I sailed on the Oceania Marina mid June with a group of 10 friends that I met through Cruise Critic over the years. I have already published a comparison of my "observations" on Oceania vs. Azamara, on the Oceania board. I have reset my expectations and had a little "cooling off" period so I am hopeful that this review will be fair and balanced and will only deal with the Marina experience.

Firstly, the ship is gorgeous! She is clean and bright and cheerful and the works of art onboard are amazing. It was a delight just to stroll around her.

I arrived too early to embark but my luggage was taken away quickly and I was free to wander or sit or snack. The port in Stockholm is a working port, as were all the ports on the Baltic cruise, so the terminal was a prefab unit but was just fine. There was a small gift shop with coffee and snacks and water. There were quite a few folks there already but it was not crowded. It was cool outside so the temperature in the terminal was pleasant. There were enough seats to handle the number of passengers so all was well. At around 1:30 am they began herding us all towards the security check point. Since there was a bit of a crush - they began to call the Suite passengers first, then PH, then Concierge and so on. This created a bit of a fuss since there were lots of folks already in line. It seemed a bit disjointed. One still had to go to the check-in counter and line up in the appropriate line before being allowed to board, so it seemed strange that they wouldn't just let the line clear through security and let the Concierge and above board after check in. The entire process from line up to check-in to boarding took less than 25 minutes. Pretty good! Read more