Chapter 2

Oceania

 Sirena

April 22 – May 3, 2024

Just the numbers

The Sirena is considered a small cruise ship by today’s standards, at 594 feet long and accommodating 684 passengers and 400 crew members to take care of them.  Oceania is considered one of the five “Ultra Luxury” cruise lines although, from our viewpoint, the definition of “luxury” can be very different between different people.  The Sirena and, I assume, the other Oceania ships do provide very good services and a well-appointed ship but not always the atmosphere that we most enjoy.  The physical facilities, such as our cabin, also had some shortcomings.

A tour of the ship

We’ll take a quick turn around the ship, showing some of the features.  But first, here is a deck map of Sirena so you can easily find the locations of the places I’ll mention.

Sirena deck map.

The pool deck is mid-ship, essentially occupying parts of deck 9 with the exercise track circling around the pool, but up on deck 10.  Unfortunately, the weather we encountered did not suggest much use of this area.  We saw one person in the hot tub one day and Susan saw someone in the pool one time.  It would probably be very nice in warm, sunny weather.

The pool deck and upper walking track

If you continue forward and up one deck from the exercise track you come across the shuffleboard court and a miniature golf style putting green.  Many years ago (more than 60) I was pretty good at shuffleboard since we had a court in our yard, but I didn’t get a chance to test my old skills since it was rather cool and breezy in that area of the ship.  This video of the pool deck, shuffleboard, and putting green will give you some idea of how it looked, as well as the wind.

Shuffleboard and putting green (Deck 11, forward)

Just below the putting green, on deck 10, is the Horizons Lounge.  This is the largest lounge on the ship and every afternoon there is a 4:00 tea with music provided by the band or string quartet.  We happened in here one afternoon and, while very nice, it seemed rather “stuffy” and just not our cup of tea.  In the evenings, there would sometimes be live music here before and/or after the main show/entertainment but it did not always seem to happen as scheduled and was very poorly attended.  After a couple of attempts, we just skipped it, which is a shame because it really was a nice space that was underutilized.

The Horizon Lounge

The Terrace Café (deck 9, Aft) was the primary place for breakfast and lunch.  Breakfast and lunch was also served in the Grand Dining Room but only during very limited hours and our excursions generally conflicted with eating in the GDR.  The Terrace also served dinner but we never got around to trying it there.  As you might guess from the photo below, it was buffet style service, but the staff did all the actual serving, guests were not to touch or use the serving tools.  Some people prefer this approach, either because of supposed sanitary advantages or because they just like to have people serve them, but it just seems rather awkward and always made getting the right amount various foods somewhat of a guessing game.

There is a good sized seating area on the exterior deck behind the Terrace that would be nice in good weather, but it was practically always closed on our cruise.  This forced more tables into the interior space where seating was rather crowded and it was sometimes difficult to find an open table.

The Terrace Café

One of the most popular places to relax with before or after dinner drinks was Martinis Lounge (deck 5, mid-ship).  Besides the bar seating (below) there were reasonably comfortable chairs and small sofas with tables.  There was also a pianist who played before and after dinner.  One of the best things about Martinis bar was the main bartender there, Putu.  (That’s Putu in the photo at the top right of this page.)  He was always cheerful and happy and just seemed to lighten and improve the mood.  He was usually assisted by waiter, server, and sometimes bartender, Phillipus.  They made Martinis lounge a very nice place to enjoy a glass of before dinner wine or after dinner cognac.  If you look past Martinis lounge in the photo below, you can see the small casino which did see a little activity, but not from us.

A quiet time at the Martinis bar.

The main lounge (deck 5, forward) was the site of most of the main entertainment offerings.  There were several “port talks” about upcoming ports that were given by a “guest lecturer”, Susan Leng.  These were entertaining and informative although they sometimes conflicted with other activities.  The main evening entertainment was always at 9:30, which seems a bit late for the average age of the guests.  The facility is very nice and worked well for several different kinds of entertainment.  I’ll have some comments about the entertainment a little later.

The Main Lounge

The Grand Dining Room (GDR: deck 5 aft) is where most people ate dinner most of the time.  There are two other specialty dinning rooms, which I’ll cover, but the GDR is by far the largest.  It is a very nice area, with comfortable seats and tables and the staff are generally very good at their jobs.  There were a couple of minor lapses and one major one (we were forgotten about for 15 minutes after being seated until we got a manager’s attention) but service was generally good by both the food service people and wine servers.  I’ll cover the food and wine a little later.

The Grand Dining Room before the crowd appears

One of the specialty restaurants is the Red Ginger, an Asian fusion themed restaurant, and the Red Ginger theme was carried through to the décor in the dining facility.  For our 11-day cruise, we were allowed two visits to the Red Ginger and also to the other specialty restaurant, the Tuscan Steak.  Possibly because of their smaller size, service seemed a bit better and more personal than in the GDR and the food was a notch better also.

The Red Ginger is, well, rather red.

There are several other dining and drinking places on the Sirena, such as the coffee shop, Barista’s, just outside the entrance to the Grand Dining Room.  With the cool weather we encountered, we visited this location about daily for some very good coffee.  There is also the Waves Grill and Waves Bar on the pool deck.  Since both of these have open-air seating, they were little used on our cruise but would be very pleasant in a warmer climate.

Of course, we spent more time in our cabin than anywhere else on the ship and, unfortunately, our cabin was probably the most disappointing space on the ship for us.  This was probably the most popular, or at least the most common, cabin layout on the ship.  We had a “Concierge Deluxe Veranda Suite”, mainly because, when we made our reservations, our only choice was this or one of the huge “Owner’s Suites” at a price that I don’t even want to think about.  The last 3 or 4 cruise ships we have been on, the equivalent cabin had a total of 277 square feet while this cabin was 210 square feet and a large part of the missing space was in the bathroom: it was definitely small.  The shower was especially small.  Although I’m fairly tall, I’m not that big, but whenever I dropped the soap or something, I had to plan ahead and decide on a strategy to bend over and pick up whatever I had dropped.

The cabin was not large, and the bathroom was even smaller.

If we go on another Oceania cruise on Sirena or one of her sister ships, it will have to be in one of the larger “Penthouse” cabins.  We had a couple of people tell us an interesting tidbit…  A lot of the people on the ship were rather “amply endowed” and we wondered just how they managed to get in and make use of the small shower.  Several people told us that some of the larger people would go to the gym, where the showers were a decent size, in order to bathe. 

 While the veranda was nice, we never had a chance to make use of it because of the weather.

Looking forward from our veranda

Food, wine, dining

As mentioned above, the food was good, but most was not really outstanding for a cruise line that has trademarked the phrase “The finest cuisine at sea”.  In many ways, it may be, but it is just not the type of food that we most enjoy.  We enjoy somewhat spicy food with definite “come out and grab you” flavor while Oceania appears to go for nuances of flavor.  I’ve heard this described as cooking for the “no-no crowd”: no garlic, no pepper, no salt, no spices and that is about how much of the food tasted.  Now, some dishes do not call for significant spices and those were nicely done.  For example, a properly prepared prime rib requires very little additional flavoring and the huge prime rib I had in the Tuscan Steak restaurant was very nice, probably the best meal I had on the cruise (although the horseradish sauce accompanying the prime rib was very tame).  The food in the Red Ginger restaurant did have a bit more spice and flavor but that menu is somewhat limited and does not change during the cruise.  There was also no apparent attempt to obtain and serve food from the local area during the cruise: perhaps that is not as possible on a ship this size, as it is on a smaller 300 or fewer passenger ship.  I will say that the Dover Sole, served in the Tuscan Steak restaurant, was at least appropriate for where we were cruising, although I believe it is part of the normal menu no matter where the ship is cruising.  The Dover Sole is nicely filleted table-side and was one of the better dishes we had.

The wine selection was better than on our Seabourn cruise last year.  The included/complimentary wine selection was better in both variety and quality and the extra cost/optional wines were much more reasonably priced.  In general, the wine stewards in the dining rooms were knowledgeable and usually kept our wine glasses well supplied.  The included wines were no additional charge during lunch and dinner.  Although we had purchased the optional wine plan (we could get the complimentary wines any time of day for no charge) the servers still had to take our cards off, record the information, and return the cards, although the cards clearly indicated that we had the optional package.  I understand the reason for this, but other cruise lines have solved the problem.

The Entertainment

There was a five-piece band, a classical string quartet, four singer/dancers, two dancers and a pianist making up the standard entertainment.  Additional entertainers were also brought on for parts of the cruise.  Unfortunately, I thought the string quartet was mostly wasted: when they played during quiet events, like afternoon tea, you could hardly hear them and when they joined the band to play as a group, they were almost completely drowned out.  Perhaps some of the guests liked this type of music (after all, the average age of the passengers was probably above 80) but it seemed that better use could be made of those entertainment dollars.  The 5-piece band was a key piece of almost all the entertainment, providing the music for the singers and dancers as well as for the guest vocalists.  About the only show they did not perform in was the comedian one night.

There were two guest vocalists, Nik Page and Michelle Montuori, who each ended up performing in two evening shows.  They were both technically excellent vocalists (Nik Page could hold a note longer than about anyone I’ve previously seen) but for me, the choice of music for both of them was disappointing.  Both of them have a history of performing on Broadway and the British equivalent and they drew heavily on that kind of music.   Unfortunately, it was not the style of music I enjoy.  Many songs from Broadway musicals are written to tell part of a story, not necessarily to be rhythmic or pleasant to listen to.  I think of these songs as chatty or choppy.  They are probably difficult to sing and they can demonstrate the considerable talents of the vocalist, but, to me, they are just not nice to listen to.  Not all Broadway songs are like this: almost all Andrew Lloyd Webber songs are wonderful to listen to and still can tell a story.  In any case, both vocalists sang too many of the songs that I don’t enjoy, so I did not enjoy their shows that much.

Michelle and Nik

One night the entertainer was a comedian, Dave Kristian, and he was pretty good.  At least he did not make jokes that insulted selected people in the audience, as a comedian on our Celebrity cruise did.  On the other nights, the entertainment was various types of “song and dance” shows by the “Sirena Production Company” consisting of various combinations of the show band, the string quartet, the singers, and the dancers.  The shows were not great, but they did feature more of the kinds of music that I enjoy.

The Staff

The staff that we interfaced with were almost all very pleasant and helpful.  Our cabin attendant was almost magical in his ability to clean and service our cabin while we were gone somewhere, and he always did an excellent job.  Putu and Phillipus in the Martinis bar were always welcoming and helpful.  The servers in the restaurants were good at their job and the one time we encountered a significant problem, a manager followed up several times to make sure we were satisfied.  The Cruise Director, Leslie, was around to introduce the various entertainers and make general ship wide announcements, but I seldom saw him around the ship talking to people.  I got the impression that he was bored with the job and was just going through the motions.  We saw the captain and his top staff at the Captain’s Cocktail Celebration, but I don’t remember seeing any of them around the ship afterwards.  The captain did not seem real comfortable speaking English so perhaps he was avoiding conversations with the mostly English-speaking passengers.

Final Comment

If the above comments sound like we did not like the Sirena or that we thought it did not provide a luxurious experience, that is not the case.  I think there are two factors at play here.

1. When a cruise line labels itself as “Ultra Luxury” and says it provides “the finest cuisine at sea”, that raises the bar by which it is judged.  At the price point of Oceania, they better provide an exceptional experience and that is how I will judge our experience.

2. A large part of our issues was that the Serina we experienced provided a different “vibe” than what we enjoy.  I enjoy a classical string quartet for about 10 minutes, once a week.  Afternoon tea was nice, once, but we didn’t go back.  We prefer more spicy foods: I want to really taste what I’m eating and say “wow!”.  (Think of Emeril Lagesse and his famous “BAM!” expression.)  I think we just had a bit of a disconnect between what Oceania offered and the environment and atmosphere that we enjoy.

Obviously, a lot of people enjoy what Oceania offers and it is very possible that a different itinerary and/or a different ship/crew might suit us better.

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