What are the pros and the cons
of cruising with Oceania Cruises?
I'm Gary Bembridge.
This is another of my Tips For Travellers.
I'm just back off another Oceania cruise.
And I thought it's great time to share with you
what I think the pros and the cons
of cruising with them are.
So let's start first of all, by taking a look at the pros.
For me one of the biggest pros
is that they have small to medium-sized ships,
and I really like that in a cruise line.
So they have altogether at the time of recording,
but they do have more on order, six ships.
Four of those are what are known as the R-class ships.
These were originally built for Renaissance Cruises
and bought by Oceania when they went bankrupt.
So, they have four ships.
And these ships hold 698 passengers,
so just under 700 passengers.
The ships are the Regatta, the Nautica,
the Insignia, and the Sirena.
They then do have two purpose-built ships
specifically for them,
and these carry 1,250 passengers,
and those are the Riviera and the Marina.
All of the ships have gone through a big program,
which is called OceaniaNEXT.
They spent $100 million revamping and redoing all the ships
to kind of get them up to a more luxurious
and more contemporary look and feel.
And they certainly did a great job
with what I saw on my most recent cruise on Insignia.
So, Oceania is small to mid-sized ships,
and that for me is a really big plus.
The two new ships are going to be
about the same size as the existing,
slightly larger ships, has got 1,200 guests.
And they're coming into service
over the next couple of years.
The second big pro for me,
is the fact that they provide a luxury-premium experience,
but it's not very stuffy.
So the whole experience is pretty relaxed.
But it is definitely operating in the luxury-premium area,
so they probably compete with brands like Azamara,
I would say, Windstar.
So, it's not the ultra-luxury level,
it's the more premium side, but smaller ships.
So, it is pretty relaxed,
so the dress code is fairly relaxed.
They have country-casual
as their overall umbrella thing in the evening.
But in practise,
I found people do tend to dress fairly relaxed,
and certainly up in the buffet,
you can go in shorts and wear your baseball cap
if you want to in the evenings.
So, it's pretty informal from that perspective.
Some people, of course, do get dressed up,
particularly on the Captain's welcome farewell party.
But overall, the dress code is pretty relaxed.
So, if you're one of those people
who like to get glitzed and dressed up, you can,
but you're probably going to be more of the exception.
The service is very personal, it's very friendly.
It's not very formal and stuffy
like some of the luxury lines and premium lines can be.
It's fairly informal, they get to know your name.
And to the whole ambience, the people on board,
it's quite relaxed.
So it's luxury, it's premium, but it's relaxed.
So if you're looking for a slightly more relaxed experience,
then definitely Oceania, I would say, is a pro for you.
Most people would say that the biggest pro of Oceania,
and I certainly think they believe it's their biggest pro
based upon the amount of effort they put against it,
is food and the whole culinary experience.
So for example, they've actually trademarked the line,
Finest Cuisine At Sea,
so that's how strongly they believe in it.
They also, and I think this is true, certainly,
all of the research I did seems to confirm it,
they spend the most on food per passenger,
certainly in the category.
So there is real big focus around food.
The food they have a relationship and a partnership
with a celebrity chef, who's actually French,
but now based in the U.S.
He used to actually be the chef
for two or three of the French presidents.
And his name is Jacques Pepin.
On some of the bigger ships,
they have a whole culinary centre.
They also have culinary-focused excursions,
they have food and wine excursions.
And during the course of the cruise,
they'll also have special pairing dinners.
They'll have various tastings of different types of drinks.
So, there is a really big focus around food and drink,
certainly in the main dining room,
the menu is enormous menu, just it's mind-boggling huge.
The quality of the food, I would say,
in the buffet restaurant is the amongst
the highest of quality,
it's really in the ingredients.
So certainly, if you are really into food,
and that really turns you on,
and it's important to your cruise,
take a look at Oceania, because bear in mind,
they are in the premium-luxury end,
so they are not as expensive
as some of the ultra-luxury lines.
But you're going to get a great experience,
and certainly, that's one of the things
they would win most awards, are in the area of food.
Linked to that,
for me the fourth biggest pro of Oceania
is the fact that so much of the dining experience
is included within your fare.
So on many of the other premium or luxury lines,
you'll find that especially the dining is expensive.
But all of that is included within your fare on Oceania,
which is a real big plus.
So let's take a look
at what you actually get from a food perspective,
and again, I'll perhaps use the example of Insignia,
which I'm just most recently off.
So, you have The Grand Dining Room,
breakfast, lunch, dinner most days,
massive big menus, waiter service,
incredible choice, really good food.
You then have the Terrace Cafe buffet, which I really like.
It's hugely popular.
And in the evenings they'll often have themed evenings.
One of the big pluses
is their fantastic sushi at lunchtime,
really, really great sushi,
which is again, included in the fare.
You then have out on the pool deck, you have Wave Grill,
which has sort of a healthy breakfast,
and then actually, at lunch,
they have the unhealthier sides of great hamburgers,
hot dogs, that kind of stuff at lunchtime,
so again, informal dining.
They have afternoon tea, about four o'clock every afternoon.
On Insignia, it was up in Horizons.
This is a great traditional food served at your table
with a trolley full of scones and cakes and sandwiches,
and all that kind of stuff, again included within the fare.
Room service,
completely included within the fare, 24 hours a day.
You also have baristas where you get your speciality coffee
and snacks during the day.
And aware of the fact that you do get speciality coffees
and that's all included, as a big fan of coffee.
Just as speciality restaurants, there are slight differences
between the smaller R-class ships like Insignia
that I was on, and the bigger ships like Riviera.
So, for example, on the Regatta, Insignia, Nautica,
Sirena, you have Toscana, which is the Italian restaurant,
with probably one of the biggest Italian menus
I've ever seen, really nice Italian food.
And then they have Polo Grill
which is the steakhouse and the seafood restaurant.
That was the one that people absolutely loved.
And as I mentioned, that is included within the fare.
Once you get onto the other ships, Marina, Riviera,
you've got Jacques, which is French.
You've got Red Ginger, which is Asian.
And Tuscan, which is their steakhouse.
So speciality dining included for me, big pro.
Another really big pro is,
unlike even some of the premium and other luxury lines,
much more is included within the fares.
That's a really big plus.
So, they have what's known as OLife fares.
And what OLife fares normally include
is they can include airfare,
of course, you can strip that out if you want.
Of course, get your usual things,
accommodation and all the dining, as I've said.
You also get Wi-Fi included.
Now, it's basic Wi-Fi
and you can connect one device per room at a time.
Then you have a faster, more streaming service,
which is available which costs
at the time that I was cruising, $9.99 a day.
And to me, it was really good.
I was able to do streaming.
I was able to watch things on streaming.
I was able to do FaceTime with home.
Also, within OLife,
you then get to choose one of three things.
You can either choose to have excursions.
There is a number of excursions included
based on how long your cruise is.
You can choose to have the house beverage package.
Or you can choose to have onboard credit.
All those things are included within the fare.
Now, there are some big watch-outs,
and probably some cons to some of those things
that I'll talk about in the cons section.
But certainly there are much more things included
within the fare.
What's not included is excursions
if you don't take the OLife package,
and gratuities are not included.
Those are the two main on-costs.
And of course, if you haven't taken the beverage package,
beverages are an on cost.
So those are the key pros of Oceania.
What about the cons?
What do I think are the cons,
those are the downsides of cruising on Oceania
that you need to bear in mind
as you decide if this is a cruise line for you.
For me, the first key con is actually
sort of some of the downsides
of the inclusions and the OLife.
So, when you look at booking the fare,
you do need to understand there are some limits
to what's actually included,
so that sounds great that you might get excursions,
or you might get the house beverage package,
there are some limitations.
So let me run through those.
First of all, the free Internet.
You can only connect one device at a time.
So if there is two of you in the cabin,
and you want to be online at the same time,
you do have to buy a second package
or you have to keep logging on and off.
So that's important to bear in mind with the Internet.
If you buy the beverage package,
it's the basic standard beverage package.
So you only get your wines and beers included at mealtimes,
so lunch and dinner.
So if you want to drink around the ship at any other time,
you do have to pay for those.
You can then upgrade to their more premium package,
which at the time of recording,
was around about $20-$25 per person, per day.
And then you can have drinks any time of the day,
whatever you want, and it's a pretty big expansive programme.
So bear that in mind
if you're going for the beverage package.
If you go for excursions, there are limitations.
So for example,
a nine-day cruise would have four excursions.
But that's four excursions in total.
So, if there is two of you in a cabin,
and you go on an excursion,
there is only, basically two sets of excursions,
because you're going to use up two of those four
for one outing for the two of you,
so that is important to bear in mind
if you go for the excursion option.
So what do I do?
I actually go for the on-board credit option
because the on-board credit, I think, is pretty generous.
I had close to $400 for the cabin that I was in.
And then you can then allocate that
between drinks or excursions or cover gratuities
if you want to use it for that.
But certainly, everyone I spoke to there
really liked and spoke about the OLife fares,
where you have a choice of what you want
to include or exclude based on your preferences.
So it is, there is some cons to it,
but there is of course, some big pros to it.
The second con is really a function of the fact
that it's a much smaller ship with less people.
But I would say,
you don't go on an Oceania cruise for the entertainment.
You go on for other things,
the experience, the smaller ships,
the food, the more casual environment.
Entertainment is fine,
there is not huge amounts of entertainment.
So, they do have the lounge,
where they'll have something on in the evenings,
so they have a small troupe of singers
who will perform various review-type shows.
They will have some guest artists on board.
But there is not a big,
you know, you don't have big glitzy, production shows,
and it's definitely much lower-key.
Certainly, they were extremely well-attended,
maybe that's a function of the fact
that it's not lots of entertainment on board.
But the evening shows were packed out
because I guess, there is less options.
The daily programme is not a massive big daily programme.
There is normally going to be activities on,
but again, it's very low-key,
so you might have table tennis competitions
or deck games or crazy golf games.
You might have the odd quiz going on,
but there is not jam-packed, full of activities.
They do have a library on board,
so you can go and get books out if you want to.
But it is definitely a much lower-key thing.
So, I would say, if you're the sort of person
that likes lots of entertainment
and wants to be entertained, rather than entertain yourself,
definitely Oceania is more of a con from that perspective.
On some of the bigger ships they do have a culinary centre,
where you can go on cooking classes,
and you will, of course, have various cooking demonstrations
on all of the ships at various times.
One of the other things that they do have on the cruise
in terms of entertainment is enrichment.
So, they had, for example, on the cruise I was on,
they had a lecturer who is very popular on board Oceania,
and she gave talks pretty much every single day.
And again, they were packed out, they were really busy.
Partly because I think people who go on board
are interested in enrichment, and again, also maybe
because there is not lots of other choices I think to do,
so people gravitate towards those sort of things.
Possibly another con of cruising on Oceania
is the dress code.
The dress code is much more unpredictable.
So on the cruise I was on, I found people,
the level of dress code was probably a little bit
on the smarter side, although it was casual.
People who have been on the cruise before,
to me said it was much more, you know, casual overall.
So, if you are the sort of person
that really likes to get dolled up and dressed up,
bear in mind, you are not necessarily
going to be surrounded by other people.
So if you go on other cruise lines
which have much stricter dress codes,
then you're going to find that you know,
the style of dress is very different.
So, I put that as a con
because I know some people really like the dressing up,
some people don't like the dressing up,
so depends on where you're coming from.
For some people it's a con,
for other people it's a massive big plus.
The other con area or watch-out
that I wanted to talk about is who I think Oceania is for,
because I think it is for a very specific type of person.
So, let me explain that in more detail.
Most of the people you're going to find
on Oceania are couples.
They will largely sort of be 50s, 60s, and above.
Although, you will find a good spattering of ages.
So, on my cruise, for example,
when I've been on Oceania before, there have been perhaps
a multi-generational family with kids travelling,
probably in their early 20s.
On my cruise, there was a couple of couples
who were probably late 20s, early 30s.
So it does get a diverse range,
but the bulk of people are going to be 50s, 60s, 70s,
lots of Americans, it's a very popular American line.
But on the cruise I was on,
there were something like 20 different nationalities.
There were lots of Germans, we had some, lots of Danish.
We had some U.Ks, some Australians.
So it is quite diverse,
leaning a little bit more towards American.
If you're a solo traveller, they don't have solo cabins.
I actually went on my cruise as a solo traveller,
but I was paying for effectively,
for dual occupancy of the cabin.
So they don't have solo cabins.
They do have some solo meetups,
but it's not massively geared towards the solo travellers.
So, if you are very comfortable with paying that premium,
and you like the idea of what Oceania offer with food,
certainly I was made to feel very welcome on board
by both the passengers and the crew.
If you're a family, I don't think Oceania is for you.
They don't have kid's clubs,
they don't have programmes for kids.
And it's not really geared towards kids at all.
They do have some cabins where you can sleep three people.
But it's not geared towards kids.
There is one key exception, and that's in Alaska.
So when the Oceania ships head to Alaska,
they do have a Alaska Explorer Youth Programme,
which is targeted at kids between the ages of sort of,
five and 12, so that's the only key exception.
But I don't think Oceania is really for families,
they don't have facilities.
And actually, I don't think the passengers
are looking for kids on board
because it's a much more adult experience.
Oceania cruises,
I loved my time on Oceania cruises, had a great time.
I liked the mix of high quality,
being a little bit more relaxed,
particularly as I was doing in the Caribbean.
I've loads more tips, videos about Oceania,
the Caribbean, and cruising in general.
So why don't you watch another one of those right now?