We chose this cruise because the Amazon river was on our bucket list and because of the cuisine aboard Oceania. We were a little bit hesitant because of initial reviews of Sirena suggested that the refit from Princess left something to be desired. However by the time of our embarkation (oct 28th) these problems had been ironed out and the ship was in superb condition, easily as nice as the other R ships. Possibly as a result of the initial reviews and the expense of Brazilian visas (and zika virus worries) the ship was not sold out and had only 402 passengers out of a capacity of 680. As the captain pointed out there were more crew (403) than passengers. Service aboard was excellent and by the second or third day we were usually greeted by name by staff.

Food aboard was possibly even better than we had previously experienced with Oceania. Our favorite was Red Ginger where the calamari, sea bass, and lobster pad thai were great. We enjoyed our 4 visits to both Red Ginger and the Tuscan steak house.

As has been pointed out by previous reviewers the cabins and bathrooms are smaller than usual. This is typical of R ships and if this is a problem you should probably stick with the Marina or Riviera. Television channels are limiited (as with most ships). The one complaint I had in regard to this was the only sports channel was skysports (british). If your favorite sports are cricket and soccer you will be happy. There was no coverage of U.S. sports, despite the vast majority of passengers being from the U.S. Hello Oceania-ESPN? Read more