MarkWiltonM

Oceania ships are exceptionally quiet. Not a lot of activities. Most of the people who cruise with them want that peace and quiet, but it's not going to be to everyone's taste.

On our first Oceania cruise recently (Sirena), we were surprised by how dark Horizons was. It's a great space with tons of windows and we enjoyed morning coffee and afternoon tea there but it's very dark. The walls are dark, the upholstery is uniformly drab. And they cover nearly half of the floor-to-ceiling windows with light-killing roman shades. I figured out that the shades were nearly halfway down so that people don't butt their head on the windows, which slant down and out toward the bow. On Holland-America ships' Crow's Nests, the windows actually slant slightly up and out toward the bow, so that's not an issue. It will be interesting to see what Horizons is like on Vista.

This charge for room service is really disappointing. Meanwhile, over at Celebrity rival Oceania, they just expanded their room service menu and also allow all passenger classes to order room service from the main dining room menu during MDR hours. All at no extra charge.

We are booking into 2025 on Celebrity and Oceania, but only with refundable deposits. In the case of Celebrity we book early to get a Sunset Veranda on Edge-class ships because we don't like the slide-down window in the Infinite Veranda staterooms. We also find that the fares are much better when we book as soon as the new itineraries are released. I'll check in in to reprice in six months to a year and even with the extra cost of the refundable deposit our original fare is usually less significantly expensive than the current fare.

We love Celebrity ships but have never thought the food was much better than "okay." If the food quality were to decline further, we'd stay away permanently. We are already cruising Oceania more and Celebrity less. We also aren't fans of the infinite verandas on Edge-class ships, so unless we snag a Sunset Veranda before they sell out we don't book.

I suspect cutbacks are so they don't have to raise the overall fare prices dramatically while demand remains tepid. Suite prices on Celebrity appear to be through the roof, but there's a lot of demand for suites (on many cruise lines) and they tend to sell out first, so that explains that. We travel exclusively in veranda cabins, and we've been able to get more or less the same fares, with careful shopping, that we were getting a few years ago. Meanwhile, in so many other industries prices have risen far more drastically. Anyone tried to buy a decent pair of running or tennis shoes lately? Price are 50 to 75 percent higher than a couple of years ago. Groceries? Restaurants? Huge increases in price and in the case of restaurants we are finding that many land-based restaurants are, like cruise ship dining rooms, also not as good as we remember (food and service) despite the higher prices.

Although Oceania pushes O-Life, you can also get cruise-only fares, without choosing an O-Life perk. That's what we do.

That's not good at all.... I hope it doesn't stick or migrate to other cruise lines. In other cost-cutting, service-cutting moves, Norwegian has just downgraded room service to once a day for non-suite guests.

We will be on Vista December 1, 2023. The renderings look beautiful. We sailed on Sirena, one of Oceania's smallest ships, last month and had a terrific time. My partner prefers small ships like Oceania's and Crystal's, and there's no question that a smaller ship has an easier time providing consistent food quality and service. I like the smaller-ship experience as well but sometimes want to be on a relatively larger ship with more variety, and then we gravitate toward Celebrity and sometimes HAL (primarily for HAL's superior buffet). We currently have 3 Oceania cruises and 3 Celebrity cruises booked. I think most of Oceania's regulars are people who don't need or even want a lot of scheduled activities/entertainment. It's also nice to be on ships where you have more space per person (despite the smaller sizes, Oceania's ships feel roomier). And it's relatively quiet--a plus for some and perhaps a minus for others. One thing's for sure: you never have to scramble to find a lounger by the pool on Oceania, whereas on HAL and Celebrity that can be all but impossible at times.

We've never had a good meal at Tuscan Grill (on Silhouette and Equinox). We tried it on Equinox about a year ago, after a few years off, and it was just okay, certainly not worth spending extra money for. The service was also excruciatingly slow. We used to like Murano a lot but the menu hasn't changed in many years and we got bored with it. We also failed multiple times to persuade our server not to overcook the lobster that is prepared tableside. (A good argument for servers to stick to serving and let the cooks do the cooking.) We actually had fairly good food in the main dining room on our most recent cruise on Equinox. At least we didn't feel ripped off by an upcharge for disappointing food, which is always a danger in specialty restaurants that aren't that special.

I am so glad they've gone back to giving us the option for Cruise Only or Always Included. For those of us who don't drink alcohol, there's no reason to pay for AI. The benefits other than the drinks package don't justify the increased cost.

We were recently on our first Oceania cruise and I was quite surprised that they wanted me to take time out from the last day or two of my cruise to go online, register and create a user name and password, and then complete a survey (especially since internet was so sketchy). I am always happy to do the surveys online when I'm home; I'll never do one on the cruise unless it's super simple and easy.

St. John, Antigua? Not missing much there, IMO.

I haven't been following this thread too closely but in response to the OP's question, I find pricing on the cruise lines we sail on most frequently (Celebrity, Oceania, HAL) to be all over the place. We always and only book veranda cabins. We also only cruise the Caribbean (close to home port) and we often don't get off the ship. So itineraries and cabin types are relatively stable in my price-shopping these cruise lines. Sometimes I can get a veranda on Oceania for less than Celebrity, in which case it's a no-brainer because of the better and more consistently edible food on Oceania, but usually Celebrity is less expensive. This isn't too surprising to me because Oceania is a bit more upscale with smaller ships, better food, better service, and more inclusions (unless you book "Always Included" on Celebrity which we do not because we don't drink alcohol). But even within Celebrity, pricing seems to be all over the place. I booked a spring 2024 cruise on Apex that was a good deal, and much less expensive than cruises around the same time on Beyond and Ascent. I assumed this was simply because Apex is an older ship, but this week I booked even less-expensive cruises on both Beyond (2025) and Ascent (late 2024) than I got on Apex (early 2024). So the newer ships, on dates further out when you might expect higher fares to account for inflation, were less expensive than a slightly older ship in the same class. And while for a couple of years HAL was always less expensive than Celebrity, more recently I've found the opposite to be true. Back to Oceania: They have a new ship (Vista) coming out next year that looks amazing. We got a great fare on that ship for fall 2023 when the bookings opened, but for 2024 and 2025 they have raised to prices on that ship so that it's roughly TWICE as much as Beyond and Ascent for the same time period. We like Oceania a bit better and are willing to pay around 25 percent more for that line, but not double. I'm always amazed at the variability of cruise line pricing and have never been able to figure out WHY?

We were on Sirena recently and took advantage of being able to order room service from the MDR menu during MDR hours. We did this a couple of times for lunch. Even though the expanded room-service menu is great, it's nice to be able to get anything you want from the MDR in your room.

Thank you, thank you, thank you for the photos! It's amazing what they can do in a month of dry dock. We'll be on Riviera in March, Miami to Bermuda RT. We are booked on Marina in 2024 but may cancel if they don't refurbish her. (We have booked a backup on another cruise line just in case.)

We were on Sirena recently and we dropped our luggage off at our stateroom, even though the room wasn't officially available. We noticed the room had already been completely cleaned and stocked and was ready to go, but Oceania releases the availability of suites and staterooms by class. Since we only had a veranda, they weren't going to let us have access to our room until the suites and concierge cabins had been released. Of course, we were told in the hallway on our way to the stateroom that it wasn't ready, but when we asked if we could drop off our luggage they said okay. I don't think it was ideal for them, perhaps because they knew our room was indeed ready but not "officially" ready. We generally aren't pushy like this about things, but we've been on other cruise lines, like Celebrity, where this is common and acceptable so it didn't seem like a liberty to us at the time. Not sure if this strategy would work on all ships for all sailings.

I just saw a CLIA video for TAs (I am not a TA, however) released on YouTube yesterday with Oceania's Tina White. She was talking about the OceaniaNEXT program of ship improvements and mentioned that Riviera was currently in dry dock getting all new public spaces and staterooms, and that her sister ship, Marina, had had all of her public spaces and staterooms refreshed in 2021. I don't know if it's true, but check it out if you're interested: There was no mention of further improvements to Marina. Indeed, White noted that people often tell her the ships look great and DON'T need to be updated. FYI, this discussion of Riviera and Marina is in the first 10 minutes of the video. To me, this indicates they have completely backed away from the promised improvements to Marina. Maybe they'll rethink. Maybe not.

We booked a cruise on Marina while we were on the Sirena and received a a $200 per person discount; a reduced deposit ($250 per person); and a $300 OBC, which we used for the cruise we were on (and which will be deducted from our refundable deposit should we cancel). We also have the following benefit, which I'm not sure I understand: "Please remember that, should your plans change, the deposit can be rolled over to another booking at any time before the cancellation penalty period (one-time only). You will be given the Onboard Club Savings that is applicable to the new sailing and category selected at the time your new booking is made. Any promotional amenities you have received will not roll over to the new reservation. Please note that Onboard Savings is not combinable with select promotions." Questions: (1) If we cancel in the 180 to 91 days period prior to departure but select another sailing at the same time, do we still pay a $250 per person cancellation fee? (2) Do we retain the $300 OBC we already used? Appreciate any help on this if you know.

Not sure how much chance there is of increasing water pressure through a refit, but we can always hope. We just got off Sirena and the water pressure was surprisingly excellent. We are scheduled on Marina for November 2024. Will cancel if the refit hasn't happened by then. Celebrity canceled (postponed?) some of their refits on their older ships, and in the case of their ship Equinox, they started the update in some of the public rooms and then stopped; the difference in the decor on some levels was quite noticeable (old carpet patterns versus new, etc.). And the staterooms just got new curtains and maybe carpet (can't remember exactly but it was disappointing, especially having just been on a sister ship, Silhouette that had been updated).

I am looking at the online scheduler and Marina has a 24-day cruise scheduled December 18, 2023 - January 11, 2024 (Lima to Buenos Aires) and another 24-day cruise scheduled January 21 to February 14, 2024 (Rio de Janeiro to Santiago de Chile). That leaves a gap of just 10 days and it's in South America, not a place known for ship refurbishments.

Regarding WiFi: We were on Sirena recently with the included 1 device at standard internet bandwidth. I have a Samsung Galaxy phone that's almost five years old and I had a very difficult time connecting to the ship's internet. It was hit and miss and mostly miss. I gave up after a few days. My partner has a new Google Pixel phone and the difference was night and day. He rarely had trouble connecting and was even able to do some Zoom calls. I had no idea the phone itself could make such a difference, and I'm still not sure why. That said, I have not had this same issue on recent cruises on Celebrity and HAL so it's not just my phone, but it appears to be a factor.

Oceania Cruises has at least one cruise in 2023 and another in 2024 from Miami (round-trip) to Bermuda. We are on the March 12-22, 2023 cruise from Miami with two nights in Bermuda, an overnight in Charleston, SC, and port calls in Nassau, Bahamas, and Port Canaveral.

We just finished our first Oceania cruise, on Sirena, and enjoyed Red Ginger and the Grand Dining Room but were disappointed by Tuscan Grill. We will be on Riviera in March and I'm wondering if Toscana and Polo Grill are generally better than Tuscan Grill, which combines menu items from both of those. What about Jacques? Are these all worth going to? Because when we were at Tuscan Grill we were sorry we missed the main dining room that evening.

We were on the same cruise. Most everything we had in the main dining room was good (a couple of bad misses but otherwise quite good and consistent) and Red Ginger was very good but we had a lousy dinner in Tuscan last night. Food and service were quite poor. We were so sorry we weren't in the main dining room!