We cruised with Oceania in January 2016 from Hong Kong to Bangkok and had a very good time. In November 2016 we did a Med Cruise going from Venice to Rome, however this one was a bit of a disappointment. It was billed as a Jacques Pepin food oriented cruise and it was advertised as one with special menus, food talks, excursions, etc. There was one cooking demo by M. Pepin which was very interesting, but no real innovative menus or other presentations. By the time we booked (We'd tried to book the cruise early in the year but were told it was sold out.), all the shore excursions involving cooking were booked as well as all the ones on board with no additional selections added.

Some of our shore excursions involved some time spent with a tour guide and then too much time on our own for shopping. We don't visit foreign countries and pay for shore excursions to shop for more than an hour at several different stops. Also, if you're looking for variety among your ports of call, this is not the one for you. Several of them were very similar.

We found out mid way on the cruise there was noro virus on board. Their beautiful library was locked down from the very beginning and a few days into the cruise, the laundromat was locked up. We expected some consideration in a price break on ship's laundry but there was none. Read more