Not a cruise line I would use again or recommend

Cruises: 7+ cruises

Review: 1

Helpful Votes: 10

Review summary

We recently returned from a cruise around Italy. We traveled with friends who made the arrangements using Oceania Cruise lines. The ship we traveled on is named Nautica. My wife and I have cruised with several different cruise lines on ten prior occasions. The Nautica is a small ship – 684 total passengers with a staff of 400. We came away feeling that the overall experience was at the bottom of our list. There were a few good points – a) The crew is well trained to be very friendly; b) Cabin and public spaces were kept very clean. c) There was an ample choice of shore excursions. d) The breakfast and lunch buffet always had a large assortment of food choices. Unfortunately, there were far more bad points – a) Any cabin below deck 8 is too small to be comfortably habitable. Below the 8th deck, the largest cabin is 216 square feet. Bathroom is so tiny it was difficult to shower. There was not enough proper space to put away clothing or store suitcases. b) Main dining room: Poor to fair. About five or six main course choices available at each meal – several were the same every night. c) Specialty dining rooms (2): Very nice. Problem is that reservations must be made well in advance of the cruise. Otherwise, tables are not available. d) Entertainment: poor to fair. A comedian performed twice. He was very ‘off color’ and not very funny. Entertainment director sang one night – just okay performance. A group of five very young, inexperienced people performed on all other nights. Would expect a better performance from high school students. e) Excursions: All guides apparently local to area. Many were very well versed and provided a lot of information. Some walked too quickly, not allowing for anyone to take in local sites. On most occasions, the bus windows were filthy. There was plenty of time for the driver to clean the windows while waiting for passengers to assemble and board. To summarize – I have no idea how much better Oceania’s other boats might be, or if the above negative points flow throughout their fleet. That being said, based on our experience I cannot recommend this cruise line, or at least not this particular boat.

Embarkation

Ship experiences

Food and Dining

Onboard Activities

Entertainment

Service and Staff

Ship Quality

Cabin / Stateroom

Ports of call

Taormina, Sicily

Valletta, Malta

Argostoli, Kefalonia, Greece

Durres (Tirana), Albania

Kotor, Montenegro

Split, Croatia

Venice, Italy

Disembarkation