Suite staff are excellent. I also had a manicure and it was the best I've ever had. Beware of tender ports - get to the lounge early to get a numbered ticket to get off the boat. Plan to wait. Pick shore excursions carefully and expect to held hostage a bit.
It's still a wonderful experience visiting the different ports and countries in 12 days.
Embarkation
4 out of 5
Challenging - we did not receive bag tags or boarding passes... Oceania took care of us though.
Ship experiences
Food and Dining
5 out of 5
The food and beverages were excellent. I like strong coffee and found the Barista's on level 14 was the best coffee on the boat.
Onboard Activities
5 out of 5
The only activity we participated in was a red wine tasting challenge that was very informative and fun!
Service and Staff
5 out of 5
Our butler and cabin staff we just excellent. Friendly and helpful. I twisted my ankle in Athens getting off the plane and the staff took great care to make sure I had ice several times a day.
Ship Quality
5 out of 5
The ship is very nice. There are improvement over the winter that will make it even better.
Cabin / Stateroom
4 out of 5
Our cabin was very clean, nicely decorated and very large. The fitness room was a waste of space - I used it once. The bathroom was fantastic. Vista suites should know that there is a mandatory curtains closed after dark on all windows. Also, Vista suites should know that it's terribly windy while at sea so that access to the deck is not really enjoyable or even safe at times. Vista suites should also know that WIFI does not work great at the front of the ship. Taking your devices to the back or middle of the ship works better. We were told Riviera is going into dry dock in November which will improve the WIFI and any dated furniture/carpeting.
Ship tip
Beware of tender days and long wait times to get off the boat if you're not doing an Oceania shore excursion.
Love Athens - always a pleasure to visit. We did our own thing in this port - the hop on hop off is the best way to quickly see the highlights (if you've never been here before).
I love Istanbul - my husband (not so much). The Oceania excursion we took 1: Panorama Istanbul to get the highlights was to be 3.5 hours but turned into 5+. The guide took us to a Rug store and they basically locked us in the room to show us rugs to buy - not happy about this. The next day we did a cruise on the bosphorus cruise was really nice ... until the end when they felt the need to take us to some old house and make us wait for 1 hour 20 minutes. The organized excursion from Oceania were just terrible! I'm not a Senior but these excursion were not Senior friendly.
We really enjoyed the private excursion we booked. This is the one exception to the oceania poorly executed excursion. It was very expensive - I could have booked it for less myself but we used them and it turned out great. We were able to talk to our guide about what we wanted to do/see and it worked out great.
I don't know why this is a port of call... It was pretty but not worth the stop. We all had to be bused into town and catch the bus back - we opted for a cab. There was no information about what to do ashore and it turned out there was great shopping in the port...
Tender beware... We LOVED Santorini, but since I booked our own guide service for the day we were penalized by Oceania shore excursion which all got to go first. We were over an hour late for our tour because we booked an excursion on our own. Destination services is terribly unorganized and could do a better job at communicating.
Loved this port. Again, at the mercy of the tender service and destination services getting all their people off first before independents were allowed off... Our wonderful butler finally helped get us off. They were literally sending boats ashore not full!
Love Rome! We did a Rome our way excursion with Oceania which was basically bus service to Rome and back with 5-6 hours in the city. It worked out really well.
Very unorganized information about what to do if you're not doing an Oceania tour. Long lines and cranky Seniors pushing and shoving to get on the hop on hop off. We ended up getting off at the casino and walking back to the ship...
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