Just Back from Japan on Riviera: A Few Thoughts

[WESTEAST]

1 hour ago, macaroni said:

How early of a flight out of Haneda could we take….hoping 11 am?

Check Post #9 may be helpful re early disembarkation information.  Not sure what time your ship plans to arrive but in the past (not our Japan cruise) we walked off the ship with our luggage shortly after the ship docked.

 

[pinotlover]

3 hours ago, WESTEAST said:

Check Post #9 may be helpful re early disembarkation information.  Not sure what time your ship plans to arrive but in the past (not our Japan cruise) we walked off the ship with our luggage shortly after the ship docked.

 

Just a word of caution on this. Because of the tides, the exit on Deck 4 was not available for use for our disembarkation in Yokohama last week. So when WestEast talks about exiting with your bags, it meant walking down the gang plank with all your luggage. For those with mobility issues that’s not a good plan. In that case, you do the leave your luggage outside your room at 10:00 and exit , when your color and number is called and find your luggage being offloaded in the terminal. As an independent traveler ( no Oceania transfer) that meant an actual 7:45-7:50 exit from the ship.

[pinotlover]

I’ll give a short review of our cruise.

 

Precruise - the Tokyo Hilton is definitely nice. The precruise package was part of a sale we jumped on. Glad I didn’t pay Oceania for it. Regent was doing both a parallel cruise and precruise with us. They got the morning tours, and we the identical afternoon tours starting at around 1:30 or 2:00. Little time to actually sightsee and mostly a panoramic tour. Then off to Boardamania.

 

Cruise - Overall a good cruise. We only had a couple ports clipped an hour, so we got to see what we came to see. That alone made it a good cruise. It was a 12 day cruise and we only had one sea day, so we stayed busy.

 

Tours - predominantly private tours with a few Oceania tours mixed in. The best O tour was Osaka and Nara on the second full day in Kobe. As I earlier stated, we took the bullet train back to Kyoto, post cruise, to explore that town for another 2.5 days. Wonderful mix of private tours with substantial savings.

 

Food- I hesitate to go there as there was a tremendous amount of grumblings. The NoNo have won the day. The chorus we heard in most of the eating venues from staff was “ We now allow our passengers to season their food to their taste.” Translated means no to very low salt and no seasoning on anything. The NoNos were ecstatic, the rest of us not. Mash potatoes, green beans, sauces, meats, etc without any seasoning is bland, but the NoNos were happy. We learned to salt our own foods. Funny story, nothing would often come out of the salt shaker and people learned to unscrew the top of the shakers and add at will. One had to watch for rice in the salt shakers! 😂. Funny story, one of the Diamonds on this cruise one night asked for garlic, oregano, and thyme to season his dish. He told the waiter “ if we can season to our own tastes, I want to add the seasonings that should be in the dish!” He got none of the above. So after self seasoning, as typical we had an excellent meal, some OK meals, and one very poor meal. The latter meal is an issue is a Miami corporate policy driven issue that even the chefs don’t like, but Miami rules. On the no salt/seasoning issue, one of the waiters in the PG said, a benefit for O now is that they don’t have to individually do low salt or no salt menus for a portion of the cruisers, every one gets it. The daily meals of exceptional local Japanese or Korean cuisine was so tremendous, the dinner food quality aboard ship was mostly an afterthought for us.

 

Entertainment - Poor choreography probably placed the ship’s team below average. One of the outside entertainment was Steve Stephens who was flat out spectacular. Dr. Holden, who was the lecturer was poor. The CD , which was a 35 year Brit, was quite good. A think Chris was his name but can’t remember. New to Oceania.

 

WiFi - worked pretty well except in S.Korean waters, but don’t believe that was Oceania’s fault.

 

As I earlier stated, just over 52% were O repeaters. GoNext represented about 226 of the roughly 1100 passengers aboard. The vast majority of that segment trended younger (35-55). A significant portion of the Repeaters trended a lot older than normal. We had 6 emergency evacuations, by ambulance, that I know of, with only one returning same day to the ship. Most left on a gurney, including our elderly neighbor. Our single sea day had our butler and room attendant packing all their clothes and personal items the day after they left the ship. Forgot to ask our butler how all that was handled afterwards.

 

I believe overall we had a very good cruise. Since food aboard ship was nothing exceptional, I would probably recommend the HAL, or other , circumnavigation of Japan so to see more. Just remember lots of walking!

 

Final note, we visited Kanazawa after Kyoto for 2.5 days. Tremendous food city , especially fresh fish from its fish market, and easy to reach by bullet train. We took the express train to Tokyo and then the monorail to Haneda for our late afternoon flight home. Kanazawa was lovely and we got a private tour out into the mountains one day and far away from the numerous Japanese concrete jungles.

 

 

 

 

[Tranquility Base]

2 hours ago, pinotlover said:

Funny story, one of the Diamonds on this cruise one night asked for garlic, oregano, and thyme to season his dish. He told the waiter “ if we can season to our own tastes, I want to add the seasonings that should be in the dish!” He got none of the above.

I wonder if, much as with a BYO bottle of wine, BYO herbs & spices to the table will be charged an unpacking fee ? 😇

[thebsinmiss]

Sorry to hear about the issues with the cruise but glad you enjoyed it overall.

 

We are on the Riviera in June and I really hope they address any issue of unseasoned/under seasoned food before then.

 

The reason we booked on Oceania again (and why our friends are joining us) is the food.

If we wanted uninspired tasteless food aimed at catering to the lowest common denominator then we would have booked on one of the mega ships at a far lower price.

 

I'm very concerned about this and hoping it is a one off and not a corporate mandated on going issue.  Time will tell I guess

 

  

[roadmaster]

Thanks for your interesting review.

not really sure if this question was asked or answered.

What if you were a transit cruising through Tokyo…that is, we leave from LA and exit at Singapore. At the same time the same cruise starts at Tokyo and continues.

Do the transits have to to suffer the same as the ones just beginning the cruise at Tokyo.

Hope this makes sense.

cheers

 

[pinotlover]

1 hour ago, roadmaster said:

Thanks for your interesting review.

not really sure if this question was asked or answered.

What if you were a transit cruising through Tokyo…that is, we leave from LA and exit at Singapore. At the same time the same cruise starts at Tokyo and continues.

Do the transits have to to suffer the same as the ones just beginning the cruise at Tokyo.

Hope this makes sense.

cheers

 

To enter Japan there is a process that everyone must go through, transit or visitation. One will fill out the paperwork, have fingerprints taken of the index finger of both hands, and be photographed. Fact is, not only did we go through the process upon entering at Haneda, but we had to do it totally again upon re entering Japan after Korea.

 

Additionally, all ship passengers had to  depart the ship , in that first port, and go through immigrations again whether they planned on touring that day or not. This was announced multiple times over the intercom and as reported, the ship’s captain came on and called out those by name that hadn’t done so, and ordered them to reception. The ship couldn’t depart until everyone had yet again cleared immigration. For those with tours that day, they had to go through the process before loading up. Hope that explains it.

[roadmaster]

Thanks Pinotlover…..something to look forward to.

[Rainbow3fe]

6 hours ago, thebsinmiss said:

Sorry to hear about the issues with the cruise but glad you enjoyed it overall.

 

We are on the Riviera in June and I really hope they address any issue of unseasoned/under seasoned food before then.

 

The reason we booked on Oceania again (and why our friends are joining us) is the food.

If we wanted uninspired tasteless food aimed at catering to the lowest common denominator then we would have booked on one of the mega ships at a far lower price.

 

I'm very concerned about this and hoping it is a one off and not a corporate mandated on going issue.  Time will tell I guess

 

  

Hi,

    On our 9th O cruise, Regatta Feb 2024, we had not one problem with the food. We felt everything was up to Oceania's high level of quality. Since there's no Jacques on Regatta, we enjoyed Polo's French Onion soup immensely.  Yes, it was salt heaven😄

[avalong]

Regarding the salt issue: Anyone who cooks can tell you that a dish that is salted DURING the cooking process (sometimes multiple times at different stages), is going to taste entirely different (better) than if it is salted only at the end.

[WESTEAST]

 

9 hours ago, thebsinmiss said:

Sorry to hear about the issues with the cruise but glad you enjoyed it overall.

 

We are on the Riviera in June and I really hope they address any issue of unseasoned/under seasoned food before then.

 

The reason we booked on Oceania again (and why our friends are joining us) is the food.

If we wanted uninspired tasteless food aimed at catering to the lowest common denominator then we would have booked on one of the mega ships at a far lower price.

 

I'm very concerned about this and hoping it is a one off and not a corporate mandated on going issue.  Time will tell I guess

 

  

We were on the Riviera in Japan last month and found the food and service excellent in all venues with a few exceptions (lamb in Red Ginger, steak in GDR).  First time to have the pizza in Waves at dinner (served to us in the Terrace) and enjoyed it so much we went back a second time (p.s. they were open to customizing a pizza e.g. extra pepperoni, etc.). Taste is somewhat subjective and everyone has their personal likes and dislikes.  We did not find the food tasteless and hope you enjoy your cruise and the cuisine.

[Rainbow3fe]

1 hour ago, WESTEAST said:

 

We were on the Riviera in Japan last month and found the food and service excellent in all venues with a few exceptions (lamb in Red Ginger, steak in GDR).  First time to have the pizza in Waves at dinner (served to us in the Terrace) and enjoyed it so much we went back a second time (p.s. they were open to customizing a pizza e.g. extra pepperoni, etc.). Taste is somewhat subjective and everyone has their personal likes and dislikes.  We did not find the food tasteless and hope you enjoy your cruise and the cuisine.

Wow. We enjoyed two pizza dinners at Waves on Vista.  I didn't know that Waves on Riviera offers them as well. Looking forward to that in addition to the lobsters, fresh tuna, filet mignon and Sea Bass in Red Ginger. 

[WESTEAST]

3 minutes ago, Rainbow3fe said:

Wow. We enjoyed two pizza dinners at Waves on Vista.  I didn't know that Waves on Riviera offers them as well. Looking forward to that in addition to the lobsters, fresh tuna, filet mignon and Sea Bass in Red Ginger. 

Our next cruise is onboard Vista so will definitely be trying one (or two). Yes lobsters, Sea Bass in Red Ginger; we love the Escargot and Dover Sole in Jacques onboard Riviera and will miss it on Vista but open to trying the new Ember and the Dover Sole in Toscanas is excellent as well.

[Rainbow3fe]

20 minutes ago, WESTEAST said:

Our next cruise is onboard Vista so will definitely be trying one (or two). Yes lobsters, Sea Bass in Red Ginger; we love the Escargot and Dover Sole in Jacques onboard Riviera and will miss it on Vista but open to trying the new Ember and the Dover Sole in Toscanas is excellent as well.

We will didn't enjoy anything about Ember except for the fireplace.  Even though there's no Jacques, they served yummy escargot in GDR once or twice.

You're going to be impressed by Vista but except for the awesome staterooms, we really prefer the other Oceania ships.

[cjwags]

This thread is such a good example of how multiple people can have different perspectives on the same topic.  Our food on Riviera in Japan the week before was not especially bland  or under salted to us.  In fact, several dishes were so salty I could barley eat them! Just goes to show, everyone has different tastes.

 

As for Vista, we loved the ship last June! Found it beautiful, had no problems with noise in our cabins, food was mostly very good.  We had a couple of very nice dishes in Ember, but did think it was quite noisy.  Jacques is a step above for sure.  

 

All in all, just happy to be on vacation!

[lmp22]

Great information everyone. We are booked on this cruise in April 2025. Question - Can we walk off at any of these stops without having a prebooked excursion? In other words, is the ship docked at easily accessible locations? Hope that makes sense!

[Pearl64]

Question about transportation on Oceania shore excursions? Are there private busses or do they utilize public transportation? Many private tours I’ve looked at utilize public transportation. Just trying to know what to expect. Thank you.

[ORV]

10 hours ago, cjwags said:

This thread is such a good example of how multiple people can have different perspectives on the same topic.  Our food on Riviera in Japan the week before was not especially bland  or under salted to us.  In fact, several dishes were so salty I could barley eat them! Just goes to show, everyone has different tastes.

 

As for Vista, we loved the ship last June! Found it beautiful, had no problems with noise in our cabins, food was mostly very good.  We had a couple of very nice dishes in Ember, but did think it was quite noisy.  Jacques is a step above for sure.  

 

All in all, just happy to be on vacation!

That’s interesting. For some people that subject had been a theme for awhile. It’s not new. 

[pinotlover]

4 hours ago, Pearl64 said:

Question about transportation on Oceania shore excursions? Are there private busses or do they utilize public transportation? Many private tours I’ve looked at utilize public transportation. Just trying to know what to expect. Thank you.

Public transport, such as subways and buses, are readily available, inexpensive, and easy to use. Some of our private tours were a combo of those methods along with cabs.

 

Most do NOT take credit cards, including some of the cabs. Money conversions are mandatory. No the ticket machines won’t take US dollars.

[Rainbow3fe]

8 hours ago, Pearl64 said:

Question about transportation on Oceania shore excursions? Are there private busses or do they utilize public transportation? Many private tours I’ve looked at utilize public transportation. Just trying to know what to expect. Thank you.

We never had to use public transportation on any Oceania excursion. I noticed that in Japan just about every private tour said the guide will use public transportation. I understand that in Tokyo, traffic is crazy and like in New York,  there's no place for driver to leave vehicle in order to escort the tourists.  

[godfreyb]

We did a private tour of Tokyo when our ship docked at Yokohama, which involved going on public transportation.  it was very enlightening to see how the system works, because the guide explains it all, such that when we stayed in Tokyo for a few days ten days later, we went all over the place on the subway by ourselves.  One thing to note, some of the transfers require long walks!

[Pearl64]

Thanks for the responses. Utilizing public transportation is a new one for us. We have been on many private tours and never used public transportation. I was most concerned with ship tours where usually one sees the big buses. One just needs to have an idea of what to expect. We are not against. Godfrey’b, it is good to know you were able to figure out the transportation on your own.

[Rainbow3fe]

2 hours ago, Pearl64 said:

Thanks for the responses. Utilizing public transportation is a new one for us. We have been on many private tours and never used public transportation. I was most concerned with ship tours where usually one sees the big buses. One just needs to have an idea of what to expect. We are not against. Godfrey’b, it is good to know you were able to figure out the transportation on your own.

Hi Patty,

       We should have had some experience using Japan's public transportation system by the time we get to Kyoto.  Hopefully it will be a bit easier to navigate by then. I honestly considered asking to book a taxi from Kobe port into Kyoto. A taxi costs over $200 (4 passengers) as opposed to less than $20 pp. on the train. We would have spent the extra $$ for a taxi but I think the train ride might be an interesting experience and you only save 15 minutes going by car.

     Would like to know if others who went from Kobe to Kyoto have feedback.

     Been reading 24/ for nearly a week. Overwhelming but fascinating. 💥🎉 Cannot wait to explore Japan. 

      

        Thanks,

Felice 😎 

[ronrick1943]

6 minutes ago, Rainbow3fe said:

Hi Patty,

       We should have had some experience using Japan's public transportation system by the time we get to Kyoto.  Hopefully it will be a bit easier to navigate by then. I honestly considered asking to book a taxi from Kobe port into Kyoto. A taxi costs over $200 (4 passengers) as opposed to less than $20 pp. on the train. We would have spent the extra $$ for a taxi but I think the train ride might be an interesting experience and you only save 15 minutes going by car.

     Would like to know if others who went from Kobe to Kyoto have feedback.

     Been reading 24/ for nearly a week. Overwhelming but fascinating. 💥🎉 Cannot wait to explore Japan. 

      

        Thanks,

Felice 😎 

Japan is an interesting country--but the train system is really easy to use-and people really go out of their way to help you.  Do the train.

[MonikaV]

17 hours ago, godfreyb said:

We did a private tour of Tokyo when our ship docked at Yokohama, which involved going on public transportation.  it was very enlightening to see how the system works, because the guide explains it all, such that when we stayed in Tokyo for a few days ten days later, we went all over the place on the subway by ourselves.  One thing to note, some of the transfers require long walks!

Good to know that it is possible to get to Tokyo from Yokohama by subway. May I ask which station you used? We want to use public transportation as well. I have been to Tokyo and Osaka before and also experienced how helpful people are - while the subway and train stations can be a bit intimidating ... Thank you so much