Viking vs. Seabourn vs. Oceania for Adriatic/Greece/Turkey

[jbinbi]

Trying to pick a line where it looks like most of the iten are pretty close on a 7/10/14 day cruise. We are looking to get away from Princess/Celebrity/Norwegian and have a smaller boat.

 

We are most interested in excursions and having a good time with friends, eating good food,

meeting interesting people. I am a bit concerned that Viking is about 900 per boat, the others are 600ish. I don't know about the excursions on any of them, wondering if because Viking has more people, tour groups are going to be 30+?

 

Not looking for fancy evenings, don't really want to get dressed up, like I said, just good excursions and food. If you have been on any of these lines and can compare them, appreciate your inputs. (I know this is an Ocenaia forum, but hoping some have taken other lines and can compare them. Have also put this post up in the Viking forum).

[MEFIowa]

We did the Med off Riviera in 2023 (Venice to Athens and Athens to Barcelona) as a 20-night B2B. She has about 1230 passengers. Also just did 22 nights on Sirena in the Baltic, and she has about 630 passengers. Thoroughly enjoyed both. One didn't feel any more or less crowded than the other and the food experiences and evening life are similar.

 

You'll enjoy great food, interesting passengers, with no fancy evenings. You don't have to get dressed up. The nightlife may seem a bit sedate.

 

BUT...

 

1. What cabin level are you looking at? The cabins in the smaller R-class are smaller and the showers & bathrooms can seem very small to some, compared to the larger O-class ships.

 

2. What do you mean by "good excursion"? We did private excursions to Rome and Ephesus. And took public transportation in Athens (Acropolis & surrounding area) and Istanbul (out to the old walls of Constantinople, walking back thru neighborhoods). We did also do our "own". We walked thousands of steps up the St. John's Fortress at Kotor. But we did 5 O excursions in the Baltic, which were mainly a bus takes you somewhere and you walk around with their guide. Often the quality there depended upon the guide, how proficient they were in English and if they used a microphone system or not.

[ak1004]

SB has now some very good prices on 10 and 14 nights itineraries, around $450/night for entry level cabins (which are 295 sqft). The best value in my opinion, and very nice itineraries. Ephesus includes a private evening concert.

[orchestrapal]

We definitely prefer any ship on Oceania over Viking.

 

The only drawback on Oceania are the small bathrooms on the smaller ships.

We are lucky we have never experienced them so you can get around it by taking

a higher level cabin. Enjoy whatever you decide on.

 

[Vallesan]

I’ve not sailed on Viking but have sailed Oceania and Seabourn in the Med, Greece and Turkey. 
 

Oceania is ‘premium’ with a pretty relaxed dress code and, on the larger ships, a good choice of restaurants. Seabourn is ‘luxury’ but has fewer restaurant choices. The dress code is far more relaxed now but is still more of a ‘code’ than on Oceania.

 

It’s difficult to choose between the two as they both have a different ‘atmosphere’. I always say about Seabourn … the service is such that the staff know what you want even before you knew yourself! In saying that it’s not ‘stuffy’.

 

The entry cabins on Seabourn are larger. But at the end of the day, for me personally, I now look at the itinerary first. We have sailed extensively in the Med etc so now we look for specific ports of call. Today I’ve just found a Seabourn cruise for next summer which calls predominantly at islands.

 

Guess you will have to try all three and make up your own mind!

[ak1004]

22 hours ago, orchestrapal said:

We definitely prefer any ship on Oceania over Viking.

 

The only drawback on Oceania are the small bathrooms on the smaller ships.

We are lucky we have never experienced them so you can get around it by taking

a higher level cabin. Enjoy whatever you decide on.

 

 

There is something I don't understand.

 

Many people mention that they book higher cabins on the smaller O ships. But you have to go all the way to PH to get larger cabin and larger bathroom. And once you go to PH, the price really jumps.

 

For example, I looked at just released 2026 itineraries. 10 nights on Insignia in Oct.2026 is $6,999 CAD in veranda and $9,749 in PH. This sounds crazy to me. We just booked OV on SB for $6,080 CAD (cheapest veranda is around $7,100). All prices are Canadian dollars. So even veranda on Insignia is priced similarly to veranda on SB, and PH is 35% more expensive (and PH is still smaller than veranda on SB), plus SB is luxury line and all inclusive.

[Vallesan]

1 hour ago, ak1004 said:

 

There is something I don't understand.

 

Many people mention that they book higher cabins on the smaller O ships. But you have to go all the way to PH to get larger cabin and larger bathroom. And once you go to PH, the price really jumps.

 

For example, I looked at just released 2026 itineraries. 10 nights on Insignia in Oct.2026 is $6,999 CAD in veranda and $9,749 in PH. This sounds crazy to me. We just booked OV on SB for $6,080 CAD (cheapest veranda is around $7,100). All prices are Canadian dollars. So even veranda on Insignia is priced similarly to veranda on SB, and PH is 35% more expensive (and PH is still smaller than veranda on SB), plus SB is luxury line and all inclusive.

Exactly!

 

We no longer sail on the smaller ships because the PH’s are out pricing themselves compared with the newer larger Seabourn cabins. We are also finding Oceania’s new pricing structure from January 1st, without ‘perks’, just doesn’t look like value anymore.
 

Guess we’ll just have to wait and see what pricing ‘scheme’ pops up next!

[Redtravel]

In 2024, I took 2 Oceania cruises and 2 Viking cruises.  They were all nice. There are lots of differences. We would be happy sailing on either line. 

 

Excursions. on both lines, we took many excursions.  Most groups are large.

 Viking included excursions are often short. 1-2 hours.  We had some excellent tours.  We also had some disappointing tours. Viking uses a listening device that is a big help.  Some excursions are self guided. No guide, no map.  Not exactly what I expected.   Optional excursions have fewer guests. They book up early. Often you cannot book them if you are in a deluxe veranda. We were in Penthouse Veranda and a Penthouse Suite. Even at those levels, we had sold out tours. Read the descriptions carefully.  
Oceania excursions are mostly good.  The activity level can be misleading.  We only book easy or moderate tours.  Some of those tours were very strenuous.  All Oceania tours have a real guide. 

 

Food.   Both lines have good food. 
Viking restaurant is very good. Specialty dining wasn’t impressive. World Cafe buffet is mostly self serve. At times, finding a table can be a problem. There is an Asian station in the buffet. Often serve interesting dishes.  Mamsens deli has a limited menu. What they serve was excellent.  Room serve is good. 
Oceania food is very good in all venues.  Specialty restaurants are impressive. Red Ginger is amazing.  Terrace buffet is not self serve.  Servers place food on your plate.  Oceania room service is ok if you stick to the menu. Ask for anything off menu, you probably won’t get it.  
 

[HaveDogWillTravel]

On 10/15/2024 at 8:30 AM, jbinbi said:

We are most interested in excursions and having a good time with friends, eating good food,

We just got off the Vista Barcelona to Rome. We had booked 7 excursions and ended up taking only 3. All of them had between 30-40 people.  Two were cancelled due to the 3 ports we had cancelled and we cancelled the other two. 
 

The first excursion we took was in Monte Carlo to the Rothschild foundation. The tour guide told us where and when to be back at the bus so we could focus on what interested us at this sight rather than what the tour guide thought was interesting.  The tour guide spoke very fast & had a very thick Canadian French accent and we simply could not understand her. 
 

The second one was in Livorno and we took a tour to Volterra and San Gimignano with an included lunch at a winery. The time in the 2 cities worked for us as again the tour guide was great in letting us know when and where to meet back on the bus. We wanted to do things she just couldn’t do with such a large group. Plus I absolutely hate being with a large group. The lunch was not organized well. It was a buffet where the food and tables were all in one space too small for all of us. People served themselves and several people were very clearly ill. By the time our table in the back got to the food most of it was gone or just a few scrapings left. They did replenish things but it was such a chore to get thru the tight spacing of the chairs it was too much of a bother. 
 

The last one was in Malta and it was run so poorly we cancelled the rest of the tours we had booked. The tour guide did not allow the option of leaving the group, he did not use the ear pice things so we never heard a word he said off the bus….he basically talked to the 6 people who were closest to him.  He droned on and on in this awful monotonic tone on the bus. The tour description….updated version provided at boarding…and the description given at time of boarding said we’d be returned to the pier(where we were picked up from). But at the end we were dropped off across the Harbour and had to take a ferry back. This took an additional 1 and a half hours. Totally sucked and we will never take another O excursion based on these 3 experiences.  
 

We have 9 excursions booked and paid for in the Caribbean this spring on O and we will be cancelling and booking independent tours instead. 
 

Lower your expectations of O food. It is good but it isn’t outstanding.  If you are like us and don’t eat pates, snails, caviar and other fine dining items you may not be impressed. We find the food too fussy and the overuse of bechamel sauce is almost criminal, it was piled thick on things that it really had no place being. And it wouldn’t be part of the description.  Aquamar cafe was a bit better but it was very heavy on the raw fish offerings and you guessed it we don’t eat raw fish. 
 

This sailing really made us rethink if O is our place. We sail again on Windstar Rome back to Barcelona in a week so we will compare.  

 

[HaveDogWillTravel]

6 hours ago, HaveDogWillTravel said:

The tour description….updated version provided at boarding…and the description given at time of boarding said we’d be returned to the pier(where we were picked up from). But at the end we were dropped off across the Harbour and had to take a ferry back. This took an additional 1 and a half hours. Totally sucked and we will never take another O excursion based on these 3 experiences.  
 

And the clincher was when I went to destination desk afterwards she never once looked at me nor acted even remotely interested in listening to me. I asked her to read the description, when she got to the Drop back off at the pier part I told her this never happened.  And that the over one hour sitting and waiting on the ferry to leave for the 10 minute ride to the other side was simply horrible planning.  
I spoke in a helpful tone thinking surely O would want to know they fell short so they could modify the tour for future guests. Change the execution or the description but make them match to keep expectations in synch. 
 

Compare that to my last Windstar sailing when a tour we took had 20 people when it was supposed to be no more than 12. I told the destination person when we got on board again so they could either change the description or change the execution and he was extremely apologetic…had no idea this disconnect had occurred and was very glad I brought it to his attention.  He gave us some OBC even after I kept insisting we absolutely did not need, want or expect any. 
 

 

[Queen of DaNile]

This summer we did a 14 day Dubrovnik to Athens on Seabourn Encore and on disembarkation day immediately boarded Oceania Riviera for 10 days to Athens. Yes, the cost pp/pd is more on Seabourn, but if it's at all close, go with Seabourn. We took advantage of some exceptional pricing on Riviera because for a brief moment they were trying to fill cabins after changing the itinerary to omit ports in Israel.

We were pleasantly surprised with some of the O tours that we "had" to take but the ones that involved small, private yachts in Greece and Turkey were delightful. Some of the Seabourn tours involved headsets which was very helpful on walking tours.

Doing a back to back allowed us to do a comparison of the food, virtually in real time, and the quality of Seabourn was far superior to Oceania. There may not have been as much variety for breakfast and lunch but Seabourn was definitely the winner overall.

Onboard customer service is outstandingon Seabourn, similar type of entertainment on both lines and also many well traveled guests on both. Cabin size and ammenities on Seabourn wins hands down.

Enjoy whatever works out best for you.

 

[Poulsbo Cruisers]

We’ve only sailed on Viking, but have an Oceania cruise booked. There were many things we liked about Viking, but the included excursions were not among them. My advice is to not let included excursions drive your decision on choosing a cruise line. Another issue we had with Viking was the slowest internet at sea. 

[ronrick1943]

I think you have to go with what you're comfortable with - for us we prefer to tour private, that way you see what you want to see at your pace (and not in a bus full of people).  Food is different for everyone, we've cruise mostly Silversea, Regent and Oceania.  We've always enjoyed Oceania, specially the suites--they are seen nicer and bigger to us.  The truth is you get what you pay for when booking a larger suite.  Some people disagree they don't need a bigger suite and that's OK, like I said everybody ha their own idea of what is important to them.  I know everyone is treated very good on most lines, but you do get extra perks the better the suite on all lines.  Just an opinion---Also we don't cruise to worry about what's going to happen on a cruise, we go to have a n enjoyable time, if something goes wrong on day - so be it because you have many more days on a cruise.

[Redtravel]

We prefer suites on most ships.  The exception is Oceania larger ships…Riviera, Marina, and Vista.  On those ships a standard veranda cabin is good.  We gave up the R ships because the cabins are small. Even the penthouse suites are tight. 
On Viking Ocean, we only book penthouse veranda or better. The standard veranda and deluxe veranda cabins are tight.  Some people like them. We don’t. 
Service on Oceania and Viking is good. 

[Syd58]

IMO, Viking is a notch below O and 2 notches below Seabourn, in terms of food and decor/furnishings.