pinotlover

Smart move on booking the La Reserve dinners. Otherwise Rule #1 for Newbies: Don’t believe all the hype around Oceania’s marketing of “ Best cuisine at Sea”, thus expecting sensational dining experiences in all the venues. What I heard most from many of the Newbies on my recent Vista cruise was how disappointed they were with the food. Only a few actual complaints, but a big letdown from all the promotional hype. Enjoy the food, moderate your expectations, and you’ll be happy with your experience.We, as usual, had some excellent meals and some very mediocre meals aboard ship.

When we book Concierge, we always do so on Deck 10 in an A2 aft cabin. Nothing wrong at all with Deck 10. We choose that deck for our recent OH cabin on Vista.

A very good question. The answer actually lies in my opening comments. Oceania went with the crème de crème for their service staff on these early Vista cruises. All the staff was hand picked, previously trained, and performed very well. We knew many of them very well from previous cruises. This won’t last much longer however, as some start rotating off as early as the end of July. I therefore don’t believe it’s fair to compare the performance of this briefly assembled “ All Star Team “ to what is normally encountered on any of the ships. As typical, those serving the wine are wine stewards, not actual sommeliers as most now professionally define the term. I found many of them with a striking lack of wine knowledge. A couple, such as Tina and Nanita, were working to improve their knowledge and were excellent wine stewards. Quite a few others had almost no wine knowledge or experience, and just worked hard to pour whatever one asked for efficiently.

Absolutely! Part of Simply More! 🤫 Plus to keep everyone, particularly the bland lovers happy, the new dish is being designed to include no herbs, spices, salt, or pepper! 🤪 Just simply More!!😂

Final notes to add. Attended a birthday party in a PH on 11 on final day. The overhang over the veranda appears to have grown 4-5 feet compared to the O ships. Different people have different opinions on this as to good or bad, but it’s obvious. Overall a very enjoyable cruise. Didn’t buy a FCC since we’ll wait until after 7/1 to know more about Simply More. Having all private tours and never dealing with DS and the multiple issues of Oceania shore excursions helped immensely in increasing our overall experience.

How about this as a possible compromise. All those ordering the steaks can have options. One can order plain and bland as an option, and as your option along with levels of doneness. Or, one could order with a set selection of dry rubs. Should be a win win. Just my opinion, but we all should not be stuck at the lcd of bland. Funny story from dinner on our last night aboard. One of the passengers ordered a Margherita pizza from Waves. What came out was a cheese pizza. The passenger argued with the waitress about where was the tomato and the basil! He was told this was the Oceania Margherita pizza. We all chimed in then: it’s really a pepperoni pizza! Can’t be that, no pepperoni! It’s a caviar pizza! No caviar to be found! It’s a meat lovers pizza! Not a piece of meat there on. It’s a Margherita Pizza!!! Nope, not even a dried leaf of ground basil, no less fresh basil, or a slice of tomato. Was it even real mozzarella? 🥹 It’s the Best Cuisine at Sea??? Wide applause and laughter! To end the sailing in both the Buffet and GDR, was the infamous veal piccata Marsala! 😂😂 Just like an old time Perry Como recording for the good times ! 🍷

I specifically asked our OCA this question yesterday. “ Under the new program, can we use the tour credits to book any tour? “ Response: “ You’ll have to wait until 7/1 to find out. We can’t answer that right now.” So any claims or assumptions on how those credits can be used is pure speculation at this point. This issue matters a lot as to whether we book future cruises under the new program. We completely emancipation ourselves from Oceania shore tours on this cruise, and it is wonderful!

The moral is that no one , of acclaim, serves or prepares steaks or chops with absolutely no seasoning except Oceania. Sounds like something a hospital or senior assisted living facility would do! 🙄

There were adding and canceling shorexs as we boarded. They shaved an hour off our port stay today. We’re on a private tour and will need to adjust our itinerary accordingly. Same for those on the longer O tours. Final might be defined as when you get back to the ship.

Good Plan! Probably better if we asked house keeping to totally take them away! 🥂

In the cruise terminal.

Very few seen on current Vista cruise. In March on Marina, Covid was rampant aboard ship and the crew went to 100% mandatory masks. We, along with many others, started masking up ourselves. We bring them whether we wear them or not.

Unusual. We use an assortment of dry rubs on our steaks and chops depending upon the flavors we want for the meal. Most all have garlic powder and then vary for a French, Italian, or American West flare. All of my restaurant customers have their own variations of seasonings for meals to create their dishes . None of the restaurants give you a steak with absolutely nothing on it as O does. I do realize many O cruisers prefer bland. Often hear “ Can you put the spices on the side?” Oceania seems to cater strongly to those passengers at our dismay. Guess they save money that way. Herbs and spices cost money.

No problems at Haifa leaving the ship. We stayed in Jerusalem for two nights to eliminate the drives. Here was the routine. Everyone went to the Lounge and got color coded ticket much like tendering. They’d call your color or number and go down to get on a port bus. You’d sit on the bus until it was released to drive up to the terminal for customs and immigration. The process was smooth and efficient but not rapid. Don’t plan a tour immediately upon docking. Internet has been mostly very good aboard ship.

The Rare wine list is currently available on the Vista. Bottle prices range from $500- $2000. Enjoy!

“Oceania doesn’t do Spicy” Words straight from one of the servers in the Terrace. Bland they do, spicy ( and we’re not talking hot spices) they don’t do.

It truly has a mind of its own! 😂😂 Went off tonight after the show. All these people waiting for an elevator. Horn won’t stop until Everyone gets off. The elevator leaves empty then stopping at all the decks previously pushed! 😂😂 We walked.Deck 5 to 10 isn’t that far! 🤗 Just a few bugs to be worked out! 🥂

I was told that perhaps I was a bit inconsiderate to some about my elevator comments. Let me further explain: On the Vista, the aft elevators (2 of them) only go from 6-14, They no longer do Deck 4 or 5. This means with 2 of the 4 elevators out in the forward section, for those unable to do stairs, long lines can develop when the tour buses come and go. Also those in the aft, requiring elevators, must go forward from Deck 6 to ride the elevators to 5 to go to the Vista Lounge. Most of the ship exits have been from Deck 4 thus far, with only a couple ports using the Deck 5 exit doors.

On board now, and will give a quick one. In a PH 10045. The new layout of the room is very good. Moving the table and chairs from the front of the bed is great, as well as the separate table. Eliminating the walk in closet was a horrible idea. I could write a page on this. The benches at the foot of the beds are hazardous for the toes. Metal legs on all four corners with no cushioning. One must walk completely out and around them. Something one might forget on that 2:00 stroll to the head in the dark! 🤬 Ship- Really beautiful with lots of improvements. The huge open GDR has been cut up into sections making it feel cozier and quieter. Same for the PG and Toscana. The new layout of the Vista Lounge is terrific. The tables and chairs in the Terrace are much better spaced providing plenty of room to get to any tables. Seems the RG got a lot noisier with the new layout however. The new Spa Terrace is wonderful. Service- Awesome! After carefully cherry picking the crew, it is the crème de crème. Food - Oceania inconsistent. Had some great meals and some very mediocre meals. Interesting on this cruise only, Toscana seems to be getting the best reviews and PG the worst. Embers a yawner. Aquamar always has room for any walk up. My wife enjoyed it more than me. RG is RG. Entertainment- the best of any cruise. Both production crew and outside entertainers have been excellent. Brenda Lee, The Brill Bldg, Frank Sinatra and Perry Como are all gone. Billy Joel, Adele, Whitney Houston, Queen all in. Maybe a little Streisand for the memories. New ship,and as expected, still plenty of bugs to work out. Most notably are the elevators. One, in the forward bank, has been out of service since we boarded and another has gone out there leaving 2 of 4. Then the more humorous couple! The new elevators have sensors, along with a very load alarm, that tell you the elevator is overloaded and passengers must get off. The sensors don’t always work well. Four little old ladies not weighing 100 lbs each might set it off, as well as to many heavy people. It has its own mind! 😂 However, it won’t restart until someone gets off and the sensors reset. Most of the public spaces doors ( think bathrooms and Spa Terrace for instance) don’t have handles but have movement sensors to open them. Keeps you from touching doorknobs. One does an Obi Wan and waves their hand in front of the green light. Sometimes the doors don’t “ feel the force “ and all the Jedi hand waving is of no prevail. The door just won’t open. Then multiple Jedi try the hand waving trick and the door still may not open, or maybe it does. Some of those doors are just currently non operational. Some cabins have reported non working TVs. There are on order to be delivered sometime. I find most of this minor and these bugs will get worked out over the next few weeks/months. Not as confident about the Jedi doors however. Door handles may end up a far better option. We were notified upon boarding that an hour each had been shaven of two ports. Repeaters Party tonight, will learn more. I have done zero ship tours. Most of the actual complaints about this cruise revolve around Destination Services and the poorly ran tours. For us, it’s been an overall very delightful cruise so far.

I found his comment as being a joke. How could you ever make high end Indian without using herbs and spices. Far more Oceania guests prefer bland than anything with spices. Nothing wrong or bad about Embers food. It’s simple, it’s American, and it’s what a certain cross section of passengers want. Mauibabes mentioned Cheesecake Factory. 1000s flock to CF daily and leave satisfied. We haven’t been to one in years. Each to their own.

Heidseck Monopole

It was not served on the Marina in Feb/March 23.

I’m afraid that horse is out of the barn. If O is again serving Germain, after an absence of doing so, I’m afraid that means they bought a huge quantity of it to enjoy for a long time! 😢

A Sea Day, and just sat down with the lady at Restaurant Reservations. The story is coming together for Privee. Oceania does book the La Reserve dinners on specific nights. Max capacity is eight (8) people. To hold a dinner, all eight spaces have to be sold or the event is canceled. This is why putting together a group oneself is important, because otherwise they may not get enough signups. Currently, there has been a total ,since first sailing, of three Odyssey and no Dom P dinners held. You can’t book until aboard, and then hope to get enough to sign up on the nights available. I was able to finally get the menus for the wine pairing dinners in PG and Toscana. Will try to post later.

I’ll wait and see. We drink , so typically take the standard bev package, so no problem. We booked zero (0) Oceania shorexs for this 14 day Vista cruise. If we were stuck with a $600 excursion credit, we would have chosen one (1) OE tour somewhere to do to eat up the credit. We would still have done the cruise. This cruise, on a brand new ship, is not sold out. Will get actual numbers tomorrow at repeaters party. NCLH needs additional revenues. Oceania is running continuous sales in an attempt to sell out cruises. Expect several new revenue enhancing features to come that may or may not be voluntary.