We have cruised with Oceania several times over the past several years and it is apparent that Oceania is in decline as an organization. We just competed two cruises on the Marina (Norway and British Isles), and though there are lots of good staff on the Marina, there seem to be corporate decisions that are having a strongly negative impact on the service we received lately.

First, there were numerous situations for which there were not enough staff to handle things, in restaurant/wine staff, housekeeping staff, and security staff. Individual Marina staff members were wonderful, but when you don't have enough security staff assigned to the gangways during a time period when lots of passengers are coming from excursions and heading to excursions, you end up with serious bottlenecks. Also, I don't know how many times we had to wait for a wine steward to come to our table to take our order, while the first course of food was being brought to the table. We'd look around the room and see only one wine steward trying to serve the entire specialty restaurant. Oceania is not providing sufficient staff for the cruises anymore.

The wine lists are a scam. We repeatedly were given a wine of newer vintage, even though the wine list said they had an older one, with sometimes as much as five years in difference. Yet, the wine list only listed the older vintage and the newer wine was sold at the same price as the older with no notification about this difference in vintage. This is a serious problem, given the partnership between La Reserve and Wine Spectator. Also, La Reserve has gotten stale, in their menus and service. The staff didn't seem all that interested in our experience this last time on the Marina, and the food was pedestrian. Read more