We had sailed on Riviera before. We had also sailed on Marina. We have 40 plus cruises of all types under our belts.

Anyway, we chose the one because of the itinerary, We were on deck 7. The cabin was as we expected. I think there were about 700 passengers, By and large the services were pretty good. The ship was not allowed to visit Malta. More on that later. We had reservations in all 4 specialty restaurants. Second visits were readily available. We did not buy any Oceania excursions. One of several reasons to choose Oceania has been the food. We were disappointed. None of the specialty restaurants was memorable. The service was only fair and I cannot remember a memorable meal. Polo had run out of prime rib on our first visit (at 6:30 !!). We did enjoy the rib on our second visit. Jacques Red Ginger and Toscana were just average for us. Specialty but not special. The dining room and Terrace Cafe were fine but we prefer to dine at our own pace which is not possible in the dining room. Breakfast and room service were fine although the room service coffee was often not very hot. As I said above we chose this cruise because of the itinerary. My visit to Pompeii was wonderful. That aside, the other stops were not memorable. The cruise ended in Barcelona which was the highlight of our trip. Now to discuss Malta. The cause for skipping it was not very well explained. We soon heard that the cause was that there was Covid on our ship. We are now convinced that it was true. This was further confirmed in that both my wife and myself tested positive two days after we left the ship and the day before we were to fly back to the States. We incurred days of unnecessary expense because of this infection. It was not a great ending to our adventure.

I do not think we will use Oceania again. My wife and daughter recently sailed on Celebrity Edge and were delighted with everything. It now seems to me that the incremental expense for Oceania is not money well invested. We will go back to Celebrity which we have much enjoyed on our cruises in the past.