Marina Cruise Reviews - Reviews

Excellent cruise with famous food and services , even that we miss a port that we want to see Edinburgh  Scotland . and a rainy and windy day in Newcastle.

but over all we enjoy the cruise and the excellent service of Oceania staffs.

We will come back for another cruise and recommend Oceania for our friends.

The itinerary and the excursions that we selected.  

Also enjoyed the specialty restaurants and booked a paid wine pairing dinner..A fabulous experience with assigned  dinner  guests

The best part was the food.

Although having only one choice for eating after 2:00 pm in the daytime until dinner was not ideal. If you were on an excursion and returned in the late afternoon, your only option for food, other than room service, is a sandwich/salad station.

Our best experience on board was with the on board Culinary Chef and his class, it was outstanding.

They need to give you port information concerning weather etc the night before you dock so you can prepare for the day. Telling you the morning of your arrival is not really helpful.

For the hype given this cruise line, we found the level of service overall to be  unimpressive.

Oceania claims to provide a higher level of service, but unfortunately we did not find this to be the case.  We had a lovely time but Oceania could definitely work on improving their excursions and entertainment.  The ports were good but for the extra money, the level of service should be higher. 

It just seemed that everything was a level below our last cruise on Riviera. Started with being given incorrect pier information (and had to walk to correct one pier). When this information was shared with appropriate folks, there was no apology and wonderment about what they were supposed to do with this information. Many of the more administrative types (concierge, reception, etc) were younger and seemed to not quite understand what good customer service looks like. Food was not quite as good and the dinning room staff seemed to be out of sync. Food portions in the special restaurants seemed skimpy. Ordering a simple cocktail often took three conversations with wait staff and then took a long time to get the drink. Entertainment not as good. Shower handle broke off from the wall and took two days to fix. Lots of little things that made us question whether we really got what we paid for. Will consider another cruise line before going back on Oceania

We were able to upgrade to the concierge level veranda stateroom which made our cruise fabulous.  The concierge was a great help with our tour plans and being able to use the concierge lounge was very enjoyable.  We loved the specialty restaurants but also enjoyed the main dining room.  The service was excellent everywhere on the ship.  

Of course Oceania is known for the best cuisine at sea and this was no exception - absolutely superb.  The North Atlantic can be a bit rough in early Spring, and our sailing was no exception - rough but Marina handled it beautifully

Definitely recommend to others.  Staff, service,  and ports were excellent. What more can we say...we love transatlantic voyages.  There is a lot to do on board.  Country fair, afternoon tea, bingo etc. 

Was extremely disappointed as this was advertised as a luxury cruise.  Have been on Princess and was treated much better. Our flight from LA to New York and then from New York to Lima was horrible. We got into Lima at 6:30 AM and were exhausted. This exhaustion carried out through the cruise as excursions were scheduled for early in the mornings which meant we had to get up early to dress and get breakfast.  Service was poor on board ship; most of the crew acted like they were bored.  Food at the buffet was poor; had a hard time finding something to eat.  We ate dinner and some breakfasts in the Grand Dining Room which was good.  The four specialty restaurants were good.  Used the spa one time and felt pressured to use their consultation services.  The evening entertainment in the Marina lounge we attended was good.

First of all, the Pitcairn Island was not advertised as an on board experience until after we had paid in full for the cruise.  (which added 4 sea days to the cruise) Then to add insult to injury, Oceania aired a documentary the day AFTER we bought items from the residents to learn that 6 convicted Felons were among the descendants living there! Wow, amazing we were supporting criminals thanks to Oceania.  THEN, the ONLY TOUR and the MAIN REASON we booked was Easter Island which had bad weather on the 22nd.  We circled the island to see if the Owners Suite (of course) could possibly get to their private tour from the other side, then circled it AGAIN.  The Captain then just started sailing to Lima!  We didn't even wait the next scheduled day to see IF the weather would clear. So this fiasco added another 6 days of staying on the ship!  Total 10 days out of 18 we were trapped with crew who mentioned THEY were glad to get to Lima early so THEY could get 'good internet, have a free day to shop and call home!  Seriously, and WHO was paying for this benefit?  The last and extremely disappointing thing was how Oceania dumped all the passengers that had late flights on the 28th (reservations were made by Oceania) at a Marriott hospitality room with no food, coffee cups with no coffee, no chairs and we had to drag our luggage up and down the elevator.  (Our flight was after midnight on the 29th, which meant we had a 17 hr layover, some guests had a 22 hr layover!!!!) Again all because Oceania wanted to fill the ship again.  Out of sight, out of mind!  Well, we HAD already booked another 23 day cruise, but are SERIOUSLY considering canceling our $44,000+ payment just because of this current cruise experience. Oh, and by the way, we were told several times to enjoy the fine dining while we were at sea.  WE DO NOT BOOK FOR FINE DINING, WE BOOK FOR THE ITINERARY!!! For $26,000 we could have dined in 5 star restaurants for a year!  Oh, and Destination Services blamed this on our AGENT!.........That was the last straw! 

The itinerary was outstanding.  But somehow I expected more.  After about 20 hours total travel time, we arrived in Papeete and were boarded promptly.  We were on a Oceania chartered flight by Air Tahiti Nui.  We arrived at 10 PM to find that all of the restaurants and buffets were closed.  Here it is the first day of the cruise and you board 200 older clients and you have no food except room service.  Room service was soon swamped making it slow.  Very poor planning Oceania.

If you are concierge class or above, don't expect any special treatment from Oceania.  The Executive and Concierge Suites were okay.  I expected a special venue for breakfast and lunch for concierge class, but there was none.  The rooms are nicer, but that's about all you get.

Most enjoyable! The Marina is one of our favorites. The Oceania suites are very comfortable. Enjoy the Ships Art collection. It is beautiful. The French  restaurant on this cruise was outstanding!

This was an excellent cruise with food and service highlighting as always. However there were itinerary problems;

1. No sea days, but we knew that going in

2. Oceania scheduled port calls in Rome and Florence at inopportune times. Rome on Sunday when the Vatican Museum was closed and Florence on Monday when museums were closed

3. Oceania/Marina continued a troubling pattern of changing port calls on the fly. Instead of Tendering at Taormina they docked at Messina. Instead of tendering at Sorrento, they docked at Naples. Their explantation was that seas were too rough to tender safely.  It was simply not the case and these changes disrupoted plans for independent tours at those ports.

We had a great time on the Oceania, Marina.  This was our second cruise on the Marina last year we did a 7 day cruise Rome to Barcelona.  We enjoyed that cruise so much that we did a 10 day Rome to Venice.  I would rate the Oceania Marina  AAA+++ food an staff were great. 

We were on the Marina which is a lovely ship it was sold out but never feels crowded in the public areas.  Service is always first rate and the food very good.

My only complaint is the excursions, they are sometimes wonderful and sometimes the worst, and very pricey.

it was different experience for the better, it was well organized and well cared for. staff was good, everyone was smiling, restaurants were good, food was excellent, and warm always, variety and veg. food was always available. excursions were well prepared, guides were well informed and always helpful.

We were very impressed with the ship, staff and service.  We had heard great things about Oceania, and our experience was consistent with those recommendations.   St. Petersburg was fantastic, but other ports of call, such as  Tallinn, Gdansk and Riga, were more interesting and beautiful than anticipated.  The variety of tours offered makes for some difficult choices, but we were pleased for the most part with our selections.  By the time we reached Amsterdam and Bruges, we were ready to explore on our own and sample the local fare. 

The evening entertainment and after-hours dancing in Horizons was great fun, and an unexpected bonus. 

We had high expectations for the food and overall were satisfied.  A few dishes were unsatisfactory, but quickly replaced by the attentive staff.   Don't miss the Sea Bass at Red Ginger - outstanding!

Beautiful ship, staterooms roomy and well appointed. Great service and food. Excellent itinerary. Entertainment better than expected. Everything well organized.

Excursions expensive but worth it if you choose the ones that matter like St.Petersburg and Berlin-which would be challenging to do on your own. Smaller ports are fine to do without the excursions if you can read a map. We enjoyed doing the other ports on our own. 

This is a high end luxurious ship if that is what you are looking for. 

We took our first Oceania cruise 10 years ago for our 25th and decided to repeat the experience for our 35th.  This ship was almost double the people of the other we were on and we definitely liked the smaller one better, but this was totally fine as it was still so much smaller than the large ships.  The cabin was very roomy and the beds and pillows were VERY comfortable!  The staff is  and so kind and friendly and all needs are met right away.  The best thing thing is that Oceania is a very land intensive cruise line so even though days at sea are nice, days on shore are even better and there were plenty of those.  The specialty restaurants are delicious, although the Polo Grill was not so good.  We love the open seating for dinner and the choice of the grand dining room or the Terrace Grill.  The variety was very good.  It was not a "sit on the deck" cruise because it was often too cool on deck in this area, but we didn't miss that at all.  The Horizons Lounge was wonderful to sit in and socialize and high tea was AMAZING!  The massages at the spa were blissful as well and we never expected them to be so wonderful.  We came back, not rested, which meant it was a great trip, but happy and satisfied full of great memories. We highly recommend this cruise and this cruise line.

We have cruised several times on various cruise lines including QEII, a Holyland cruise with Royal Caribbean and several princess cruises.  The QE II is incomparable for style and class; the Holy Land, Baltic Sea cruises had far superior excursions for less money than Oceania

The Marina experience was disappointing mainly because of the excursions offered by Oceania.  They were expensive and boring and in several cases misleading.  For example we went on a 3.5 hour tour of Explore St John City... spent 13 minutes in the city without stopping for even a photo stop after spending two hours riding in a bus to two other sites.  Folks were so upset that they exited the bus prior to returning to the pier so that they could see St John.

The stateroom was as described EXCEPT we paid extra for concierge level and never saw or heard from a concierge.  When we dialed Concierge on the phone we got housekeeping!  We did receive a form letter upon embarkation welcoming us to concierge level.  This very annoying.

We did experience unforeseen happenings such as norovirus outbreak, gale winds forcing an itinerary change (did not go to two ports) etc but understand these to be unavoidable and part of cruise life.

The food on Marina was very good with four specialty dining rooms in addition to the main Grand Dining Room.  The staff were friendly, helpful and very pleasant to deal with... in every part of the ship.  The ship was clean and tastefully decorated.

We were looking forward to this because we had thought that Oceania was a luxury cruise line.... we did not find that to be the case.  Would not cruise with them again and if we did recommend would advise not to go unless they had a penthouse suite and did all excursions independent of Oceania, including to and from airport transportation (our coach had an accident by running a car off the road on the way to the airport... no injuries fortunately)

Internet charges for this cruise were ridiculous.