Got off to a bad start waiting over two hours at Barcelona airport for the bus to the ship.
Took a taxi with another couple, and our luggage arrived about half an hour before we sailed only after chasing it up! Barcelona to Malta, very good destinations.
Sailed on Marina ten years ago, and although some of the ship has been refurbished, our balcony stateroom on deck 8 was looking very tired.
Had a very good lady called Maria who did look after us very well all cruise.
The bathroom was by today’s standards small, particularly the shower, which although we are not large, was a pretty tight fit!! The wardrobe space is inadequate, and our wardrobe doors didn’t fit/shut fully so the light was on all day and all night.
We also felt that all the drawers and shelves were too small to store our clothes without creasing.
There was a safe as you’d expect but again too small to take more than a bit of jewellery, passports, and wallet.
You couldn’t get an A4 size file in there.
We had a couple of issues with the plumbing but maintenance dealt with them very promptly.
We don’t feel their claim to be the “best cuisine at sea” holds up.
We thought the food was generally OK, but many dishes arrived luke warm, and the service was not first class much of the time.
The buffet in the Terrace Cafe was generally the easiest and best option for us.
Red Ginger was excellent although it seemed to be the same menu as ten years ago.
In the speciality restaurants, sharing was the best option for us, and particularly entertaining with the Americans, given the election not far away! Having booked six tours before we sailed, we cancelled three of them after our experience on the first one in Toulon.
A lot of $ for an uninspiring tour.
Docking in Corsica never happened due to the weather, and after that, we did enjoy the day long tour in Sicily as we had never been there before.
We now feel that Oceania cruise tours have got rather out of hand when it comes to what you get for the money.
In many destinations you don’t need them, and our biggest objection is they always start at 8.00-8.30am.
Why can’t the shorter/half day tours go out after 10.00 so that we don’t have to get out of bed so early and miss a decent breakfast.
One final issue for us is that Oceania insist on serving long life milk! Horrible in tea and cereals.
Surely a ship can bring fresh milk and fruit juice on board? We are currently booked to sail on Vista in 2026, but are undecided at the moment whether we should look elsewhere.
Having sailed with Regent and Seabourn in the past, a tricky decision.
