Crystal VS. Oceania

[JHayes702]

I've only sailed on Crystal and am considering an Oceania trip...How would you compare these 2 companies?
Thanks for your help
JHayes702@aol.com

[luvs2cruzga]

I loved cruising on Crystal the two times we were on it. We are booked again for November through the Panama Canal. My first cruise on Oceania will be in June to the British Isles. I'll be happy to let you know when I return what my opinions and comparisons are.

[mike35]

We love both cruise lines, but Oceania is our favorite of the two. Here's my personal comparison:

Size: We prefer Oceania's 684 pax to Crystal's 980 or 1000+. Easier embarkation/disembarkation, easier to navigate the ship, more personal crew/passenger interface.

Cuisine: Oceania's is, IMHO, slightly better, although Crystal offers more personal choices (such as asking for a particular dish, prepared a particular way).

Alternate restaurants: Both are excellent, although they are free on Oceania.

Cabins - definitely superior on Crystal - larger, much nicer bathrooms. Oceania's cabins only have refrigerators and CD players in their "concierge" level, which, IMHO, is ridiculous.

Staff - a tie - both have wonderful, personable staff.

Dining - personal preference - I vastly prefer anytime dining, which Crystal can't provide due to the number of passengers and the size of their main dining room. Others, however, prefer fixed dining, which Oceania doesn't offer.

Entertainment - little comparison - Crystal has the best production shows, professional musicians, etc. afloat. Oceania's entertainment is good but pales in comparison.

Enrichment - Again, little comparison. Crystal has consistently featured world-reknowned speakers, true experts in their fields; Oceania generall has one or two interesting speakers.

Dress code - again personal preference. I prefer country club casual, which is the rule on Oceania. Crystal, on the other hand, has several formal nights each cruise, which some cruisers prefer. Different strokes, although if one really wants to "dress to the nines", he/she would be able to do so on Oceania.

Price/value - I feel Oceania wins this one by a rather wide margin.

Itineraries - Crystal is obviously limited with only two ships; Oceania has three with one more on the drawing board, thus offering a wider variety of ports.

Hope this helps..

Mike

[Winner]

Mike--Does Crystal now charge extra for the two alternate restaurants? When we sailed on Symphony both needed reservations but there was no charge for either.

[mike35]

Not sure, since it's been 8 months since we sailed on Symphony, but I seem to recall that there was a charge at that time.

Mike

[Druke I]

Twice on Crystal, once on Oceania, with another booked.

While we enjoyed Crystal, I like Oceania even better.

I would give a very slight edge to Oceania's food - Crystal's service was more polished.

I agree with comments re Crystal's entertainment - better than Oceania's.

Although we think of ourselves as traditionalists, we did enjoy Oceania's "country club casual" dress code.

Oceania's pricing, with their two-for-ones, makes them more affordable.

I had some difficulty with Crystal's mid-management types (concierge & maitre 'd), who I found to be stuffy and pretentious.

Isn't it wonderful we have so many choices?

[Frandick]

Crystal does NOT charge for their speciality restaurants. They just request that you tip the waiters there.

[JHayes702]

There is no charge for the alternative restaurants on Crystal

[Leonid]

Have to add my two cents: Having done 8 Crystal Sailings & one Oceania (booked next 02/2007 on the Regatta), I must agree just about across the posts. There are two areas at which I feel Crystal is better which haven't been addressed . Tipping and stateroom stewardesses.
Tipping: with Crystal one can pre-pay gratuities or pay at the end of the cruise. With Oceania it's all pre-pay; however, with Crystal, all gratuities are earmarked for waiters, asst. waiters and stewardesses, so you can raise some and lower others,depending on the service. With Oceania, it's all or nothing; i.e., if you have a poor stewardess, as we did, you can't reduce the gratuities without affecting all concerned, and this includes the butlers.
Stewardesses: We experienced a much better trained stewardess on each of our Crystal sailings who spoke perfect English and knew her job. On Oceania, our stewardess spoke very poor English and did not know her job. No amount assistance from the butler (yes, we had one) helped. She just was not prepared to do what was expected, and that included basic tasks such as vacuuming. A talk with the concierge did nothing.
The main reason we do not sail Crystal these days is the two, assigned seatings. The single open seating philosophy of SS, SB, RSSC and Oceania is the only way to go for us.
One area I forgot to mention is smoking. Nobody beats Oceania is this area. Smoking is the main reason we stopped sailing on SB.

[Liat]

We have sailed on Insignia down the Amazon and Serenity to the Caribbean. Both cruises have thorough reviews on this site and both reviews were chosen for "Review of the Week".
What has not been mentioned is the shore excursion factor. Crystal puts real effort into this. Their excursion director is always at the debarkation area. Crystal assigns staff to accompany each excursion, and that staff member has to submit a written report. When we had a minor deviation on one of our snorkeling excursions, Crystal refunded half the charge. When the wind was low for the America's Cup races, they called our cabin in advance and offered to let us cancel and refund our fee.
Personal preference enters into the dining equation, and we prefer assigned seats, although we felt comfortable with anytime dining on Insignia. But the quality level of our assigned wait staff on Serenity was superb.
The sea day offerings on Crystal were unmatched by any cruise line, even Celebrity which does quite a good job.
Not paying for any non-alcoholic beverage on Crystal, even first class non-alcoholic beer and wine, is a nice touch.
The food is close - too close to place one over the other. We loved both afternoon teas. Insignia is a neat little ship, very cozy. Serenity is bigger, but with only 820+ passengers on a 60,000 ton vessel; we certainly did not feel crowded.
We felt that the level of attention to passenger needs at every facet of the operation was higher on Crystal, although the general run of service on Insigia was excellent.
As noted, the entertainment on Crystal was also at a higher professional level, but we also liked. the slightly funky, personal entertainment on Insignia.
We had a pretty good price for our Caribbean cruise, so that was not a big factor; but it would be on a longer and more exotic Crystal cruise.
You get what you pay for in any endeavor, and you can't really go wrong with either. We will be sailing on Nautica next month from Istanbul to Athens.

[Leonid]

Liat: Do you remember the time frame for the posting of the review on the Amazon cruise? My wife & I are considering such a cruise and would like to read it before we book...Thanks.

[Liat]

Liat: Do you remember the time frame for the posting of the review on the Amazon cruise? My wife & I are considering such a cruise and would like to read it before we book...Thanks.

Go to "Home" on this site. There is a menu board for ships' reviews. Click on it and you will bring up a list of just about every cruise ship at sea. Go down and click on "Insignia". It will bring up a page with cruisecritic's own review and a lot of information on the ship. In the center of the page, under the picture of the ship, you will find the "Member's Reviews" link. Click on this and there will be about seven reviews. Mine is under my name - Phil Haggerty - labelled "South America-Antarctica". Click "Read".
I was interested to read in the most recent review that it was for a charter of the entire ship. I did not know Oceania did this. The difference noted was that the charter group provided its own entertainment.
On my first cruise - Carnival's Elation, there were 500-600 people from a Dixieland Jazz lovers group on board, and they had several bands for their own entertainment, which unfortunately the rest of us were not allowed to hear.

[ClaudiaF]

wrote in part:
Tipping: with Crystal one can pre-pay gratuities or pay at the end of the cruise. With Oceania it's all pre-pay; ............

That is not exactly correct..
With Oceania it is charged to your account at whatever the rate is ( per day for your specific category cabin)...but you can add or subtract from the amount charged if you wish by filling out the form available at reception ( just do it before the last night of your cruise)..you may also give extra to whomever you wish if you want.

[vizy]

We have sailed on Insignia down the Amazon and Serenity to the Caribbean. Both cruises have thorough reviews on this site and both reviews were chosen for "Review of the Week".
What has not been mentioned is the shore excursion factor. Crystal puts real effort into this. Their excursion director is always at the debarkation area. Crystal assigns staff to accompany each excursion, and that staff member has to submit a written report. When we had a minor deviation on one of our snorkeling excursions, Crystal refunded half the charge. When the wind was low for the America's Cup races, they called our cabin in advance and offered to let us cancel and refund our fee.
Personal preference enters into the dining equation, and we prefer assigned seats, although we felt comfortable with anytime dining on Insignia. But the quality level of our assigned wait staff on Serenity was superb.
The sea day offerings on Crystal were unmatched by any cruise line, even Celebrity which does quite a good job.
Not paying for any non-alcoholic beverage on Crystal, even first class non-alcoholic beer and wine, is a nice touch.
The food is close - too close to place one over the other. We loved both afternoon teas. Insignia is a neat little ship, very cozy. Serenity is bigger, but with only 820+ passengers on a 60,000 ton vessel; we certainly did not feel crowded.
We felt that the level of attention to passenger needs at every facet of the operation was higher on Crystal, although the general run of service on Insigia was excellent.
As noted, the entertainment on Crystal was also at a higher professional level, but we also liked. the slightly funky, personal entertainment on Insignia.
We had a pretty good price for our Caribbean cruise, so that was not a big factor; but it would be on a longer and more exotic Crystal cruise.
You get what you pay for in any endeavor, and you can't really go wrong with either. We will be sailing on Nautica next month from Istanbul to Athens.

Hi, Phil,
Reading your message is exciting to me for more than one reason.
We (I and my hubby) are novices in cruising (except one river cruise in Russia and a flop of an Alaskan cruise); I just joined today CC; yours is the first pertinent message I found, and very well written at that; and HOORAY, we'll see you on the Nautica on May 17!
All these being told, would you mind being our big brother with some advice? (Figuratively, of course, becasue a big brother to us shall be over 100!)
Vizy (aka, Marta)

[Liat]

When I was an Assistant Attorny General for the State of Arizona, our Chief Assistant used to say: "I'll give you some advice which is free - and therefore worthless". Well, Bill went on to become a Court of Appeals Judge for many years, so maybe his advice was worth something after all.
I will be happy to answer any questions you have., if I can.
If you want to do it directly, my e-mail is: hagglawphx@aol.com
Phil Haggerty

[Leonid]

ClaudiaF: What you quoted of my post is correct; what you negelected to include was the part where I said that if one was to raise or lower gratuities, then all would be affected;at leastthat what we were led to believe by ships personnel. Was my statement incorrect; i.e., can one specifiy more or less for some of the staff at the end of the cruise without affecting others? We did give an additional gratuity to our butler for service above and beyond the call of duty.

[nparmelee]

Leonid, what we like to do is give the base gratuities on the account and give any extra to folks who made our trip special in cash in a thank you card. We figure that since a lot of lines will still pool the tips even though you think you are giving individually, this way the person who really did give us special attention gets the extra tip directly. What happens from there is up to them.

[Leonid]

NParmalee: Crystal, for one, does not pool tips, especially if they are given directly to the staff in question. When one pre-pays gratuities on Crystal, each staff member gets a printout approx. 3 days before disembarkation showing who has pre-paid. We were told this by our waiters and stewardesses on many of our Crystal sailings...don't know about other cruise lines where that are not all-inclusive.
Regarding Oceania, no one has answered my question on whether lowering overall gratuities affects all staff.

Leonid of Caughlin Ranch

[nparmelee]

Leonid, I was just stating my reasons for doing tips the way we do them, nothing more. I've never felt a need to reduce the tips, but I'm sure that if you went to the pursers desk and explained what you wanted to do and why that they would honor your wishes.

We are also in Caughlin Ranch, hello, neighbor! We're in the Pinehaven area.

[Leonid]

NParmelee: Small world...we're right around the corner in Traditions II on Ramcreek Trail...I'm on the Neighborhood Adivsory Comm.