Mediocre experience

Shore excursions overpriced.  

We took "city highlight" tours of Mazatlan and Puerto Vallarta.

Each cost $99 for an approximately 4 hour tour.  In each case we were taken to a jewelry store.  Not exactly a highlight of any city.  In Mazatlan other tour guides escorted their groups to places and gave talks about the location.  Ours just pointed to where places were & we walked there ourselves.  In Puerto Vallarta our guide was very difficult to understand with her heavy accent.  Granted these issues don't reflect on Oceania but they were part of our experience.

Staff was generally very friendly and helpful.

Food was mediocre at best.  I don't know how they can call themselves a foodie lovers cruise.  

The buffet was extremely disorganized.  There were many different 'stations' where the staff would serve you.  There were no trays to carry your dishes and limited space to put your plate down while being served something else.  People didn't know where to stand to ask for food.  Some items weren't labeled so if it had a cover over it you didn't know what it was.  As people passed thru the area they had difficulty getting by the groups of people waiting to be served.  Once you got your food it tended to get cold before you could find a seat.

The dining room service was good.  Our waiter (Eugene from the Phillipines) was easy to understand and made some very helpful suggestions for additions to our meal that weren't on the menu.  We always asked for a table with him.

Afternoon tea was another food opportunity.  There was one day they had strudel but where we were sitting we didn't see it and we weren't offered any by the servers.  Another day they had cheesecakes.  There were 5 different kinds.  None were to our liking.

Specialty restaurants were reservation only.  We couldn't get one when we tried.

They offered what was supposed to be gelato but it was grainy and low quality.

They had a free specialty coffe bar (free as long as you didn't want liquor in it) which made good lattes and iced coffees.

The main shows in the evening generally started at 9:30 P.M.  Too late for us so we never went to any.  They showed highlights of them on the cabin TV.  What we saw made us glad we missed them.

Wee had cabin 3029 on the lowest passenger deck.  It was an average size ocean view with a small porthole.  No complaints about it.  Our cabin steward was Sandip and he did a very good job taking care of things.

This was our first (and probably the last) time we'll cruise with Oceania.