Marina Cruise Reviews - Reviews

We always enjoy a cruise on an Oceania ship, and this one was are favorites to date.  The Marina is a lovely ship and the crew was great.  Since Oceania offered great values while onboard, we booked our next cruise on the Marina!

Wife fell first night in Barcelona; had hair line hip fracture - not serious enough to cancel cruise but very painful.  Oceania could/would not provide disabled transportation to or from the ship and provided very limited wheel chair assistance on board - a helpful crew member nearly got in trouble for violating Oceania's policy that wheel chairs would be provided for "emergencies" only.  Situation made even worse by terrible (close to non-existent) luggage handling embarking and disembarking and to/from airport - Oceania's response to the on-shore transportation problems was "It's not our problem!"

Injury issues aside, the ship was "tired" and need of updating, and our stateroom was the same and also in need of a lot of cleaning (mold in the shower, dirty furniture, debris on the floor, etc.).

On the upside, the food was better than average, and the crew members (below the reception desk/concierge personnel) were friendly and helpful.

Although, we really enjoyed the cruise, we felt there was something missing.  We had previously cruised on the Regatta on Oceania, and did Monte Carlo to Venice.  That experience led us to pick Oceania again.  This was not as special.  The food was not as good at all.  Maybe I am too picky, but the meals we ate at restaurants on shore in each port were far superior to anything they served on the ship.  Some food was really quite bad.  Plus our experience with the staff on the Regatta was so different and so much better than on the Marina.  The difference was really notable.  The smaller ship, the warm helpful service we experienced, was not on the Marina.  We certainly were served well, but just really ok.  Excuses were made so much, and the staff really didn't know enough to help or explain.

Then when I had my nails done on the last day, and got an outrageous bill, I was really disappointed.  I didn't complain, but it really upset me.

B

From start to finish, SUPERB! Excellent,professional in every way! Would recommend without reservation! CLASSY! The staff make it! Organize your own tours at each port, on board to expensive! You can make your own itinerary .

We recently cruised on the Marina from Santiago to Tahiti.  The cruise was nice, the food was very good, and the service excellent as we would expect from a 5.5 star cruise line.    BUT

We were aware that Oceana’s wine and beverage prices were always higher than other cruise lines and—

Your wine package of “…a personally selected 7 bottle special selection of wines…” for $297.50 ($42.50 per bottle) looked OK.  I did not recognize many of the wines so before purchasing I looked them up on e “Wine Searcher.com” - probably the standard for wine research, reviews pricing and availability.  We wanted all red wines and looked up those we thought we might like.

OUCH – We looked up 12 wines and discovered retail prices ranging from $6 to $14.  The average price of the wines was $9.94 (your cost about $6.40 per bottle).  The wine ratings from multiple reviews ranged from 81 to 88 points with an average of 84.3 points.  This is pretty poor for “specially selected wines”

It takes a large amount of courage, or a pre-planned decision to gouge your customers, to mark up the average wine from $6.50 cost to $42.50, that’s over 650%.  How can you justify this ??

We took the Nautica Black Sea Cruise in Aug2013. We spent 2 weeks driving through Turkey including Selcuk (Ephesus) before embarking in Athens.  Oceana’s small group full day tour of Ephesus (12 persons max) was over $250 pp.  We took the same Ephesus tour in Turkey for $65 pp using the same tour supplier.  On our Marina  cruise, in Easter Island, we took a professionally led small group 2 day tour for the same price as the half day tour by Oceana.

So much for our warm and fuzzy feelings about Oceana’s pricing tactics.

The staff was outstanding, the ship was beautuful and we had a wonderful time on our excursions. One of the best trips we have taken. Would recommend this for any couple. Caters to adults which was wonderful.

The schedule is made for those who like a stop everyday, if you want relaxation you need to stop every other day. That being said we enjoyed our stops, even the ones that got changed due to weather.

I loved the spacious balcony cabin.

Sorry to say our great expectations for our cruise with Oceania were not met. By catering to an older passenger, on board activities while at sea were non-existent (Bingo and needlepoint not very entertaining). The entertainment was at best a nice college production and the shows were repetitive. Most of the ports visited required either a pricey cruise excursion or pre-arranged tours. Left to our own adventure proved to be another visit to a nice place to stroll and shop. Changing the schedule to our stop at Dover to 3 pm precluded the chance to visit London. The visit to La Coruna, Spain on a Sunday was a waste of time since virtually everything was closed. Limiting the visit to Lisbon to a 3 pm departure left little time to explore and see this wonderful city.

We always go for the inside cabins as we only spend time in the cabin to shower and to sleep. The cabin was acceptable, the bed was comfortable. The shower on the other hand was almost unusable. I am a small person 6' 7" and weigh 160 lbs. I could not shower without injuring myself. Standing in the middle of the shower one shoulder was against the wall the other against the door. I was constantly banging into hard metal objects such as the water supply and the water controls. We have been on other much less expensive cruise lines and have never had an experience like this. We chose this line because we had heard that the food in their restaurants was superb. You couldn't prove it by us. On the menus it said they were only using prime beef. Not so. I could go on and on but I'm tired of writing this. Suffice it to say we did not have a great dining experience the entire cruise. Even their pizza wasn't good. The crew on the other hand were marvelous. 

Oceania does a fine job of producing beautiful vessels on which to sail. The staff in all departments was professional and helpful.

This was our 4th cruise and our first time on Oceania. The ship was lovely and the service was over the top!  The food was amazing with so many selections and prepared very well.  The presentation was wonderful too.  We hate waiting in lines to get on and off a ship and there was NONE of that on this cruise.  Size really does matter.  If you are looking for an adult cruise with impecable service and food, we would highly recommend the Marina from Oceania.  If you need a lot of evening entertainment you might need to research that a bit more.  We were too tired after touring to care about that.  This cruise had everything we needed and wanted.

I enjoyed the ship and cruise.

Perfect Holiday cruise with visits to all major ports in southern South America and around Cape Horn.

I would cruise Oceania again

Wonderful sojourn in South Pacific, taking in islands..including Easter Island; ended up at Lima and going to Machu Picchu .

Pros: Ship, Food, Vista Suite, onboard entertainment, service. Cons: ship sponsored shore excursions, poor internet service, delay in check-in, hard to understand billing of cruiseline, difficulty getting to Tahiti via airline, constant rain

Great ship and staff. Room was very comfortable. Food was excellent.

Great Cruise

p write your reviews here! We have been on 20 cruises in last 8 years-8 on ceania. This was the very best-room,service, hspitality e tc. Signed up for another. They do evertything to perfection.Loved it.