jondfk

Recent O newby here with lots of Princess experience. As mentioned the most apparent difference is the butler, we used a small fraction of what he could have done, but felt there was real value in the added service. Breakfast in the cabin became our norm, something that really doesn’t appeal to me on larger lines. Additionally he handled a few small requests, like lime wedges for my water for example. We could have asked for so much more. in addition you effectively have two cabin stewards though I can’t say their combined service was especially superior. That said we ended up feeling that the standard gratuity was appropriate for the service received. We added a bit for our butler but none for the stewards. I tipped one especially helpful bartender and bar server but no one else.

At the risk of wading in at an unwelcome point in the thread I'll share my observations from our April 6 sailing on Regatta. Please note that we didn't develop covid on the ship (though many, many did) we didn't test positive until one and two days later after we drove home from the pier. What I observed onboard was: Positive cases were isolated in their cabins (it may be that quarantine cabins were filled first, I have no way of knowing for certain). Quarantine cabins were quite easy to spot since each received some sort of tray stand or table outside the room for food delivery. Crew (medical) in "bunny suits" could be seen entering / exiting rooms very occasionally. As for level of service, I don't really know first hand, but here's what I observed on deck 8, in the penthouses: The butler brought food by the tray with all of the usual set up including a table cloth, this was left outside the door. A call was made to alert the passengers that their meal had been delivered the process was reversed for tray collection. Our butler was reluctant to talk about covid, protocols or procedures but confined that his duties included providing door side service to passengers who had tested positive. Friends we met on board who had members of their parties isolated elsewhere described a similar system for passengers in other categories HOWEVER the reality is, you still have your butler, (s)he remains responsible for you in quarantine and it's easy to imagine that the standard of service is higher than elsewhere on the ship. I'm not suggesting this is okay, acceptable or something to celebrate, only that the extra person assigned to provide services to this part of the ship surely equates to somewhat more responsive service. More generally, Oceania and Regatta in particular did a completely lousy job managing the large outbreak on our sailing leading to a variety of complaints. There was zero communication about the ongoing situation much of which you can read about in the "50 cases" thread.

I'm also new to O, recently completed our first 18 night sailing on Regatta. Loved it. As for the drinks question, I hold a view which seems contrary to many, although not a substantial drinker I upgraded to the premier drink package and have no regrets having done so. I basically never drank anything that wasn't (excepting a single glass of wine in Polo Grill one evening) in the package, so my total cost was known going in. I enjoyed trying every single wine offered by the glass and while, yes, I agree they are not premium bottles, I found both a red and a white that I enjoyed very much - and settled in on for the rest of the cruise. Likewise, I tried cocktails that didn't appeal to me, but that sounded interesting, with no guilt moving on to something else. I probably didn't get much above break even in terms of average daily drink count but I certainly didn't "lose" money on the deal. An oddity on Regatta was the late opening of bars. I like a morning bloody mary and could only find one after 9AM at the pool bar, I found it strange that none of the deck 5 bars could offer an eye opener until close to noon. The bloody mary produced by Julian however was fantastic and worth the trek 15 out or 18 mornings.

Recently completed my first sailing with O and was truly stunned at how terrible the GDR coffee was, so much emphasis on food, and they can't even manage run of the mill coffee. I found the machines in Horizons and found the latte quite good and came to rely on them for my morning jolt. Baristas was of course great.