Oceania Cruises - Riviera Reviews

The quality of service on the Riviera, comfort and presentation was as in my previous experiences. I was surprised by the waste and lack of environmental concerns. It is totally unnecessary to chill the State Rooms to the point that one needs a sweater. It is summer time and it is high time for the precious guests to adapt to the very harsh reality of drastic climate change. The rooms should be set to 23-25 C and let the guests change it to their taste. It is OK to educate the ignorant about the great need to control our appetite for excesses. The waste of food was also appalling. Somehow the guests should understand the principle of take what you need/eat and leave behind what you don't. The assistance to my flight and travel in Europe was very professional -provided by Kevin. He is a very good travel advisor.

Really enjoyed the cruise. Would travel with Oceania again. We have traveled Holland and Viking and were told that Oceania was a step up. We didn't feel that it was. It was comparable to Viking and Holland. The transportation from airport to hotel, hotel to airport and cruise to airport was very organized.

This cruise was a dream come true for us. We were not expecting the phenomenal service and accommodations. Our room was much larger than anticipated. We had plenty of room for my husband, daughter and myself. Our bathroom was very roomy as well. Out of all that the staff is what made everything exceptional. Our concierge Venor was the nicest most helpful person along with Raymond who was always willing to help us. I asked if we could get ice scheduled to come at 5:00pm because we would be coming back from one of our excursions and knew we would be thirsty and wanting something cold, and we had a bucket of ice every single day afterwards at about 5:00pm. I never saw a staff member who wasn't smiling. Oh and the cappuccinos were the best I have ever had!!!! The food was fantastic. We were able to eat at three of the four specialty restaurants and the food was awesome. Red Dragon was all of our favorite. We will dream to be able to go on another Oceania Cruise. Thank you Oceania Cruise

Beautiful, immaculate, first class ship. Great food, unbelievable service and interesting ports to explore.

Near perfect vacations except pourin rain in Philippi.

Overall loved the trip, the disappointing factors were some of the stops were not what they were marketed as. The Berlin stop was a 3+ hour bus ride to get there, each way. The same for Paris. Didn't want to spend all that time on a bus!

The cruise was wonderful. Our PH2 suite was spacious and beautifully appointed as was the heavenly bed. We had perfect weather and calm seas. Internet was a huge problem with only one logon per room and extremely low bandwidth. We had to wait for 5G data when in port. I am gluten free and had to order my food 2 days in advance for specialty restaurants and grand dining room. That was annoying but doable. Overall I would definitely cruise Oceania again.

Our trip was amassing. Hotel pre-cruise in London was beautiful and great location. Oceania reps at both ends of cruise were helpful. Truly appreciated the shuttle busses and hop on/off busses at piers. Oceania Riviera was a fantastic ship with great staff and food. Looking forward to next trip!

We really enjoyed the trip. It was weighted a little too heavily on Northern Norway ports - there were 4 ports within about 50-100 miles of each other. But being above the Arctic Circle was very cool. And the combo of Norway and Scotland made more and more sense as we learned about the historic, linguistic and cultural ties of the two regions.

Splendid embarkation: easy bag drop off; almost walk through getting on the ship. Cabin was ready. Tighter than expected, but with much more storage space than expected. Splendid remodeled bathroom. Not as clean as one might have wished. Disappointing Concierge Lounge much too small, cramped really, not well stocked and concierge seldom present. Crowded buffet! Mediocre cuisine. Terrible tendering, unorganized, disorganized. Spa staff almost hostile to even the simplest questions about their services and unresponsive to my request for unscented products. Red Ginger meal was great. Disembarkation was okay. Terrible, unacceptable, Internet experience. Internet and television were down for all but three days of the cruise. And there being only one connection per cabin is wholly unacceptable; there should be at least one connection per person! Not sure it was worth the premium and not sure if we will return.

Ship was great, food was spectacular, service was extraordinary. The only things to complain about were the weak internet and the scratchy towels, but if those are the only negatives, you’re doing well. Oceania’s website for picking excursions etc was not reliable. They definitely need some work on that.

Flight arrangements could have been better. We flew from Atlanta to Toronto had a short layover then on to Heathrow. It made for a long tiring flight; we were exhausted upon arrival. We enjoyed our land tour to Cornwall. In our opinion the cruise tours were unsatisfactory. Overall, they did not match the writeups, often sent late, tour guides were at best ok, and commitments were not met. My assessment is tours were long bus rides to uninteresting places. I have written a letter with more specifics to Oceania copy to Avoya. Some ports were not close to a town a shuttle would have been helpful.

Excursions were over hyped and they did not deliver. Several of the one we went on were modified and we did not get to do what was promoted. All excursions felt rushed. Drive two hrs to look at something and you would get an hour and a half to look at it on our own and have to get out lunch during that time. The fact that we had to tender almost every port was also a huge time consuming item. It also caused us to miss two ports of call because of poor conditions. Wouldn’t do this cruise again

We are regular Oceania cruisers, but this was our longest cruise to date. 18 days might be just a little too long for us, but the service and food was as impeccable as always. A couple downsides: our stop in Wales was canceled for unknown reasons. We were really looking forward to that port, having never been in Wales. That change resulted in us visiting the port of Killybegs twice within ten days — not great. Also, though not the fault of Oceania, weather caused us to miss two ports in Ireland, which was very disappointing. Overall, though, the trip was wonderful and we booked another cruise for next year while onboard.

The morale and staffing on the Riviera was pretty low. They did not deliver a memorable experience. There were multiple issues with their tendering operations which resulted is significant delays get to excursions etc. personnel did not seem to be adequately trained. The destination desk was a disaster. This port intensive cruise had no port information available. No port talks, the IN ROOM TV port information was incomplete or absent. I regret taking this cruise and feel the Oceania misrepresented many things about this cruise. They sold excursion programs that they knew they could not fulfill. Excursions were completely sold out 7 months before the cruise even sailed. They did not have enough dining hours or venues open to handle this sold out cruise. They turned people away from the dining rooms. The grand dining room should have been opened for lunch and they failed to do that. Staffing levels were inadequate in all areas. On a positive note: the entertainment and production team were excellent.

First- the major complaint. Agent in Del Mar was unable to get us into Concierge level a year before departure. She reassured us MULTIPLE times that we would upgraded- "absolutely no doubt someone would cancel". When we hit the final cancellation date, she put the hard core press on us that we would be immently upgraded, no worries. No need to cancel and get our deposit back. NEVER happened. Will not book with her again- don't trust her. All about her commissions and the clawbacks. Oceania did a very good job handling a completely full boat, not long after Covid. Employees were outstanding and well trained, with the exception of the Spa front desk. The Spa was a bait and switch operation. Customers should be forewarned. There was quantity in food offerings but not the quality we were led to believe. On the "market days", the chefs made some lovely dinners from supposedly "locally" procured produce. This happened on only 2 days on a 21 day cruise. Why don't they source local at EVERY port? No Kalamata olives, dolmas, feta, or babaganoush when in Greece; no good French cheeses, etc. when in French ports- just cheap, plastic Brie- think French Velveeta. Tramontana restaurant was awful- a salad caprese with unripe tomatoes and no buffalo mozzarella- again, just some nasty plastic "mozzarella". Octopus carpaccio tasted like rubber. Low grade olive oil, sold as premium. How stupid do they think the customer is, particularly when this is sold as a "foodie", upscale cruise??? You guys need to be more careful as to how you sell this line. We are a well healed , discerning customer base. This was cafeteria level crap. Trip too port intensive. Made for rushed, sometimes harried days, trying to visit what was inland and racing to get back to the ship on time. They need many more overnight stays. This was a universal complaint. Why the Captain decided to skip Portugal on a weekday because of a weekend Customs strike is still totally mystifying. People were flat out angry. We can all read and decode the internet news. The Captain tried to buffalo the customers with some illogical, condescending nonsense over the P.A. Obviously a corporate decision to save money- cheaper to restock inventory in Cadiz than Lisbon/ Porto. The company owes us a full explanation. Many disappointed folks looking forward to Portugal stops. Weather cancellations, of which there were several, are understandable- the Portugal cancellations were not. Lastly, agent in Del Mar did not book us on the coast side, after her failure to get us Concierge level. She did not inform us that we would have no back cushions for our balcony chairs on non concierge level. The chairs were extremely uncomfortable to sit in after a few minutes, cut you across the back . Oceania can't spend $5 to put weatherproof back cushions on the chairs, as they did do on Concierge level. Unacceptable on both the agent's part and Oceania. Not sure we will book Oceania again. Definitely will not work with Del Mar agent again.

We had an overall decent cruise experience on Oceania from Barcelona to Southampton. The boarding process was the best we've ever experienced. Our newly renovated Penthouse suite on Riviera was amazing. Our cabin steward and butler exceeded our expectations. However there was significant turnover amongst the restaurant staff due to the Vista launch, and the service was not equal to what we experienced on Riviera just one month prior. Unfortunately we didn't visit Lisbon or Porto as scheduled due to a port worker's strike. However on the same day that we were scheduled, a Silversea ship was able to visit Lisbon (not sure how). We booked the cruise specifically to visit Lisbon. We also missed St Peter's port due to weather.

Food 3/5 Entertainment 3/5* Cleanliness 3/5 Response to requests: 2/5 Art class 5/5 Solo travellers 5/5 Needlepoint/bracelet making 5/5 Excursions 3/5 Experienced staff 2/5 Ports 5/5 until 3 cancelled 3/5. No refund for days lost or any compensation.

This is our first Oceania cruise. The best part was the itinerary and the quality of the stateroom. We chose this sailing for being port-intensive and particularly its stop in Igoumenitsa. The Penthouse suite we loved. Very roomy and classy, excellent layout. Butler was not quite as polished as butlers we've had with other cruise lines, but he was okay. Really loved having free laundry and washers on our deck. Biggest complaint: Wi-fi is for one person at a time and super slow and unreliable, not acceptable for today. Entertainment was amateur and OLD at best. Singers would have been cut by American Idol judges on first audition. This was not as big an issue on a port-intensive cruise as we had full excursion days. This is our 6th cruise (others were Costa, HAL, Princess, Celebrity; This was the worst of all) The food was supposed to be the best, and we just felt it was good, but not the greatest. (Our recent sailings were on Retreat class in Celebrity, and Luminae was classier overall) It was very good, but disappointed in the regular coffee served -- not Illy or quality coffee I expect in Europe -- it was regular American coffee. The yogurt was Chobani, an American brand as well. I thought we would access local fare. The specialty restaurants were very difficult to book, wish I knew to book earlier. Did not like that all buffets were served by staff, very measly servings and very slow. Don't know if this will prevail even post-Covid. The High Tea was good, wish we partook of more. // Decor in common areas was dated on the Riviera, the artwork was quite frankly, ugly and upsetting. And I like a lot of different kinds of art. // The nail salon was super overpriced but very good // Excursion booking online is very clumsy. Once booked, one has to call to change. Did not like cancellations without notice. Also think they are very overpriced for large group excursions. Will do our own shore excursions in the future.

Wonderful itinerary and you can not beat the customer service on board the Oceania cruise lines.