Jim_Iain - Live from Oceania Regatta - September 14 Vancouver to Los Angeles

[bbqoug]

3 hours ago, FetaCheese said:

@Jim_Iain

Thanks for your running commentary and all those photos.  

@FetaCheese

I was hoping we would run across each other sometime on the cruise.

Maybe on a future cruise.

[terrydtx]

6 hours ago, Redtravel said:

I knew that you would like Oceania. It reminds me of what Celebrity used to be before Royal bought it.  We are elite plus on Celebrity. We did one pandemic cruise on Summit in 2022. The crowding was terrible. My spouse got covid.  Never again.  We now sail on Oceania, Windstar, and Viking.  Most recent cruise was Viking. While the ships are beautiful, the food is not nearly as good as Oceania. Viking specialty restaurants were very disappointing.  Nothing compares to the Terrace buffet.  

We are the same with Celebrity, finished, and don't care that we are Elite+. Our first Oceania cruise is next March. We just finished a Canada/NE cruise on the HAL Volendam and to be honest the food in the MDR overall was better than our recent experiences on Celebrity in both MDR and the Luminae Retreat restaurants. The Volendam is a small ship, (1400 pax) and not once did it seem crowded. We also booked a HAL cruise in 2026 while onboard the Volendam.

[asnaleah]

Thanks @Jim_Iain. Loved all your fabulous photos and commentary. Getting excited for our first Oceania cruise in January!

[jmlh]

Our first Oceania cruise is in March aboard the Regatta so this thread was very interesting to us. Many thanks for your dining reviews & all the beautiful photos.  Like others, we have cruised many times on Celebrity & Princess & are really looking forward to a new cruising adventure.

[Redtravel]

13 hours ago, terrydtx said:

We are the same with Celebrity, finished, and don't care that we are Elite+. Our first Oceania cruise is next March. We just finished a Canada/NE cruise on the HAL Volendam and to be honest the food in the MDR overall was better than our recent experiences on Celebrity in both MDR and the Luminae Retreat restaurants. The Volendam is a small ship, (1400 pax) and not once did it seem crowded. We also booked a HAL cruise in 2026 while onboard the Volendam.

We have good friends who still sail on Celebrity. They just did an X cruise. They raved that the food on Celebrity was better. When we asked if the menus had been updated, they answered no. However, they were impressed by an additional local entre some nights. They weren’t happy with the specialty restaurants. They are going on their first Oceania cruise in 2025.  Interested in their experience.  

[terrydtx]

25 minutes ago, Redtravel said:

We have good friends who still sail on Celebrity. They just did an X cruise. They raved that the food on Celebrity was better. When we asked if the menus had been updated, they answered no. However, they were impressed by an additional local entre some nights. They weren’t happy with the specialty restaurants. They are going on their first Oceania cruise in 2025.  Interested in their experience.  

The food on Celebrity was better than what?

[Jim_Iain]

On 9/26/2024 at 11:56 AM, Justpackingmybags said:

And totally out of the blue, a lady from Oceania’s Uk office called me yesterday to see if she could tempt me into a booking. They have my number because a few years ago I had a cruise booked with them that had to be cancelled due to my husband’s poor health. Now if I can can find a solo deal I can afford…….. You and Iain have tempted me!! 😄

Good luck on a Solo deal.  

[Jim_Iain]

On 9/26/2024 at 12:02 PM, Mike981 said:

 

Thank you Jim for a wonderful comparison review. We are sold and will look into Oceania for 2026.
So much of the food was reminiscent of our first two cruises back in 2000 on Celebrity (Mercury and Millennium). Good to know that the option are there.

 

Safe travels and we look forward to your next adventure(s).

 

Thanks Mike.    I do have to admit that the food in the MDR was as good and in many cases better back in the old days of Celebrity.   We found that year over year Celebrity keeps eliminating or cutting back to the point they are not the same line that we first cruised.    I know the world has changed but I do like the Regatta product.    I just hope they maintain their standards on their larger ships.    Everything I have been told is it only gets better on the other class ships.

[Jim_Iain]

On 9/26/2024 at 12:04 PM, JDPCruisers said:

So good to know and many thanks for all the photos and thoughts. We are now even more excited about our first Oceania cruise in Jan/Feb, due in part to your decision to "jump ship" from Celebrity to Oceania. Based on our upcoming Vista cruise and after our Celebrity Apex Scandinavia/Norway b2b next spring we will likely make the switch to Oceania and may branch out to try other lines, as well.  

 

I think you will really enjoy Oceania.    I will really be interested in trying some other lines.    Some of the premium lines however even price us out of booking their upper suites so may even try out a non-suite.

[Jim_Iain]

On 9/26/2024 at 12:09 PM, as3369 said:

The menu selections in the MDR and food quality was worse than any previous Celebrity cruise we sailed on.  The most recent prior to this sailing was Celebrity Millenium in 2022 and we had a great experience.  All of the suites were booked so we opted for a Concierge cabin.  The canapes were inedible and daily we would see the canape trays untouched and outside the cabins on our floor.  We didn't meet our room steward until Day 4.  There were at least 3 days when he didn't clean our cabin until after 9 pm.  Not sure if they are giving the cabin stewards more than they can handle.  The disembarkation experience was the absolute worse than any of our other 40+ sailings.  Tender service was remarkably slow in Greenland.  We didn't get to leave the ship until 4 hours after docking even though we have priority tender service through Elite status.  We sailed with 3 other cruise mates and they too have sworn off Celebrity.

 

The best experience was the Happy hour in the Martini bar with great entertainment.

 

Sorry to hear of your disappointment.    When we were on Edge the tender ports had huge waits and even for ports with docks they were using a ticket system to meter the flow of passengers to accommodate the slow shuttle bus services provided by some of the ports.

[Jim_Iain]

On 9/26/2024 at 12:25 PM, cluso said:

We were in Gray 1.  Said hi to you as you were coming down stairs.  Quick baggage pick up.

Decided on taxi.  Third in line, took 2 minutes.  Nice new super clean United Checker cab #1429. Bottled water and all.  Estimate was $65.  Was rush hour, took about 40 minutes to Terminal 2.  Was $77 before tip.  Chilled in Delta Sky Club.  Hopefully, Hurricane Helene won't be on our doorstep when we arrive home.  🙄

 

Sounds decent.    We ordered an Uber and our driver arrived in 3.5 minutes.    Fare came in at $54 pre tip.    The car was the largest Tesla and was really comfortable.    It took us bout 55 minutes to get to Terminal 6.    The traffic at he Airport was insane.   It took us about 15 minutes longer (all at the airport).

[Jim_Iain]

On 9/26/2024 at 2:30 PM, Harters said:

I don't really know Newcastle at all. But one of my favourite parts of the UK is the coastal area north of the city towards the Scottish border. Check out the Seahouses/Bamburgh area. I don't know if you have an interest in wildlife but, if so, a boat trip from Seahouses to the Farne Islands is highly recommended. North of there you have Lindisfarne (Holy Island) and then, just short of the border, you have England's most northerly town - Berwick upon Tweed. It's such a beautiful area.

 

I'm going to have to start our planning.    Last time we were in Scotland we had tested positive for Covid so decided to rent an AirBnB to make sure we didn't infect the Great Nieces and Newphews.    Found a beautiful place on the ocean in Troon adjacent to the Gold Course. 

 

My BIL and SIL are great outdoor people and we went on long walks daily.   I think my favorite was in Ayr on the trails from Robert Burns Centre.  

[Jim_Iain]

21 hours ago, Redtravel said:

I knew that you would like Oceania. It reminds me of what Celebrity used to be before Royal bought it.  We are elite plus on Celebrity. We did one pandemic cruise on Summit in 2022. The crowding was terrible. My spouse got covid.  Never again.  We now sail on Oceania, Windstar, and Viking.  Most recent cruise was Viking. While the ships are beautiful, the food is not nearly as good as Oceania. Viking specialty restaurants were very disappointing.  Nothing compares to the Terrace buffet.  

 

I've heard both good and bad about Viking.   I just can't get Iain to agree to try them out.   Maybe I'll keep whittling him down.

[Jim_Iain]

17 hours ago, FetaCheese said:

@Jim_Iain

Thanks for your running commentary and all those photos.  

Was a real treat to finally get to meet you. Safe travels.

[Jim_Iain]

14 hours ago, bbqoug said:

Thank you @Jim_Iain for encouraging others to participate in this thread. I enjoyed it.

The cruise was great. We loved our time on Regatta, met a lot of nice people, and enjoyed our time visiting the different ports.

 

 

 

I really enjoyed it as much as others.   The Main reason I posted on Oceania Board was to drive other cruisers here who have yet to consider them.  

[Harters]

23 minutes ago, Jim_Iain said:

hope they maintain their standards on their larger ships

I'd say they do. We've cruised on Nautica, as well as Marina & Vista. Much as we enjoyed Nautica, I think I prefer the larger ships. The feeling of space, the extra speciality restaurants, etc. 

[Jim_Iain]

12 hours ago, asnaleah said:

Thanks @Jim_Iain. Loved all your fabulous photos and commentary. Getting excited for our first Oceania cruise in January!

Time will fly by....

[Jim_Iain]

1 hour ago, Redtravel said:

We have good friends who still sail on Celebrity. They just did an X cruise. They raved that the food on Celebrity was better. When we asked if the menus had been updated, they answered no. However, they were impressed by an additional local entre some nights. They weren’t happy with the specialty restaurants. They are going on their first Oceania cruise in 2025.  Interested in their experience.  

 

I think Celebrity is thriving on the new target market they are shooting for.   Like on Oceania since we never sailed them in the Old Days we had nothing to compare it with.      If we hadn't eaten the Luminae menu since it was introduced it probably wouldn't be boring.    

 

I do have to put in - every dish I had was perfectly cooked to order and served piping hot.

[Jim_Iain]

 

Well back home and settling in.    I ordered my new iPhone Pro Max just before the end of the cruise.   I purposely ordered so it would be delivered after we got home.     The last night of the cruise I got an e-mail that it had shipped (4 days early) and was expected to deliver between 12:30 and 3:30 the day we got home.   I was hoping to beat the delivery truck home.

 

About 5 miles to our home my Ring Alert went off on my phone and could see it was the UPS driver.. Darn.      When we got home I decided to take a walk over to the other side of our HOA.... Sure enough the driver was heading my way so I flagged him down and recovered my precious new phone. 

 

I spent most of the day getting my phone setup.    Setup was a breeze but it didn't transfer the 80 books I had stored on my phone. I had been using a 3rd party book Reader called MP3 Audio Book reader and it uses WebDav to put books onto your phone.    In the upgraded version I couldn't connect using this protocol --- I ending up going back to the book reader on iPhone and happy to find they finally after a year fixed the problem that wouldn't let me read many of my books.     Took my a good part of the day to find all the books and drop them into iTunes.  

 

So far I like it but many of the features like AI and Photo Touch up were not ready for IOS18 wand will be included in a future update.   Kinda like buying a new car and it arrives without a radio... ohhhh.  don't worry you will get it sometime but we don't know when.

 

 

[Jim_Iain]

One other piece of good news.    I got out me jewellery screwdrivers and was able to repair my Fitbit.   Just had to remove  bracket - plug in a cable that came loose and then 2 drips of super glue. 

 

In the mean time I had also purchased a refurbished Pebble (module only) on Ebay.    It cost the same amount as the charging cable that came with it.   Now we have a backup and Iain has his own high speed charging cable.