Marina Cruise Reviews - Reviews

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. 

I did not particularly like the ship and encountered quite a few problems.  Most of the staff were good but had 5 rude employees.  There is not much to do on some of the stop.  I prefer to go on a cruise with alcohol included.  It felt as if they nickel ed and dime you the whole trip.  $1 for laundry.   Why not just up all fares by $1.  A bit ridiculous.  The tours and transportation were a ridiculous cost.  We hired private drivers and it was 1/4 cost of their tours.  Overall not so good for me.

We chose this cruise as a way to see many ports that we had not visited, but in particular, Easter Island, Lima (Peru), Belfast and Dublin.  We were not disappointed in the itinerary.  As we have sailed on Oceania many times, we anticipated that the service would be friendly and efficient and the food terrific.  Once again, Oceania came through with a great cruise experience.

The itinerary was wonderful and the Marina is a beautiful ship. We had a Penthouse Suite and it was very roomy and comfortable. There was more than enough storage space for our belongings. Our butler was attentive and the appetizers offered were very nice. Unfortunately, we didn't order the appetizers very often as they were served after 5PM and we wanted to enjoy Happy Hour from 5 to 6.

We arrived in Papeete by ferry from Moorea along with quite a few other passengers. The Marina was very close, but it was extremely difficult trying to get our luggage down the road from the ferry dock to the ship. The road was so rough our bags would not roll. It was also very hot. We had two in our group who have difficulty walking and it was almost impossible for them to roll their bags. It would have been nice if the ship's crew would have met the ferry with a luggage cart to assist us. It would not have taken long and it would have made the embarkation process so much better.

We did have a negative experience in the Grand Dining Room. Perhaps our expectations were too high, but the food and service in the GDR was spotty. The first time we visited, the waiter originally brought me the wrong entrée and the maître d' spent way too much time trying to assign blame. Our companion ordered the broccoli slaw and when it was served, there was no broccoli to be seen. They then brought a dish covered in broccoli and the maître d' seemed sarcastic when he said he had personally added the broccoli. Our companions ordered a fish dish that was cold when served. Our second try was much better, with excellent service and food. At our third and final visit, we found the service acceptable, but the food mediocre and fairly bland.

The service and food in Toscana was superb. Maria, the maître d', Vincent, the assistant maître d', Max our waiter, and Alexandra, the sommelier, all made us feel special and welcome. We wanted to try everything on the menu and everything we did try was wonderful both in presentation and taste.

We ate several times in the Veranda Café for dinner. Although I am not too fond of buffets, we found the atmosphere and the food superior to the GDR. It was rarely crowded and there was a large selection of food available and the food was delicious and either hot or cold as appropriate.

We ate in the other specialty dining rooms and found them to be very good. We did feel that since we had booked a penthouse suite, we should have had more opportunity to eat in the specialty dining rooms. We were given four reservations. It would have been nice to have the opportunity to eat in each restaurant twice at least.

Oceania should have been more honest about the stop at Pitcairn Island. It obviously was not a good place to go ashore and the alternative of having the islanders come on the Marina was a good one. It should have been advertised as such, not giving an excuse three weeks ahead that bad weather precluded us going ashore.

Kudos to the Captain for finding an alternative tender site on Easter Island when the swells made it too dangerous at Hanga Roa. The tender staff were excellent in making sure everyone transferred to and from the tenders safely. The tender ticket system was terrible and the Destination Services staff allowed themselves to get very frustrated as the passengers became very frustrated. Again, on other ships, if we were in a suite or above, we had a chance to get tender tickets without waiting in the lounge with the other 1200 people. At Easter Island, I was in line 45 minutes before the tickets were to be given out. By the time I got our tickets, we were in the second to last group before open tickets.  Some people were getting 50+ tickets! The second day wasn't any better. When I asked the schedule for the colors so we could anticipate when our group would be called, the staff member said I didn't need to know that. I later asked another staff who disclosed the color before ours so our group of 4 knew when we could proceed to the elevator as we had 2 people who have difficulty with stairs.

The disembarkation in Lima was very difficult. It seemed like everyone wanted to get off at the same time and the shuttles could not cope with the number of people. There was a very long line and it seems like there has to be a better way to control the crowds and make the process less stressful.

Our negative comments are presented with the idea to improve service on the ship. All in all, however, it was a wonderful cruise and the crew and ship were excellent.

The ship was beautiful and easy to navigate. Really enjoyed the bathtub and liked the easy to walk in front of people in the Marina Lounge.

We upgraded tp consierge class and did not see any difference for the $

ok ......................

With this being our first cruise with Oceania, we were impressed. Except for the limited space for late night entertainment, the cruise was the best of three we have taken. The dining experience was excellent, especially at the Terrace. The casino had limited slots and somewhat outdated. Overall....an enjoyable cruise.

beautiful, modern ship - luxurious marble bathroom -

Everything on this ship was superb with the exception of the entertainment - that was adequate at best.

Very impressive ship- opulent and stately