Riviera concierge class versus penthouse

Any thoughts on the advantage of booking PH vs concierge class? Not sure if it's worth the additional $$ and have not cruised Oceania before. Would appreciate your insights all! Thanks,

LB

Any thoughts on the advantage of booking PH vs concierge class? Not sure if it's worth the additional $$ and have not cruised Oceania before. Would appreciate your insights all! Thanks,

LB

Penthouses provide a much larger room, earlier access to Specialty Reservations (possibly more of them as well, depending on your cruise) AND a Butler. If you can afford it, do it! :D

personal choice

we do not need a butler & the A -C cabins suit us fine

Yes, PH is worth it. 420 sq ft vs. 282 sq. ft. The only suite we will book on Oceania. We tried Concierge on Marina. My wife and I kept bumping into each other trying to use the closet, which is right next to the bed. We also enjoyed the spaciousness of the PH and butler served dinners, particularly on the ost night packing evening. I believe PH also entitles you to use the Spa deck and thassalotherapy pool, plus one extra and early reservations at each of the specialty restaurants.

. I believe PH also entitles you to use the Spa deck and thassalotherapy pool,

Also available to Concierge Cabins

Good. But the size, walk-in closet, and other advantages of the PH are determinative for us. Try to get a PH3.

Small yacht sailors like us have to chuckle at the thought of Oceania's A & B cabins somehow being "too small" for a couple of passengers.

Good. But the size, walk-in closet, and other advantages of the PH are determinative for us. Try to get a PH3.

that is your personal choice

Not everyone needs a walk in closet

I barely fill the closet in the regular cabins :eek:

People should choose what works for them

I personally like the extra space in the larger accommodations ... and easily got spoiled once I tried them! But not everyone (as Lyn has said) needs or wants that space. I agree with Jim -- if you can afford it, go for the PH. But you shouldn't spend that $$$ if budget is a consideration. You'll be happy enough in the smaller cabins, especially if you're on Marina or Riviera.

I've said this before but since this question has also been asked many times before, there are people who won't have seen my comment. Our first Renaissance cruise was on Regatta (then the R2) and the shower size REALLY bothered me. Once we discovered the PH category we didn't go back ...

Until Oceania bribed us with a significant downsell from a PH to a B2 on Nautica in 2016. I discovered that the shower no longer bothered me at all, and I had really become used to the much larger bathrooms in higher suites. There are still features that we prefer in the larger suites but we weren't at all unhappy in the B1 we ended up in. We've never had a problem with storage room, even in the veranda cabins on the "R" ships.

You can't know until you try it, but the bathroom on the "R" ships is really not all that horrible! MY opinoin!

Mura

LHT28:

Yes, of course people should pick a suite that works for them. Thanks, Captain Obvious!

I merely passed on that we did not like the close proximity of the closet to the side of the bed in the Concierge Suite, and appreciated the walk-in closet in the PH. If those issues don’t matter, by all means go for the less expensive option.

PH3 is not that much more than Concierge. Frankly, if the smaller suite with no walk-in closet is fine, and spa access isn’t a big deal, I would not pay the extra money for Concierge, and go for a regular Verandah.

For us $100 per person per day on average just isn't worth what you get in a PH3 versus A3 cabin. Obviously, for others it is. But getting a little more cabin space and a few more days to make advanced specialty restaurant reservations just doesn't do it for us.

Square footage isn't everything....The location of the love seat and chair in the penthouse, stuck back in a corner, is not particularly useful IMHO. And the table at the foot of the bed was just something to trip over - not to eat on. I enjoy the walk-in closet, but much prefer the floor plan of the concierge cabin, where I can sit on the love seat and enjoy the view through the sliders. A 15 day advantage for booking the specialty restaurants is not a big deal, and I find the butlers more annoying than helpful.

Should also say that this is true for the O-class ships, where the bath is spacious in balcony cabins. On the R-class ships, the extra space and more spacious baths are clear winners!

The location of the love seat and chair in the penthouse, stuck back in a corner, is not particularly useful IMHO.

You forgot to mention the window, immediately next to the loveseat :(

It's not about affordability as far as we are concerned. It's about value.

We don't need or want a butler. We had no problems getting additional specialty restaurant reservations. 282 square feet is plenty of room since we are rarely there. A B3 aft with extended deck is fine with us.

It's not about affordability as far as we are concerned. It's about value.

 

We don't need or want a butler. We had no problems getting additional specialty restaurant reservations. 282 square feet is plenty of room since we are rarely there. A B3 aft with extended deck is fine with us.

Plus 1

Then it's an easy choice! Your opinion is the ONLY one that matters.

Mura

We had a PH3 cabin on a cruise last month. The butler brought us two pots of coffee and hot milk every morning at 7:15 and if we were still sleeping, we never even heard him. The hor d’oeurves in late afternoon went great with the wine we brought on board. He was also helpful in suggesting the best times to go down for dinner so as not to have to wait. We just wanted the larger room, but the butler was a plus we didn’t think we’d need. So, next two cruises we’ve also opted for the PH cabins and since this will be our first time on the larger ship, am looking forward to the loveseat back by the window—perfect for reading. Or, maybe I’ll read in the walk in closet!

Although my wife and I have sailed three times on the Riviera and Marina, I may not be qualified to answer this question because we've always had "regular" balcony cabins. But those regular balcony cabins are really nice, and perfectly adequate for the 12 to 15 night cruises we've done. The concierge cabins are identical in size and---for my money---don't offer enough extras to justify the higher price. The PH cabins may be a different story; if you want the extra space and feel you can use a butler's services you should probably go for it.

My first cruise on Oceania was on the Riveria. Then the next one was on the Mariana. We had a PH on the first one due to a great upgrade offer to take a guarantee and were happy with what we got. It was a Caribbean cruise. Then the next one last April was a Panama Canal transit from LAX to MIA. It was 16 nights but we felt that the concierge was good enough for us. We are 2 women who travel together as our husbands do not like to travel.

I would take the room again and again at the concierge size. The layout was fine for us and having a nice sitting place is there. BUT the storage was horrible. I take my own snorkel equipment and on the Panama Canal cruise I was going snorkeling in Grand Cayman. I never found a place to put the fins, mask, and snorkel up so had to keep them under my bed most of the time. I also has to keep a lot of my clothes in my suitcase under the bed. You can do this but dragging out the suitcase and putting it back each day was a hassle. The closet itself was OK but there were very few drawers at all. I have a lot of clothes that do not need to be hung up. And the drawers were not very deep and were short front to back.

Our next cruise is this coming January to Tahiti and with double snorkel equipment (many places do not have it or if they do, they do not have fins which take up a lot of space) and the need for more than one swimsuit, and hot weather clothes that you cannot really wear another day without laundering, we decided that we would go back up to the PH. This decision has truly been driven by the storage space.

I agree that the butler is something I do not use much, a good one is great but I have only had that one time so it does not matter to me. I was able to make my dining reservations for the concierge cabin with no issues so that was not an issue for us either. But I will now pretty much only look at a PH for the storage. I just did not enjoy having things out all over the room as there was not enough place to put it all away.

The bath in the concierge is smaller but the same layout and we were fine with that too. As others have said, your needs are different than everyone else. Just gather the information you can, evaluate it to your desires, then chose. You will have a good time no matter which cabin category you chose. Julia

We took our first O cruise for 33 days last month in a Concierge class cabin.  If we cruise with O again (and we may, as we had a wonderful time and really liked the Marina) we would book a PH.  The verandah cabin is just too small for us, particularly on a long cruise.  The placement of the closet, and fighting to find things drove us nuts.  Every time I pushed back from the desk I tipped the coffee table into the sofa.  The sofa was too narrow for me to sit on for any length of time.  The bathroom, even with one sink was actually just fine.  Plenty of storage to keep things out of sight (clutter makes me twitch).

As for Concierge amenities, we stopped using the free laundry after the second time, as items would come back jammed in the bag and very wrinkled.  The laundry is also very hard on clothes.  I was very happy with using the guest laundry.  Very happy.  The machines gently got our clothes clean, and came out of the dryer looking great - it was located just down hall from our cabin, so managing loads was a breeze.  

The Concierge Lounge - the first Concierge was not helpful and follow-up non-existent.  The second Concierge was helpful, but not worth the trouble of finding her, and waiting until our turn to speak with her.  The coffee machine was fine, but Horizons had a better machine.  Snacks were.... sub-par, compared to HAL's Neptune Lounge.

Those cashmere blankets for a little comfort while lounging in your cabin?  Tiny, paper-thin and pretty much useless.  We ended up taking a pool blanket.

We really didn't feel that the cabin was large enough to eat in, so expanded room service availability wasn't used.  Neither was room service breakfast.

Our cabin attendants were wonderful.  We didn't have to ask for much, but when we did, it happened so quickly.

Kate - it was a pleasure meeting you on part of your cruise.

I think that you will like the PH; the trouble is that you may have trouble going back to a veranda 🙂

Kate, we used that "free" laundry on a November 2017 cruise on Marina and a May 2018 cruise on Riviera.  The laundry always came back folded more neatly than I could have!  Never jammed into the bag as you describe.  Having said that, I'm one of those people who is happy to "do it myself".

I'd like to think that they wouldn't distinguish between cabin level in terms of how they "fold" the laundry.  We were in a suite on each trip ...

Mura

This question keeps coming up all the time.  Studies show that the vast majority of consumers usually make the right decision for the wrong reasons.  

4 minutes ago, rafaelc said:

This question keeps coming up all the time.  Studies show that the vast majority of consumers usually make the right decision for the wrong reasons.  

But what's the right decision and where are these studies so we can all read them?

It's called heuristic problem solving.