Join me as I take you around and explore the reimagined reinvented the revamped
Oceania Insignia cruise ship. I'm Gary Bembridge and this is another of my
tips for travellers. I'm in my cabin on Oceania Insignia. The ship went through a
massive big refit and revamp and I'm going to show you around some of the key
highlights. Before we do that let me talk a little bit about the ship. The Oceania
Insignia was originally built right back in 1998 for Renaissance cruises. It
became part of the fleet of Oceania in 2003 and went through a massive refit at
the end of 2018 for the Oceania Next program. Insignia
IS a small ship it holds just 698 passengers on lower berths. It has nine
passenger decks, so it really does operate in the small ship category.
Let's take a look at some of the key highlights starting with the dining
options. Dining is a big part of Oceania Cruises and on board Insignia, in
spite of the fact that it's a small ship, it has eight dining options, so
let's take a look at them. First of all you have the Grand Dining Room. This is
open for breakfast, lunch and dinner. It's a magnificent room. It's open seated
dining and you can sit at tables for two, tables for one or whatever you want and
whatever configuration you want. Big menus with lots of amazing food in here. One
of the other popular restaurants is the Terrace and it's
the buffet restaurant up on deck 9, open for breakfast, lunch and dinner. It also
has an outside seating area which is great if you're sailing in great weather like I
have been here in the Caribbean. In the evenings it'll often have themed
nights like Mexican or Italian. In here you can wear casual gear even at night, so if
like to wear shorts you can wear shorts up here in the evening. You do have
to get dressed up for the main dining room. There are two specialty dining
restaurants on board Insignia. The first of those is the Polo Grill, which is the
steak house restaurant with magnificent steaks in here and you can also get
seafood. Then there is Toscana, which is the Italian restaurant and again these two
beautiful restaurants are included within the fare.
There's no charge for specialty dining. Other places that you can eat are
the Wave Grill on the pool deck, and it has early morning breakfast
and at lunchtime it's very popular as you can get things like hamburgers, hot
dogs and that kind of stuff at lunchtime. There's Baristas, which is just outside
the main dining room. This is a coffee shop most of the time and serve
speciality coffees here, serving very nice Illy coffee and also in the
evenings it does also serve drinks. Afternoon tea is included and it's held
every day around about four o'clock in the afternoon and up in
Horizons, which is a big lounge up on deck 10. Then of course the eighth option
is room service which is included within the fare. So, a big range of dining
options available onboard Insignia. The next thing I want to look at is the are of
entertainment. There is not huge amounts of entertainment on Insignia, given it is a small
ship and there's not lots of formal entertainment, but key entertainment is
as follows: you have the Insignia lounge which is
where you'll have your enrichment lectures, you'll have your welcome
cocktail parties, you might have some of the quizzes in here and it's where every
evening you have either the production cast (the singers, dancers and band) or a
guest artist performing. These are really popular shows and again perhaps because
there's not huge amounts of entertainment overall. Things like the
enrichment lectures and the production shows and guest artists are really well
attended in the Insignia lounge. There's a casino. It's not a massive big casino,
but it's pretty popular.
It's got tables and it's got slot machines as
well. The other key area which I've included
in entertainment is bars, because this is what a lot of people do in the evening is
they socialise. A beautiful bar, one of the popular bars particularly before and
after dinner, is Martinis which is right next to the casino and as you would
expect it does serve incredible cocktails here. A Pianist will normally
be playing in here at various times of the evening.
Up in the horizons lounge which is right up on deck 10, here again it's really
popular place to meet after dinner before dinner and later in the evening
after the show, there'll be some dancing up here as well. So, a really popular
sociable place to be. Linked to the lounge up here is an inside smoking
lounge up here in Horizons. There are a couple of
other bars around the place so out on the pool deck when it's normally
swimming time you'll have a bar there, you also have a bar in the Terrace Cafe
as well so you can have drinks when you're having your meals. In terms of fitness
and recreation, there's probably three key things. You have a spa which is
always popular as it is on other cruise ships, you have a fitness center and classes
and it's a pretty big fitness centre, and then you also have a running and walking
track up on deck 10. It always amazes me how popular it is. It's not a particularly
big track but it's right around the top of the pool deck. It's actually really
great when you have a sea day or you're sailing into port in the morning or a
port in the evening, really popular running and walking track. In
terms of enrichment, obviously got the lectures that I mentioned but there's a
couple other things. There's a beautiful space called the Library, and
it really is one of the hidden places that a lot of people don't really realise where
it is up on deck 10 just near the two speciality restaurants. It's a sort of a
u-shaped room with a library, as the name would suggest, packed full of books. It's
a really good spot to go to if you're looking for somewhere really quiet
because it is a really secret hidden space. There's a card room which is
always very popular on cruises where people go and play games, and not
surprisingly there'll be things like bridge organised in there. There's a
small internet cafe as well although with Wi-Fi around the ship most people
do tend to use Wi-Fi. On longer voyages like the world voyage they have
an area called Artist Loft, which is then used for enrichment and various crafts
and as the name would suggest, on normal cruises it's
just an area with tables where people will go and play games and do things like
jigsaws. On Deck five just
before Martinis, you have another area where you have shops,
a jewellery shop and a clothes, merchandise and general supplies store.
What's really nice in this area is you
often in the evening you'll have a string quartet playing classical
music, and it's a popular spot for people to hang out. Down on deck 4 you
have done a great feature
staircase and have guest services, the destination services, on
itineraries like the Caribbean you'll have the sales advisor
to help with sales in the different ports and you'll also have the concierge
down here. When it comes to accommodation on Insignia, there's a vast range. you
have inside cabins, you have oceanview cabins, but the bulk of cabins are what I
was staying in - which is a balcony cabin. I was actually in a Concierge level
cabin which is on deck 7. Concierge really just means you get some extra
benefits and perks like priority boarding,
some free laundry and a few bits and pieces like that.
The cabins on board, because it's a small ship, are relatively cosy I guess
you could describe them. In the revamp the decor has been significantly
improved and is really comfortable with phenomenally comfortable beds, nice
little balcony area with nice furniture. One of the big pluses is in the bathroom
they've added glass doors to the shower in the revamp and the refit and this for me
is a big plus and I do think it actually makes the bathroom feel a
little bit more open. I think the change to Insignia through Oceania Next is
dramatic. I think the ship has really been significant improved. It does feel
much more premium, it does feel more luxurious, just the quality and a look
and the feeling of the ship I think has been dramatically improved from my
experiences of cruising before the revamp. If you want to find out more
about her, i have other videos about Oceana and there's lots of tips advice
and of course loads of other videos about cruising. So, why don't you actually
go and watch another one of those right now?