Saturday, 2 January 2016

Tucson, AZ

A very happy and healthy 2016 to all my friends who share “LFLatSea.”  I am starting the new year with this final posting about our December 2015 Mayan Mystique cruise on Oceania’s ms Riviera.

We had finally gotten used to the heat and humidity of Central America and the Caribbean when we returned to a sudden and unusual cold spell in Tucson.  We have had a couple of nights of hard freeze, but I am happy to report that today is a more typical January day in southern Arizona—lots of sunshine and temperatures in the mid-70s (humidity about 2%).  The very warm weather was pleasant for a 10-day vacation, but I don’t think I could live permanently again in that high humidity.  We had brief heavy showers in Key West, but every other day was bright and sunny.  The sailing was very smooth, with the exception of a few hours of heavy bumping—during dinnertime, of course—as we sailed to Grand Cayman.  But the sea settled by bedtime and we had no trouble sailing off to dreamland (the bed was excellent, by the way).

Finding a New Home at Sea

By now all my readers—and many others as well—know of my unhappiness with the way I was treated by Holland America during and after my most recent 14th cruise with them, a 22-day “cruise from Hell” through the Mediterranean.  You may read all the details by hitting the appropriate heading at the top of the blog page.  I am happy to report that I am very happy with Oceania; so far they are living up to my admittedly demanding standards of service, both in their home office and on board the Riviera.  In fact, I am now preparing to sail with them again in late March, on an 18-day cruise from Hong Kong to Mumbai on the 625-passenger ms Nautica (will has decided to stay at home for this one).  

After disembarking in Mumbai I will be spending 10 days in India on my own (with the help of Audley Travel, a British company with a US office in Boston):  two days each in Mumbai, Veranasi, Delhi, Agra, and Jaipur.  This is my first and probably my only visit to India, so I just have to take advantage of the cruise landing in Mumbai before flying home.  I will be presenting more details about the trip over the next several weeks, so please keep checking back with the blog. 

Some of the really good things about the cruise:

• Beautifully appointed and maintained ship built in 2014
• Only 1200 passengers with lots of room to share or to be alone
• Our Penthouse Suite gave us 425 square feet of space, with a huge bathroom (full tub and separate walk-in shower), with amenities from Bulgari; and a very large walk-in closet
• Personal Butler Service:  Ronoy (from Cochin, India) presented us with room-service breakfast and cocktail-hour snacks when desired; he also arrived in the mornings with weather reports and suggestions about what to do (and what not to do) in each of the ports; and he was always on call (in his official butler’s dress uniform) for whatever special services we might need
• Food and dining service was very good (with some small quibbles I will describe below); the four specialty restaurants were all excellent (French, Italian, Asian Fusion, and Steak House)—with no special extra charges!
• In fact, no extra charges for anything (except alcohol)—since bottled water, soft drinks, and even specialty coffees are always free, we had a hard time trying to spend the $200 shipboard credit we were given (I mean, seriously hard).  There were even free open bars on the first night of the cruise, with drinks of choice (not just inexpensive champagne chosen by the cruise line)
• Excellent choice of ports
• Good live band entertainment when we sailed from each port
• Excellent communication from Oceania, before the cruise began, about the status of health issues on board the ship
• Excellent cleaning and security throughout the cruise

 Some things that could be improved:

•    Evening “show” entertainment was truly awful.  I don’t expect celebrity entertainers or fancy Broadway shows, but I do expect singers who can sing and dancers who can dance.  The young entertainers on the Riviera were energetic, but had little rapport with each other and were often painful to listen to because they could not keep their rhythm or even hit the right notes (if you want a sample you will have to purchase the DVD of their performances, available from Oceania).  I stopped attending after the first night; Will went to several shows that just confirmed this first opinion.  Very often these same singers appeared solo in other venues on the ship 
•     Oceania claims to “sail your way” but is very rigid about dining hours; two of our tours ran overtime and the only choices we had for meals when we returned were burgers and hotdogs at the Wave Grill or room service
•     Menus in Grand Dining Room were often repetitious, although they claim to change the menu every night.  Because we had different servers whenever/wherever we dined, we had continually to repeat our special requests (type of water, etc.) rather than having our expectations met in advance. 
•     Oceania claims to be “destination intensive cruising” but our stays in several ports were shortened significantly after the cruise began.  For example, we arrived 90-minutes after our scheduled time in Grand Cayman, and the departure time was moved up one hour early.  On every other cruise I have sailed, the captain has always altered the departure time if we had a late arrival.  I understand that things can happen unexpectedly at sea, and alterations are not always possible, but no attempts were made at all to rectify late arrivals (even when there was a full day at sea after visiting Grand Cayman).
•     Baggage was collected very early (10pm) on final night of cruise; this was tricky because we had a dinner reservation at 9pm (the only time that night we could get a table for two), and had to make sure we returned to our cabin in time to put our clothes in the suitcase.
•     Taxi service line in Miami at end of cruise was intolerable--almost an hour's wait in the heat and humidity; not because there were few taxis, but because there were so many passengers who did not wish to pay Oceania's very expensive service to the airport.  I usually use the cruise line's airport service when I sail, but Oceania's is really outrageously expensive.  In fact, when I talked with a port service rep who was trying to handle the crowds, she didn't believe me when I told her what the charges were--but she confirmed them from Oceania's offices.  They should really offer shuttle service to alleviate this kind of unpleasant ending to the cruise. 

But my final judgment is that I have found a new home for sailing on Oceania.

 

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