pinotlover

I believe the comment was made tongue in cheek! 😂😂 Someone on Vista can confirm, but again I believe it was a veal tomahawk, not regular beef.

He very clearly said “ on this sailing”!!! Were you on THAT sailing? Most of Oceania’s cruises, especially during the school time months have few kids. However, during the summer and holidays periods, there is a marked increase in family travel. Oceania even advertises some of its summer Alaskan cruises for family and kids. Obviously you’ve never taken any of those by your comment.

I agree. Having Options are wonderful! Currently there are a multitude of O cruises on R ships waiting and available to be booked. Love for those ships is more quantified by cruises booked, not CC posts made. Show your love!

I believe it opened just after Covid. Everything was all new and shiny. There were two other ships at dock on our Embarkation Day. Not sure how much that added. My only advice is to be ready for a lengthy walk and carry or lug no more than absolutely necessary. Let the porters take care of it. We did get all porter checked baggage promptly delivered to our cabin door within 45 minutes or so of boarding .

We came in on a bus from an Oceania pre cruise tour. It was still hectic and port security moved the bus around a couple of times. It ended up being quite the walk from where we were dropped off to go through the security and immigration maze and onto the ship. For those mobility impaired, or choosing to carry aboard very much, it was tedious. The nearly mile walk in the airport from the arrival gate to baggage claim is a good warm up exercise!

We now have two each from past cruises. Left ours, from the Vista, aboard ship, as it takes up suitcase space better utilized for wine! 😂 I wonder if those bottles are sterilized and reissued, or…?

Why do you keep posting if you’re not cruising? You missed the point of the post about Gratuities. That’s what the thread is entitled. I submitted that grats make up a small to minimal portion of the various crews income. Ships are not US restaurants with people working for tips. All crew members have an assigned rank and corresponding pay scale. Their compensation is not variable based on the number of beds sold or the number of adult beverage drinkers aboard. If that was the case, you wouldn’t have many applicants for O ships because of its demographics. The ones you get would only be to get experience so to work on a higher compensation line. Good employees, working for tips, go to where the tips are. Can you understand the correlation? Not drinking and/or going to bed by 9;00 affects overall tipping!!!

Perhaps your example is merely a case of self selection. I put together three separate winery tours and wine tastings on our South American cruise. All 14-16 drank wine. It was a advertised wine tour. However, I’d never draw any conclusions from that small group’s participation on how many wine drinkers there was on the ship. The number of people at the repeaters party drinking cola or coffee is a better indicator.

Just a few facts on the issue. FDR told the double diamonds that at least one more A ship is planned beyond Allura making it three. Those three new A ships with 1200 passengers capacity will represent a 32% total capacity increase over the four replaced R ships. 2720 capacity. Insignia was refurbished in 2018. By 2026, that’s eight years since refurbishment. Even with two of the years in cold storage, that’s pushing the envelope. Regatta and Sirena were refurbished in 2019. I believe FDR when he said Oceania won’t be spending any more money refurbishing or overhauling the R ships. By 28 or 29, they’ll be gone from the fleet. I believe, on a separate note, this really calls into question Sycamore Partners objective of trying to keep an entire fleet of 20+ year old ships going very long into the future. Not sure how many O customers will leave for Az to follow the R ships. Highly doubtful there is much love for those R ship bathrooms among the pre 65 year old. The current Cruisers reminiscing about Renaissance is quickly diminishing.

I believe that tomahawk steak was veal, if I remember correctly.

😳

Yes, that’s what I said. Prime rib is not available, nor is it planned to be, on the Vista. My question was concerning Marina or the other ships.

For the OP, or someone still aboard the Marina. Prime rib has been eliminated from the PG menu and we were told the other O ships would be doing the same shortly. Is the prime rib still available in the Polo Grill? I may have to check back with this question in a couple months!

All onboard ship staff have a rank and corresponding pay grade. Tips are primarily used for rewards and employee recognition and motivation programs. Let’s get serious for one minute. If you’re a twenty or thirty something waitstaff person working where tips represent even a noticeable portion of your income, would you rather work on: 1. A large ship, with lots of people drinking volumes watching belly flop contests and dancing into the night; or 2. A small ship with a large number of Teatotallers and geriatrics that are in bed by 9:00? It’d be interesting to see how some vote! 😂

I never reward employees with poor performance by giving them more money. Neither did I ever reward insolent children for bad behavior. Oceania cut those port stays for their own benefit and whatever games they play. We did all private tours, and merely worked the new tour details with our tour providers.

In 2017, several of O tour groups went out of that other pier. This time none of Oceania’s did. It appeared that MSC tours were being taken there.🥂

On our June Vista cruise we had two ports reduced by one hour, and one port reduced by 2 hours. We had spectacular weather the entire trip and didn’t miss any ports. We were notified of the port time reductions upon boarding by being given a new itinerary. One had to read the itinerary and compare it to the previous one to catch the changes. They didn’t point them out.

In June, on the Vista, in Santorini. First understand that the tenders into port are not ran by Oceania, but by the port authority. Their boats can carry about twice as many as an Oceania tender. That’s the good news. The rest of the story is they also manage crowd control at the pier, and thus the vernacular up, by running the tender craft on a time basis as to not overload the pier. This means the longer wait may be inside the Lounge waiting for your number/color to be called. I believe we waited around 30 minutes in the Lounge, and then 45 minutes in line at the bottom. Coming back with all the people on the other ships was horrible. About 1.5 hours in the hot sun, to catch the ride down.

Good Luck. I’d definitely use an Expeditor service! 🥂

Yep! Recent articles on the backlogs. I suspect successful planning of future travel will include leaving a time gap for passport renewal of at least 5 months. Reading the article about people waiting until 90 days or less to apply leaves little room for sympathy. FWIW, I have a friend working for the IRS. They are thousands of workers short. Restaurants and many service businesses are thousands of workers short. Unless your house is flooding, it takes 3 months to get a plumber out. The passport office is short workers. Apply early.

I believe there is another thread on this but here goes. Privee - It is ONLY bookable aboard ship for La Reserve dinners. Reservations can be made at the Dining Reservations Desk on Deck 5. The three La Reserve dinners are offered on various nights. They don’t tell you which nights in the daily Currents. You have to talk to the people at the Dining Reservations Desk, to get a schedule of when each event will be held. One’s butler may be able to get the schedule also. For a dinner to actually be held there must be a minimum of eight (8) attendees sign up for the dinner on that night. Therefore , if one can put together the group of eight, or near to it, they have a better chance of the dinner occurring. Individual prices for the La Reserve dinners are listed on the website. Wine paired dinners for the new special private rooms in PG and Toscana are advertised in Currents, but not far in advance. Same as with Privee- Go to the Dining Reservation Deck and inquire about which nights the dinners are offered. The dinner in the PG is around $190 + 20% grata. I think Toscana was $125ish + grats. Those rooms appeared to be individually bookable on other nights , however there is minimal spending and I didn’t inquire. The important thing is: Nothing can be done before boarding and best to talk early with the Dining Reservations Desk to get schedules and costs.

Oceania has a dress code not required by countries visited or other cruise lines. I could put up a list of items Oceania requires that aren’t mandatory by laws. The entire world isn’t about LCD! Six months validity isn’t a tough requirement. Check your passport and get it renewed well ahead of time.

In 17 or 18 on a cruise, we had a passenger that kept going down to Deck 3 and the crew bar. They have their own bar where they can have drinks , relax, and mingle. He kept telling everyone how great the bar was opposed to the dead atmosphere at Martinis or Horizons in the evening. Finally one night, Security had to escort him out and ban him from going into the crew’s quarters. He was distraught, said it was the only place on the ship that showed any life and vitality. I sincerely doubt that the buffet or the bars would want to compete straight up with the crew’s offerings.

I asked one of our servers what she thought about the difference in food we got as opposed to the crew. She said she liked the crew food better. Our food was too bland and tasteless for her and her friends. She said the crew has their own really good dedicated cooks that know how to make different cuisine totally unlike what we get upstairs. I guess that means everything isn’t Americanized for them.

Corporate Communications are not a strong suit of Oceania. Their corporate website is an extension of that philosophy. The website is poor because they want it to be.