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Oceania Cruises

MV Insignia

Your Rating:
Reviewed by: Tom M.
Date of Trip: May 17, 2004
# previous cruises: 10 to 20
Itinerary: Mediterranean

Overall great trip but with this itinerary how could it be anything but great.

Ports - Venice - overnight - Dubrovnik - Corfu - Rome - Livorno - Portofino - Nice - Marsielle - Barcelona - Cadiz overnight - Lisbon. All very strong and interesting.

Pre-cruise - did own thing and booked Ca'del Campo for 2 nights. Great location in San Marco; immaculate room; good breakfast; helpful staff. Only 240 euros per night, although sounds pricey, good comparatively for Venice. Took water taxis from airport to hotel and hotel to ship, worth every penny if you have a lot of luggage or are unsure about locations.

Embarkation - Kind of slow; fairly disorganized for the size ship we thought, but no big deal. Nice that it was at the Stazione Maritima (smaller dock) than one of the larger facilities. Made for convenient walking / sightseeing. Grocery store is close if you want to buy water, soda or wine for the room.

Great size and loved it, no lines anywhere.

Best I have had on a ship. Tasted great, was interesting, beautifully presented at the appropriate temps.

Service in Toscana and Polo Grill terrific. Average at dinner in the Grand Dining Room. Excellent for breakfast in the dining room. Head waiters and maitre'de very, very, good. Staff is Friendly and approachable.

Bars, wine stewards etc. - Cost of drinks I thought were high but quality pretty good; bought 6 or 7 bottles of wine while on board, brought own wine on the last night because I did not want to carry it home and was changed $20 corkage. Excessive I think; I was going to tip a particular wine steward that night but after the $20 corkage, I kept the bill in my pocket.

Veranda stateroom - excellent layout; bedding and toiletries excellent; mattress however kind of uncomfortable for me. Veranda very much used and worth it.

Room stewards - as good as we have ever had. Extra hangers and ice requests filled with a smile.

Room service - good.

We knew the entertainment was going to be different but was disappointed in the variety. Music talent was excellent but lacking in variety. Musical theatre group was kind of interesting but one of female vocalists was quite poor. No comedy which I thought was strange for the venues available. Sound system in disco was poor (Horizons). Walked out of several shows because they just were not very good. I did not think the entertainment or lack of would make a difference in this cruise but it did to a small degree. Cruise director was ok, but seemed to have other things on his mind. This was his final trip I think before moving to producing / directing. Perhaps he got a bump and will be the VP of entertainment for Oceania or something but not sure. My wife and I laughed because one of the best night of entertainment was when they showed the "Last Samurai" in the Insignia lounge. Although I seem to be complaining this is not the kind of trip you are going for the entertainment; just would have liked more variety.

Destination Services - ok; would like more information published regarding doing things on your own (train times, expected cab fares etc.) but understand they are trying to sell tours etc.

Spa services - mistakes in appointment times; not a good massage the first time but the hot stones treatment excellent (although not cheap felt it was good value).

Tips are on account and we felt the service was so good we also tipped individually to various staff. We only took two tours (a bus transfer to Rome and an all day tour to Puccini-Lucca-Pisa that was excellent). 2 trips to the spa for each of us. With bar/wine, tours, tips and spa services sign and sail was about 2k. All inclusive costs for trip including pre and post cruise (without air) for 18 days about 10k or $275 per day.

Crowd that goes - we are a well traveled professional couple in our mid 40's and found that the majority of the crowd was much older than us. Some interesting and friendly but many others not so. Seemed like some people always wanted to tell you want they had as far as assets, designer goods etc. One incident that I remember is that we were asked by another couple if we were "still working". When we said we were they just kind of looked down their noses at us. Whatever. Some passengers were very demanding of staff; not with requests but absolute demands. After a while we tried to stick to 2 tops for dining but sometimes the tables are so close it did not help.

Would I go again - of course in a heartbeat but would carefully compare other lines as to value and crowd that goes.

Disembarkation - excellent; off the ship by 9 am in Lisbon.

Post cruise - done on our own at Hotel Florescente; an adventure since they were remodeling but ok..