ak1004

On our last SS cruise they did the same. It was a direct ask from the cruise director. We also felt that this was very inappropriate. We typically leave a tip to our butler, but getting a direct solicitation from a senior member of the ship management just felt wrong.

Never got any calls from O, and we did 4 cruises with them and 3 more booked.

But if this is how people decide to select a cruise line, then yes, better to sail on a less "desperate" line (although the ships are full most of the time, so I don't think they really have a reason to be desperate).

2 hours ago, Woodrowst said:

The exclusive activities were not listed online or in print.  They were announced at the evening briefing for the next day’s activity.  It is possible that SS limits the exclusive activities to expedition voyages since those tend to be more inclusive in terms of activities (zodiac rides, kayaking, and landings/tours).  Perhaps someone who has been on both a SS traditional and expedition ship can chime in as to whether this happens on a SS traditional ship.

We are near the end of our third SS cruise, never had any exclusive activities.

In fact, excursions were probably the most inconsistent part of the whole cruise. Guides varied between excellent to really bad, and the worst part was the group size, with few excursions having 30-35 people. This is not how I would imagine ultra luxury line, especially considering that the excursions are included, which is reflected in the price.

11 hours ago, FlyerTalker said:

 

And that pretty much sums it up.  If you are happy with "good enough", there's an option for you.  And if you want better than "good enough", there are other options.  All depends on YOUR wishes and expectations.

 

 

Yes, but SS service is far from consistent. The service on our current cruise is truly outstanding, on our previous two cruises, not so much. Who knows how will it be on the next one?

Even if the overall experience is a small step up compared to O, it is simply not enough for us to justify paying 60-80% more.

11 hours ago, FlyerTalker said:

 

IMO, and it's nothing more, too many have been seduced by the whole "THE FINEST CUISINE AT SEA®" marketing.  I've consistently found SS dining to overall surpass O, except for the grill to order in the Terrace.

 

The O MDR is nothing to write home about.  Specialties may well excel, but do we judge on the totality or on just our favorites?

 

 

I would say the same about Atlantide. Very slow service, limited choices (the menu is much smaller than previously) and the quality is usually between good and very good, while on O is between very good and excellent.

We actually liked La Terraza very much, but no more than Toscana. 
 

4 hours ago, osandomir said:

For us the choice is the result of the equation of the accommodation, the food, the price/value and most importantly the itineraries. So far Oceania won big.

 

But probably if you look at the other boards the result will be different.

This pretty much summarizes our sentiment. We would gladly sail on both lines given the right itinerary, but I can book O for around $400 per day for European sailings, sometimes even less, so I won’t pay $600-700 for SS. Value is just not there anymore, at least for me. Btw, many current guests on SS share similar sentiment.

We are currently on Silver Spirit, our third SS cruise. 
 

I would say that service is probably a step up compared to O, but service on O is good enough for us most of the time, and food on O is definitely better than SS. Considering the price difference, O is much better value for us at this point, but this applies to the newer O ships only, not the R class ships with the small cabins, tiny bathrooms and limited dining options.

4 hours ago, Hlitner said:

Am I missing something here?  You mean if a cruiser does not act within an arbitrary time (1 year) they will lose the deposit?  With most if not all, other lines, any deposit is automatically returned (with no hassle) after a specific time.  

With Oceania you need specifically to request it. I don’t know what happens if you don’t. We did it last year, one email to our TA and the refund was in our account within couple of weeks.

12 minutes ago, chrism23 said:

These comments are reinforcing my fears about SS moving up to bigger ships. You could see this coming.  The largest ship I have been on has been the Muse @500+.  I haven't been on the Ray or Nova, the new ships that are 700+. I have 2 cruises booked on the Whisper and Wind.  Perhaps this deserves a separate thread.  I feel the Muse is about as big as SS can handle. I always do dinner at 7:00 PM.  I have never had to wait, I didn't always get a table for 2 by the window but always went right in.  If I had to wait to get into Atlantide or The Restaurant as the MDR was always called at 7:00 PM I would throw a fit.  That is a deal breaker for the whole SS experience.  The other issue that is going to be a problem, I think, on the larger ships are excursions.  On the Muse there were a couple that had 3 buses going to the same place at the same time.  This is simply too many people for any excursion.  It's interesting that many of the fears expressed by SS regulars are coming to pass.  Unfortunately I do not trust RCL to correct these mistakes, they are only going to make it worse.  

 

I will give one of the new ships a chance, expecting the worst.  Notice that the 2 cruises I have booked on the Wind and Whisper. I also do expeditions, these on the older, smaller ships.  It will be 2027 when I book the next cruise which will be on one of the behemoths..  Hopefully their issues will be sorted by then.  

We sailed on Oceania Riviera 3 times which has 1250 guests. Never had any issues with getting into the dining room. Never felt any more crowded than the Spirit.

Those comments about 700 Guests ships being too large are laughable. It’s all matter of how they are designed, how many dining venues they have and how large the dining venues are. 
 

but Oceania also has evening buffet which releases a lot of the pressure from other venues. A big plus for many people.

And the service on a 600 guests ship is not necessarily more personal than 1200 guests ship.

7 hours ago, drron29 said:

On our last 2 Muse cruises we were asked if we wanted to share a table in Atlantide.

When we want to cancel a reservation at a restaurant we always ring reception and they cancel it.

Exactly. I think some of the issues mentioned here are really non issues. I don’t know why people are looking for negatives all the time. I’m really not a cheerleader of any line, but on our current sailing on the Spirit I couldn’t find any significant negative if if I looked hard (and I don’t). We are just enjoying our cruise.

Of course it is also related to the price. Maybe if I didn’t pay just $400 per night, I would see things differently..

16 hours ago, Observer said:

 

Do you happen to know how many passengers are on the ship?  I cannot recall Atlantide's not being full by, say, 7:30 or 7:45 pm on a heavily booked cruise. 

According to our butler, there are currently 520 guests on board the Spirit.

On our previous Spirit sailing in December 2022 there were only 390 guests, and the service now is actually much better.

1 hour ago, Observer said:

 

Do you happen to know how many passengers are on the ship?  I cannot recall Atlantide's not being full by, say, 7:30 or 7:45 pm on a heavily booked cruise. 

I will ask tomorrow but most categories were waitlisted months before the cruise started. 

4 hours ago, bohaiboy said:

Both  pre and post .  Atlantide overwhelmed by customer at 700.  Then customers sit around chatting   We arrived at 835 pm tonight. Not seated until 905 pm. Missed 930 show.  We just booked a SB cruise.  Fed up with SS and the RCL management

we had dinner yesterday 7pm. Group of 6. The service was excellent. The place was not full. Menu more limited than previous sailings, but still plenty of choices.

We are on the Spirit now. I must say that the level of service improved significantly compared to our previous two cruises. But the menus in Atlantide shrank. And black caviar is not in the menu anymore, although it is still available on demand. But overall a better experience due to better service.

2 hours ago, Vineyard View said:

I am surprised you are sailing on SS again. I was under the impression from your posts that you don’t feel very enamored with them in the first two. I hope you have a great trip. 

We sail based on itinerary and pricing. This is a great itinerary at unbelievable price (around $400 USD per night). We enjoyed cruising on SS very much (except for the crazy dress code which is now more relaxed), I just didn't feel that they are in a different league compared to O (the whole luxury vs. premium discussion). But at that price plus fantastic itinerary, with one overnight and 4 late stays, it was a no brainer.

8 minutes ago, ronrick1943 said:

We were on the Nova last December-Janurday cruise.  Service surprise me, just wasn't top notch like you'd expect.  They posted some of our laundry, run out of a white wine (non-alcohol) and even run out of lettuce for salads for the salad bar.  The port were pretty big cities, so it's not like they couldn't get it.  

We had exactly the same experience on the Dawn in December. They ran out of Perrier and Pellegrino mid cruise, also most diet drinks. Except for cabins which are much better, I didn't see anything that justifies their current prices. Service was very good overall, but not better than O.   

2 hours ago, ronrick1943 said:

This why we stopped cruising Regent and Silversea--spending extra dollar for things we don't use.  We also don't drink and prefer to tour on are own.  Now back on "O".

We will be boarding SS on Monday, our third SS cruise and probably will be our last. Their current prices are almost double compared to O, just cannot justify it.

We will be boarding our third SS cruise on Monday. All three times we booked GTY Vista. The assignment happened around 12-14 days before the cruise. It was pretty consistent in terms of timing. We got upgraded to Veranda on the previous two times, but not this time. We are perfectly fine not to have veranda, otherwise we would not book Vista GTY.

13 minutes ago, highplanesdrifters said:

 

I think you hit the nail on the head and explained the current situation perfectly.  

 

Add in:

Along with new cruisers there are also the upgraders.  Will folks find the upgrade from Oceania, Viking, etc. worth it?

Lots of folks trying expedition, will all the new ships get supported?

Will the excessive marketing to a younger demographic work? Enough with all the influencers on board!

 

Although we currently have 4 expeditions booked I'm actively looking for alternatives. 

 

We don't consider SS a real upgrade from O, definitely not worth 50%+ higher price.

45 minutes ago, Hlitner said:

 

Getting back to O, I am not a fan of their Simply More program.  It forces us to book overpriced excursions that we would never consider...otherwise.  We talked to a few O fans who also do not like excursions and told us they will continue to cruise on O and just eat the SM cost.  Like us, they are not fans of cruise ship excursions.  My goodness, in Rovinji, we tagged along (for a few minutes) at the rear of a walking tour (about $100 pp).  These folks were walking on the same streets as us (we paid zero) and the few minutes of guide-talk we heard was just boring.  While I do understand that some folks like excursions, many others see them as boring.  Trying to force us to pay for excursions we do not want is not the way to build loyalty It just reinforces our desire to be on our current favorite line (Seabourn) that does not include any excursions in their pricing.

 

Hank

I agree with you Hank. At least with SM you get just few hundred dollars credit for excursions (probably around $30-35 per day per person on average?) while on SS and Regent all excursions are included, which bumps the price significantly. 

But people who don't drink still would be paying for something they don't use on all premium/luxury lines.

At the end of the day, it's all about the total price and how it compares to other lines.

I enjoyed your reports very much, thank you very much, and glad that you enjoyed O! 

18 minutes ago, pinotlover said:

Bland dishes and sauces. Made up Americanized recipes. NoNos don’t like garlic, so don’t expect garlic even in dishes that call for it. Nothing new here folks. Remember the NoNo call all these dishes excellent. 

I guess I'm one of those NoNos because I considered food on on our Riviera cruise last May excellent. And for the record, I like spices and absolutely love garlic, and I never found the food bland.

On our cruise in November on the Marina, the minibus full day tour in Casablanca is $1,000, up to 10 guests. This is very reasonable I think, even if you have only 6 people, it's around $166 per person for a full day private tour. For 10 people, it's only $100 pp, I would consider it cheap.

4 hours ago, RetiredOnVacation said:

That's interesting to know! However we also avoid 1000+ capacity ships - just don't like to be around so many people especially boarding/ports etc, and much prefer the 400-800 passenger class but with high space ratios.  So 1400 or so on the newer O ships explain the greater choice of venues, due the greater capacity, but wouldn't work for us, but thanks for your info! Guess you won't be seeing us on O! 

Riviera and Marina are 1250 guests. Never felt more crowded than Spirit or Dawn, and it took around the same time to get on/off the ship. Honestly, if we didn't know the numbers, we probably couldn't tell the difference.

But that's fine, everyone has their preferences.

7 hours ago, RetiredOnVacation said:

For us it's not just cabin size - though that is what you're spending a good deal of time in, so you'll want comparative cabin sizes; it's more the space ratio (defined very well on cruisemapper). Not been on O so can't comment on how it actually feels, but comparing a typically similar passenger capacity O ship to SS ship (ie. O Insignia/Nautica, with SS Dawn/Moon) cruisemapper has space ratio of 38 for O, versus 56 for SS. Far more space per person on SS and that's an important consideration for us worth paying for! 

I agree that space ratio is a significant factor, but you are comparing older O ships. To me, they are less attractive (smaller cabins, tiny showers in standard cabins, so PH is almost a must, less dining options etc). We sail on the newer ships only (Riviera, Marina and Vista), and those ships have much better space ratio (closer to SS), good size cabins, more dining options etc. Riviera never felt more crowded than Spirit or Dawn - in fact, I would say that the buffet on SS felt a bit more crowded than on Riviera.

If you looked at the older O ships, I can completely understand why you looked at PH (and the pricing is really not competitive in my opinion), but on the newer ships standard balcony is 240 sqft, which is more than sufficient, and if it's enough for you, I believe it's a better value than SS.

3 hours ago, pinotlover said:

Not a similar cruise.

 

The missing link for O cruisers is port fees. Barcelona, Venice, Dubrovnik, etc., have been both drastically reducing the number of cruise passengers ( thus ships) allowed, but likewise drastically increasing port fees for those ships that do make it in. While labor, food, and fuel costs have all increased; it’s a worthless exercise to compare cruise prices without including port fees.

 

Recenting read a cruise industry rag talking about this issue. Those of us signing up for cruises two (2) plus years in advance may find ourselves more and more disappointed as many of the ports opt to reduce ship visits. 

I understand about port fees, but the cruises I compared are very similar. Same period, same region, both have overnight in Bordeaux plus Saint Malo, Brest and Paris. So considering the fact the port fees have increased, you would expect even higher price increase than 3.7% increase.

7 hours ago, Woodrowst said:

Neither the choir nor exclusive use of the Giant’s Causeway was listed in the tour descriptions.  They have been trying to delight us and exceed our expectations on a regular basis and usually announce any “above and beyond” a day or two in advance.

 

i have not been on the Dawn or Spirit so do not know if this occurs on both the Silversea expedition and traditional cruises.  I am sure there are cruisers on this thread who have and can provide an informed comment.

Well, this is exactly my point.

Your example is definitely very nice and if it was done on a regular basis, this is something I would definitely be willing to pay for. But I'm not sure how often does it happen on SS traditional cruises on ships that are 3 times larger.

Also don't forget that when you are talking about service in general,  Endeavour also has much almost 1:1 guest/crew ratio, much higher than other SS ships, and I'm sure it is reflected in the service (but also in the price). So Endeavour experience is probably more luxury, but does not necessarily representative to luxury/premium lines discussion.

1 hour ago, RetiredandTravel said:

 

I always compare a veranda on SS vs PH on Oceania and when I include a drink pakage , excursions etc I often find the price to be close to the same.  Full disclosure I've only compared a few cruises.  I'm actually looking at a South America cruise right now.

 

The main complaint I've read about Oceania is the food & service in the main dining room.  Comments?

 

I agree that comparison really depends on the category you select. SS veranda is between O veranda and O PH in terms of size, so it's hard to do apples to apple comparison.

However, around 80% of the cabins on any ship are standard veranda cabins, so this is what most people book. For us even OV is fine, so we compare OV (or French veranda on Vista) with Vista on SS, and the difference is very significant, especially for 2025 sailings.

Also, O now includes drinks with meals and some excursion credit, and we prefer to book our own tours anyway.

Food in O MDR is excellent in my opinion. Service is usually between very good and excellent, with some occasional misses, but we found SS to be the same, so I would say comparable.

To me, the biggest advantage of SS is larger cabins, but it's much less significant for us. Most other areas they are comparable, so paying 50-60% more for SS just doesn't make sense to me, especially considering we don't drink. But this is very personal decision of course.