sunlover12

We just booked our 5th Oceania cruise so we'll be at Bronze level with this one. I was looking at the benefits and I see that there is a $100 shipboard credit and a complimentary bottle of wine.  It will be the 5th cruise for both DH and myself.  I'm wondering if this is per person,  meaning will we get $200 and 2 bottles of wine?  Thanks in advance.

The devices we were using were an iPhone X and an iPad that's less than a year old.  I'd hate to think that these devices are not compatible with Oceania's wifi.  

1 hour ago, Sopwith said:

Agree with the above, but we were on Marina this past March and the internet was almost unusable.  Unless it has improved it probably won't work for voice calls or video calls like Facetime.  Even the crew admitted that it was no good.

I was on Marina in June. The internet was unusable in the cabin.  The only place on the ship where I found it to be fairly good was in Baristas. I didn't use it for voice calls or anything like FaceTime,  just basic internet for a few minutes a day. It was frustrating for us not to be able to use it in the cabin.

It's interesting how some people gets loads of mail from Oceania and some get little or none.  I've been on 4 O cruises and have never gotten any mail from them that I can recall.  No emails either.  I don't know how I got this lucky because I don't recall opting out.  Everything I need or want to know I can find online.  On the other hand, there is one cruise line (Crystal) that I've never been on that has recently started sending us brochures - about 2 or 3 a month.  It's mystifying to me how promotional mailing lists get compiled. 

9 hours ago, Andee said:

 

Only once did we book a PH suite; couldnt really appreciate having a butler.

The only reason we booked a PH is because it is almost 100 sq ft larger than a veranda. We like the larger area.  We didn't use the butler too much.  We ordered room service for breakfast twice and that was about it. 

To the OP, I would be interested to know why you think the Marina is in badly need of refurbishment.  I was on Marina in June of this year and I didn’t see that. I doubt it could have deteriorated that much in 2 months.  There were a couple of little paint chips on the wall of our cabin that you would have to be up close to in order to see it.  I observed the public areas to be in excellent condition and saw nothing that was in bad need of refurbishment.   Interesting........

i did not encounter any staff who couldn’t care less if someone had a good time. 

As others have mentioned,  Oceania does not bill itself as a luxury line.  It’s a premium line, which as I see it, means it is between the mass market lines and the luxury lines. With that said, I think that the expectations someone has before you set foot on the ship has a lot to do with how much you are going to enjoy your cruise. 

On 8/28/2019 at 10:38 AM, ORV said:

It's nice that you have an opinion, while I don't wear jeans to dinner it's good for the folks that do like designer jeans that you're not in charge. 

 

Enjoy your cruise. 

Denim in the dining room is a subject that’s been discussed at great length.  FWIW on my recent 10 day cruise I never saw anyone wearing any type of jeans in any dining venue for dinner.  One would have been in the definite minority on this particular cruise. People were dressed appropriately.  Smart casual, business casual for dinner. 

I agree with Paulchili that choosing the excursion option is the best option with OLife.  It's what we have done in the past and we feel like we got a good value.  We always choose the air credit so that we can make the air reservations on our own.  It's what works well for us.  

I prefer to avoid LHR if we can.  It's a hodgepodge of a mess between gates and the distance you may have to walk is crazy.  We arrived LHR on United and connected to SAS which is a United partner and is supposedly in the same terminal.  We did have a lot of connection time thank goodness. We didn't have to go through immigration but we did pass through security although it was not a long line. We went to the United Club from our United arrival gate, which is a walk of approximately 20 minutes and we were not walking slowly.  Nowhere in the US that I know of would you have that long of a walk to get to your airline's club. Then for some reason, LHR doesn't show what gate the flights are departing from until 45-50 minutes before departure.  We knew it was going to be a long walk so we asked at the United Club before it appeared on the board.  It was a 20-25 minute walk, using 2 different elevators and down some long corridors. All within the same terminal. I would suggest at least 2 hours minimum connection time through LHR.

Chicago O'Hare is our hub airport and I agree that it can get very congested if there is any weather issue. We fly United and it's easy connecting to the gates. It's never more than a 5 minute walk to the United Club because there are 4 at O'Hare. We have Global Entry and when we arrived at O'Hare a couple of months ago, it was 5 minutes getting through immigration.  Couldn't have been easier.

2 hours ago, Flatbush Flyer said:

 Also, a couple of the newer CDs (who came from the mass market cruise environment) need to become better acclimatized to the O culture.

 

I just want to chime in what has already been said and that is do not make any conclusions based on one or two bad reviews.  I haven't been on Sirena but I have never encountered any rude or unhappy staff.  The service has been excellent.

There have been a couple of comments on this thread and a few others about Cruise Directors coming from the mass market lines and not fitting in with Oceania.  I'm just curious what people mean by that.  I was on Marina earlier this summer and the CD was new to Oceania.  From what I've read on CC, he came from a mass market line - either Princess or HAL. We liked him and thought he did a good job.  He was not boring and he was at ease in what he did (the CD on an O cruise we did a couple of years ago seemed very uncomfortable with his job).   We were eating lunch in Waves one day and he was walking through.  We stopped him to ask a question and he was friendly.    We haven't been on Princess or HAL but we've been on Royal Caribbean and he was nothing like the CDs there. It's a different audience.  The new CD on Marina knew who his audience was and made the adjustment well, IMO. 

The tours that qualify for O Life have been very good, in my experience. The selection of what qualifies is broad in many of the ports.  There is something for everyone. I agree with FlatbushFlyer that the tours do not exceed 30 passengers per tour guide.  I’ve been on some that were 16 passengers. 

Although there will will be a few exceptions, the tour guides are excellent.  Very knowledgeable, experienced and not at all boring.  With Oceania,  you will get much more than a drive-around with stops for photos as you explained in your experience with Viking. 

7 hours ago, ORV said:

They generally have all the same food as the Main dining room.

One of my favorite entrees in the GDR is the Jacques Pepin rotisserie chicken and I don’t ever remember seeing that in the Terrace Cafe but I could be wrong. 

I do like having dinner in the Terrace Cafe. It allows me to sample various items and the menu changes frequently. Additionally sometimes we just do not want to spend close to 2 hours having dinner. 

We were on Marina in June and purchased a Future Cruise Certificate.  You have to choose your cruise within one year.

Enjoy your cruise this week.

15 hours ago, masscruiser2010 said:

 

 

 

The food options offered each day did not even measure up to Royal Caribbean, much less to the luxury lines.  As a matter of fact, we would even rate the buffet of NCL -- Oceania's mass-market sister -- as better than the Oceania buffet.  The Insignia's sandwich choices were pathetic, the cheese selection was the same day after day, and the organization of the buffet -- with the grill clogging traffic in the middle -- was such that the scene was generally one of chaos.

 

 

I have sailed on Royal Caribbean and will continue to. I like it for various reasons but their food is not one of them. Their food choices are monotonous and the buffet is something we try to avoid. Although there is usually a line at the grill in the Terrace buffet on O, the food that is offered there is not something you will find on Royal Caribbean. Sorry to hear of your bad experience on Oceania.  My experience has been quite the opposite. 

52 minutes ago, AlaskaNewbie68 said:

My only concern is seasickness on a smaller vessel, but I'll have my seabands on and will take Dramamine as a precaution. 

 

 

I haven't been on Sirena but I've been on Regatta twice.  Neither me nor DH needed Dramamine or patches.  They're smaller ships but they are very smooth and stable.  Have a wonderful first cruise on Oceania.

Ship's tours are taking a lot of heat on this thread so I'm going to say something in their defense. I understand how one can feel annoyed if you're on a bus waiting for someone who is not back at the time they were supposed to be or if there is someone who cannot keep up with the group. It happens.  I was recently on a 10-day Baltic cruise and took the ship's excursions in every port.  For whatever reason, we have not done private tours. Maybe we were just lucky but we experienced no problems at all.  None.  On every tour we were on, everyone was back on the bus at the specified time and there were no stragglers holding up the rest of us.   There was one port where I heard a little bit of discussion directed at the tour guide that she was walking too fast and there were some in the group who could not keep up. They were right.  This particular guide was young and somewhat inexperienced and had to be reminded to slow the pace down a little. She understood and it was good after that.

If you read O's explanation of every excursion, it explains in detail how many steps there are to climb, cobblestone streets that need to be managed, etc etc.  I think more people are taking note of it and complying. All that I'm saying here is do not assume that if you are on a ship's tour you will be delayed by stragglers or by others with mobility issues. To each their own but this has been my experience. 

14 hours ago, edgee said:

We are frequent spa service users. With over 40 cruises worth of experience on both mainstream and luxury cruise lines we have found Canyon Ranch spa services to be overpriced and staff to be generally arrogant and cold compared to spas on ships run by other companies. After a few recent years of cruising only lines with  Canyon Ranch spas (Cunard, Oceania, Regent and Celebrity), we recently cruised Crystal and HAL which have Steiner run spas. It was somewhat of a shock to see more reasonably priced messages without having to rely on port day specials to get spa services at a decent price. Steiner was certainly not perfect, but we generally found the staff more friendly in addition to the better pricing. We certainly consider this change eliminating Canyon Ranch as a likely positive, pending a decent experience with the new company.

 

 

 

In addition to Canyon Ranch Spa on Oceania, I've only been to one other cruise line spa and that's Royal Caribbean.  The quality of CRS is very good but I agree with you that the staff can be too business-like and not all that friendly.  I've found the spa staff on Royal Caribbean to be friendlier although they did push the product-sell at the end too hard.  Canyon Ranch Spa didn't push it. 

However both spas are very overpriced.  I didn't think CRS on Oceania had higher prices than the Vitality Spa on RC.  I'll be interested to see who replaces Canyon Ranch. 

15 minutes ago, StanandJim said:

Actually it does log off automatically after a ten minute period of inactivity. 

Maybe it did at one time but I was just on Marina last month and it definitely did not log off automatically after any period of inactivity.

38 minutes ago, roothy123 said:

Yes, and I sure wish everyone logged off when done, although I've never been sure if that's necessary.  (Does the system log you off automatically after an amount of time has passed with no activity?)

 

 

It does not log you off automatically. You have to do that yourself.  Maybe that's part of the problem why the wi-fi is so slow.

Something to keep in mind that is new this year in St. Petersburg is that ship's excursions have priority over independent tours in passing through immigration.  The information that we were given is that Russian immigration started doing this in 2019 in order to ease congestion. Independent tour passengers have to wait 90 minutes before they can go through immigration.  I can't comment on Princess but we were on Oceania last month and this is what we were told.  

We took the ship's excursions and the way I see it is you have to navigate through the crowds at The Hermitage whether you're on a ship's excursion or private tour.  We only waited a few minutes to get inside, but once inside is where the big crowds are.

I was on Marina last month and inquired about the 7-bottle package on embarkation day.  We've had it in the past and thought it was a pretty good value.  After speaking with one of the wine stewards, turns out I was wrong. I admit I am not a wine expert by any means - I know just enough to know what I like and don't like.  He talked us out of purchasing it because it's not a good value at all and the quality of those wines are not good.  They didn't even have a printed list.  My husband decided to get the Prestige drink package. A benefit of this package is that it allows you to buy a bottle of wine at a discount.  I think it was 20%.  I don't drink enough to buy the package but I did ask if I could drink from the bottle that he purchased and the answer was yes.  So that's what we decided to do and it was a good decision.  The staff was very good at retrieving bottles we had from storage in minimal time. 

I agree that the "bin-end" selection of wines is an excellent purchase.  We purchased one of these bottles in Toscana and it was the best wine I had on the cruise.  It was a white wine and I wish I had taken a picture of it.  These wines are already reduced in price so the 20% discount doesn't apply.

1 hour ago, pinotlover said:

Some people go on vacation to have a vacation and to escape the Internet.

 

I agree but if I am away for 2 weeks I want to be able to read my email and use the basic internet for 20 minutes a day.  Sometimes doing just that is an exercise in frustration if you are on an Oceania ship.  I just returned from a Baltic cruise on Marina and the wi-fi was terrible.  There were times when it was down completely.  When it wasn't down, it was slower than molasses.  Some people are trying to do business when they're on a cruise ship. The wi-fi was non-existent in the cabin. The only place on the ship where it worked for me was in the library and Baristas.  I complained about it on my end-of-cruise comment card.

 Yes, I understand that people are cruising Oceania for the food, ambience and service.  However they are far, far below other cruise lines in quality of their wi-fi.

12 minutes ago, clo said:

Curious as to why please.

Polo was ordinary, nothing memorable. My filet mignon was just okay. Honestly, it wasn’t tender and tasty. One of my table mates sent her steak back because it was not cooked as ordered. I don’t even remember what sides I had.  The tuna tataki appetizer and sea bass that I had in RG was the best meal that I had on the cruise.

Again, this is just my opinion.  Food is subjective. 

We just got off Marina. We had one reservation in each of the 4 specialty restaurants. They were all very good but our hands-down favorite was Red Ginger. The food and the service cannot be beat. Polo was my least favorite. Of course, this is just my opinion and I recommend that you try each of them. 

I’m on Marina now and I have to say the wi-fi is mind-numbingly slow.  I’ve only used it for email and browsing a few websites. I’m using an iPhone. Forget about FaceTime, Skype and uploading photos. Oceania is wonderful but their wi-fi on board is an area that is seriously lacking when compared to other cruise lines. The policy of only one person in the cabin (unless you want to pay a hefty added fee) using the wi-fi at a time is baffling to me.