This is our first cruise on an R-class ship. Our previous cruises were on the larger O-class.
Pre-cruise communications from Oceania were abysmal. A lot of uncertainties and confusion with regards to things like yellow fever vaccination, Mozambique visa, the special discounted $99 pre-cruise tours, etc. And different travel agents have different and conflicting information from Oceania.
Boarding was at the Cape Town Cruise Ship Terminal, which is a short walk from the V&A waterfront. The terminal resembles a warehouse without any real facilities to speak of. You leave your luggage at one end of the building and proceed to fill out health questionnaires and immigration forms. Need to fill out South Africa departure form and Namibia form...this is because the routing of the cruise was reversed (presumably to avoid having to compete for resources with the Regent ship which has the exact same itinerary). So we will be sailing away from South Africa and head towards Walvis Bay instead. As it turned out, this happen to be advantageous to us. The Regent was unable to dock nor tender at Richard's Bay and missed the port. In general, boarding went quite smoothly. After the face-to-face immigration with some really friendly immigration officers and security check, we took a really short shuttle to the Nautica. Once on-board, we were directed to the Nautica lounge to finish off the check-in process.