Best ways to make use of a butler

This will be our first time in a Vista Suite and first time having a butler. If you have had a butler before on Oceania, in what ways have they added to the enjoyment of your cruise? We will be celebrating our tenth wedding anniversary so it is a very special trip for us.

Thank you,

Tread

This will be our first time in a Vista Suite and first time having a butler. If you have had a butler before on Oceania, in what ways have they added to the enjoyment of your cruise? We will be celebrating our tenth wedding anniversary so it is a very special trip for us.

 

Thank you,

Tread

Aside from that person being available to retrieve the reading glasses which you left in the Grand Dining Room, or to send the novel that your wife forgot, up to her lounge on the Pool Deck, the services of a Butler are a bit like having ones' own private Oceania ambassador.

Your Butler will know where to find martini glasses at midnight, or where to buy wrapping paper in Monaco, or even something as simple as which lobby the gangway will be in for tomorrow's port call. Don't hesitate to make use of that expertise to make your cruise smoother and more enjoyable.

Butlers organize Specialty Restaurant reservations, arrange In Suite entertaining and generally tend to whatever details the Passenger finds tiresome. We've had Butlers collect our Shore Excursion Tickets from the front desk, our Passports from the Purser, even our Bingo winnings from the Cruise Director, once. :p

This will be our first time in a Vista Suite and first time having a butler. If you have had a butler before on Oceania, in what ways have they added to the enjoyment of your cruise? We will be celebrating our tenth wedding anniversary so it is a very special trip for us.

 

Thank you,

Tread

Use the butler just like you use the one at home :D:D:D:D.

Your butler will do things for you that you would never think of just to make your cruise perfect. Also remember all the wonderful breakfasts he will set up for you on your balcony or inside. Now for the best part--dinners served course by course from your choice of specialty restaurantor the MDR. You will probably want to take your butler home with you.

We would!

Your butler will do things for you that you would never think of just to make your cruise perfect. Also remember all the wonderful breakfasts he will set up for you on your balcony or inside. Now for the best part--dinners served course by course from your choice of specialty restaurantor the MDR. You will probably want to take your butler home with you.

We would!

I will send mine over to you....enjoy If I cant think of it, chances are good I do not really need it!

Thank you to those who offered helpful advice. The point of having a butler is to celebrate an amazingly wonderful event in our life, our tenth wedding anniversary. Remember that we never expected to have the opportunity to marry, as two men in love. But we lived in Massachusetts where it all started.

Yes, a butler does things I could do myself but when I go to a hotel, I do not make up the beds or clean the room!

First congrats on your milestone!

We celebrated our 25 th on Oceania and loved having a butler.

Breakfast in bed, somehow getting the most romantic water view tables for two in the specialty restaurants, and making sure our 1st cruise on Oceania was perfect.

He also did a bit of pressing for us, made sure our favorite drinks were in the fridge, and told us the best places for photo ops on shore. He printed our boarding passes, kept the champagne cold, and even brought us delicious treats not on the menu.

On our actual anniversary night he brought us the most amazing dinner. He chose the menu from all of the specialty restaurants, bringing his favorites from each one.

Do I need a butler. . . No

Do I have one at home. . . No

Did it make my cruise even better. . . Definitely!

Thank you to those who offered helpful advice. The point of having a butler is to celebrate an amazingly wonderful event in our life, our tenth wedding anniversary. Remember that we never expected to have the opportunity to marry, as two men in love. But we lived in Massachusetts where it all started.

 

Yes, a butler does things I could do myself but when I go to a hotel, I do not make up the beds or clean the room!

So happy for the two of you. Our daughters just celebrated their fifteenth, however, just a few months legal in DE.

Have a fantastic cruise.

CONGRATS TO YOU BOTH! (It's our 41st coming up, and yes it's legal in California now)

Yes a lot of people will say you don't need a Butler, however when we wake up in the morning open the door to the living area.....I like the smell of fresh coffee and really fresh croissants that he placed on the dining table.

And if anything goes wrong, he can make it right, not that it does.

But the biggest reason you need a Butler is....Your on vacation, so enjoy it while you can.

We can't wait till our next cruise May 22 out of New York, then on to Copenhagen.

Rick & Ron

The best thing our butler, Binod, did for me was to deliver a beautifully wrapped box from the shipboard store that my husband had purchased earlier in the day.

He presented it on a silver tray as we were enjoying pre dinner cocktails in horizons with our traveling companions. How decadent and such a departure from our "normal" life! At home we take turns being the butler, but on a cruise ship, we leave it to the experts! And they are experts!!

The butlers are willing to do almost anything to make your trip special and memorable.

C'mon JimandStan.........a bit far fetched methinks.

Unless it is gold plated being in Monaco.

We find Shanks Pony the best for offshore bulk buying of wrapping paper !!

Brian

For some of the most beautiful papers of any kind visit Gaggiocarta Girotto, San Carlo, Venice. :)

Orchestrapal

That does not solve my crisis in Monaco !

Brian

C'mon JimandStan.........a bit far fetched methinks.

 

Unless it is gold plated being in Monaco.

 

We find Shanks Pony the best for offshore bulk buying of wrapping paper !!

 

Brian

Actually, that example often springs to mind when I write about Butlers because Stan, canny fellow that he is, often sees to it that we are on a cruise when the anniversary of his birth occurs.

On one such occasion I arrived at the ship with my gift suitably secreted (no small success in this post 9/11 World) and while I HAD managed to carry wrapping paper with me (it is, after all, flat and light), the matching ribbon and bow had become hopelessly mangled in transit.

Now naturally, all of this is playing out while we are getting dressed to go to what Stan thinks is an evening at the Casino but is really a birthday dinner at Ducasse, so I have no choice but to get Conran our Butler to replace the ruined bow, finish my wrapping and place the gift......perfectly lit by a lone overhead light, by the way.....on that little onyx table in the foyer.

Boy oh boy, did I ever get points for that one!

So yes, wrapping paper!

Actually, that example often springs to mind when I write about Butlers because Stan, canny fellow that he is, often sees to it that we are on a cruise when the anniversary of his birth occurs.

 

On one such occasion I arrived at the ship with my gift suitably secreted (no small success in this post 9/11 World) and while I HAD managed to carry wrapping paper with me (it is, after all, flat and light), the matching ribbon and bow had become hopelessly mangled in transit.

 

Now naturally, all of this is playing out while we are getting dressed to go to what Stan thinks is an evening at the Casino but is really a birthday dinner at Ducasse, so I have no choice but to get Conran our Butler to replace the ruined bow, finish my wrapping and place the gift......perfectly lit by a lone overhead light, by the way.....on that little onyx table in the foyer.

 

Boy oh boy, did I ever get points for that one!

So yes, wrapping paper!

I love it!:) Both your comments, experience, and expertise in all cruise related things! And your sense of humor!;)

My DH and I will be having a butler for the first time in April on a TA, so I really appreciate all the info and suggestions on this thread.

Thank you everyone!

~Benita

I'm repeating myself, but why not?

When we first had a butler, we didn't use him at all. Had no idea what to ask for ... Besides, we didn't want to have to pay that tip to someone who never did anything! (But that was OUR fault.)

Then I tore my meniscus just before boarding in Barcelona in Nov '05 and suddenly we were dependent on our butler.

And since then ... oh, what a lovely benefit. If we're in a cabin that doesn't have a butler, we survive. Of course, we do.

But it's really worth having one, and if you have one -- use him! On our last cruise we forgot to bring up our bottle of wine for dinner and DH went back to get it. He returned with Sandy who was carrying the bottle and opened it for us.

Was it necessary? Not at all. But it was delightful.

Mura

We had a butler for the first time on our cruise last May. We, too, were wondering about what to expect. His services really came in handy the night we ate in LaReserve. We had a cooking class scheduled the next day and some friends we were dining with said they had booked a tour to Cinque Terre the next day. We decided we would rather go there since we had experienced a cooking class on a previous cruise, so we called our butler and he came up immediately, talked with us and then took care of all the details of the change in plans for us! It was wonderful!