Cruise Ship Reviews : Oceania Cruises Reviews

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yayaquilts saw things this way:


Beautiful elegant ship, well maintained, friendly crew and service, great food, January 19, 2015
Reviewer: yayaquilts

Pros: Crew very helpful and friendly, awesome outstanding service,

Cons: Tahiti excursions grossly overpriced, more than 3X the cost of independent tours

Date of cruise: January 4, 2015

Departure port: Papeete, Tahiti

Region visited: South Pacific/Australia

Cabin category: Balcony

Cabin number: 7098

Good for children: No

Good for teenagers: No

Fantastic cruise: Oceania Marina Pacific Dreams, cruising the islands of Tahiti, French Polynesia. Tahiti has the most gorgeous teal-turquoise-blue waters of anywhere in the world, and beautiful beaches. Tahiti is unspoiled and not commercialized (quite a bit more primitive than we had expected). We were there during their "rainy season," however, when it did rain it only lasted 10 or 15 minutes. Often the cloud cover was a welcome blessing as then it wasn't as hot as when you were in the direct sun. Temps were in the mid 80's everyday with 70-80 percent humidity, beautiful nights. Best of all the Tahitian people are very friendly and welcoming. The Marina is an elegant ship and kept spotless. Great service all around; crew really attentive to every need. Many crew members called us by our names whenever they saw us! We had to tender to most ports and the tender crew were very helpful and efficient. Our veranda stateroom was very nice and comfortable, in the mid ship; it had nice storage, drawers, closet to keep clothes and our belongings put away; a good size bathroom with both a tub with handheld shower and a free standing shower. Balcony was a nice size as well. The best bar on the ship was the Martinis bar. Their servers were extra friendly and always gave us great service. You were able to eat whenever you chose, no assigned seating for dinners. There are four specialty restaurants on board but they require advance reservations. We reserved tables in two of the restaurants prior to departure. They were so popular we were only able to get a reservation for one of the other two while on our cruise. Best to make reservations in advance prior to the actual cruise. Entertainment wasn't very good. Best entertainment was a group of local Tahitians who came on board the ship one night and performed authentic songs and dances on the pool deck; afterwards the band played music and there was dancing on the deck. It was the most attended entertainment of the cruise. If one didn't want to go to the shows, there really wasn't an alternative, such as dancing at another location on the ship, during the time of the "shows." Many shore excursions were sold out prior to our departure (you could reserve them in advance of the cruise but we hadn't done so). It turned out to be in our favor. We discovered we were able to book tours independently of the ship once on shore and they were at least 3-4 times less expensive than through the ship. Cruise lines recommend you book excursions through them for many valid reasons (guarantee of the excursion, getting back to the ship on time, etc). While it is expected that cruise lines will mark their excursions up some, no one wants to feel as though they are being ripped off. For this cruise, we felt the excursions through Oceania were grossly overpriced and the most expensive we've ever seen (we've cruised on a few different lines 11 times, including to the Caribbean, Panama Canal, Australia/New Zealand and the Mediterranean). Not sure why they were so overpriced; we paid $40-80/person for a similar tour that through Oceania was $200-240/person. This was our second time cruising with Oceania. We will definitely cruise with them again if the itinerary and price are right.