Marina Review

4.5 / 5.0
811 reviews

First Time on Oceania--Very Good Experience

Review for South America Cruise on Marina
User Avatar
haskinskj
6-10 Cruises • Age 20s

Rating by category

Embarkation
Dining
Public Rooms
Entertainment
Service
Cabin

Additional details

Sail Date: Dec 2013

Our first trip on Oceania was on the Marina--South American Holiday. We boarded in Rio de Janeiro on December 8 with departure on December 9, traveled around the Cape eventually to Valparaiso and disembarked in Valparaiso on December 28. Overall experience was wonderful!! The ship is beautiful, as many have already mentioned, and the ports were very good giving us a great experience in four South American countries--Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina and Chile. We could never have visited on a land tour as much as we did on this cruise.

Just for background: my husband and I have done about 10-12 previous cruises. The most recent ones were three on Regent's Voyager over the last 5-6 years. We did the Baltics, Hong Kong to Bangkok and a B2B Greece and Turkey on Regent. Previous to those three we did several other cruises in the 80s and 90s. Most of our travel has been land tours throughout Europe, Canada, China and a week in Egypt. A good friend is an avid Oceania cruiser and encouraged us to try Oceania.

I must admit that we had an Oceania suite which is an astounding cabin--certainly the best we have ever stayed in. It is spacious, comfortable, with the best bedding we have ever experienced in any hotel or on any cruise. We were on deck 12, very convenient to the pool, to the Waves bar and Waves grill and to the Terrace dining room/café. Our butler, Ismail, was superb. He anticipated our needs and made frequent suggestions which he thought might improve our experience. He made several reservations for us at the specialty restaurants (above and beyond our pre-cruise reservations), booked a couples massage for us at the spa, served us room service two nights when we had just run out of energy and was there whenever we had a thought about what we wanted to do next! Kosta, our room steward, evidently had a camera on our door because we no sooner left our room than he serviced it before our return (many times while we were at breakfast with no expectation that the room would be cleaned while we were out).

Cabin Review

The best suite we have ever stayed in! Fantastic size with extra media room--worked out well as my husband is a late night owl but I like to go to be early. We had two full bathrooms; however, the guest bathroom (in entrance foyer) overflowed twice--not a great experience. In both cases, it just spontaneously started running and couldn't be stopped. The engineers appeared very quickly but the water (thankfully, just water!) ran into the foyer. After the second time we no longer used the second bathroom and just got a "we're sorry" from the executive concierge--that didn't feel like they really cared. Otherwise a really wonderful, spacious cabin. Without this experience, the cabin would have been rated 5.5

previous reviewnext review

Find a Marina Cruise from $2,089

Any Month

Get special cruise deals, expert advice, insider tips and more.By proceeding, you agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.

© 1995—2024, The Independent Traveler, Inc.