Thoughts on Oceania from Regent regular

[Wendy The Wanderer]

Hi, David and I have just come back from our first Oceania trip, Barcelona to Miami on Riviera. We'll both be posting thoughts of various kinds over on the O board (David has already started several threads), so thought I'd give you a heads-up and some thoughts.

 

There is very little difference, in my mind, between my experience on Riviera and my experiences on Voyager and Navigator in terms of service levels, dining, entertainment, amenities. Of course there is the obvious difference in the "à la carte" approach on Oceania, but this has been beaten to death so I won't go there.

 

Riviera is a lovely, expansive ship with some stunningly beautiful public spaces. Great care has gone into the design of these, that's obvious. In some ways perhaps Voyager seems a little dated. The size difference felt palpable to me, in both good ways and bad. The Grand Dining Room and Horizons Observation Lounge are both huge by Regent standards, but they work very well--the GDR in particular exceeds both of the CR's that I have been in--high ceilings and good acoustics accounts for most of that. Horizons is just stunning, my favourite room on the ship I think.

 

The PH we had was as nice as the Voyager PH, although David still likes the latter layout better--to me it's a wash. I did like the O closet a bit better, and the shower may be a titch bigger

 

Specialty dining was good, although with the usual ups and down. Some special touches in those restaurants were over the top in my opinion, like the "un, deux, trois!" of Signatures. Who needs to choose your chopsticks from a case, with five choices of style and colour?

 

Anyways, enough said. I'm going to post this material over on the O board, and you can watch it there.

 

Oh, and the subject of the TA crossing will come up--not sure we would do another one, at least not just for the ship experience (i.e., "ship as destination"). But as a way of cutting out air in one direction, can't be beat! I guess I have to look for TA's that don't last 14 days.

[RachelG]

Thanks, Wendy, I will look over on the Oceania board, as I will be very interested in your thoughts. George and I are going to be on Riviera in January as a sort of try it out cruise with our friends Ron and Sue.

[pingpong1]

Wendy - Thanks so much for the "heads up" on your posts over on the O board. I generally don't snoop around over there.

 

I know you don't want to get down "into the weeds" of comparison of specifics between R & O, as that would probably open up all kinds of "cans of worms" :D. But having said that...do you have an overall (generalized) opinion regarding which line you think offers "more value for the total price paid"? Perhaps I'm asking an impossible question to answer.

 

I was also very interested in your comments regarding your Atlantic crossing cruise. I'm pondering over this myself (considering a cruise like this vice one that was more destination specific). If you consider the pro-rated cost per night (of a trans-Atlantic or trans-Pacific cruise), and the number of days that you're out in "the middle of nowhere", that's an awful expensive nightly "rack rate" for a hotel room and meals. In other words, if you're in Barcelona and want to see Tenerife, why not just fly to Tenerife and stay in a nice hotel and eat in a nice restaurant? If you're in Singapore and want to see Sydney, it's probably a lot cheaper to just fly directly to Sydney and stay in a hotel there.

 

But then, (I realize) of course, you wouldn't be "cruising".

 

Any thoughts from anyone on this? Best Regards to all.

[Wendy The Wanderer]

Wendy - Thanks so much for the "heads up" on your posts over on the O board. I generally don't snoop around over there.

 

I know you don't want to get down "into the weeds" of comparison of specifics between R & O, as that would probably open up all kinds of "cans of worms" :D. But having said that...do you have an overall (generalized) opinion regarding which line you think offers "more value for the total price paid"? Perhaps I'm asking an impossible question to answer.

 

I was also very interested in your comments regarding your Atlantic crossing cruise. I'm pondering over this myself (considering a cruise like this vice one that was more destination specific). If you consider the pro-rated cost per night (of a trans-Atlantic or trans-Pacific cruise), and the number of days that you're out in "the middle of nowhere", that's an awful expensive nightly "rack rate" for a hotel room and meals. In other words, if you're in Barcelona and want to see Tenerife, why not just fly to Tenerife and stay in a nice hotel and eat in a nice restaurant? If you're in Singapore and want to see Sydney, it's probably a lot cheaper to just fly directly to Sydney and stay in a hotel there.

 

But then, (I realize) of course, you wouldn't be "cruising".

 

Any thoughts from anyone on this? Best Regards to all.

 

I don't mind being "down in the weeds" at all, actually. I'm just not going to discuss the objective differences, such as the all-inclusive versus a la carte approaches. Because, they are just that--prima facie they should add up to the same thing. I.e., add drinks, add tips, add internet, add excursions and they should add up to the same thing. And they do, to a first approximation, without adding in the subjective. But I will give my subjective opinions, for sure.

 

I do like being on a ship. I love sea days. But not sure I want to experience that many sea days. We have done 14 days previously, twice, but the most sea days in a row was 4 I think, and there were more ports overall on that cruise. And we had fairly mediocre weather, which made a big difference.

 

After that long, when some days it wasn't even nice enough to deck-walk, I feel like I need a diet, because there was so little to do except eat and drink. (I admit I didn't get near the gym--my bad.)

 

Other than French Polynesia, I'm not sure we need to cruise again at all, until we're too old to do land trips. Caribbean might be the exception, since it's so easy for us, and I do love to be at sea once in a while.

Edited December 3, 2013 by Wendy The Wanderer

[poss]

Thanks for the heads up, Wendy. I'm going straight to the Oceania board. (Sadly, we're in the "too old to do land trips" category, though I'm trying to sneak in 4 days in Paris after our Monte Carlo disembarkation this summer. Have loved our apres cruise days in Nice, but REALLY want to get to Paris.)

Edited December 3, 2013 by poss

[Wendy The Wanderer]

...Have loved our apres cruise days in Nice, but REALLY want to get to Paris.)

 

Me too, Poss. Thinking Paris - Normandy river cruise.

[ededmd]

Thanks for sharing your thoughts Wendy!

[Patti22]

Wendy and Poss,

We flew to Paris and spent three days there before our AMA cruise then went on to Trier to board our river cruise ship and then on to Nuremberg. While in Paris, we enjoyed dining in bistros (next to our hotel near Eiffel Tower) and wonderful experiences on the river ship.