It was the first world cruise for msc. we had done two other world cruises with holland america and costa cruise. When we compered the msc cruise with the other two was very poor in several areas. Cost: we paid a lot more money for this cruise so we espected more. The cabin with balcony 9080 was very small and impossible to organize clothing and shoes. Food: the food in the buffet was terrible, and 4 months of the same food every day. Fruit became a problem and you had to ask pleading to get some. The result was that if they had a tray of bananas people would get them so fast that in 2 minutes was gone. They waiter in the fruit stand was nasty. in the daning room the service was so slow at lunch or diner it took 2 hours or more. Dining hours 6 pm. And 8:30 pm. Too early and too late. The entertainment was very good. shows and music was really great. We did have and opera group that we loved. Service was very poor. Customer relations was the was the worse we ever had. Only one person there, mr. Nadal, worked to solve you problems. The rest of them were not interested on you problem and treated you like they did not care. Some people raised their voices and that seemed to do some good. It was horrible. After a while we just put up with to the situation. Ports were fine, some interesting other no so much, like always in any cruise of this type. Excursions were horrible. Insurance: we took the msc insurance. Read it very carefully. If you have a problem they are not going to pay. They will not cover most of the cost and will argue every $ or euro they pay. We do not recommend it. It was supposed to be a "wonderful world cruise" but it was really a poor cruise, on the costa cruise around the world they made us feel like the most important persons in the world. They worked hard to give us service and solve any problems we had. With msc we felt that they did anything to make us feel good or special. Read Less

Chose this for the itinerary that we were interested in and recommendations from others who had traveled on the Riviera. We spent several days prior to the cruise in Barcelona and that was one of the reasons we chose this particular cruise as we wanted to visit there. Service was terrific, staff couldn't have been nicer, food excellent, particularly dining at La Reserve. Beauty salon was also well staffed and very helpful. We felt that on a ship of this level that the laundry room should have been free of cost. As we did not buy a drink package the cost per drink was extremely pricey and this too we felt was beyond what it should have been. Tours offered by the ship are very expensive, best to make your own arrangements, use Cruise Critic Roll Call to meet people of mutual interest. Go to afternoon tea, that is a must.. Read Less

We chose this cruise for the itinerary, even though we have been to some of these ports before, there were many new ports of call. The food and service in the Red Ginger and the Tuscan Steakhouse specialty restaurants has been beyond expectations. The food and service in the Grand Dinning Room has been good to excellent. The food and service in the Terrace Cafe has been good to average. Many of the excursions have been bad, good and great. It's hard to rate excursions because not all tastes are the same. If you haven't cruised much, some ports of call may seem boring and a waste of time and money but I think it's safe to say don't bother visiting the village of Sagunto in the port of Valencia. The Emerald Grotto excursion in the Amalfi/Positano port is a total ripoff, don't waste your money ! In the port of Split, Croatia, skip Ancient Salona and spend all your time inside the walls off Diocletian Palace.In Ravenna, Italy, skip Comacchio Lagoon fishing village. We arrived in Barcelona two days before embarkation , stayed at the Hotel Colon, which is across from The Cathedral of Barcelona . Great location. Try and get a room with a terrace overlooking the plaza of the cathedral. We visited the Gaudi House and got tickets online before leaving California thru an app called Tiquets, avoid the lines, use the app. This is our fifth cruise on Oceania and this embarkation went very smooth. Our cabin number was 6079. Very good location . Grand Dining Room, Casino, Boutiques, and Showroom were one floor below us. Laundry room one floor above and elevator close but not heard. Read Less

Chose first for destinations, secondly because it was Oceania....previously on the Marina, and loved the ship. Cruise Director on Sirena was far superior to the one on Marina though. Meals and service in Red Ginger and Toscana were very good. Too often we had to search for a seat in the Terrace. For most part service was excellent; the odd person appeared to hate their job and it showed. Wine especially was very over priced for the quality. On the regular winelist we found our go to wine at 4 times what we pay for it in Hawaii. Doesn't Oceania buy 'duty free'? cocktails at two for one still worked out to regular price for each in CDN dollars, so no bargain there. Great massage onboard; and very so so pedicure for a very very high cost. Cabin was very small; but meticulously maintained. We would go on the Marina again, but definitely not the Sirena. Read Less

The Sirena was the new addition to the fleet and having sailed on all the others we thought we would like to be on it's inaugural voyage. We took the section from Barcelona to Le Havre, 21 days. The SIrena is another of the old Renaissance ships. It was sold twice before Oceania purchased it last year and "refurbished" it. We expected something new and different, we got something old and the same. Nothing really wrong with that, but it was EXACTLY the same as the other sister ships, down to the same pictures on the walls! They did renovate the suites and higher priced staterooms but everything else was the same. The main reason we wanted this ship was that they included Red Ginger as one of the specialty dining rooms. Unfortunately they tried to combine the Polo Grill with Toscana and failed. It was neither a steak house nor an Italian restaurant. They lost a lot of the key menu items from both venues and missed. The decor of both were terrific, the service great as always but lacking in identity. Red Ginger had all the menu items but on the larger ships they always offered a special. They said that because of the smaller kitchen they couldn't do it on the Sirena. The Main Dining room was superb as always. We had booked the cruise as a 21 day cruise. It actually was a "Back-to-Back" which we didn't find out about until we reached Lisbon. The downside was that the magician was on two nighrts before we reached Lisbon and then two more nights after we left. Also the production numbers that the Staff put on, they were great BTW, were repeated. We have been on longer cruises and never had that happen. We would check on any other B2B's before booking. Our cabin had some mechanical problems. The AC control didn't work. We had AC but it was freezing. The toilet didn't flush properly and the shower water temperature control was set to cool water. It took 3 days of complaining to get all the items repaired. We really love Oceania, have already booked another cruise for next year but I don't think we would revisit the Sirena unless they really do a lot of work on it. Read Less

Occupied level 9 Cabin with veranda. Cruise commenced Barcelona with various brief stops and concluded in Fremantle Australia. Pros 1. Cabin well appointed serviced by excellent staff. 2. Excellent wait staff in dining rooms. Cons 1. Embarkation took over 3 hours. Disembarkation was reasonable. 2. Emergency drill was so inept that only those on the bridge had any chance od escape. 3. Variety of food very good however it was not put together by kitchen hands. Quality was poor. 4. Non English speaking Captain. 5. Ship should have been quarantined from the third day until the thirty first day as a result of an outbreak of severe gastro with ambulances called in Malaysia to offload critical cases. 6. Duty Free shopping was ultra expensive with many items flea market quality. Could have purchased any item on Ebay for half. 7. Identical shore excursions could have been bought 60% cheaper from the wharf. 8. No live coverage of major sporting events despite the fact there was live streaming on the internet. 9. Cost of drinks out of the ball park. 10. Management more concerned with promoting Casino and providing free grog and entertainment to frequent travellers in private areas. 11. Entertainment was patchy but overall fair. 12. Activities were only fair. 13. Internet and telephone calls costs outrageous. Summary Senior staff were overall lazy, inept and unapproachable. Avoid at all costs sailing for 35 days and clocking up kilometres on water. Would not have been surprised to have hit an iceberg. This company is a no no as evidenced by its plummeting stock market value. Read Less

As loyal regular celebrity cruisers and after a fabulous transatlantic with them on Silhouette in November, we were persuaded by friends to join them on the Quantum -Barcelona -Singapore cruise to celebrate my 50th birthday. The ship looked great in the advertising, and the ports appealed.. However as we found out. Marketing was not reality.. While the first leg Barcelona to Dubai had enough going on with its port visits to make the negatives seem less obvious, the leg from Dubai to Singapore, where we couldn't even get off in India (the only reason we did this leg) and were stuck on board for 10 days due to an India visa mess up and poor communication by RCC was best described as boring and tedious at worse torture.. and we only wish we had got off in Dubai. Never again will we cruise with Royal Caribbean. Positives first.. These were the cabins, they were lovely. We give them 5 stars. We also liked the Dynamic dining and food in general was good. The evening drinks for Diamond members were a positive bonus as well.. We liked our one experience in the skydiving i fly. Most of the staff as usual were wonderful young people doing their best in a bad situation. Here the positives end. Our biggest complaints were.. The ship was undergoing major renovations..!! It should never have been placed in service for customers. It failed to provide alot of what was promised in its advertising.. It was noisy in cabins and venues near this reconstruction, it stunk regularly of fumes from toxic chemical /glue/paint fumes. Many venues were closed due to renovation. We constantly had sore throats and coughs and headaches from the toxic air on this ship. Entertainment particularly on Dubai to Singapore leg was limited repetitive and dreadful.. The top reason we booked this cruise was that Mamma Mia was the show.. However they cancelled that (without warning us or giving option to rebook another cruise) and replaced it with a basic Cirque copy style show and an even worse Vegas showgirls production.. In the daytime there was nothing to do if you were not a person that liked to bake outside in 32 plus temperatures in full sun.. In 30 days we didnt get to go on the Northstar. It was either not working or had huge lines in the heat. For a cruise that had most if its days at sea, the lack of daytime entertainment was shocking.. There were no movies ( probably because they were renovating all venues that could have happened in!! Or maybe because they charged $12US per movie on stateroom TV. ?! ) There was only one wine tasting event, The Vintages was a great space.. Totally underutilized. It would help if even one person working in there knew a thing about wine or service! The library was very basic and small and in a very noisy part of the ship. There were limited areas to quietly read in whole ship.. The beyond the podium lectures were very poor. The internet service was bad. The entertainment was repeated on second leg so if doing back to back cruises there was nothing new to follow.. Live music was very limited throughout the ship and in some cases poor. The ship was totally understaffed.. Particularly in the areas of customer service and help desks. It was over staffed by new Chinese crew members with limited english skills and bad attitudes. We did not receive the message about needing India Visas before we arrived in Barcelona. On check in at Barcelona, they said we could pay $400US and they (RCC) would take care of everything.. We filled out all the forms etc and left the staff to take care of this. It was not till the evening before we arrived in india when we went to collect our passports that we found out..Tough luck.. No Visa.. On further investigation it was discovered that those representing RCC in Barcelona didn't even seem to file the paperwork.. As with staff attitude in general on this ship.. It was as if no one cared.. Sad for ys as we really only did this leg to visit India. Yet we had to remain on the ship with others who had the same problem.. Everything was about getting this ship ready for its great money making casino conversion for rich Chinese gamblers/ cruisers. Those of us on the ship for its repositioning cruise felt we were just along for the ride while the boat had to reposition to China.. It was not about the cruise and the people already on this boat.. It was about the new Chinese market.. We were very please to disembark in Singapore and husband is sadly put off cruising for a long time.. Read Less

We boarded in Barcelona, the "tablet" check-in was not in use and the usual Barcelona chaos with desks was in operation. We had originally planned to check in as early as possible and then to spend the day in town but having learnt that RCI would not allow guests to leave the ship we altered our timings and arrived mid afternoon. Barcelona port terminal has a duty free shop after their security check and consequently you could buy as much alcohol as wished, there were no further security checks. We had a balcony cabin on deck 10 on the bump out aft, apart from a longish walk to the nearest lifts it was excellent, in both size, shower room and storage. The balcony was deeper on one side because of the bump out, and had 2 fully reclining chairs, 2 footstools and a low table; there was sufficient space for 2 people to sunbathe and still move around easily. The ships facilities are well documented, there was construction taking place to Music Hall and shopping outlets on the promenade, we did not experience any limitations to our enjoyment indeed because the space in the Diamond Lounge was restricted by work in Music Hall they created an satellite lounge within Boleros which we used most nights. The Bionic bar was in very little use, on rare occasions it was doing demonstration "dances". The solarium at the front of the ship is the best of its kind we have seen on any of the cruise lines we have used, the sunbeds around the main pools were very busy and tightly packed but go up one deck to 15 and there was choice in sun or shade and with more space around. My disappointment was in the limited choice of food in the 4 main complementary restaurants Icon, Grande, Chic and Silk. These are positioned aft on decks 3 & 4, each has 2 menus with very few changes which alternate every 3-4 days; the problem is that they share a common kitchen and the base ingredients, steak, chicken, prawn are on all restaurant menus with perhaps a different seasoning and description. The plate put in front of you is essentially the same, after 10 nights it became very boring; we saw no problems with people queuing without reservations and there always appeared to be empty tables. One further issue with these restaurants was that the service was always rushed, perhaps that's why there were always free tables... they had got their guests away in much less than the 2 hour slot logged into their reservation system. We also dined in Jamie's and Chops We did not use either the Ifly nor NorthStar, my weight puts me close to the upper limit for Ifly and having worked in the truck industry I know how temperamental "cherry pickers" can be on land. Lots of people did use them and seemed to have a good time without any problems. The crucial question is would we cruise again on Quantum class ships, Yes but with a maximum of 7 - 10 days because of the restaurant issues. Read Less