Our voyage on Marina to various ports in Central and South America, ending in Montevideo, was a huge success, and we enjoyed ourselves immensely.
It was when the cruise ended that everything unraveled and became difficult and extremely frustrating.
During the cruise we were in Suite 9147, deck nine, Owners Suite, for the entire thirty eight days. The suite was exceedingly comfortable, and our every need was seen to very professionally by your exceptional staff.
We have always enjoyed the food on Oceania Cruises, and this voyage was no exception. The food in the Grand Dining Room was consistently impressive, although on several evenings the service was considerably compromised - completely incorrect orders brought to the table on three occasions: the servers did not seem to be familiar with the menu for the evening.
We very much enjoyed three of the four specialty restaurants, the exception being Polo Grill: one example was a filet of beef ordered rare. Unfortunately it came to the table SO rare there were nice char marks on a still frozen piece of meat. Not acceptable.
We ate most of our meals in the Terrace Cafe , which we both enjoyed every single day with no exceptions. The servers were always friendly and helpful, the wine sommeliers informed and always there when you needed a refill.
And the staff was always remarkably upbeat, pleasant, and friendly.
One of our favorite daily stops was early in the morning at Barista for our coffee.
There the staff always welcomed us warmly and always knew our orders. It was an unusually fun starts to each of our days.
On all the days when we did not have an excursion, we went to the gym upstairs.
The equipment was first rate, everything was exceedingly clean and the staff was very professional and friendly. We enjoyed our gym days thoroughly.
One of the real highlights of almost every evening was the String Quartet on deck six. What a wonderful way to begin an evening!
We did enjoy quite a number of excursions, although some of the guides were a little rusty and appreciably, out of practice due to all cruises being shut down for so long.
Now for the bad news.
The final day of the cruise, our disembarkation and flight to Miami, to transfer on to our individual flight destinations, was a disaster. And a disaster that lasted for hours and hours and hours.
I fully appreciate the difficulty Oceania faced when we were not allowed to disembark in Buenos Aries, but it seemed to us (and nearly every single person we spoke to concerning the situation), that Oceania could have done a much better job and helping all those passengers.
There was no one visible once we were inside the terminal who was representing Oceania: the lines were a mess, the lines were extremely long, passengers were confused, passengers with special needs were virtually ignored because there was NO ONE in the terminal from your organization to assist them in a rapidly deteriorating situation.
The charter flight itself was alright
, and understandable under the circumstances.
However, once we landed in Miami and cleared customs, things went downhill fast.
Everyone was confused, tired, and unhappy to be waiting once again in long, long lines with ONE agent trying to direct passengers on to their connecting flights. Okay, so after two and a half hours a second agent did appear. Too little, too late. Chaotic would be too kind a word to describe the situation in that line.
Oceania knew all these passengers were going to be stuck in Miami. Oceania has its headquarters in Miami. Why didn’t Oceania have representatives in the terminal to assist these people? We were ALL their people and some of the suffering could have at least been lessened with better planning and foresight.
I fully appreciate these are very trying times for the cruise industry, but in the end we all felt that you let us down. Seriously let us down
Respectfully,
Daniel Johnson and Herman Winkel
