The cruise was generally excellent mainly because of the the variety of food, the service, the gym and running track, and the itinerary. I will not go into detail on those factors because you can read about them in numerous other reviews. Instead, I will discuss a few deficiencies aboard Nautica and suggest some ways to overcome them so that they will not interfere with your enjoyment of the cruise. The final week After seeing Petra, there are 4 days a sea, then a ½ day stop in Salalah, Oman, and then another day at sea before stopping for a day in Muscat, Oman. Salalah is a dead-zone as far as tourism is concerned. There is nothing to see in the industrial area that surrounds the gigantic port. Moreover, the taxi drivers’ union does not allow the ship to offer its usual free shuttle into the town. We heard numerous complaints from other passengers about the boring tours of Salalah offered by Nautica (at outrageous prices). On that day, we stayed onboard the ship even though it meant we went 6 full days without going ashore. My advice: Take some good books and projects to help fill the hours in that final week. Shore excursions Because we paid O-Life fares, we received 4 excursions each, which we used for tours that were only accessible by the ship's buses. We found the main problem on these excursions with 30+ people was that it was difficult to hear the guide unless you were standing right beside him or her. Oceania needs to take a lesson from Viking and provide Vox machines for all passengers on all tours. We found that for half the price of Nautica's shore excursions we could easily book better, small group tours using top-rated companies that we found on Tripadvisor. Then everybody could hear the guide and ask lots of questions. We used Love Egypt Tours in Luxor and Jordan Horizons for Petra. Specialty restaurants reservations Oceania does not reward loyalty; instead they give perks to passengers based on how much they pay for their staterooms. For example, someone who is a first time Oceania guest who buys a stateroom for $25000 gets to reserve specialty restaurants at least a month before someone who has been on several Oceania cruises and has spent over $50000 in total, but always on porthole staterooms on level 3. That's not fair. I booked the minute I was allowed to reserve specialty restaurants and did not get a single one of my choices because people in more expensive staterooms had taken all the available tables. However, when I embarked, I went immediately to the dining room and they exchanged all my (bad) specialty restaurant reservations for the times I wanted. Lesson learned: Oceania holds back a lot of times to satisfy unhappy customers like me who request changes when they are onboard. It's also worth noting that we received better meals and equal service in the Grand Dining Room. We will likely not bother reserving in the specialty restaurants on our next cruise. WiFi and Nautica’s computer lab With the O-Life fare, you get free WiFi. However, it’s not their premium WiFi and it’s slow. I can't understand why Oceania offers a service such as WiFi when it is clearly substandard. The two hours before dinner seem to be the worst. Moreover, if you go to the computer lab you may find that some external drives cannot be read by the ship’s computers. I suspect it’s because those computers are PCs and don’t read files that are made on Apple machines. Before you leave home, if you’re a Mac user, test your external drives to make sure they can be read by a PC (eg. at your local library). Also make sure all your files are saved in PDF or .doc format. Food Although the meals are generally excellent, we experienced 2 problems. First, chicken breasts or thighs were raw inside on 2 occasions. We sent them back and got well-cooked replacements. Make sure if you order chicken that you specify you want it well done. Undercooked chicken can be dangerous! A second problem is that the Terrace Grill (the buffet restaurant that you will probably use for most breakfasts and lunches) has the worst design of any cruise ship we have been on. Why? -- 90% of the food is crammed onto counter-tops on both sides of a very narrow aisle, about 50 feet long. You’re continually banging into other guests who are shoulder-to-shoulder trying to get food. The solution: Go very early or very late. Canyon Spa I listened to one of the hour-long health seminars given by the fitness trainer. It was about all the “terrible” health problems caused by the accumulation of toxins in the body. Since I have a biology degree, it soon became obvious that although there was some accurate anatomical and physiological information given out, the majority of the “facts” simply involved vague, misleading half-truths. The objective was to sell several months’ supply of Canyon Spa teas and a seaweed bath product that would supposedly rid the body of toxins. (The cost: over $1000 for a six month supply delivered to your home) It was the worst example of quackery and “snake oil” sales I have ever seen, with not a shred of valid medical research to support the use of those products. Oceania should be ashamed of allowing that kind of misinformation to be foisted on passengers, most of whom have low scientific literacy. My advice: Use the spa for massages if you want to pay their ridiculous prices, -- but skip the seminars. In summary, none of these problems affected our enjoyment of the cruise. I simply offer them as a warning to future passengers on Nautica or her sister ships. No cruise ship is perfect. Read Less

The cruise had a fabulous itinerary and we chose it for that. We were not disappointed. The cruise was amazing and the ports were phenomenal. Everything was interesting and easily explored. Sometimes we had to travel a distance from port to the points of interest but that is often to be expected with a cruise. We could not have been more pleased with the choice of ports. We arranged for private shore excursions and were so happy we did. In 2 ports we took ship tours because there were no private tours available. In Limassol, Cyprus, the tour was OK - not great, but interesting. In Salalah, Oman, the tour was absolutely terrible. The ship should have given everyone a refund of the money they charged. The tour was to be 4 hours and it ended up being 2 1/2 hours because of immigration problems. However, the tour was terrible, uninteresting and not worth even $25. Just horrible. We complained, as did many other people. My recommendation is to stay away from ship tours if at all possible. The ship was lovely and it was kept very clean. We had a problem, however, with service in the Grand Dining Room and in Waves Grill. Both seemed to be short-staffed. Many times there were tables that needed to be bussed at Waves. Since this is an outdoor venue and the weather was lovely, many people wanted to sit outside but we had to bus our own tables sometimes. The staff just couldn't keep up with it. The service in the GDR was excruciatingly slow most nights. We didn't find the wait staff overly friendly - certainly not as it had been on other Oceania sailings. Something was off on this sailing and it was noticeable to many. The menu in the GDR was unspectacular and often plain boring. Several nights there was nothing that any of us wanted. The Jaques Pepin menu never changed and was very tired by the end of the cruise. The specialty restaurants were much better, with better service and food. We found Toscana a bit more to our liking than Polo Grill because the wait staff was better. The food was more inconsistent in Polo Grill, too, but both were FAR better than the GDR. We were able to eat 6 times in the specialty restaurants and we were very glad we could b/c the GDR was just not up to Oceania's normal standards. Add poor service to that on some nights - a 15 minute wait for a waiter to even come to the table!! - and it was a recipe for dissatisfaction. We always went to Happy Hour in Horizons and had one server who was outstanding, Beverly. She was attentive, knew our drink selections after the 2nd day and was always cheerful. If we didn't sit in her section, she would come to us and ask us why we weren't sitting in her section. She really cared about us and proved that good service is still possible on Oceania. She made our evenings so very enjoyable. Our cabin was always kept clean, however, when we first arrived, we did not see our cabin steward until the next day! This is unheard of. We knew the name of our attendant but we never saw him. I called for extra hangers and they took forever to arrive. Poor service there on the first day. When we finally saw our cabin steward the next morning, we found out it was not the one who had been assigned to us. The steward originally assigned to us had left the ship in the embarkation port. We figured that there had been some personnel problems b/c surely they would not have assigned him to our cabins had they known he was leaving. Still, no word of explanation nor was there an apology for the replacement. And we still would not have met our new steward if it hadn't been for the fact that he was in the hall when we left the cabin the next morning. Another "off" thing about this sailing. The Cruise Director, Julie James, is a bit tired and long in the tooth. She was our Cruise Director once before and we didn't think she was all that great. She is friendly and bubbly but that's about it. She doesn't expend a lot of energy getting to know her crowd. We have had CDs who are much more engaged with the passengers. The production entertainment staff was engaging and the kids worked really hard but they were not all that good. They were as cute as they could be but they didn't seem to be that skilled. Sometimes off key in the singing. The dancers were very good and far more skilled. The hired entertainers (magician, musician, flautist) were excellent. They could not have been better and we enjoyed them tremendously. The professional lecturers were outstanding and we enjoyed their presentations. Since we were seeing so many foreign ports, their input and information was extremely valuable and helpful. All in all, we have loved Oceania and are willing to give this cruise experience in the cabin and dining room areas a pass. Perhaps something was going on that we were not aware of as passengers. Certainly, we have experienced a much better Oceania in the past. We hope that this is not becoming the standard because if it is, we will be turning our allegiance elsewhere. An outstanding itinerary cannot make up for some of the issues we found. Read Less

We chose this cruise primarily because of the itinerary and it did not disappoint. We made all our own tour arrangements at each port so I can not comment on the ships tours. Our room was fantastic and the service bar none. We found all the amenities great. We especially liked the Terrace Cafe just because of its variety of selection and casual atmosphere. We did enjoy Toscanas food as well, but did find the Polo fell short of our expectations. The entertainment in the evening was energetic and we were so impressed with the takent of the young enetertainers on the ship. The enrichment lectures were really informative and we tried not to miss any of them. We enjoyed the small ship atmosphere and the friendly staff. Our housekeeping staff went above and beyond any requests we had. The embarkation and disembarkation went smoothly and we were quick to get off and on the boat to meet up with our tour groups. We will definitely use Oceania again. Thanks for a wonderful experience. Read Less

Nautica is one of 8 identical ships built for Rennaissance cruise line. Azamara have 3 and Oceania have 4. They are small enough to get into ports which larger ships cannot and therefor have better itineraries. the weather on this cruise had several days of rough weather resulting in missing the first port which was changed to Naples. We did back to back cruises and the weather improved as we headed south. The food on this cruise was outstanding. The main dining room frequently produced meals the equal of the speciality restaurants. This included the lunch menu. Additional meals in the speciality restaurants could be booked at the desk in the terrace cafe every morning.The other outstanding feature was the friendliness and helpfulness of the staff from general manager to cabin steward. This attitude more than made up for the weather. We chose the excursions from the 3 choices of the "o" life choice before the cruise so we did not have to pay extra to the cruise fare. The excursions were standard and similar to what can be obtained on other cruise lines. If we had paid the prices extra we would have been overcharged by some margin. Similarly the prices for alcoholic beverages were very high. The cabins on the "r" class ships have small bathrooms. When the forthcoming upgrade of Oceania's ships takes place it would be money well spent if the shower cubicle were extended as well as putting on a folding door. This would be preferable to to cosmetic changes. We benefit from the excellent Oceania loyalty programme. We are disappointed that in November 2019 the higher grades may be penalised If the food service and itinerary are priorities Nautica is a good choice. Read Less

We decided on taking our first cruise and for sure this is the LAST one and for sure the LAST one on Oceania Nautica. Room was tight and two people cannot move in it. Food is TERRIBLE and it seems they rotate the same ingredients over and over again. All seafood served is farmed and not wild caught. WAY too much hidden sodium in all the food, evidenced by the fact that we work up continuously every night to drink water. It's amazing folks don't have a heart attack eating the stuff they serve. Overly pretentious considering food is lousy. Out room maid was very nice though. Shore excursions are WAY over-priced and you can get the same thing on shore for a small fraction of the price they charge. Also, the management is constantly finding ways to squeeze more money out of you. For example, it's stated that there is free WIFI, however that applies to only ONE device. If you wish to connect a second device to your room's router, it's a charge of $250 per extra connection ... FROM THE SAME ROUTER! The management should be ASHAMED of themselves. We could not wait for the cruise to end. STAY AWAY!! Read Less

Nautica was an elegant ship, nice layout, super easy/fast embarkation and debarkation. We love Oceania’s relaxed attitude on alcohol – we brought a bottle or two on from multiple ports, and got jokes about how heavy our bag was, with the wine handed back to us. The 2-for-1 daily happy hour is straightforward, and a nice way to take advantage of pre-dinner drinks in a lounge. Itinerary & Excursions We chose the cruise due to the itinerary, so we obviously loved it. Venice to Athens, with ports every day. Ancona, Italy was a nice surprise; Split, Croatia was disappointing. All of the cities were very walkable with tons of information available, and we did our own planning and excursions. Stateroom and Ship in General Given the time of year, we didn’t want a balcony. Instead, we had an oceanview, and the lack of a balcony plus a GIANT window translated into a spacious stateroom – we loved it. Tons of space for all of our things. The bathroom was tired, and I hope it’s included in the upcoming refit. The ship overall is elegant and tastefully appointed, with beautiful art. Lovely. Food Our biggest disappointment of the cruise. Oceania is known as a ‘foodie’ cruise line. On a previous cruise, we were SO impressed by the baked goods that we were drooling just thinking of getting to eat them again. But the food – even in the specialty restaurants – was just good, not great. The baked goods (other than the amazing sticky buns) were consistently stale whether in the buffet or the restaurants, and were just okay. There was no wow factor, at all. What happened, Oceania? Entertainment & Enrichment The production staff were just okay. We also had an amazing pianist but playing sonatas for an hour is pretty low energy for a cruise. A saxophonist, Oli Nez, who was quite talented and smooth. Our cruise director had been a jazz singer in a former life so she sang one night. Overall, pretty good, but you didn’t feel bad if you missed a night’s show. The daily string quartet was fantastic. Disappointed that there wasn’t any enrichment on board as we’d have liked to hear about some local history, etc. but we were in port every day so I suspect that was the cause. Staff Amazing. Truly the most content, gracious, friendly, helpful, funny, sweet staff we’ve encountered on any cruise – a true testament to how Oceania and Nautica in particular treats people. Very impressed. Canyon Spa & Fitness Centre The Fitness Centre is quite well equipped and a good size. It was easy to pop in, find whatever equipment you wanted/needed, and spend some time offsetting the food! The spa itself was gorgeous – beautifully designed, with cucumber and lemon ice water always available. If you were concierge level and above, you could use the back deck and giant hot tub. However, all passengers could use the facilities and the steam room (just hand over your room card to get a locker key) for free – as on most cruises – which was a lovely bonus that we took advantage of almost daily. My husband did have a spa treatment on his birthday to use up some of our shipboard credits, and it was wonderful. Spa staff are also great. WiFi and Computer lab Wifi seems to be included now (in use on 1 device at a time), though we didn’t really want it as we enjoy the forced withdrawal from life of a cruise. Wifi was a decent speed…until you got to the computer lab. The computer lab is ridiculous – saran-wrapped keyboards (!) and the most painfully awfully slow internet I’ve experienced (and that includes dialup). It was virtually impossible to accomplish any task. I don’t understand why there was such a difference, given that we logged into wifi on both our phones and the computer lab with the same account, but there it was. Read Less

We recently returned from a cruise around Italy. We traveled with friends who made the arrangements using Oceania Cruise lines. The ship we traveled on is named Nautica. My wife and I have cruised with several different cruise lines on ten prior occasions. The Nautica is a small ship – 684 total passengers with a staff of 400. We came away feeling that the overall experience was at the bottom of our list. There were a few good points – a) The crew is well trained to be very friendly; b) Cabin and public spaces were kept very clean. c) There was an ample choice of shore excursions. d) The breakfast and lunch buffet always had a large assortment of food choices. Unfortunately, there were far more bad points – a) Any cabin below deck 8 is too small to be comfortably habitable. Below the 8th deck, the largest cabin is 216 square feet. Bathroom is so tiny it was difficult to shower. There was not enough proper space to put away clothing or store suitcases. b) Main dining room: Poor to fair. About five or six main course choices available at each meal – several were the same every night. c) Specialty dining rooms (2): Very nice. Problem is that reservations must be made well in advance of the cruise. Otherwise, tables are not available. d) Entertainment: poor to fair. A comedian performed twice. He was very ‘off color’ and not very funny. Entertainment director sang one night – just okay performance. A group of five very young, inexperienced people performed on all other nights. Would expect a better performance from high school students. e) Excursions: All guides apparently local to area. Many were very well versed and provided a lot of information. Some walked too quickly, not allowing for anyone to take in local sites. On most occasions, the bus windows were filthy. There was plenty of time for the driver to clean the windows while waiting for passengers to assemble and board. To summarize – I have no idea how much better Oceania’s other boats might be, or if the above negative points flow throughout their fleet. That being said, based on our experience I cannot recommend this cruise line, or at least not this particular boat. Read Less

We chose this cruise primarily for the ports included in the itinerary. In addition we wanted to try a smaller ship. We had sailed twice on the Oceania Riviera and in both instances had excellent experiences. We hoped that on a smaller ship the service wold be even one notch higher. Overall we enjoyed the cruise. However we were a little disappointed with our experience on the Nautica. We thought the service on our previous cruises on the Riviera was more personal and friendly, the staterooms were nicer, there was a better selection of facilities and entertainment and even the food was better. For this cruise on the Nautica there were a number of things we liked, however, as well as some things we didn't like. The main positives and negatives were.... Positives: - ports (overall) - being on a smaller ship generally gives you direct access to smaller ports without having to tender - travelling in low season, at the end of the Fall in Europe - often we were the only ship in port, which meant smaller crowds everywhere. The weather is obviously more of a risk, however..... - embarkation & disembarkation were wonderful - we were on & off the ship in under 15 minutes. - transfers from the airport to the ship & back from the ship to the airport, which we took with Oceania, were well organized & efficient - of the 3 excursions we took with Oceania, 2 were very good - our room stewards were excellent - the folks at Destination Services, who had to scramble because of missed and changed ports at the beginning of the cruise, were cheerful and helpful. - overall the ship was immaculately maintained even if the decor is dated & the ship is due for a major reno - the High Teas at 4 pm each day were very enjoyable & the string quartet was very good - we had excellent meals at Toscana, the Italian specialty restaurant - the presentation of dishes in general was excellent and the quality of the dinners in the Grand Dining Room was generally very good; we had a couple of exceptional/memorable dishes during the cruise but a few disappointments as well - eating al fresco on the terrace of the Terrace Café at lunch time on sunny days when we were in port was lovely - I can't think of a nicer setting - salads and hamburgers at Waves Grill were great - specialty coffees from Baristas Bar (in front of the Grand Dining Room) were excellent. - even though the Internet was slow & balky, at least it was free - on cruises we took on other cruise lines it was also slow & balky but you had to pay for it! Negatives: - port of Durrès - no idea why we stopped in Albania as there was very little of interest to see and do in this port and the surrounding area. - one of the 3 excursions we took with Oceania (Secret Corners of Venice) was a complete waste of time - entertainment choices are limited and geared to a much older crowd - we had a poor dining experience in the Polo Grill, the steakhouse specialty restaurant, which was very disappointing - servers in the Grand Dining Room (GDR) seemed under pressure at dinner time, were having difficulty dealing with the large number of guests at peak times - even though we were "concierge", our friends and us were given less-than-desirable tables at dinner in the GDR on a number of occasions (e.g. next to the noisy waiter sections) even when there were tables available nearer to the windows. In one instance our friends specifically asked for a table in a better location and we were assigned a table next to a waiter station, even though there were numerous better tables available. Grrrrrr..... - lack of variety of dishes at the Terrace Café for breakfast and particularly at lunch (as compared to the Terrace Café on the Riviera) - service in the Terrace Café was hit and miss; there were some nice servers but others seemed glum and disinterested in serving guests - Concierge Services - we asked the Concierge once for help making a change to dinner reservations at a specialty restaurant and were told to call Dining Services ourselves later - we found that "concierge" verandah on the Nautica was not good value for money - the things we appreciated the most as "concierge" guests on the Riviera, i.e. the concierge lounge, help from the concierge, access to a nice area at the front of the ship (with cold non-alcoholic drinks) were either unavailable or limited on the Nautica. - Oceania (the captain & crew) did nothing to acknowledge the rough start to the cruise - we missed the key port on the 1st day (Amalfi) and had to change the port on the 2nd day as we experienced very rough seas and bad weather during the 1st 2 days of the cruise. We had missed ports occasionally on other cruises but this was pretty exceptional. Nothing was said about this, nothing was offered to the guests - a small token/acknowledgement would have been appreciated. If this cruise on the Nautica had been our first Oceania cruise I am not sure we would sail with Oceania again. However, given our earlier morte positive experiences on the Riviera, we had already booked a cruise on the Marina next Fall and we are looking forward to that. Read Less

This was an college alumni organized cruise and I had a group of friends that went with me on a cruise of the Mediterranean (Spain, France and Italy). The ship service and food was very good. Our cabin was kept spotless. The crew was extremely well-trained and helpful. However, I was very disappointed in the shore excursions. They were very touristy, and lacking in depth. I have cruised with Seabourne, Silversea and Windstar, and their shore excursions were much more in depth and immersive--with VIP special arrangements for getting around the crowds and into the sights around all of the other tourists. The descriptions were often not in keeping with the actual excursion. Oceania also nickels and dimes for everything--beverage packages, service charges added to the fare, etc. Competitor cruises charge a higher flat fee, but then you are not charged for anything else, the fare is all-inclusive. Also, the internet service offered by the ship was low-grade, and the crew member assigned to assist with this was unhelpful. I don't think I will said with Oceania again, having had better experiences with competitors. Read Less

Many people told us about the great food and service on Oceania. The service was very good. The staff, for the most part, went out of their way to say hello and help in any way they could. This was the best part of the service. Unfortunately, the rest of the cruise was quite bland, including the food. We had one really great dinner in the steakhouse. Most of the other dinners were quite forgettable. More emphasis was put on the "presentation" instead of on the "substance". Buffet breakfast was okay, but they didn't seem to have enough servers to efficiently dish out the food during the buffet breakfast and lunch. I do have to admit that the hot cinnamon buns are incredibly addictive. Breakfast in the dining room was very good. Buffet lunches were very disappointing. We were fortunate to be off the ship for most lunches. "Tea time" was actually very nice to come back to the ship for after touring at 4:00. The string quartet music was very pleasant and the snacks were very nice. Entertainment in the evening was actually quite good. It only lasted about 45 minutes each night and this was fine, considering that we'd been touring during the day and likely had another early morning the next day. The entertainment was usually musical and humorous . Cabins were okay. We had a balcony cabin with about 215 square feet of space. Space was well used. We have been on a number of other cruise lines. This experience was not really any better overall than the others (Celebrity, Princess, Holland America, Royal Caribbean). Oceania promotes itself as an upscale cruise line. I pity the poor soul who paid full price for any of their cruises, considering they are almost always advertising 2 for 1 pricing. That practice in itself should be outlawed. This is just misleading advertising. In summary, the cruise was nice. Nothing special. Read Less