We had already booked for the Sydney to Miami final three sectors of the January 2015 World cruise, and were on Marina over the 2014 Christmas period when news of the Insignia fire, and subsequent repairs in San Juan, came through. As expected, quite a few full RTW passengers cancelled out (quite understandable if they wanted to go all the way around.) We decided to pick up one of the Singapore - Shanghai newly available cabins and then rejoin the ship on our previously booked SYD - MIA cruise.

Embarkation in Singapore was straightforward and on time; the only niggle was that the dock was not the one expected. That in fact was an unexpected bonus because a shop we intended to visit turned out to be at the new location.

As we have been accustomed to, the cabin, public areas and the ship generally were all in first class condition - remarkably so and a tribute to the hard work put in by the skeleton crew during the positioning from the repair dock. Oceania maintenance beats the other top-end companies we have experienced hands down. Read more