louiscg

To us, at least, it seems as if Pepin brought mostly classical French dishes to American TV. Charlie Palmer (and others of his ilk) were trying to "invent" new dishes. For example: old menu = shrimp cocktail. New menu = shrimp three ways. Personally, we enjoy the classical dishes as opposed to experimentation. Of course, there are many that will disagree

with us.

Three new observations: For the most part, the ship did not seem crowded to us. We expected that 1,200 (or so) passengers would be too many for us.

Also, we were concerned about the dress and deportment of the other passengers. Much to our surprise, we did not see one incident of passengers acting boorish. On the other hand, although most passengers did adhere to "country club casual," there were more "bowling shirts" and other attire that our eyes can do without when the Maitre'D is in a tux and the servers in uniform. The ladies were dressed nicely, but a few men took comfort to the extreme.

Finally, we agree with the previous comments on steaks. We had lamb twice that was excellent. Two tries at steak in the MDR were poor. One try at NY strip in Polo was acceptable but not great.

Just returned from the pre-Xmas cruise (first time on Oceania). My wife and I have almost 300 days cruising, mostly on Seabourn, Sea Dream, and Regent. We were very pleasantly surprised by the quality of the experience. Here are a few observations:

Cabin was outstanding (we splurged for the OS). Pretty hard to beat!

Butler service was good, but we need to figure out how to get more value rather than just having a well-dressed room service waiter.

We enjoyed the food better than on any other recent cruise. We particularly enjoyed the six dinner venues and the fact that the food was mostly classical continental cuisine as opposed to celebrity chef-style designed more to wow than to provide a great dining experience. (We almost cried when Seabourn changed from contintental fare to Charlie Palmer stuff.) Our favorite dinner restaurant was Polo because it offered a great ambiance, excellent service, and a solid menu. The food presentation and service in Red Ginger was also excellent, but we are not fans of Thai fare, which dominated the menu. Enjoyed the food at Jacques, but the tables were too close and the atmosphere hectic. Food at Toscana was disappointing. Bottom of the list was the GDR--we went their twice, were seated at tables for four, and both times had to ask to have the extra place settings removed. (My wife then refused to go back.)

Service was excellent across the board. Occassionally food service lapses, but never a problem with bar service. We thought service quality was as good as on the "luxury" lines. The big difference was that it was harder to establish a personal rapport with the servers because of number of passengers and station rotations.

All-in-all, we had a terrific experience, as evidenced by the fact that we booked the 2015 pre-pre-Xmas cruise while on board.