Especially Bruges, Guernsey, Bordeaux, Ferrol and Lisbon were very nice. Bruges is fabulous. Had a good lunch ashore with a special local beer 'Straffe Hendrik': delicious! In Ferrol I discovered a very good white wine: a Dao Passarella. We made two local excursions in Portugal which can be recommended. On board we had the best bridge TD couple in a long time: friendly and reallygood. What a difference with HAL where they are too rude, too incompetent and too old most of the time. No constant hammering here like on HAL ships, no awfull smells. Just a relaxing holiday. On a HAL shop, about 5.00 pm I get a bit hungry. Here I look forward to a very good dinner. Especially in Red Ginger and Toscane, but also in the main dining room. Coffee, orange juice and, last but not least the smoothies are very good. Sometimes Azamara has good dinners, but that's only sometimes. The cabins are about the same there, but the cruise prizes are too high. The Oceania crew is friendly and always ready to assist you when needed. Only the tendering and shuttle schedules should be improved. Read Less

We booked our trip through a travel agent who strongly advised cruising on one of Oceania's new ships. Thankfully, they made advanced reservations in the restaurants. Our meal at Ginger ended with us walking out of the dining room when our entree had not been served in a little over 1 1/2 hours. This through the wait staff in a tail spin. They followed us saying that our meal was now being cooked. I advised the hotel manager of the situation. The Ginger manager called and asked us to return and that they would sit us with a "charming" couple. The charming elderly man managed to spill a full glass of red wine in my wife's lap and left the apologies to his wife. New table. Take 3. The food was really very good. So good that I ordered a Hot Saki. Not a high end product mind you but the same that could be ordered in any Japanese restaurant for $6 -8.00. The tab was $29.50. Typically, we do not book excursions in advance. We were glad for that. $120.00 each to follow someone carrying a Oceania flag around for 3 hours. We took a Hop On Hop Off bus. We got to witness this forced march from the comfort of a side walk cafe with a glass or 2 of good reasonably priced wine. The pool area was a nice retreat had it not been the wait staff waking you to ask if you wanted a drink. I did break down to 2 or 3 beers at $7.97 each. Oceania's policy is obvious. Quote a low rate and make up the margin on liquor and tours. I had agreed to a fare that included tips only to find out that it was only for state room and dining staff. The gratuity on liquor of 18% was not included. Thank you but we will go back to Silverseas Read Less

We traveled with 5 other friends who agreed that this particular itinerary was very port intensive and included ports that were new to us. We arrived in Amsterdam 2 days prior to the cruise and had a great time exploring this city. We traveled by van from our hotel(Restaurant Larende) to the port and had arranged this private transport with help from the hotel staff. We were only charged 50 euro for the entire van. Upon arrival at the port we were immediately allowed to check in as we had booked a Signature Suite. Our friends who were traveling with us were allowed to check in at the same time. We were among the first to walk on the ship. Cabin We found our room and had booked cabin 068 on the 10th deck and it was very roomy, quiet, had an over-sized deck, and was located near the elevator one floor beneath the lido.We never heard any noise from the deck above or from our neighbor. Our room steward met us and noticed that I had a bouquet of flowers (for my birthday) and went to fetch a flower vase. We had excellent service from our room stewards. Dining We ate almost all of our dinners in the Main Dining Room using open seating. After the first day we generally were assigned tables near one area and arrived between 7-7:30 PM. We had great service. We recognized the Dining Room manager from a previous cruise as well as the Wine Sommelier. We never had to wait to get a table. We ate breakfast in the Lido. We did have one dinner at the Caneleto, two other dinners in the Pinnacle. One of these dinners was the cellar master's dinner that although was an extra expense was worth every penny. We had room service one morning and one item was missing from the order. We also tried the new Grill and enjoyed the hamburger and fries one afternoon. While in Cadiz the ship held a dinner on the outside deck including paella and other Spanish food items. Bar service was always pretty fast and we all had the use of the Explore 4 card so most all of our beverages were covered. Entertainment We attended several of the big shows with the Holland entertainers. We also saw a comedian and while in Cadiz a local Flamenco dance group was brought on for one show at 9:30 PM which was standing room only. I saw one of the Dancing with Stars events. Our favorite entertainers though were the Adagio duo and Don Alexander, the piano player who usually performed up in the Crows Nest each evening. Activities Since this cruise was so port intensive we did not participate in too many activities. We did play trivia and twice played bingo. One day we participated in a toss game but only one other individual showed up. We did attend a couple of culinary activities as well as the computer class. I went to two movies. We did have a great Meet and Greet event on Sept.8th up int he Crows Nest. We had over 50 persons in attendance. We did not have any officers or staff attend but enjoyed the time to finally meet in person all those who posted over the year. Ports/Excursions We did not book any Holland excursion but rather planned our own and often chose to go on walking tours. We took several tours with other CC roll call members. Only one port stop was cancelled due to the weather conditions. Disembarkation We chose to carry off our own suitcases so left the ship about 7:45 am as we had booked independently a half day tour of Barcelona that included being dropped off at Hotel Lleo where we stayed two days post cruise.   Read Less