CruisingWalter

Not yet, one day, but not yet. 🙂 We're in a Veranda for this one.

The Riviera is sailing 14 itineraries in 2025, it's the first O Class ship to Alaska. We're booked in a Group Cruise for June 2025, 12-nights. O just added free upgrade to the Prestige Select drink package as part of groups now so that was a pretty cool perk for joining. 🙂

That's true of all cruise lines to be honest. If you're not on a shipboard excursion, you're going to have to wait until they have all left the ship. That's one of our major pieces of advice for friends and family, book cruise line excursions at tender ports if you want to exit the ship early. Thanks for the input! 🙂

Sitka and Klawock. I'm really intrigued by the new port at Klawock, another partnership with NCLH and the Huna Totem Operation in Alaska

When you work with a cheap or low quality agency, yes, that's what they will get. When you work with a good quality, reputable TA, they are connected with a Business Development Manager whose is a senior member of the national sales team. That one person works directly with the TAs on most anything they need assistance with from setting up group cruises to addressing any issues that require senior management attention. They are not 'dedicated staffers,' in the reservations area. Those are the TAs you want to work with, they can actually get results for most issues. 🙂

TAs have a direct line of contact with the business offices. Generally for clarification our TA calls their direct contact, not the Miami call center. Good TAs should have that direct contact with the cruise lines because that's generally where you're going to get the best information. 🙂

With Groups, TAs automatically get Pre-Paid Gratuities as a perk and now a free upgrade to Prestige Select is also available. That's new for this year apparently, those are the amenities we just go on the Riviera Alaska Group Cruise we booked for 2025.

Hi all! We've been cruising nearly 20 years but new to Oceania with 2 cruises booked for December 2023 and just booked into a Group Alaska Cruise on Riviera in 2025. In Alaska we're going to have two tender ports and I wanted to ask how are the tender operations on the O Class ships? We've only experienced tenders on Princess and Holland America cruises in the past with 3000+ pax ships. I'm curious how smoothly they operate on the smaller ships and should we expect to be on land within an hour of tender operations starting? Thanks so much!

That's 100% true there. None of the cruise lines really pay much attention to these boards any more. Years ago they used to really be involved with CC when it was the major player in town. I used to love those CC meet and greets onboard. Anymore, it's all about the social media influencers who basically give the cruise lines tons of free advertising. With O, there are some excellent business reps so passing along constructive information to your TA is a good way to get information directly to the company.

I've worn hearing aids my entire life, 57 years and counting, and I'm sorry but that's an ignorant statement. It's not the volume of the sound necessarily that needs adjusting, even with louder volume I can still have difficulty understanding dialogue depending on the sound quality. The quality of the audio mix for example plays a huge part in that. There are certain shows and movies I have watch louder because the music and FX are louder and competing with the dialogue. Other times the quality of the TV speaker muddies the voices so I have to turn it up louder to hear the dialogue. Now add in the multitude of hearing aid models. Some are entirely in the ear meaning the microphone is partially hidden inside the ear and its outward facing, not forward facing. That's going to require higher volume most of the time to hear the dialogue on the TV. The units with microphones over the ear typically provide better forward facing sound. And if you models like mine with rear facing microphones, that improves the all around sound. There are literally dozens, if not hundreds, of different types of hearing aids all employing different microphone systems and positioning in the outside the ear. Hearing aid speakers are completely different in how they are set up in the ear along with the frequencies they are tuned in to. Most hearing aids are tuned to human speech because we spend the most time talking to others. Depending on the quality of the TV speaker, human speech may be buried into a lower frequency than the hearing aid is tuned to, what we might call 'muddy audio.' That's going to require higher volume to understand the dialogue. Rear facing speakers on TVs are the worst because that creates a bit of an echo and a delay making it harder for hearing aids to always pick up the sound properly. Again, dozens if not hundreds of different speaker systems in use for hearing aids. Now add in the wealth of hearing problems among people. Depending on which frequencies we can hear well, and how good the hearing aids are in making up the difference in frequencies for us, we may require higher volumes to listen to and understand the sound coming from the TV. There are literally hundreds of reasons why someone who wears hearing aids would require a television to still be at a volume that you could hear it in the next room. Just telling people to use them is not the solution. The ability to connect wireless earbuds or headphones would be an excellent solution most hearing impaired people would enjoy. I do that most evenings after my wife has gone to bed with bluetooth earbuds.

Not to totally sidetrack the discussion but "Shetland" is amazing television! Waiting anxiously for the new season. 🙂

Personally I just love exploring cruise ships and other cruise lines It's near impossible to compare apples to apples because not everyone needs everything. Beer and Wine with dinner is nice, but nothing something I'm going to take advantage of for example, but specialty coffee all day, absolutely! So far we've sailed 9 cruise lines, O will be our 10th when we board Sirena for Christmas and we've already booked into an Alaska Group Cruise on Riviera in 2025. For us it's about experiencing all that cruising has to offer vs. staying loyal to one brand. Virgin Voyages has become a favorite of ours due to the nearly all-inclusive nature of that line along with the amazing crews on their ships. When we sail any cruise line, we go in knowing what the 'monetary value' is. But the enjoyment level for us is not just 'what's included vs. what else do I have to pay for?' It's the enjoyment of everything the ship has to offer. We sailed Symphony OTS last December during the Christmas holiday with a 110% full ship and had an absolute blast. The entertainment onboard is second to none and something you can't experience unless you're on an Oasis class ship. We'll be sailing Icon in January. It's going to be big, it's going to be loud and it should be a lot of fun. So while all of those things you listed at the top are certainly worthy points from strictly a dollar standpoint. When you put O up against the mainstream brands, O generally comes out even or ahead once you add in everything you would have to pay for on another line. But I choose different cruise ships and cruise lines for different experiences. I'm very excited to try O in December and man the Alaska itinerary in 2025 with the group is going to be amazeballs. But I just like cruise ships and if it was possible to explore all 300+ of them (and the 70+ coming in the next 5 years) in my remaining lifetime I would. And that doesn't even count the river ships... 🙂

Thanks everyone for all this amazing input. We just booked into a Group Cruise on the Riviera for Alaska 2025 and now even more excited to sail on her!

Regular beds are very firm with rather thin mattresses. Suite Beds are awesome because they are real beds. Dine and Dash is your 24 hour joint in The Galley, all night breakfast. Speaking of breakfast. the French Toast Burger from the Burger Bar in the morning is freakin' awesome. Heavy but awesome. The ship can actually be quiet all day and all night if you want it to be. The all night spot is The Manor if your plans are to party all night other than Scarlet Night. But even on Scarlet Night if you hang out in The Dock or The Dock House or anywhere in the back of the ship it's still a quiet vibe. We love looking for some of the different games to do during the day like speed puzzling, scavenger hunt and the like. People coming too close? Not really sure what that's referencing but I've not seen that any more than the other 8 cruise lines we've sailed. One thing to note from all your questions, don't overthink it. Virgin Voyages is unlike any other cruise line in how they do things. Just go in with an open mind that it's going to be different. You'll like some things about your VV experience and you'll find other things lacking compared to other cruise lines. We love VV but there are definitely things we wish they would change, like those beds. 🙂

You can Link your reservations together to make one set of dinner reservations for both of you. Yes the balcony divider can be opened up so long as it's not a firewall. Just ask your room attendant to have it opened up. The black soap was gone the last time we were on the ships. Bathrobe and slippers are for the Rock Star suites, I don't think any other categories have them. In the winter months it can be long sleeve or light sweater weather at night in the Caribbean especially if the ship is underway. We sailed last December on other cruise line and it was all shorts and t-shirts until the last two days when a Polar Vortex came through and really dropped the temperatures.

Nope, DBE as with most VV extras is per cabin, not per Sailor.

Agree to disagree. 😅 Coffee is definitely subjective, and I agree the coffee for room service is much stronger than what The Galley serves from the drip machines. I tend to go more robust, dark, bold, strong with my coffee.... 🙂

You can order coffee from Room Service and I've found that coffee to be far better than what has been served in The Galley from the 24/7 drip coffee makers. At least on Scarlet Lady in Miami, it's not been good. Grounds Club makes awesome coffee and if you order a pot of coffee from Room Service it comes in a great carafe that will keep a few cups of coffee hot for you. I would recommend making the room service order over The Galley coffee, but that's me. Go up to The Galley on your first day and have a taste of that coffee, this way you'll know before your first morning. 🙂

That's starting to become a standard if you want a second entree of specific dishes across multiple cruise lines. On our sailing we found the MDR to be better than the NCL MDR, same with the buffet. While onboard the Seaside we purchased the three meal Asian Kitchen package which at the time was $109 pp. We were 'restricted' to a specific menu for each but had more than enough food at all of the venues. The meals were all great with the Teppenyaki being the weakest. The version on NCL is better, but the MSC version is still good. Overall you may find that the specialty dining on NCL is stronger than MSC, it's one of the strongest points for NCL along with the entertainment. We did a food review of the Seaside that might give you a sense of what to expect on Seashore. We'll be sailing the Seashore in June 2024 with a group. https://youtu.be/8DNLLqRyCiA

Any good TA can do this easily for any ship, any cruise line. They have access to the full deck plans and availbility for any ship.

My guess is by Summer 2024, possibly even as early as April when she was supposed to reposition to Portugal. The ship is really not that far off and the primary crew was already assigned. With the new injection of cash, they will want to get her going sooner than later. Especially given the new CEO's focus on moving the company towards profitability. Again just a guess, but I would be surprised if they held the ship all the way to 2025 when they have ports already in place for her itineraries.

Depends on the sailing and the flexibility of the cruise line. To have holds extended means a call to the Support Center to request the extension. 9 times out of 10 they will be granted the extension but there are times when that's not possible for whatever reason. 3 days should be more than enough time to make a decision on whether to book.

To say the least, yes, yes it can from all accounts. The TA booking engine works about as well as the public website often from what I've been able to gather. 🙂

Yes but be a bit a flexible. Provide a list of restaurants and times but know that the TA may have to get something close but not exactly what you wanted. I was on the phone with our TA last night making the reservations.

You mean like last night when the Valiant Lady opened up for 11/18? Oy! White screen for over an hour. Fortunately our TA was on it booking most of our party's dinners within minutes. Geez they need to chuck that app in the garbage and hire Royal Caribbean, Carnival or Disney's App developers.