships.  We put off taking the French Polynesia itinerary with Princess and then when we wanted to do it they stopped offering it.  Then they brought it back and Covid happened then they sold the only ship that could go to those ports.  We will definitely give other lines a try in the future if there's an itinerary that big ships can't do.

[azbirdmom]

3 hours ago, rebeccac said:

From what we were told, the only time O provides any type of children's activities is for the Alaska sailings.  And we were on over Christmas/New Year's and there were 50 children (we were told that was a record even for a holiday sailing) and there were still no specific children's activities.  Personally, I would never bring a child on O, unless they were the type of kid that can easily amuse themselves.  

 

I completely agree that most kids would be bored.  There was a startling thing that the mom of the sole child onboard told me.  She said they had no life vests for her child.  At first I thought she meant that they didn't have one to use in the pool and she said no, they didn't give her one to keep in her cabin.  I thought that was odd but that's when she was told that they don't usually have children onboard.  It's second hand info so I didn't include it in my review but it seems like if that's true and not a misunderstanding on mom's part that they would be out of compliance with whatever laws / rules govern them.  The ship is flagged under the Marshall Islands but I'm not sure if there are other maritime rules governing safety items like this.

[azbirdmom]

5 hours ago, pauon said:

Great review and mirrors our experience as well.  We found "O" lacking in the same areas.  We found the passengers a little full of themselves too.  One and done for us.  We have sailed a lot on Princess, HAL (1), Oceania (1), and Windstar (4).  Oceania is the only one that left a bad taste during and after the cruise.  

 

Interesting that you mention Windstar.  The Star Breeze was anchored alongside us in Bora Bora and also disembarked in Papeete the same day we did.  Its homeport is now Papeete.  The ship held roughly half of the passengers than the Nautica did.  When we were at the Intercontinental Hotel after disembarking we talked to a lot of folks who were on that ship and to a one they all raved about Windstar.  The praises continued from those we talked to at the airport.  If we ever decide to return to that area we may look into Windstar.

[HaveDogWillTravel]

37 minutes ago, azbirdmom said:

 

Interesting that you mention Windstar.  The Star Breeze was anchored alongside us in Bora Bora and also disembarked in Papeete the same day we did.  Its homeport is now Papeete.  The ship held roughly half of the passengers than the Nautica did.  When we were at the Intercontinental Hotel after disembarking we talked to a lot of folks who were on that ship and to a one they all raved about Windstar.  The praises continued from those we talked to at the airport.  If we ever decide to return to that area we may look into Windstar.

I have 322 days with Princess over 200 just since the restart.  I sailed Oceania O class 10 days and Windstar Star Legend 10 days last year. Liked O but simply fell in love with WS. 3 more booked with WS, 2 more booked with O.  I do have the sky suite booked for the Eclipse cruise on Discovery and 2 more Princess cruises after that. Moving forward I will only be sailing Princess out of SF as it’s just so convenient and my friends & family sail out of there. If I travel to a port it will be Windstar first choice every time. 
 

This October I have an O sailing Barcelona to Rome on Vista and 2 weeks later I have Wind Spirit Rome back to Barcelona.  Guess which one I am most excited to do?  I’m happy to hear such positive reports from recent WS passengers!  

Edited March 4 by HaveDogWillTravel

[pauon]

2 hours ago, azbirdmom said:

 

Interesting that you mention Windstar.  The Star Breeze was anchored alongside us in Bora Bora and also disembarked in Papeete the same day we did.  Its homeport is now Papeete.  The ship held roughly half of the passengers than the Nautica did.  When we were at the Intercontinental Hotel after disembarking we talked to a lot of folks who were on that ship and to a one they all raved about Windstar.  The praises continued from those we talked to at the airport.  If we ever decide to return to that area we may look into Windstar.

We love windstar, but seem to always come back to Princess !  

[AZjohn]

8 hours ago, Ken the cruiser said:

Our cruising addiction has taken us all over the map!   But I will say this diversity has allowed us to experience a wide variety of cruising atmospheres, which has helped us not to get too burned-out cruising with just one or two lines. Well, except maybe when it comes to Oceania, which is an entire story all in itself. 😂

 

2012 - Our first cruise was with HAL and had a great time on the Ryndam.

2013 - 1 each with HAL and Celebrity.

2014 - 1 with HAL and tried RCCL (which was our first and last).

2015 - 1 each with Oceania, PCL, and Celebrity.

2016 - 3 with HAL along with 1 Oceania and 1 Disney.

2017 - 2 more with HAL, 1 with Celebrity, and 1 with NCL.

2018 - 1 HAL and 5 with Oceania.

2019 - 1 HAL, 2 Crystal, 2 Celebrity, and 1 PCL.

2020 - 1 with Celebrity and 1 PCL before cruising stopped.

2021 - 7 with Celebrity.

2022 - 4 with Celebrity, 2 NCL, and 3 PCL.

2023 - 4 with Celebrity, 4 PCL, 1 NCL, and 1 Disney.

2024 - 2 with PCL with 5 more booked, and 2 booked with NCL.

2025 - 3 booked with PCL, 2 NCL, 1 Crystal, and 1 with HAL again.

 

We have had a similar experience sailing multiple times in every line you listed (except Disney).

 

I could mention both pros and cons for every cruise but, pros have always outweighed the cons on every line.

 

Our experience on Oceania, ships Riviera and Insignia, were really outstanding in many ways. There are (or were) truly port intensive itineraries and that was the number one reason we sailed with them (especially Insignia which is R class that visited ports around the Med a larger ship could never go).

 

But, we all have different taste and budgets for cruising the way we want. Unfortunately for us, Oceanic has really increased their prices but I guess as long as they can fill their ships then they are priced correctly (just not for us anymore ☹️).

 

Cheers

[Ken the cruiser]

1 hour ago, AZjohn said:

We have had a similar experience sailing multiple times in every line you listed (except Disney).

 

I could mention both pros and cons for every cruise but, pros have always outweighed the cons on every line.

 

Our experience on Oceania, ships Riviera and Insignia, were really outstanding in many ways. There are (or were) truly port intensive itineraries and that was the number one reason we sailed with them (especially Insignia which is R class that visited ports around the Med a larger ship could never go).

 

But, we all have different taste and budgets for cruising the way we want. Unfortunately for us, Oceanic has really increased their prices but I guess as long as they can fill their ships then they are priced correctly (just not for us anymore ☹️).

 

Cheers

For us, other than our first 10-day Caribbean cruise in 2015 on the Riviera, which was fantastic, the negatives outweighed the positives.

 

On our 2nd Caribbean cruise in 2016, the Riviera went into Code Red for 10 out of the 12 days because of norovirus. That BTW was the 5th time in 4 months the ship had gone into Code Red.
 

On our 3rd cruise in the spring of 2018, a 16-day B2B around Cuba on the Sirena, our credit card information as well as my DW’s friend’s cc information, was stolen along with someone making a fake onboard email account using my information to order stuff online from a store in Orlando. BTW we were the only 3 people on the B2B on that cruise. We were able to get the Sirena IT person to cancel the fake account and the charge attempts were rejected because we had safeguards in place. 

 

On our 4th cruise in the summer of 2018, a 32-day Northern Europe B2B on the Nautica, our flight was delayed due to weather in Atlanta (after we had already pushed away from the gate) which caused us to be late arriving in Amsterdam and to miss our flight to Oslo. Luckily, we had booked the air through Oceania, to include a pre-cruise night stay at an Oslo hotel and transfers from the airport to hotel then to the ship the next day. Right? KLM put us on a later flight that arrived at an auxiliary Oslo airport just before midnight. When our TA contacted Oceania to secure transportation from that airport to the hotel before we left Amsterdam, the cost was $520 for the private car they ordered. However, since O’s contract with the hotel only covered transportation from the “primary” Oslo airport, which was 35 miles away and not the other airport where we were flown into that was 60 miles away. We worked with O HQ while on the ship for about 2 weeks before they finally came back and said it wasn’t their problem and we had to pay for it. Luckily, our trip insurance we purchased through O covered the cost, but only because of the technicality that the plane had pushed away from the gate in Atlanta and we sat on the tarmac for 90 minutes causing the subsequent delay into Amsterdam.

 

Then on our 5th cruise in the fall of 2018, which was a 45-day B4B on the Riviera from Athens to Miami where we had also pre-booked an overnight stay through Oceania, they booked us in an Athens hotel room with twin beds, at the request of O HQ according to the person at the hotel. But that’s OK. The final straw came when my DW for the entire 45-day cruise would get knocked offline literally every 2-3 minutes while using the internet in the cabin, which became quite annoying when she was trying to send business emails with large attachments over the very slow internet connection. The reason for getting knocked off the nearby router was because in June 2018, Oceania marketing decided to give every stateroom onboard a free internet account without updating the routers in the cabin area, which were nowhere close to being sized properly to handle that increased connectivity at any one time.
 

In all of the above examples when we contacted Oceania HQ about each of these issues, their basic response was pretty much “sorry”.

 

But other than that we always had a great time. The food was great, the lectures were great, and the 9:30 pm entertainment was always enjoyable. We just got tired of weird stuff happening on pretty much every cruise after the first one. 😁

Edited March 5 by Ken the cruiser