Riviera Review

Oceania Riviera Nightmare

Review for the Mediterranean Cruise on Riviera
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Amartlay
6-10 Cruises • Age 60s

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Sail Date: Aug 2016
Cabin: Concierge Level

Well! Well! Where to begin?

Flight problems: After receiving our flight information, I called the airlines to see if we could upgrade to first class. We were told that since our tickets were "bulk" purchase (more on this later), we could not upgrade. While I was talking to Delta, the man mentioned that we had no tickets for the flight home. I called Florida, and was told that there was no problem, of course we had tickets to fly home. Since we have never used a cruise line's air before, I assumed that the woman from Oceania knew what she was talking about, NOT! The night before our flight, we tried checking in on line and was refused, so we called the 800 number that Oceania gave us to use if something goes wrong while traveling. The phone rang for 35 minutes, so we gave up on Oceania. We decided to go to the airport right then, the night before, in order to find out what was wrong. The woman we talked to there said a) our flight segments weren't done correctly, and b) we didn't have tickets to get home. Surprise! She said she had everything fixed and everything should be fine. And she said that because they were "bulk" tickets, we can't do things on line or get email notifications. The next morning Delta wasn't flying, but Delta got us on a United flight. At the end of the cruise - guess what - we got to Nice and was told that we didn't have tickets to get home. Air France at Nice managed to get us on fully booked flights when, fortunately, some travelers didn't show up.

Excursions: 4 of the 7 excursions that we booked through Oceania did not go as planned. They were cancelled, partially cancelled, moved to another time, or modified. The partially cancelled one was due to a forest fire, so I can excuse that, but people on other tours said that their guides just flexed and did other things, while we were offered to walk the city streets of Marseilles, and we were not interested in doing that.

Cabin Review

Concierge Level

Port Reviews

La Spezia (Cinque Terre)

We took Santa Marguerita and transfer to Portofino. Would definitely not go to Portofino again. There are 2 churches and a castle. The castle has a fee to go in. You are stuck there for 3 hours when there's really only 45 minutes of entertainment.

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