Oceania Cruises Reviews 132

I had been with this line before but found it has definitely lowered its standards? As per person below's review, I also found the food limiting eating vegetrian and chicken, Food always came up luke warm. One evening my meal was served and the other 5 got their's 40 minutes later which was when my jacket potsto arrived as well, The fruit plates were boring, same old melons, orange and occasionally papaya. Apart from strawberries, no berries and I did not see a banana the whole trip

The last day at sea was cold and yet no lectures were programmed and the evening show was cancelled , A very boring day

My friends and I each had 950 US dollars to spend but found the shop had very old fashioned but overpriced stock, the dresses looked like they had come out if a charity shop. The perfumes like Dune and white linen were popular in the 70s.

Standards have definitely gone down and I doubt I will use Oceania again.

Oceania hold thenselves out as Vegetarian specialists - they are not. They say they have a veg menu, but all they have is a regular menu we could pick items off. They turned back the veg clock 30 years. Over promised, under delivered. P&O did a better job.
There was also an oddly disengaged crew. It was like everyone had a really big argument and were not speaking.

Don't bother wasting your money if you are Asian.

Our experience was marred by instances of what seemed to be racial bias. It seemed that there was a clear bias in the service, with what appeared to be preferential treatment given to white customers.
The buffet line and the ice cream queue were particularly problematic, as we experienced extended wait times and were consistently asked to move behind white customers.
Furthermore, our attempts to communicate and request plain water were met with consistent disregard. When we approached the servers to discuss these issues, they often walked away without addressing our concerns.
On the day of disembarkment, the toilets were noticeably dirty as well.

Overall, our experience was horrible, and would definitely avoid this cruise in the future. This unfortunate experience left us feeling unwelcome and raises serious questions about the training of the staff here and the kind of customers they aim to serve.

Was on a 10 day Mediterranean cruise on the Oceania Nautica October 17th to 27th, 2023. The ship itself was clean and well maintained. The service was average. Little entertainment and few things to do.The food was fine... not as hyped as mentioned by our Cruise Agent suggested. The staff were mostly friendly. The ports were amazing excluding Igoumenitsa, Greece which was a complete waste of time... We docked on a Sunday and there were no private tours available and very little was open that day. Cruise ship tours were prioritized, so if you had a private tour scheduled you'll be the last one off even though you have a private reservation booked. My largest complaint was the loss of my luggage on the morning of disembarkation. The staff take the luggage the night prior to the port terminal and keep it in a 'secure' location. When we arrived the following morning being the first to disembark and the first in the terminal to grab our luggage my suitcase was no where to be found. We were scrambling to find it. I filled out a lost luggage form and left an hour later. My brother in law arriving at the same port terminal 2 hours later said they did finally find my suitcase and informed my brother in law that it would be returned to me. As of now, after having spoken to Oceania numerous times it has now been lost (or even better someone took my luggage). This is unacceptable! My advice keep your luggage with you always and disembark with it... SO DISAPPOINTING!!!

I’d give Oceania a zero rating if I could! We also booked the Middle East cruise from Istanbul to Dubai. We usually cruise with Viking, but this itinerary was fantastic. A big splurge to celebrate our 50th wedding anniversary. However, because of the war, Oceania completely changed the itinerary. They now will sail mostly around Greece, to places we’ve already been. Plus, there are now NINE CONSECUTIVE days at sea, through areas that don’t seem safe to me! They should have just cancelled.

When the changes were made, I called to see what my options were. I was offered a future cruise credit. Was told I could call back when I decided. Gave me a month to book my next cruise.

I called back to accept their offer and was told they stopped giving it!! I wrote to everyone I could think of. My BBB complaint got the only answer which was “This was an open- ended offer. It was first come, first served. We are no longer giving any credit.” WHAT???? That was definitely not what I was told!

They can hide behind their legal fine- print, but I certainly won’t ever sail with them again!

Have waited a long time for a middle east cruise and booked it when it became available. No one could foresee the conflict in the middle east and totally understand why Oceania canceled all ports of call along the Suez Canal and Red Sea areas. What is unacceptable is to substitute the Mediterranean for the middle east. Have cruised there twice before and who wants to go back to the same ports? Oceania refuses any credit for future cruises and advise it is within their "fine print" they can change the itinerary. Now we are stuck with another Mediterranean cruise and 9 days at sea (Suez Canal & Red Sea). What a waste of our money and I can assure you we will never cruise with them again and at every opportunity will warn others about their hard line approach to making customers happy - it's all about the almighty dollar and to hell with customer satisfaction or happiness. A total disgrace to the cruise industry.

The cruise ship itinerary changed completely from Middle East to Europe so it isn't the original itinerary we booked but Oceania refuses to refund customers citing that they have the right to change itineraries. Those two geographical areas are completely different! This is switch and bait!

I had a frustrating experience with Oceania Cruise and their onshore excursions. I booked a family cruise with Oceania and took advantage of a 25% discount promotion for the excursions. However, I ended up having to pay back the discounted amount of US$1,600 because Oceania refused to issue my cruise tickets.

It was our first vacation after the Covid pandemic, and the cruise was a significant part of our month-long trip to Europe. I booked the cruise holiday through my travel agent and the excursions directly on Oceania's website, utilizing the 25% discount offer.

As the trip approached, my travel agent informed me that there was an outstanding balance for the excursions, and Oceania wouldn't issue my cruise tickets. However, in my Oceania account, all the excursions were reserved, and no outstanding amount was shown. Despite my travel agent's efforts to resolve the issue, Oceania insisted on the payment. With the deadline for issuing tickets looming and having already made other travel arrangements and paid for the entire vacation, I had no choice but to pay the outstanding amount.

During the cruise, I had the chance to review the excursion pamphlet again and noticed the 25% discount offer. When I returned from the holiday, I cross-checked my bank statement and realized that the amount Oceania had charged me back was actually the 25% discount. I promptly contacted my travel agent to communicate with Oceania. It took Oceania two weeks to reply and they refused to reimburse me and instead blamed me for not selecting the discount at checkout. They requested proof, such as a screenshot of the transaction. It was frustrating because Oceania had not provided any payment receipt after the transaction, and they disregarded my credit card statement, which clearly showed the payment at the discounted price. It seemed unreasonable to hold me accountable for not having a screenshot of the transaction.

Feeling increasingly frustrated, I contacted Oceania's local office directly to inquire about a possible system glitch. A few weeks later, Oceania gave the same response, refusing to reimburse me and instead questioning why I hadn't resolved the issue before the cruise. Oceania claimed there was no problem with their system. What bothered me was that I had been completely unaware what the discrepancy was until I reread the excursion pamphlet while on the cruise. I reached out to them as soon as I returned from my vacation. If there was genuinely no issue with their system, it raises concerns about their business ethics. They enticed customers with a discount, accepted full payment, and then demanded repayment for the discount before issuing tickets. It left the customer with no choice but to comply.

Additionally, Oceania automatically charged my credit card for gratuities, even though they were supposed to be free as part of my booking. Fortunately, we noticed the charge and immediately contacted my travel agent while still on the cruise. Oceania eventually reimbursed us, but only after we pursued the matter upon our return.

Oceania offered future onboard credits as compensation, but I'm hesitant to be constantly vigilant and worry about my wallet on another Oceania cruise.

Overall, my experience with Oceania Cruise and their onshore excursions was extremely frustrating and disappointing.

NEVER book a cruise on Oceania if having reliable Internet matters. Or an app to plan and keep up to date with goings on onboard and off-shore. And whoever is in charge of marketing at Oceania has not yet claimed its Google knowledge panel…so guests cannot even leave a review. In 2023, what global hospitality brand doesn’t allow guests to engage digitally? Sadly, and surprisingly, it’s Oceania Cruises. My bad for not checking before we booked what will be our last cruise with this brand.

I enjoyed my trip.
The prices on the ship were higher than expected

- I apologize for this long review, but before booking Oceania, I highly encourage you to read through it so what happened to us doesn't happen to you.
Through all my years of traveling, I have never paid so much to receive so little. Due to the special occasion of my sister and I both graduating (one from high school and one from college), we had purchased first-class round-trip tickets on our flights out of the United States and our flights returning to the US. Since we are all so busy, we paid additional fees to have Oceania "Cruise Specialists" and travel agents through Oceania book our flights; meaning we would pay our airfares with the cost of the cruise directly to Oceania. Aboard the ship, the staff were amazing, with precise attention to detail and always offering a helping hand. The problem with Oceania cruises arose on our journey home. We were to leave from Istanbul to board a flight that would land in Montreal, then take us to our final destination of Minneapolis. Due to the Canadian wildfires, our flight from Istanbul to Montreal had been cancelled, which was completely out of the hands of Oceania. We tried our best to work with Oceania to rebook flights, but they told us that they had emailed their main office and we would have to wait until the following day to hear anything back (which would've been 5 hours before we needed to disembark the ship). Taking matters into our own hands, we hopped on the phone with Air Canada to try and rebook our flights, which turned into hours long waiting times to be connected to an agent, ultimately causing us to have to cancel our plans for the last day on the ship. When we finally connected with an agent, they were able to rebook us on flights home, but would have to downgrade us to economy cabin. We had absolutely no problem with downgrading as we were trying to just return to the US at this point. Keep in mind that flights back into the US in business class were thousands and thousands of dollars (and there were 7 of us in our party). Once arriving back at the US, we got in contact with Oceania to attempt to retrieve the thousands of dollars lost from downgrading. It took Oceania a whole month to even reply to our inquest. Dozens of phone calls and emails went unanswered for a whole month and when a representative finally got in contact with us, she told us she would need our boarding passes from the flight that had gotten cancelled and the flight that we had been rebooked to. We gave them the appropriate documentation of receipts where we had paid for business class and showed them our the reservation number and tickets from when we had been rebooked, as who saves boarding passes from 2 months prior, and we were unable to look them up online. Another month of no reply, when we finally hear back on August 17th with the email just saying "Thank you for your recent communication. Following a thorough review by our Air Department, it has been determined that there is no refund eligible in this case." Our flight back into the US landed on June 11, and our first attempts at correspondence with Oceania occurred June 15. Between two emails back and forth Oceania determined we were not eligible for refund and kept thousands and thousands of dollars and wasted our time.

- End point, Oceania is great for the actual cruise and will be there to collect your money, but you better pray to the gods that nothing happens, because if it does Oceania is silent. Safe to say we will never ever be using them again, and I will continue to fight to get our money back.

Outrageous prices for shore excursions. Tour guides could hardly speak English and the itineraries were mostly uninteresting. Marina ship was old and dated needing new furnishings and carpets. Our toilet was clogged for 3 of the 9 days. Food was excellent though but the specialty restaurants were mediocre at best.

No reponse to written complaint mailed to headquarters. Still no response to emailed complaint.

Great cruise and ship but the transportation arrangements before, during and at the end of the cruise were appalling. Too much to write here but, book your own flights and avoid cruises with Venice.

Unbelievable spammers/junk mailers. They buy lists of names from companies like Travel + Leisure (who sold them without permission) and then Oceania Cruises proceed to send mailing after mailing. Doesn't matter if you try to opt out, call them or send message asking them, to stop - they'll keep dumping junk mail at you. They don't answer calls or messages. Imaging if you actually paid for the service how dreadful it would be,

We were not properly informed that having had 4 covid vaccinations that Port of Sydney would still insist on a recent test. There was ample opportunity to tellvus the night before when it would've cist 10dollars, instead it cost 300 dollars for 2 of us.
They charged forcavtrip where we experienced nothing and refused any refund. They charged full price for a drink in bar 2minutes before 2 for 1 offer time. Food mediocre, often not very warm. Dessert choice poor. Would not address any of the above complaints. They also messed up out business class booking,cwhich we really had to fight hard to get any fairness. They should have paid for the mistake. Greedy, greedy company.

We chose this 12 day cruise as a special celebration of my husband's and my big birthday year. It was very expensive (including RT airfare on BA from the UK). The reason we chose this cruise was because we wanted to see a lot of wildlife so we bought 5 tours (4 animal reserves and 1 desert trip). 3 of the tours were cancelled at the last minute supposedly for weather conditions in two cases and no explanation given for the third. So we were very disappointed and mainly sat around the ship for days at sea. The onboard activities were not very good. There were only two speakers who gave lectures on S African history and customs. When we were on other cruises, notably Cunard, there were many different lecturers who were from many diffferent backgrounds. The evening entertainment was awful with the exception of a good comedian from Cape Town. The day of embarkation was awful. We checked our luggage in at 11 15 in the morning and it wasn't delivered to our cabin until after 5 PM with no explanation given. There was no information given throughout the first day and we had to learn from cabin stewards and other guests that weather was delaying our departure. We finally sailed late that night and were subsequently delayed by half a day to our first port in Namibia. Our first tour was at Port Elizabeth a week later and was really great. We spent a half day at an elephant reserve where we saw several herds very close up and learned a lot from our excellent guide. The only other tour that wasn't cancelled was another animal reserve near Richards Bay. Although we saw quite a few animals the 4x4 vehicle we were in was very uncomfortable with no leg room and crowded. It needed to be started with jumper cables. At one point our driver/guide suddenly decided to have a drag race with another vehicle which was scary and resulted in several people's hats being blown off. The best thing about the cruise was the excellent food and the staff (although the ship was understaffed in the diningroom and cabin crew). Given how much this short cruise cost us, the few positives hardly made it worth the expense. Also still waiting for my refund for cancelled excursions!!

If I could give them zero stars I would. Worst customer service. Booked a cruise in November 2019 for a cruise in March 2020 for my 30th wedding anniversary
That cruise was cancelled die to COVID. Thinking that the world would be back to normal, I rebooked for October 2020. I received an email in July, stating the October cruise was cancelled. Oceania will not refund my money because it is in a FCC. That was for October 2020. According to them, they have policies and procedures. I agree with that however the world is/was in crisis. I wanted to cruise in 2020 for my anniversary not 2021 not 2022. They are so flippant in telling me that they can't wait for me to have a good cruise when I can rebook. I want my money back.

My request to cancel a cruise was dealt with efficiently and sympathetically. I had really good interaction with a number of staff. Money held by Oceania was returned to the cruise agent, for refund to the client, within the agreed timeframe. Unfortunately the cruise agent Planet Cruise were not as easy to deal with and kept the money for six months. I really hope that I get the opportunity to book another cruise with Oceania in the future, directly of course and not through an agent.

VERY disappointing.
I have been arguing with this company for 7 months. They have put themselves first instead of the customer and if they aren't going to take care of the customer before they even step one foot on their deck I wouldn't want to be in a foreign country with them. I answered an email which turned out to be misleading information as three weeks later they actually cancelled the cruise and yet they insist on keeping my $27000AUD. Guest Relations (Aust.) is an absolute disgrace. As for Oceania - keep my money, and may the Karma that comes your way give you everything you truly deserve.