thoughts from Oceania's Marina Maiden Voyage (long)

Damm ...... Wish we had known you were aboard. You could have joined our Trivia
Team and we could have done some lunches etc.

Cal & Pat Ford with Tobie & Barbara Gerbrandt.




In article , Paul Johnson says...

Oceania's brand new larger ship, the Marina, arrived in Miami last
Friday morning completing her maiden voyage from the shipyard in Genoa,
Italy to Barcelona and then on to Miami with three scheduled stops. We had
our TA book the Maiden Voyage on the first day bookings were open to Oceania
Club members January of last year. It took her an hour and a half to get
through starting first thing in the morning and by the end of the day the
voyage was pretty much sold out. So, we had a long time to anticipate this
trip.
Our flights to Barcelona went very smoothly. Boarding Marina was very
quick and smooth and our rooms were ready very soon. I was apprehensive
about the boarding process after our experience at Miami boarding Regatta
last year. The ship had just arrived at Barcelona from the shipyard in
Genoa, Italy the day before and they had a rough crossing so the ship
exterior couldn't be cleaned before we boarded. Our veranda was heavily
salt crusted (Deck 9) which didn't make it very friendly. There were a
bunch of shipyard workers still on board wrapping up loose ends and they
stayed on when we departed Barcelona. Of course, many of the "bugs" don't
show up in sea trials as we found out. At least all the corporate big wigs
were on board so feedback was first hand. First night on the Mediterranean
we had a little motion where we found that our veranda sliding door creaked
and snapped to where we didn't get much sleep. We learned later that they
had complaints from 300 rooms about the same problem. The hinged partitions
between verandas hadn't been latched either which caused some banging. In
our cabin, other than the noise, our only incomplete item was that the 32"
wall-mounted TV wasn't programmed for the on-board channels (solved easily
by doing a setup and channel scan- apparently not all users knew how to do
that because we heard some complaints). We were also supposed to have a
wi-fi laptop computer in the room, but they didn't get their internet system
set up to handle them so we never got one. In compensation they made
internet free for everyone without limit (usually up to $.95 a minute).
That caused such a crunch on their system that it became almost impossible
to get on. The stations in the computer lab, the library and the concierge
lounge were all busy most of the time. The wireless network was most
overwhelmed. I guess a lot of people had their
notebooks/netbooks/IPads/wi-fi phones. Knowing that we were supposed to
have a wi-fi notebook I didn't bother to bring a netbook. Second day it got
a little rougher and by early morning of the third day the wind was
screaming and the waves were high. We were supposed to go in to Malaga
Spain, but the wind was 75 mph hitting us broadside. The channel was narrow
so they finally gave up trying. The Captain reported the seas to be 15 to
18 feet. During the rough weather many plates and glasses were broken in
the restaurants and several large crystal table lamps in the Martini Lounge
were destroyed. They tried to make an alternative stop at Gibraltar, but
the port there was closed due to the high winds so we went on to our second
stop, Casablanca Morocco. The weather improved considerably by then and we
had an excellent day there. Casablanca as a city is fairly new, very large
(4 million), third busiest port in Africa so the city itself wasn't anything
great. However, our tour was of the architectural heritage of Casablanca, a
visit to the Jewish area and museum, a visit to the Hassan II Mosque, the
third largest in the world (25,000 inside, 80,000 outside for services), and
a visit to the Catholic Church of Casablanca. Our mosque visit was unusual
in that we were allowed all through the mosque, a very detailed tour and it
was fantastic to see. Normally non-Muslims aren't allowed inside mosques.
We had an amazing Muslim woman guide for the entire excursion.
Unfortunately, the Catholic Church which features a major stained glass
window was closed so we didn't get to visit it. We need to be worrying
about our education system. School there is compulsory and students must
pass exams in three languages before they can graduate (Arabic, French and a
third language of their choice, usually English). Our guide spoke seven
languages.
After leaving Casablanca sea conditions stayed rough for the next day
but started improving after that some though we were still getting some
rolling and pitching. On the second day after Casablanca we arrived at
Santa Cruz, Tenerife, Canary Islands (Spain). We had some rain there, but
it was about 70 degrees and it is a beautiful island with dramatic mountain
and ocean scenery. Spain's tallest mountain is on Tenerife, a little over
12,000 feet. We didn't see it, but crossed the mountains at about 4,000
feet on some unbelievably narrow roads (pretty much one lane even though
they were two way).
After leaving the Canary Islands it got better and better- smoothed out
to where they could fill and open the pool and it got very warm. Our room
was on the sunny side of the ship and it got too hot to stay on the veranda
for long. We reached Miami in the morning of the eighth day after Tenerife.
The arrival was an experience. We were greeted by crowds on the shore of
the channel, a fireboat led us with the water spraying high and wide and a
news helicopter hovered over us for a while. It was 80 in Miami and clear.
While we never watch Entertainment Tonight, we had been told that Mary Hart
was to christen the ship as Godmother of the Marina.so I managed to catch
the show Wednesday evening and they had nice coverage of the Marina arrival.
The disembarkation was very leisurely, but smooth. We got off a little
after 11. We were routed back to Washington Dulles on Delta via Atlanta
which always seems to be a disaster for us and it wasn't much better this
time either. Miami was OK. It was raining hard at Atlanta and had all day.
Of course we got off the plane at the most distant B Concourse gate and had
to go to E Concourse, next to the farthest gate. The Atlanta airport was
near wall-to-wall people and we got to our gate just as they started
boarding our flight to Washington Dulles Airport. Our flight was ready to
pull away at the correct time, but was delayed for the strangest reason- the
catering truck hadn't delivered food yet. That cost us a half hour, not a
big deal to us since Dulles was our end destination. It got a little rough
as we approached DC and the flight attendant taking beverage orders dropped
a can of Bloody Mary mix in my lap. I got spattered some, but not enough to
worry about it. After getting off the plane we hiked to the baggage claim
and waited and waited. Finally my wet bag came along then the carousel shut
down- no more bags from the flight. So I, along with eight or so others,
hiked over to the Delta baggage office to report non arrival of my wife's
suitcase. At least now they have better information. They scanned the
baggage receipt and said the bag was still in Atlanta, but it would be on
the next flight arriving at 11:45 PM. Since it was already after 10 and we
still had to drive home, they agreed to have it delivered to the house
either between midnight and 5 AM or after 9 AM in the morning (guess which
we opted for). At 7 they called (waking us up) to tell us that it was
coming. At 9:45 it came to the front door- no damage.
We had worried about the snow and ice that we had been told was bad in
the DC area. As it turned out, there was snow on the ground, but everything
was clear, even our back roads. We were afraid that our car would be frozen
in the parking lot, but no problem there at all.
Oceania's new ship, the Marina is larger than the older ships- 65,000
gross tons, 782 feet long, 105 feet wide, and 24 foot draft, carries 1280
passengers. It's aimed at "mature" adults- no rock climbing or water
slides, just elegance and fine service. The food is generally superb (the
menu advisor is Jacques Pepin, the famous French chef). Marina has four
specialty restaurants (no extra charge) plus two special dining rooms that
do cost extra. Two of the four are new and unique to the larger ship. One
is a French restaurant named Jacques, the only restaurant to bear his name.
The other is an Asian restaurant called Red Ginger- covering Thai,
Vietnamese, Malaysian, Chinese, and Japanese cuisine. Both are on Deck 5.
The other two which are also on the older smaller ships are Polo Grill (Deck
14), a steak and seafood restaurant serving only US Prime beef (best filet
mignon you will ever taste) and Toscana (also Deck 14), an incredible
Italian restaurant. They even have a menu of the available olive oils for
dipping your bread. The olive oil sommelier comes around with all the oils
on a cart (like a dessert cart). Another new venue was the Barista, a
coffee bar where you could get anything coffee related. Other venues are
the Grand Dining Room (seating more than 500- open dining, no assigned
seating), the Terrace Buffet (Deck 12) with an excellent selection and the
Waves Grill, outside on the pool deck (Deck 12)- hamburgers, other
sandwiches, salads, omelets at breakfast, etc. The Milk Shake and ice cream
bar is also there (and they make honest to goodness malts too). My weakness
was the breads and pastries which are amazing. Even so, I only put on about
five pounds and my wife none (while there are many courses, portions are
small so you don't have to overeat). We didn't bother with afternoon tea in
Horizons (15th deck) which is nice, but just wasn't something we found
necessary. The early morning coffee in Horizons is better set up than the
smaller ships, but there are many more tables and chairs which make it
crowded and more difficult to navigate.
Two other new attractions on Marina- a Bon Appetite culinary center
where cooking lessons were available and a nicely arranged artists' loft
with classes.
The staterooms are beautiful with full baths done in marble and granite
(full-size tub and a separate glass door shower). There was an incredible
amount of cabin storage space with many drawers and a large closet with
clever sliding doors where the closet lights came on automatically when the
doors opened. The beds have been noted for their comfort in the past and
this time our bed seemed even better than before. I even saw a pillow menu
for choosing the type and style of pillow you wanted. When we got home and
dropped on to our pillow-top memory foam bed that we love, it felt hard.
Other improvements include guest laundry facilities on all passenger decks
except Deck 11 (only one on the smaller ships) and the facilities are
accessible from either port or starboard passageway. We enjoyed our
concierge lounge which had snacks, yogurt, soft drinks/water, teas/hot
chocolate, and a coffee/latte/cappuccino machine 24x7.
On each of our other Oceania cruises we have always seen other
passengers that we have seen on other cruises. This time- not so. On the
other had, we saw at least five servers who we really liked from before (and
they greeted us like long, lost family). Two of the entertainers who we
really liked from previous cruises were also on board. Even the Captain was
the same as our last cruise.
I don't know whether it was planned in advance or not, but virtually
everything that they normally charge a lot for was free and unlimited- ALL
beverages even exotic coffee drinks, premium beers, unlimited wines, etc.
We had prepaid our shore excursions, already had cabin credit courtesy of
our Travel Agent, and we had prepaid gratuities so we ended up having so
much cabin credit that we had trouble using it all. I had forgotten that on
your fifth cruise with Oceania you become a Bronze member and you also get
$200 cabin credit. So, my wife got a $92 haircut, I got a $70 golf shirt
and she finished up with jewelry. We were also given lapel pins for the
bronze membership, very nice certificates of participating on the Maiden
Voyage, a beautiful hardbound book about the ship, and a big hardbound cook
book featuring 100 of the recipes used in the various restaurants. At the
Captain's reception for Oceania Club members they usually hand out the pins
and recognize the recipients. However, this time we got our pins in the
room with a letter explaining that were 250 people on board with five or
more Oceania cruises so they were only going to recognize at the reception
those with ten or more Oceania cruises. They recognized one couple with 31
cruises (Oceania has only been in business eight years).
Impressions- while the cabins are considerably larger and the ship is
quite beautiful, we think it just isn't as intimate and warm as the
Regatta/Insignia.Nautica. It also isn't as sleek and aesthetically pleasing
as the smaller ships. Most of the art is VERY modern, a bit too much so for
our tastes. We missed the beautiful ceilings in the Grand Dining Room and
the library though the huge chandelier in the Marina Grand Dining Room is
spectacular. The library on Marina is just stretched along the port side
passageway on deck 14, not a separate room as on the smaller ships. While
the book selection is great, access to some of them is not great because of
chairs and floor lamps that are in the way. One thing we missed (and some
others mentioned it too) was the lack of a paperback exchange as on the
other ships. Part of the larger size of the staterooms is due to the bath.
We felt that the full-size tub was a waste and that the nice shower could
have been better if it had just been much bigger (perhaps with a seat). The
shower was fairly tight for me and I'm 5' 9" and I don't have a big belly
(one German man we were talking to was astounded at the amount of obesity on
board). Anyone much over six feet would have to watch to avoid hitting
their head on the big ceiling nozzle (which my wife hates). The Marina
Lounge is entirely theater style as opposed to the dinner theater style on
the smaller ships, It is much larger and taller so it is easier to see
shows and speakers except that they don't have close-up cameras and multiple
screens for the cooking demonstrations like the others. The one thing that
has always amazed us about Oceania ships was true on Marina too. That is,
EVERY staff member greets you warmly as you go through the ship and, if you
appear to be the least bit confused, they immediately ask if they can help.
Other niceties found on Marina as on the other ships- no pesky ship's
photographers, no art auctions, very low key announcements, no "pressure".
Would we do Marina again? You betcha!