Woodrowst

Why are those the only two options?

David

So, which would you rather have at the table next to you during dinner ... (1) passengers who are obviously well-groomed but but wearing nice, clean, well-fitting jeans ... or ... (2) loud, boisterous (obviously with a few too many pre-dinner martinis under their belts) passengers ... nicely dressed in slacks, jackets and collared shirts ... cracking and laughing at crude, inside jokes all evening? :confused:

Personally, the jeans will win out every time!

I would like to thank everyone for their help. I had to hunt around a bit, but finally found the restaurants reservation date and link under the Booked Cruises tab. I'm now ready to go!

Thanks again.

I know this is a way too in the weeds question and everyone is welcome to roll their eyes. But here goes.....

I know from reading CC posts that at my particular cabin level I am able to make two allotted specialty reservations 45 days in advance. But 45 days from when? Is it 45 days ahead of the first day of the cruise? The day of disembarkation after the cruise is completed? Each day of the cruise coming on line 45 days in advance? I searched CC and could not find a post that spoke to this.

Let the eye rolling begin :)

David

We did not report the situation as it was a bit embarrassing. I know we probably should have. That is why I am not in any way upset at Oceania - how could they fix a problem they that did not get reported. I mostly wanted to know if we might find a similar situation on our next R ship cruise.

David

That is a great idea. Thanks!

David

My wife and I recently returned from a wonderful Iceland & Scandinavia cruise aboard the Insignia. We loved the ship - so much so that we booked another cruise before disembarking.

We did have one rather delicate issue and I was wondering if it has happened to others. We were far forward on deck six of the Insignia - cabin 6007 to be exact. To put this as politely as possible, when we flushed the toilet the contents often did not go down. It did not seem to be because of a weak vacuum but rather a lack of water to wash away the contents. It was kind of gross to be unable to get rid of the evidence, if you get my drift.

Was this idiosyncratic to this cruise, ship, location (far forward), or cabin? Or has anyone else experienced flushing problems on the R class ships? The reason I ask is that the cruise we booked is on another R ship (the Sirena) and I was wondering if we might have the same problem again.

I apologize if anyone was reading this over breakfast, lunch, or dinner.

David

Silkman-

Sorry to hear of your illness. My wife and I were on your cruise and we were fine. We did not hear of anyone getting sick while we were on board.

We loved the Iceland to Stockholm cruise, too. We enjoyed the Insignia so much that we booked another cruise on an R class Oceania ship for next summer - it circumnavigates Spain and we thought that was a pretty unique itinerary.

I hope you are feeling better and well down the path to recovery.

David

I want to thank everyone for the thoughful responses to my original post. I have now posted a complete review of the Maria Theresa on the member review section of Criuise Critic.

Please know that while we will look to another line for our next river cruise (perhaps Tauk or AMA) we thoroughly enjoyed the cruise and realize how privledged we were to be able to have such an experience.

David

You are welcome, Woodrow. This is really ridiculous. Now I am wondering how many of these Drawer-Deficient cabins are on this ship. :confused:

 

This does not seem like good customer relations and I would be upset and seriously consider other cruise lines for my next cruise.

How much do they want for a cabin with drawers?

Did you speak with the Hotel Manager?

Yes, it was the hotel manager who said that we would need to pay for an upgrade. She did add another piece of furniture in the cabin, but it was yet another non-funtional Marie Antoinette style piece without storage that only added clutter to the cabin.

David

There's not even anything on either side of the bed that has drawers or enclosed shelves? (I trust you, this is more of an expression of disbelief).

 

I remember not having much, if any, drawer space on our low-category cabin on the River Ambassador, but there were multiple shelves on either side of the bed that were hidden by a mirrored door, so we were fine putting our stuff there since it was out of the way.

Not a shelf to be seen in the entire cabin.

David

You are exactly right. There is a useless piece of Marie Antionette style furniture taking up space in the corner where a dresser drawer could have been. As I said previously, functionality does not seem important to Uniworld. Another way to say that is that the designers of the Maria Theresa seemed to have been more focused on meeting their own interests rather than the needs of the passengers.

David

I'd still file this as completely unacceptable.

 

It is normal in the cruise industry to make clear which cabins suffer from a deficiency such as a restricted view or lack of a safe etc. it is hard not to see a complete lack of any drawers as a similar problem that should be made clear before booking.

 

Maybe now is a good time to use the internet to reach out to Head Office to suggest that they mark the cabins lacking in such a basic element on their marketing material so future customers will not be similarly surprised and suggest that a complementary move would be a good solution given their lack of forewarning.

 

Doing it now gives them a 2nd chance to 'fix' the problem for you at least while they update their material for future guests.

 

I'd also have to say that I agree with your assessment of the decor. When comparing the various lines, this has always caused us to remove Uniworld from consideration.

Mark-

I did e-mail Uniworld. While they responded promptly, they blew off the lack of drawer space saying thisis what happens in a small cabin. Needless to say, I am not impressed.

David

David:

Ask for (Demand) :eek: a cabin change to one with drawers! ;)

Di Princess-

Thank you for the suggestion. I did ask them to provide an upgrade given the number of empty cabins. The response was that we would have to pay for the upgrade. When I asked why they couldn't give us a complimentary upgrade given the signficant design flaw of no dresser drawers, the response was that they would then have to do it for every cabin that did not have any drawers and that they were not prepared to do so.

David

We are doing the Budapest to Amsterdam route in July. Thank you for your review. I also thought the decor looked,well, " a little" garish in the pictures..being the leather/stainless decor person thought maybe I was over sensitive. Guess not! But the drawer situation is weird...is there closet space? We always travel with extra hangers. I'm not sure which room DH booked. But it's good to heard that you're impressed with the food and drink. Hope to see more from your trip..have fun!

stmartins-

I forgot to respond to your question about the specific cabin. It is 207.

As an interesting aside, the ship is only sailing at 70% of capacity. I had assumed such a new ship would be sailing full and was surprised to see so many empty cabins.

David

We are doing the Budapest to Amsterdam route in July. Thank you for your review. I also thought the decor looked,well, " a little" garish in the pictures..being the leather/stainless decor person thought maybe I was over sensitive. Guess not! But the drawer situation is weird...is there closet space? We always travel with extra hangers. I'm not sure which room DH booked. But it's good to heard that you're impressed with the food and drink. Hope to see more from your trip..have fun!

There is a small closet that has little room in it after you cram in your coat and typical hanging things. There is no way to be able to hang up clothes you would typically put in a chest of drawers.

David

My wife and I are on the fourth day of our cruise on Uniworld's SS Maria Theresa. Since I have not seen a review of this new ship on the CC river cruise forum, I thought I might post my initial impressions. I will hit the highlights of the good, the not so good, and the unacceptable.

The good:

The best part of the ship has been the food and drink. The food is outstanding and on par with the best cruise ships have to offer (my point of comparison is Crystal). We have enjoyed every meal and appreciated the ties to local cuisine. The chef has taken a light approach to sauces and that has been much appreciated. The breads and croissants are to die for. The complimentary wines have been wonderful. Coffee is french press - the first cruise line that we have been on that has taken the time to do that.

The staff is very nice and the service has been of a generally high quality. The dining service quality has been fine but not of the the very highest quality. The difference is that cruise ships with the highest level of dining service anticipate your needs; they bring you coffee without asking, they offer a second breadstick before you request it, etc. On the Maria Theresa, we have found that we need to ask - they do not anticipate needs. It is not a big deal as the wait staff bring you what you ask for in short order.

The little alcove for coffee on the lowest floor is delightful. It is a wonderful luxury to head there in the morning in my slippers, get a coffee and croissant, and take it back to the room.

The not so good:

I understand that everyone has different tastes in decor, so the following simply reflects the taste of myself and my wife. We had read reviews about Uniworld's decor being over the top and now we know what they mean. This ship seems to reflect Marie Antoinette on a really bad "let them eat cake" day. The philosophy is that more is better - if some glass looks good, add a lot more. If some marble in the bathroom helps make it wall to wall. If a pouffy drape and flowery upholstry and carpet work, add more. The result to us is not positive. There is so much glass that parts of the ship such as the downstairs hallway and the bathroom outside the dining room make you feel as if you are in a fun house. There are so many pouffy curtains that if the colors weren't subdued you could almost imagine that you were on a floating brothel.

I was quite suprised to see that the MT does not have any inside forward views. The lounge is quite nice, but the forward view is blocked off. Sure, you can go up on the Sun deck, but if it is cool, the weather is inclement, or the Sun deck is inaccesable due to low bridges, then you cannot look out the front of the vessel.

The Maria Theresa boasts the latest technology, but that is a two edged sword. On one hand it is kind of neat that the TV is built into the mirror. On the other hand, I didn't really want to spend my cruise figuring out how to adjust the lights, air conditioning, TV, etc. After hitting the glowing round thing that is supposed to turn on the cabin lights for the fourth time in order to get them to turn on, I started longing for a simple light switch.

The cabin is cluttered with nonfunctional furniture. You would think that with space being a premium on the ship, that efficiency would be a priority. Not on the SS Maria Theresa.

The unacceptable:

When we got to our cabin, we called the front desk to ask where the drawers were for our clothes. After all, the ship is taking a 14 day cruise, so we figured there must be a hidden chest of drawers. The answer we got back was that there were cabins that did not have any drawers and ours was one of them. We were floored. You go on a cruise to not have to live out of a suitcase and now we were being forced to...well.... live out of a suitcase. When we talked to the hotel manager, she apologized and said it was a design flaw. But she didn't offer any useful remedy.

Closing remarks: So based on our four days so far on the Maria Theresa would we book another Uniworld cruise? No. I do not want to cruise with a company that has so little regard for me that they would give me a cabin without a single clothes drawer. I want a ship that has more tasteful decor and provides an interior frontal view. But I do want a cruise line with food this good and staff this nice.

Since there are not any other reviews of the Maria Theresa, I would be happy to respond to any specific questions.

David

Less than a month to our first Eurpopean River cruise and my wife and I are very excited! We are doing Amsterdam to Budapest on Uniworld's new Maria Theresa. Out of curiosity, does Uniworld keep your passport and return it to you when disembarking? I did a search of the river crusing forum and could not find anyting on this.

Thanks.

David

Thank you all for your very helpful responses.

David

My wife and I are going on our first Uniworld cruise from Amsterdam to Budapest in four weeks. We have never taken a European river cruise but have taken ocean cruises. On those cruises, we received a packet of documents by mail before the cruise. Does Uniworld do that too? Or do we just show up at the ship having completed the online passenger infromation form? If Uniworld sends a packet by mail, how far in advance of the cruise should we expect to receive it?

I apologize if this has already been spoken to on the river cruising forum, but I did a search and could not find a thread on this topic.

Thanks!

David

I'm thinking about booking in June of 2015, and wondered about the same lack of information. Noted the higher price. Please let us all know what you find out--I like new ships, but worry about cancellations if the timeline until cruise isn't long enough. We usually add on to each end--that leaves one kind of stuck if the cruise doesn't go.

Thanks to everyone who responded. I sent an e-mail to Uniworld and promptly received

the reply below.

David

Dear Mr. Kaplan,

Thank you for contacting Uniworld! We are excited to be booking our new ship, the S. S. Maria Theresa, which will begin sailing the 2015 season.

You are correct she is still being built, so limited information is currently available. However, she will be a sister ship to our very popular ships the S. S. Antoinette and S. S. Catherine. The deck plan will most closely resemble that of the S. S. Catherine, which can be viewed at: http://uniworld.com/boutique-Ships/europe/ss-catherine/deck-plan

The web site will be updated with information about the S. S. Maria Theresa as soon as it is available. In the meantime, please let us know if we can answer any questions.

Kind regards,

Kaitlyn Holmlund | Guest Support Agent

It is the European Jewels itinerary - Amsterdam to Budapest.

David

My TA just booked me on a Uniworld May 2015 sailing of the S.S. Maria Theresa. She seems to be a ghost ship as I can find no information about her. There is nothing listed about her on the Uniworld website and an internet search turned up absolutely nothing. I assume she is currently being built but could find nothing about which shipyard is building her or when she will come online. She is also not listed in Cruise Travel magazine's recent listing of new ships being built. Very puzzling.

Has anyone heard of Uniworld's S.S. Maria Theresa and can give me a lead on where I can find out information about her?

Thanks

David