We sailed on the Regatta, round trip Los Angeles, on April 24. It was our first cruise on Oceania and we were looking forward to trying a new cruise line. Here is my long review.

Our overall impression is that the Regatta has great cuisine, as promised, but it is let down by other areas. The osso buco and carbonara in Toscana and beef bourguignon were some of the best meals on a cruise ship, maybe anywhere. There were two wine tastings that were also excellent. We thought the included wines were quite good. Only a couple salads were a miss. The sommeliers were very good and service was great in the GDR, Toscana, and Polo Grill. The “two for one” cocktail hour was not what we expected. It was literally two identical drinks—we needed to order identical drinks in order to take advantage of the deal. So they did what they promised, but I was assuming that if my wife and I got different drinks they would charge us for the higher priced one and not make us each have the same drink or each get two drinks at happy hour. This was the rule in Martini’s and the Horizon Lounge. We only got to one afternoon tea, but enjoyed it.

Entertainment was a mixed bag but overall pretty good. There were no production shows due to Covid, with at least three entertainment staff in quarantine, according to CD Julie. The pianist/singer in the martini bar, the string quartet, the enrichment lecturer and the comedian were all very good. So was the jazz show the CD did. One problem we had was that the shows were all at 9:30, quite late with nothing to do between then and dinner. We usually eat at 7:00, so were were done by 8:30. Several nights we just retired to our cabin and skipped the show rather than wait an hour for it to start. Read more