Poulsbo Cruisers

Also looking forward to your review. We have never sailed on Oceania, but have a cruise booked on the Vista for September 2025. 

We have a veranda cabin booked on Vista for September 2025. We are considering upgrading to a concierge veranda. It appears from the deck plans that some of the forward and aft A1 category cabins have larger balconies. Is this correct and does anyone have pictures of those balconies? Thanks. 

I believe more people take the time to write a negative review than a positive one regardless of cruise line. When people complain about small cabins and lack of entertainment they obviously didn’t do their homework and picked the wrong ship/cruise line. It’s like choosing RCCL and complaining there are too many kids on board. 
 

We booked our first Oceania cruise for next year on the Vista and are going in with a positive attitude. We already know what to expect from a smaller ship as we did a Viking Ocean cruise last year. It would be difficult to go back to a mega ship after that. 

3 minutes ago, njhorseman said:

IMO Antarctica shouldn't be used in the title of a sail by cruise to begin with so its use in the original itinerary was every bit as bad. That title should be reserved for cruises that have actual Antarctic landings. Now there won't be any misunderstanding regardless of where the sail by actually goes.

Everyone booking the cruise knew they weren’t landing in Antarctica. They were sailing close enough to see the continent, not some remote island as a substitute. Just as those sailing Glacier Bay in Alaska know they aren’t docking on the glacier. 

1 hour ago, njhorseman said:

It was never an 'Antarctica" cruise as a ship that size can't do actual Antarctic landings. It was a "sail by" scenic cruise and a sail by of an island that is still considered to be part of Antarctica but closer to South America was substituted for the original itinerary sail by location.

Sorry, but the whole story is an exaggeration and misstatement of the itinerary change.

Then why did both NCL and Oceania change the title of the cruises to remove Antarctica? If you are changing the descriptive title of the cruise, you are substantially changing the cruise. I’m sure anyone booking primarily for Antarctica is going to be very disappointed. 

I’m curious as to why Oceania refers to this cruise stop as Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) when other cruise lines correctly call it Ho Chi Minh City, a name it has been officially known by since 1976. Why would they disrespect the official name of a city? Even Oceania’s parent company, NCL, refers to this city as Ho Chi Minh City. I’m sure that after 48 years the majority of people know this city’s official name. 

16 hours ago, Vallesan said:

And if you did have an unlimited budget there would still be ‘no perfect cruise line’ as your expectations would be that much higher!

Nothing in life is ‘perfect’!

Just enjoy!

This is so true. We were disappointed in our Viking Ocean cruise last year as it didn’t meet our expectations. A lot of this was due to the price we paid. We were just expecting more at that price point. 

Just this past month, we also booked our first Oceania cruise on the Vista in September 2025. It’s the September 4 sailing from Bilbao. I believe it is the same cruise. We are looking forward to trying Oceania. 

We did our first Viking Ocean cruise last year and have just booked our first Oceania cruise. We liked Viking, but didn’t feel, for us, the hype matched the price. We are looking forward to trying Oceania and are trying not to let overly negative or positive reviews get us too worked up. 

Anyone who has cruised multiple times has probably had a cruise or two that did not meet their expectations. This appears to be the case with the OP. We had this happen to us last year with a Viking Ocean cruise. We loved a lot of things about Viking, but didn’t feel it was worth the money it cost to sail with them. One thing Viking did for us was show us how much more enjoyable it is to cruise on a smaller ship with no or few kids. We have now booked our first Oceania cruise. We are looking forward to it, but won’t let our expectations get the better of us. Just getting close to our Viking cruise experience would be a win since Oceania costs substantially less. 

We are done with the mega ships. Last year we did a Viking Ocean cruise and really enjoyed the smaller ship experience. After looking at Oceania, Azamara and Viking for Europe in 2025, we decided to try our first Oceania cruise. It will be on the Vista. After a bunch of research, we determined Oceania was no more money than Azamara and they had nicer ships. And they were substantially less than Viking. They may be much pricier than in the past, but so is everyone else. 

7 hours ago, Grandma Cruising said:

Best bet is to give them a ring to see what’s available as their booking engine only gives you some of what’s available. There are deck plans on the website so you can see where cabins are.

Our issue is that they just assigned a cabin without even giving us the opportunity to see which cabins were available. And I see no place on the webpage to chose a cabin. 

I placed a cruise booking on hold a little while ago. I chose the category and Azamara assigned a cabin. Am I to assume the price includes the cabin upgrade? I can’t tell what the normal price is for the category. I have never sailed with Azamara and I’m trying to figure out how to select a cabin. Or do I just have to take what they assign?

We did our first Viking cruise last year and are looking to book an Azamara cruise for next year. We really enjoyed our Viking cruise especially the overall ship experience. But, the included excursions were not worth the money we didn’t pay and if going with an upgraded excursion it costs as much as those on cruise lines that do not include excursions. Our included Wifi was very slow. At the end of the day, we decided that as much as we enjoyed Viking it wasn’t worth the high cost especially when having to pay for the entire cruise upfront. Viking did spoil us for the smaller ship experience and that is why we want to try Azamara. 

Several years ago, we did a back to back Mediterranean cruise. We became platinum on the second leg. Princess already knew this and our cruise cards for the second leg reflected this. We didn’t have to do anything. 

The Mexican Rivera will usually feel colder even with temperatures in the 70s. The wind coming off the Pacific just makes it feel cooler. 

Just pray there isn’t a government shutdown on October 1. If there is passport processing will grind to a halt. 
 

As others have stated a passport is not required for a closed loop Caribbean cruise. A certified birth certificate will suffice. However, if an emergency were to occur and you had to leave the ship in a foreign port, you will be stuck there until you can get a passport. Can’t fly into the US without one. 

Everything changes with time. Technology is part of our lives and you either accept it or complain about it. When I started cruising in 1990 no one had even heard of Wifi. Airfare was included in the price of the cruise. There were no specialty restaurants and no anytime dining. On seven night cruises, there were two formal nights, two informal nights and three casual nights. Every time a change is made there will be those who complain, but will eventually accept it. It just takes some longer to get there. The medallion is not going away. Princess will not abandon it especially when so many like it. I’ve only cruised once with it and that was 18 months ago. I thought it was great and even my wife, who is at times technology challenged, like it. We’ve cruised twice since with other lines, including Viking Ocean, and missed the Princess medallion. 

3 minutes ago, SCX22 said:

 

For me it's the part of it is principle.  The Medallion is a money maker for Princess.  With cruise cards, Princess couldn't charge for shipping (or sell shipping as part of a package) because cruise cards aren't shipped to your home pre-cruise; Princess is taking a cut of the MSRP of  Medallion shipping fee.  Princess couldn't really sell accessories for cruise cards, except for Medallions.  Now there's everything from a simple clip to jewelry and passengers are buying them.

 

The OceanNow delivery has become a monster for Princess.  It was marketed as a benefit of using the Medallion.  As of recent, Princess found out that the crew onboard couldn't keep up with orders and now you have to pay a fee for OceanNow or purchase a package.  Feel sorry for the crew that have to deliver the orders.  Most of them look lost trying to match a face to the picture that populates their device.  They waste a lot of time trying to find the passenger.  There's also lot of complaints when passengers don't get their orders.

 

It's costing Princess a lot of money to maintain the IT infrastructure for the Medallion Technology.  It's money that could be spent elsewhere to improve the passenger experience. 

So a few passengers boycotting the medallion will force Princess to abandon the millions they’ve already spent on it and go back to the old way?

4 minutes ago, Outerdog said:

 

I guess it's "me and muh family don't wanna be tracked around the ship by that fangled technology!" type stuff. Some folks just gotta be contrarians. 

 

Bonus points for walking around the ship with the cruise card around their neck so they can use every opportunity to talk about what it is, why they have it, and how stupid everyone else is.

 

 

I hope you don’t fly to the cruise port. That new fangled technology could get you killed. 😁😁

4 hours ago, jennmaybe said:

That is absolutely not true.  After unsuccessful calls to customer service to request cards, I emailed Mr. Padgett.  Within 2 hrs, I received a call from the Director of Port Operations and he advised me they absolutely will provide cards to us.  We will have cards waiting on us at the port.  No problem.  
 

He did advise me that customer service provides us the info that is provided to them, which is the medallions are required.  He advised that they will provide cards to anyone who reaches out to corporate.

Since nobody is forced to use the app, I’m trying to figure out what makes a cruise card easier to use than the medallion. Either is scanned to get on and off the ship, make purchases and enter your cabin. Maybe I’m missing something. 

This has been an ongoing discussion on this board. 
 

3 hours ago, lindros2 said:

It's a bigger deal than just a simple fix. They have to rip out the login technology - which comes with a ton of dependencies...

I’m not an IT expert and neither are most trying to login. I do know that they had to make a recent change that screwed up the login procedures and they should be able to figure out what that was. Otherwise, they’ll continue to have upset customers. 
Something I always appreciated about Princess is that their website was easier to navigate than most of the other cruise lines. I would hate to see that change. If nothing else, put a disclaimer on the login page that lets everyone know that they are experiencing difficulties with the login process and that it may take several attempts to get in. 

At least now I know that I’m not the only one with this issue. It’s been happening to me for over a month. It seems Princess would have known about this problem by now. I’m surprised they haven’t fixed it yet. 

3 hours ago, JaniceWilcox said:

We are considering taking the "Trade Routes of the Middle Ages" cruise with Viking, and would like to know if there is an opportunity to get off the canal cruise anywhere close to the Anne Frank museum.  We were in Amsterdam several years ago, and didn't get to go there because of a storm.  I'm assuming that if we did that, we would have a shuttle that would take us back later?

We didn’t have such an opportunity, but did see a long line waiting to get in. We had been to the Anne Frank museum several years earlier. I would suggest that you make a reservation at the museum in advance and then make your own way to it.