Marina Papeete-Papeete, 2/10-22 report

[pinotlover]

This report is for our just completed cruise on the Marina in French Polynesia. I’ll attempt to touch on as many topics as accurately and briefly as possible. This report is on this cruise, not cruises past on this or other Oceania ships.

 

Prefacing my discussion I’ll give a few facts. Americans made up about a little over 50% of the passengers with Canadians being second with about 20%. The rest of the top 5 was rounded out with (3) Australia (4) Germany and (5) UK . This cruise had a much lower demographics than our past Oceania cruises with a significant % under 40 and the majority under 60. Also surprisingly this cruise had the lowest number of O Club ( past O cruisers) at barely a third than any previous cruise we’ve been on.

 

Overall this was a fabulous and wonderful cruise. We took friends along that were first time O cruisers and they mostly lived O and the cruise. We both were originally booked Concierge but our TA got us well discounted upsells to PH1. With one exception, service across the ship was exceptional, including the Butlers, the room attendants, the restaurant waitstaff, and wine service. The food was exceptional and far exceeding overall past sailings.

 

We did three La Reserve Dinners and one private wine dinner in Privee. Highlighting these was the Dom Perignon Dinner that was simply incredible. The Other two dinners were very nice likewise. The greatest part to me was that Dom required Oceania to bring aboard a true certified Sommelier, in lieu of the make believe wine servers posing as such, as a condition of participating in the Program. Tom, our new Croatian Sommelier, did a terrific job not only with the Dom event but also doing the wine tasting seminars where new wine selections are now being offered! Tremendous addition to staff that eliminates many of the sloppy errors past wine servers were making.

 

Not wanting to turn this into a dress code battle I will briefly say that many fellow cruisers opted to exercise the most extreme liberal interpretation of country club casual that I’ve seen on any cruise! I’ve never done an O Carribean Cruise, but those that have claimed they had never witnessed such abuses of policy on any Carribean cruises which may say a lot. Not only in the Specialties, but people coming to Afternoon Tea in only their swimwear with no top! The predominant abusers were not the under 55 set, but the over 55 set of Americans and Canadians. Grade schoolers have the intellectual capacity to identify a lot of the attire arriving at the Specialties for dinner as certainly not being Country Club casual. As a personal statement, I believe that the subset of men, particularly over 55, that should wear wifebeaters with the underarm cut out to navel levels is extremely small. Obviously some disagree with me! However, is the Terrace so “ anything goes” that gym trunks, wifebeaters, and flip flops is really acceptable wear at dinner there? I’ll take this cruise as an aberration of place and expect a normalization If attire on our summer cruise to Northern Europe.

 

Internet service was the worst we and most O cruisers have seen on any cruise. Leave it at that. Service was sporadic and extremely slow at best.

 

We don’t care about such but for those that do, the Captain never appeared for any normal events. The GM typically stood in for him. I don’t even remember any noon Captain’s announcements. The CD made any announcements necessary.

 

We did all private tours arranged via the Row Call. No comments on ships tour, except for one island where O had none but several private tours all went.

 

It’s been said 150 times here previously and I’ll add to it. Transportation options  to Papeete are limited . Don’t wait until Mamma Oceania gives you your routings! Be proactive and either book your own or work with O Air early and secure good routings. I had zero empathy for those that waited until the end and got really horrible routing solutions. Nuff said!

 

I’ll try to add to this later, but off to catch my flight!

 

 

[cayman09]

Thanks for taking the time to give your impressions, it's appreciated. Can you expand on your air choice? Did you book your own, use O deviation and what airline did you end up flying?

 

We're trying O for the first time from Papetee to San Francisco next April. 

[pinotlover]

Cayman09;

 

We ended up booking our own flights on United in Business Class. We went BNA- SFO-PPT and then reverse. Monitored matrix and caught a great sale on the tickets directly with United. Friends did the same for Economy Class tickets and saved money when including the deviation fees from Oceania costs. Oceania Air Credit + deviation fees were a couple hundred more $$ than buying the ticket directly.

 

We went to Moorea four days early and stayed in an over the water bungalow. They went in two days early and stayed in Bora Bora.

[cayman09]

That's what I was figuring pinolover, I've been monitoring matrix but I'm way too early for my flights. I'll be MCO-SFO-PPT and United looks best for me. If I may, where did you stay in Moorea, I'm also planning 3-4 days pre-cruise?

 

thanks for the info.

[pinotlover]

We stayed at the Hilton. We saw all the major properties and was glad we were there.

[Petoonya]

Cayman. On the same cruise April 2020 with you. We did PPT-LA last year and just returned from a 17 day Windstar Tahiti. Both were outstanding.

 

Edited February 26, 2019 by Petoonya

[EasyGoingGuy]

pinotlover...could you clarify " Monitored matrix " or cayman09 " monitoring matrix"  please. Thx.

[KatieBelle]

Thank you pinotlover for taking time to post.  We would love to see some pics of the La Reserve dinner & Privee.  We will be experiencing Privee for the first time in May.  Thanks for sharing.

 

-Katie

[Shawnino]

Extremely useful review. Thank you.

 

@E.G.G.:  I expect he means ITA Matrix, a web-based software tool that lets you compare routings and costs of various airlines. Google has bought it and is no longer supporting it (trynig to push folks to Google Flights), but it still exists.

https://matrix.itasoftware.com

 

[LHT28]

Just now, KatieBelle said:

Thank you pinotlover for taking time to post.  We would love to see some pics of the La Reserve dinner & Privee.  We will be experiencing Privee for the first time in May.  Thanks for sharing.

 

-Katie

you can see photos of Privee at

https://www.cruisecritic.com/photos/ships/riviera-607/privee-311051/

you can order from Toscana & Polo

[KatieBelle]

2 hours ago, LHT28 said:

you can see photos of Privee at

https://www.cruisecritic.com/photos/ships/riviera-607/privee-311051/

you can order from Toscana & Polo

Yes, Lyn, I am aware.

 

To pinotlover:

 

What we were asking is would you be willing to share pics of your experiences, specifically the Dom Perignon dinner and your wine dinner in Privee?  If you choose not to share personal pics, we certainly respect your position.

 

-Katie

[LHT28]

Just now, KatieBelle said:

Yes, Lyn, I am aware.

 

 

Sorry I thought you were asking about  the room

I suspect PL  had a special dinner with a wine group  in Privee

As you pay for any wine/drinks  along with your free meal chosen from Polo or Toscana

[cayman09]

Thanks again pinotlover, I'm also looking at the Hilton as well as the Sofitel, I can use my Chase Sapphire points there.

[pinotlover]

KatieBelle;

 

Sorry but we are not in that group that takes pictures of our food!

 

A group of us decided upon a wine theme for our dinner in the Privee and brought wines to share and compare. That means we paid corkage fees for those wines.

 

Privee is like all other venues for those with beverage packages, if you order any drinks from O’s list they are included with no extra charges.

 

Service in the Privee is exceptional. There is a server for about every four people and a wine server exclusively for the group!

 

We had the maximum of ten guests at our event. Fun evening!

[pinotlover]

A few more comments I didn’t include earlier. Just to tie together two different threads, I earlier commented that service in all venues was very good to exceptional with one exception. That one exception was beverage service in the Terrace. It stank and was mostly non existent. Placing an adult beverage order was difficult to start with, then actually having it delivered was rare. This was not an one occurrence event, but consistently happening until we finally said enough and just went elsewhere. Friends that accompanied us on their first Oceania cruise and loved the ship said the beverage service in the Terrace was worst than they had ever experienced at any venue on either Celebrity or Princess. Like us, they felt the solution was the GDR that has both great food and great service.

 

We found the comments by some of the cheerleaders to have been goofy on this issue! We always smile and say thank you and please and have rated the service extremely highly elsewhere across the ship, but somehow did some Dr Jekyl/ Mr Hyde thing in the Terrace and the reception of bad service there was the passengers fault! The lack of adult beverage servers is not the fault of the guests!

 

On another note! Our upsell to a PH1 suite ended up being to Suite 11057. As a word of precaution since we had never stayed in that area, that cabin is directly below Waves Grill! French Polynesia is 4 hours behind us here on Central Time and 5 hours for those on Eastern Time. This meant that for those that didn’t come early to time acclimate they were often up very early and Waves opened at 5:30 or 6:00 every morning. We too were then awakened by the dragging of chairs on the wooden deck above us and by people tromping heavy footedly around. It was loud and impossible to sleep through. I would highly recommend not choosing those PH1 cabins. The other side of the ship would be far better. Actually 10th floor PHs would probably be the best picks!

 

Great Cruise and the FP is beautiful with pristine waters. Far surpasses anything Hawaii commercialism has to offer in our opinion!

[KatieBelle]

Thanks pinotlover.  We will be taking our own wines and are looking forward to the experience-our 40th anniversary!  FP sounds amazing.  Hope to see it someday.

-Katie

[Paulchili]

9 minutes ago, KatieBelle said:

Thanks pinotlover.  We will be taking our own wines and are looking forward to the experience-our 40th anniversary!  FP sounds amazing.  Hope to see it someday.

-Katie

Privee is wonderful for special occasions - I am sure you will enjoy it.

You can use OBC to book it ahead of time.

[KatieBelle]

1 hour ago, Paulchili said:

Privee is wonderful for special occasions - I am sure you will enjoy it.

You can use OBC to book it ahead of time.

Done!  Thanks Paul.

-Katie

[Paulchili]

2 minutes ago, KatieBelle said:

Done!  Thanks Paul.

-Katie

Well played - enjoy!

[tvmovielover]

We went on this cruise in 2014, only the second year it was offered and were new to O.  We took O air as offered and lucked out for coming from the East Coast of the US with an early morning flight to LA and time for lunch before boarding the afternoon flight to Papeete.  Late at night was a good choice IMHO with dinner still on offer.  I am always an early riser.  At the time, no breakfast at Waves or the Terrace was available before 7 and Latte was not available until at least 6:30 so we few early birds could enjoy sunrise and some pastries without waking others.  Coming back was a little less good (leave late at night and back to Florida late but we had a hotel-yes a custom air plan is better-we did not think it through then but Papeete or Moorea at the beginning and end is nicer).  We could not get free internet at that time and paid very reasonable fees at each port for local internet which was variable with some good and some bad.  It was less good than our next 2 "O" cruises though.  It is still our favorite cruise that has brought us back again and again.  This review shows how different even this one is each time so thanks.  My next favorite "O" cruise was one that had a more mixed group (ie more younger cruisers)-it makes a difference in the atmosphere-not always a bad thing.

[Boracay_Soul]

On 2/25/2019 at 3:43 PM, pinotlover said:

 

Hi pinotlover

Glad you enjoyed your cruise. I was on the Jan 31- Feb 10 Papeete to Papeete which was equally fabulous. Was envious of those who were able to do a back to back with on your cruise. Just curious, on my disembarkation waiting for a tour of Tahiti, before my plane ride home later that evening, at the entrance of the ship luggage area, I saw a younger couple with a baby in a stroller. I was pretty shocked for some reason. Just wondering if that provoked the same response to other passengers as it did to me.  I wondered if they had a good experience considering the demographics........

[pinotlover]

This family did receive some conversation, but in a positive way lol! Some of us began to wonder if it was a doll being pushed around ship in that stroller instead of a small child! We never heard a peep out of it. The family ate, sharing, in Toscana one night a couple of tables away. Nary a sound from the infant. The parents would look into the stroller occasionally to check on it, but no distractions. We’d see the father pushing the stroller around ship sometimes in the evening often talking to the child, but rarely a sound.

 

Since most of the ports were anchorages, I did see them heading down to the tender once, but wasn’t on their tender. Since we did all privately arranged tours via our Roll Call, I have no idea if they participated on any ship tours.

 

Simply put, if one didn’t see the stroller, they never knew a child was aboard. I heard no negative comments from any of the passengers about the child , but realize I may not have spoken with the hard core zealots on this issue that may have been aboard.

[aquidneck1]

Pinotlover,

Loved your review and enjoyed a few good chuckles.  

 

We were on the same cruise and had a blast with so many new friends and wine lovers.  A couple of additional comments.  

1. We upgraded to a PH1 on deck 7 which was a great location and had an extended balcony.  It was a great choice as far as room location and lack of noise.  Our butler was not around much - not sure if that was due to the location or the particular butler.  He was resistant to doing some things that we asked him. 

2. We worked with the person from Oceania that helped to set up the meet and greet to arrange for our private group tours to get right off the boat at some of the tender stops.  They really did a nice job for us.  

3. We thought that the wines on the wine by the glass list were reasonable.  We found most of the beverage servers for the Terrace Cafe were hanging out by the grill right outside the door so we always ate by that side in the Terrace Cafe.  We found the wine service in the GDR to be prompt and efficient.  

4. We found the food to be excellent except for one terrible steak from Polo.  We found the service in the specialty restaurants to be exceptional but the service in the GDR to be a bit perfunctory despite it not being full.  

4. We booked Economy Plus on Air France.  Very comfortable and the return is by day.  If you book it when it first becomes available, you can save a lot.  We paid  the same as the money returned by Oceania for economy.  I am too old to deal with not being in control of my flights.  

 

We had a wonderful cruise.  Fond memories and hope to run into you again on Oceania.  

 

 

[sunlover12]

This sounds like a wonderful cruise and I wish I had acted quicker on doing it while the Marina was still in the South Pacific.  Going forward only the Regatta will be sailing to Papeete. It leads me to believe this was an itinerary that is not as in demand as others.  I'm curious if the ship was full. 

[aquidneck1]

It was not totally full but only short 100 passengers as I heard it.  Sandy may have more information.   We did the same cruise 2 years ago on Sirena and loved it.  Smaller boat but still excellent.   I would highly recommend a PH on the smaller oceania boats in the South Pacific if you can afford it.  Trying to manage all of the bathing/snorkelling equipment in the smaller bathrooms is tough.