Reviews

[brian_uk]

There have been many people on here asking questions about the three ships prior to taking their trips and yet we never seem to get any feedback afterwards as to how they enjoyed them.....or not as the case may be.

 

Come on you guys/gals.....post your reviews and let us all benefit from your recent experiences.

 

Brian

[Druke I]

Not a full review by any means, but here goes:

 

We did Oceania's Regatta into the Baltic, 8-05, Stockhom to Dover (via the Kiel Canal).

 

Flight over not so hot - SAS had pranged an aircraft in Beijing, and we found our connecting flight cancelled at Chicago's O'Hare,while they rounded up another plane, which diverted us into Copenhagen before getting to Stockholm. No big deal - just a little inconvenient.

 

Ship in very good condition - we were down deck 4, #4031, a standard outside - adequate and comfortable. The ship has a huge library - but could use some new books, rather than all the romance novels inherited (and still imprinted) from Renaissance Lines.

 

The ship has an easy deck plan - very easy to get about. It doesn't show on the deck plan, but there is a compact self-serve laundry available, deck 7, just forward of aft elevators, tokens available from the Purser's Desk.

 

Food on the trip, particularly in the main dining room and alternate restaurants ranged from very good to excellent - we thought the best of some 40 cruises - surpassing Crystal's and HAL's. Food in the Terraces (Lido) was fairly standard shipboard fare, ranging from good to very good. The pizza we found excellent.

 

Entertainment, consisting of mainly trios, was very good. There were no big production shows like you might find on massmarket lines - but there were some singing acts, comedians, etc. We thought entertainment fine - we pretty well entertain ourselves.

 

Interesting range of ports - my wife loved St. Petersburg and the ballet - not my thing. I did ride their metro - that was an experience!

 

For us, the highlight of the trip was another transit of the Kiel Canal, cutting across a very pretty part of Germany. Great to see the village people along the banks of the canal waving hello at the ship as she passes.

 

Should you have any specific questions, fire away - I'll try to answer.

 

We were sufficiently impressed with Oceania that we have booked another cruise, on Nautica, 11-06, Istanbul to Singapore, via the Suez.

[digby]

Just got off Nautica on 3/31 in Hong Kong after a wonderful 15 day cruise from Beijing. Service, food, ports were all wonderful!

[Jancruz]

Thanks Druke good to hear about your trip!

Jan

*****

[Rickey 88]

Echo that - Digby!! This cruise (Beijing to Hong Kong) was delightful - even the hours spent in the river at Shanghai waiting for the fog to lift!!

The Nautica is the "same" as the Insignia and Regatta, but yet is different with new improvements and a feel all of her own. From Capt. Ressa to Bruno, to the lovely Shani and all the staff, she was a joy to spend two weeks with as a "first" in Asia. Oceania did a remarkable job in creating a new itinerary and there wasn't a thing that I would be critical of (and that includes the Fog!!)

I do have some photos of the new Penthouse suite improvements which I will post shortly - and no comment on the Cabanas - it was TOO Cold!!

However, we are booked back on the Nautica for Nov. - Istanbul to Singapore if that's any indication of customer satisfation!!

(And the Chocolate Lasagna is still to die for......)

:D

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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[brian_uk]

Druke and Rickey thanks for the reviews and I hope we get some more detail from Digby. Sounds like Oceania are keeping up the standards and moving forward/

 

I read such good things about Shani that I hope she will still be onboard in July.

 

MORE REVIEWS PLEASE

 

Brian

[Jancruz]

Sorry Brian, Shani leaves in June for her vacation..but Leslie Jon should be on and he is marvelous!! Be sur and give him our regards!!!

Jan

*****

[JoePDX]

Sorry Brian, Shani leaves in June for her vacation..but Leslie Jon should be on and he is marvelous!! Be sur and give him our regards!!!

Jan

*****

 

Brian,

 

I have to concur with Jan, Leslie Jon is a delight. The best cruise director we have encountered bar none.

 

Joe

[Live4cruises]

We are doing Hong Kong - Bangkok in February 2007 on Nautica. I've been lurking around the boards looking for reviews of Nautica's Far East season this year, but haven't seen too much so far. Since this is our first trip to the Orient and first Oceania cruise, I will happily read whatever anyone cares to type!

[Rickey 88]

This is a picture from the Nautica's Penthouse suite showing the new furniture. The chairs are much more comfortable and the table is designed to hold in-suite dinner service.

 

A new TV has been added which provides more channels, a built-in CD and DVD player and connections.....

[calexand]

Thank you for the picture. Any more? We will sail on Nautica for the first time in Sept. and have a penthouse cabin. The pro's seem to out way the neg. for Oceania and really looking forward to a little TLC.

[KLG]

I posted the following review on Feb. 27th based on our Feb. 14 sailing on the Regatta. Although I think the OP has seen it, I've copied it here:

----

We returned yesterday from our 12-day Caribbean cruise on the Regatta. It was our 12th cruise, our first on Oceania. We generally enjoyed the trip, but our expectations were very high and there were some disappointments.

 

The positives:

- The food was really good, as expected.

- We loved the (no) smoking policy. It's the first cruise we've been on where we weren't dodging smoke if we happened to walk on the wrong side of the ship.

- There wasn't a single child on board. I think kids are great, but not when I'm on an adult vacation.

- The destination services staff was great. Based on other postings, we had low expectations here, but we were very pleasantly surprised with the help offered to pax who wanted to go off to a beach or to check things out on their own. At each port, they brought a local tourism rep to the ship (or dock, at tender ports) to provide current information about the islands we visited.

- My husband liked the country club casual dress. I noticed that many of the women got more dressed up anyway, especially for the captain's cocktail party--and there were quite a few ties in evidence that night.

- We arrived at the port around 1:00 pm and were able to go directly on board and to our (concierge-level) cabin. The cabin seemed small (last cruise was on Radisson's Navigator) but adequate--and just for the record, it's the cabin we booked and expected.

- Cruise director Dave Shermet was one of the best we've seen on any cruise. He and his staff were always out and about, interacting with the pax.

- The casino's slot machines actually generated a fair number of winners. I wasn't one of them but it was nice to see anyway!

 

Our biggest disappointment was the "demographics" of the passengers. We expected an older group, and as 50-somethings that seemed appropriate. Instead, we were about the youngest people on a "seniors" cruise. Very few of our fellow pax were still working (I estimated 5% of us, certainly no more than 10%), and many of the retirees had been retired for 20-plus years. As a result, we had trouble finding common ground with most of our fellow travelers. While this is not something Oceania can do anything about, we won't try it again any time soon. Another consequence of the age group was that many of the more active shore excursions (including some of the snorkeling trips) were cancelled for lack of participation.

 

We did think the Terrace Cafe could have been better organized, and service in the Dining Room was often fairly slow.

 

Overall, I had a good time. The weather was perfect and I got lots of beach time in. My husband was less happy with the experience. But it was more good than bad just the same.

 

----

There wasn't a whole lot of response to my posting, other than to suggest that we travel to Europe or other port-intensive and distant destinations that are less likely to appeal to the seniors. That's not an option for us, as we generally cruise during Feb. or March and frankly, I like the Carribean. If I'm going on a sightseeing vacation, I'd prefer that it be a land trip.

 

What I found interesting was reading later about a similar demographic on a Radisson (now Regent) cruise around the same time. Also, we met pax from the WindSurf on the beach in St. Barts who had a similar comment about the age of the passengers on their ship. That was a surprise--I've been on the WindSurf and that ship is really oriented toward a more active crowd. So the time of year and the easy access from Florida were probably factors in what we found. And the passengers were generally very pleasant and courteous. But we would have preferred more of a mix. Is there a way to get both a small ship and a mixed crowd in February in that part of the world?

[kadsd]

My husband and I will be on the Regatta July 18 Dover to Stockholm - can you tell me what tours you took - did you do the Moscow tour?? Would appreciate any hints you can provide.

Thanks,

Kathy

[LHT28]

Our biggest disappointment was the "demographics" of the passengers. We expected an older group, and as 50-somethings that seemed appropriate. Instead, we were about the youngest people on a "seniors" cruise. Very few of our fellow pax were still working (I estimated 5% of us, certainly no more than 10%), and many of the retirees had been retired for 20-plus years.

 

We did an Insignia cruise and found a good range of age groups.

We are mid 50's recently retired and did not have too much trouble finding a topic for dinner companions of any age bracket.

We met a man in his 80's on a different cruiseline in 2003 ...we still correspond with him and trying to find a cruise to join him again.

He does 3-4 cruise alone each year and is quite interesting to be around.

 

We are pretty adaptable to most age groups.

There is always something people have in common at least long enough to make conversation over a meal.

 

Give the older people a chance! ;)