We’ve just taken a cruise that we weren’t sure if we’d enjoy – and at our advanced ages it was for an unusual reason. For years we’ve wanted to incorporate a cruise into our regular visits to New York, and this cruise, combined with Michael’s love of photography during the autumn foliage seasons, seemed to fit the bill.
We loved the look of the port heavy itinerary, with six ports in Canada and four in the USA, ending in New York. And the time of year was perfect for us.
But we also knew that Oceania tends to have an older set of passengers, and while we aren’t spring chickens ourselves, we wondered if we would feel too young.
We know, of course, that people of all ages can talk and socialise together without problems so we were hopeful we would still find our groove on the ship. We’ve experienced a variety of cruise lines and always found them enjoyable, in different ways.
We’d also been reading up on the cruise line and ship, as well as watching YouTube videos, and there were two complaints that we saw over and over again. One was that the standard cabins had a bathroom that is so minute that a normal sized human can’t use the shower properly, and the other was that the food is bland and under-seasoned, due to the health problems of the older-aged passengers.
So, we knew that the cruise might go very wrong for us if we didn’t enjoy the activities, the food or our cabin. This was an eleven-night cruise; that’s a long time to be unable to shower properly or eat food you don’t like!
We chose the earliest boarding time when we checked in, so we could leave our hotel and go straight to the ship. We were staying near the Montreal Cruise Terminal, which was just a short taxi-ride away. When we got to port there were two identical ships – Insignia and her sister-ship Nautica. Luckily our taxi driver knew which ship we wanted and took us to the right one.
I hadn’t realised I’d need to show our passports when we arrived at the port, and they were in the boot of the taxi – that’s the trunk for all you North Americans! I hopped out and retrieved them and we were waved on to the luggage drop.
It all happened really quickly then, jumping out of the taxi and handing over our suitcases to the baggage handlers. To our surprise they didn’t look like they were waiting for a tip – which was lucky because I’d stuffed up when packing and forgotten to bring a card to get cash from an ATM! More on that later.
Left on our own, we wandered into the cruise terminal wondering where to go. We walked up to a table with cruise terminal staff standing at it and a helpful lady took us to the long, long, LONG check in line and explained that everyone turns up at the start of boarding because they want to get on board and start eating all the free food! Since we were there at the time we’d selected we felt a bit annoyed. But I can sympathise – we always like to get on for lunch on embarkation day – after all you’re paying for that day, right? It’s day one of your cruise!
We talked to the couple in front of us briefly, and then spent more time talking to the couple behind us as we wound our way through the terminal. Hi Jim and Bonnie! I hope you enjoyed your 60th wedding anniversary cruise! We ran into Jim and Bonnie quite a few times during our cruise and were even on the same bus as them to Peggy’s Cove, the tour we did from Halifax.
It only took about an hour to get onboard, but we thought we might be sent to the naughty corner when we were asked for paper copies of our ESTAs – the visa waiver document that allows us to enter the USA. Of course, we’d entered the USA a few days before, flying into JFK airport for our transit to Canada. At airports they can see your ESTA attached to your passport electronically, so you don’t need to print it. But more on that later.
We boarded on deck five and we knew our cabin was on deck six, but cabins wouldn’t be ready for a few hours yet. Who else feels a bit lost when boarding an unfamiliar ship? I have a rule that to start finding our way we always make our first destination our muster station, which on this ship was in the Insignia Lounge. If in doubt when you first board, head to your muster station! It was only steps away from where we boarded so that was easy, and we’d already watched the safety video.
Oceania Insignia launched in 1998, which means she was 26 years old when we boarded. Renaissance Cruises owned her until 2001 when they went bankrupt, and her original name was R One – boring! She’s an R class ship, and Renaissance had eight of them, which were called, you’ll never guess, R one, R Two, R Three and so on up to R Eight.
Oceania now own the original R One, R Two, R Four and R Five ships, and their much nicer and more friendly names are Insignia, Regatta, Sirena and Nautica respectively. Azamara has the other four, although all eight ships bounced around a few other owners before landing with Oceania and Azamara.
Insignia holds 698 passengers and 400 crew, which is an excellent crew to passenger ratio but more on that later. She was heavily refurbished in 2019 and while keeping a classic style, has been brought up to date in many ways.
We found the Terrace Café, which is the buffet restaurant, at the aft of level nine. As you’d expect, being embarkation day, it was crammed but luckily the weather wasn’t too cold – OK this is Canada in late October so it WAS cold but at least it was sunny – and we had to sit out on the aft deck. We went inside and got some food – a slice of prime rib each and some sides – and went to eat.
This was a disappointing first experience of the food that is supposed to be the Finest Cuisine at Sea (TM). We couldn’t cut the prime rib! Either the knives were blunt, or the meat was sinewy. I don’t really know which because we just ate the sides and gave up on the meat. I had my first cocktail of approximately 1,708 during the cruise – a Kir Royale. Are you really cruising if there aren’t any cocktails involved? I don’t think I am!
The atmosphere all over the ship was fairly lively, but that’s pretty usual on embarkation day with everyone excited about starting out on a new journey!
By now we were cold from sitting outside so we headed for Baristas café to get warm drinks. We settled down in what would come to be “our” table. We were really happy and excited to find that Baristas provided delicious hot chocolates, included in our drinks package. Neither of us drink coffee so a hot chocolate is our indulgent warm beverage of choice and one of our priorities on any cruise is to find out where to get them. We ended having many hot chocolates here over the course of the cruise and got to know the barista, Toni from the Philippines, or rather he got to know us, and would bring us hot chocolates automatically after the first day or so!
Insignia has one large main dining room, called the Grand Dining Room, plus two speciality restaurants, and the Terrace Café and the Waves Grill, which serves burgers, hot dogs and sandwiches. I knew that formal dress isn’t required on Oceania ships, but I was wondering if people would still be dressing up and we’d stand out like badly dressed youngsters in our limited holiday wardrobe.
Our cabin became available about 3pm so we headed up to unpack and meet our wonderful room steward, Arnaldo from the Philippines. The refurbished cabin was lovely and looked modern and stylish. There were plenty of power outlets, even next to the bed, unusually for such an old ship, but the things I’d read about the bathroom were right – it was tiny! Next to the bed we had one European outlet and one USB A. We felt at home straight away after unpacking and headed out for the sail away.
What do you like to do for sail away? Insignia didn’t have a loud party on the pool deck or any sail away event for that matter. But we avoid those and prefer to find a good, high vantage point to farewell our embarkation city.
Montreal in October is a pretty chilly place. When we got up on deck it was minus three degrees Celsius, which is about 27 degrees Fahrenheit. Not to worry, we were rugged up and had a couple of cocktails from the Waves Bar to hold onto – although I needed gloves to hold my icy Pina Colada!
The only other people up there were a few hardy souls, who like us, wanted to farewell Montreal and film the sail away down the St Lawrence River in style.
When we boarded, we didn’t have printed copies of our ESTAs so we were told to go to Guest Services to get an email address, where we could send them. After sail away we did that and I sent them off, quickly getting a response to say they’d been received, so we knew we wouldn’t be walking the plank on this occasion!
We hadn’t had much lunch so, after a few cocktails, we had dinner in the Grand Dining Room. I had lobster bisque and herb-crusted roast chicken – which came with bones in it, to my horror. I really dislike cutting chicken meat off bones! The food was nice though – not particularly bland, unlike what I’d heard earlier. I can’t say I found the food to be exceptional, but we’ve eaten in a lot of world-class restaurants on our travels. On the other hand, we aren’t food snobs – Maccas, or McDonalds to the non-Australians, is one of our favourite meals.
The most memorable thing about that meal was that when we got up and left, I left my cardi behind on my chair and another passenger had to chase me down with it!
At this point we realised that we would have to go through a number of time zone changes, which was a surprise because we thought we were travelling north to south, not west to east! But when you see our itinerary map, it shows that we actually did go west to east, and then back again. In fact, you can see that New York isn’t that far from Montreal – and in the same time zone –we spent 11 days travelling in a big arrowhead northwest to get out of Canada and then back southeast to the US.
I counted up in the daily Currents and the clocks went forward twice for a total of 90 minutes, and then back three times, for a total of two and a half hours, including the end of daylight-saving time. But right then I didn’t realise what the time changes would do to us.
We were worried that the shows on Insignia wouldn’t be entertaining or suit us and had decided that if we didn’t enjoy them, we would find our own thing to do. We knew they didn’t do big Broadway style productions but didn’t know whether they’d have anything we’d enjoy.
However, the show on the first night was actually “Broadway in Concert”. We went along and it was great! Well known Broadway tunes sung by the four vocalists, Josh, Cortez, Chloe and Dijana and with dancing by the two dancers, Kai and Lois, the six of them interacting with each other beautifully. The cruise director, Carson was great and added a lot of energy to the activities on board. He even did a show of his own one night.
Insignia is very easy to get around – I usually don’t know which way is port, and which way is starboard unless I look for a directions board, but it wasn’t a problem on this ship. The lifts face the front of the ship, so when I got out, I always knew that I was facing front and to go right to starboard locations including our cabin.
We call elevators lifts in Australia, so much easier. You may notice that we Australians are lazy speakers and often use shorter words or shorten the actual word – cardi instead of cardigan, Maccas instead of McDonalds.
And the main common areas we used were easy to find once I’d memorised which were fore and which aft.
The Insignia Lounge, and Horizons Lounge were fore, and the Grand Dining Room, with Baristas Café next to it, Terrace Café and speciality restaurants were aft. But on decks nine and ten the layout got a bit quirky – to get to the aft we had to walk in the around the pool or along the walking track, if we caught the fore elevators, which were closest to our cabin. I don’t mind walking in the open in good weather but there were times on this cruise when the weather was cold, wet and windy so we had to remember to get the lift from the right end of the ship! And from Horizons, to go to the public toilets we had to walk along the open walking track to the speciality restaurant area – one freezing cold day I opted to take the lift down to our cabin instead of going outside!
We knew that afternoon tea was held in the Horizons Lounge on deck ten each day and we had to try it. Afternoon tea is one of our favourite things so if it’s happening, we’ll find it! We had to get there early to get a seat at the front, overlooking the bow of the ship. The view was amazing, it’s so exciting and calming all at once to be looking out over the ocean as you sip tea and eat delicacies.
At 4pm waiters started bringing around a wooden box with a selection of tea bags. I chose English Breakfast of course! I’m not into flavoured teas, I like the plain stuff. I made our tea for us – neither of us likes our tea over-brewed so I dingle dangled the bag in the pot eight or nine times then whipped it out. Perfect! Into the cup and a dab of milk and I’m happy.
Then they brought around sandwiches, and they were delicious! After that came small cakes and pastries. I prefer the sandwiches to the cakes when I have afternoon tea – comment below with your favourite afternoon tea treat!
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But we realised something was missing. Everything had been delicious, but… there were no scones! Surely afternoon tea wouldn’t be served without scones? I went looking and found that, because we had our back turned to the lounge, we’d missed a big table of all sorts of goodies – more cakes and sandwiches, but still no scones! Not wanting to miss an opportunity I selected some more food for us and asked one of the crew if there were scones. She directed me around the corner behind the bar.
After I took the loaded plate back to Michael I went to where she’d pointed and sure enough there was another crew member there dispensing scones, jam and cream. There were plain scones and sultana scones – no thanks! Plain for us, every time.
Once we finished our scones and had put on a few extra kilos we heaved ourselves out of the Horizons Lounge and went to trivia.
What’s a cruise without trivia? And we discovered that if you win, Oceania doesn’t give you silly trinkets like key rings but more on that later.
On our first morning we had breakfast in the Terrace Café. The food was nice but not amazing, but it was easy to get a seat – not like lunch on embarkation day! We discovered during our cruise that the staff here are very attentive and that there are always some made to order items, such as steak and chops at dinner, salad at lunch and eggs at breakfast. I had a fantastic Caesar salad one day; made the way I like it with plenty of anchovies. They would always offer us still or sparkling water, and a drink from the bar, as soon as we sat down.
Service onboard was amazing, the crew all appeared happy and smiling, were interested in chatting to us, and never failed to offer a drink when we were dining at any of the locations. The crew to passenger ration usually reflects the level of service; on this ship it was 698 to 400 or 1 crew for every 1 ¾ guests. Obviously not all the crew are the ones assisting the passengers; they do need people to do the laundry, maintain the engines and other services, and steer the ship, but it’s still an indicator of what you can expect.
On our cruise the crew was serving all the food, but I have heard that Oceania now has self-service in the Terrace Café. While I prefer self-service – being autistic the environment is a sensory overload for me, and I feel unable to communicate about what I want and how much – I’m concerned that there are no hand washing stations at the entrances. I’m happy to use sani – that’s Australian for hand sanitiser – but it isn’t effective against norovirus; to deal with that you need soap and water. Washy washy!
This was a great cruise for the ports we visited. Being a smaller ship, we visited smaller towns and docked in all but one, and it was easy to walk off the ship and into the town. There was a shuttle at one port, which we caught because it was cold, wet and windy but the port was so close we walked back when we’d finished exploring.
There was only one sea day on this cruise, and we only did shore excursions in three ports. Many of the ports were small towns with little of interest (sorry Canada!) and while we’re happy we got off and had a look around, if we did this cruise again we’d probably stay on board for some of those and treat them as sea days. As it was, apart from Halifax, Boston and Newport we were usually only off the ship for two or three hours and always back in time for our afternoon hot chocolate appointment in Baristas.
Something we loved about Oceania is that speciality restaurants don’t have an extra charge. However, you can only book a certain number of dinners in them before your cruise, and when your booking window opens up depends on your cabin and status, so since we were right at the bottom of the ladder, I was worried we might miss out. Once onboard if there’s capacity you can book as many dinners as you’d like. More on the speciality restaurants later.
Our favourite activity each day was trivia, and I don’t think we missed a single one. The questions were really challenging and even me, known in my former workplace as the trivia queen, found it hard to answer a lot of them. Despite this, and despite being a team of only two against teams of up to eight, we managed to win or place second or third quite a few times – people would come up to us and ask how we did it! I hope they didn’t think we were cheating, although we were all marking our own answers so who knows, maybe it’s the thing to do. But we didn’t and we loved that the prizes were O points. O points are given for certain activities, and you can collect them to buy things at the end of the cruise. That’s so much better than a key ring. Although, you could actually buy keyrings with your points if you wanted to. We could buy our prizes at the end so more on that later.
We also enjoyed the daily Mensa quizzes – each day a sheet of questions would be handed out and if you got five out of five correct, you’d get another O point. This was an honour system too, so I made sure Michael and I did ours separately and only talked through it together afterwards.
It was cold on this cruise, but this would change later. Inside the ship was always warm and toasty but if we had to cross the pool deck or walking track to Horizons or a speciality restaurant you could feel winter in the wind.
About this time, we realised we were almost the youngest on board – and since we were 56 and 58 at the time that was a novel feeling! We also seemed to be the only ones not from north America – it was mainly people from the USA, but we did meet a few Canadians.
Each night with the Currents daily program we’d also get a four page “newspaper” specially printed for Australians. It was great fun, especially because the news chosen was really random and also, I’d already seen most of it through following our national broadcaster, ABC, on X. We had a ritual where I’d read the news out to Michael in funny voices and put in my own comments like: Oh, that’s sport, boring, not reading that, or “ugh politics do you really want to know”.
We’ve been asked why we flew all the way to Montreal to take a cruise – it was over 30 hours of travel from home to our hotel – and the answer is that we love New York City and spend time there nearly every year, so by taking a cruise that disembarked in New York we could have the best of both worlds – a cruise AND New York! And I hadn’t been to Canada before, so it was great to see a variety of ports there.
Those time killer changes going forward were harder than you’d think – I don’t like getting up early when I’m on holiday, so we missed breakfast pretty much every day, except a couple of days when we had early shore excursions booked, when we’d order room service. Room service was great and free to all passengers. I’d even call up for a cup of tea before bed every night!
I’m surprised looking back that there were actually only two, time changes forward – I felt like there was one nearly every day. Going back in time was better, of course, and we went back an hour further over the entire cruise, even though Montreal and New York are in the same time zone, because daylight saving ended sometime during the cruise. It’s quite surreal when the time is changing daily, we had to look at the cabin TV clock every morning to make sure we had the right time. And if we had to set an alarm to get up, we’d have to hedge our bets and set two or three in case our phones changed time overnight or didn’t as the case may be!
Possibly the worst thing about this cruise was braving the upended coffin they call a shower each morning. On days I didn’t have to wash my hair it was bearable but if I had to spend time with my arms over my head, I’d get very sick of my elbows banging into the walls. And forget about picking up something you dropped – I’d have to grab it with my toes, flick it up and catch it. But if that’s my only complaint I still think it was a great cruise!
Most afternoons we followed a routine of sitting in Baristas – I’d do some work on my channel while Michael read a book. He reads very slowly due to his eyesight, and he never has time to read a complete book without losing track of the plot, so this is true luxury for him. We’d have hot chocolates and then some days go to afternoon tea, but we had to restrict this, so we didn’t have to be craned off the ship at the end. Baristas changed to the Grand Bar at 6pm so then we’d switch drinks – my favourite cocktail was Desdemona, but I also enjoyed an English Affair. Michael enjoyed the double Monkey Shoulder Whiskeys!
We loved that we didn’t have a fixed time or need to make a reservation for our dinner each night, other than the speciality restaurants. The Grand Dining Room, which was entered through Baristas, opened at 6pm most nights and we were amused by seeing people start to line up well before it opened – we always wondered why they were so desperate to get in. We’d wait an hour or two until there was no line and just walk up and be seated at once. We like dining late on holiday so that suited us.
The Grand Dining Room, Baristas and the Insignia lounge were on deck five and our cabin was on deck six, actually above the Insignia Lounge. Before we boarded, we wondered if there’d be a noise problem but more on this later.
Everything was so convenient on this small ship, and it was easy to go back to our cabin quickly to change or drop off my laptop.
From our fore lift to get to Baristas or the Grand Dining Room we’d have to walk through the casino and Martinis bar. Martinis was always completely full before dinner and before the shows, which were usually at 9pm. A few times we went in looking for a seat and there was nothing, but we could always find a seat in Baristas. I also avoided Martinis because for some reason it was HOT in there! Horizons was a bar and night club in the evenings, but we never went there for anything other than afternoon tea, and breakfast one morning. After the show we’d go back to our cabin, have a cup of tea and read the Currents for the next day, read the Australian newspaper, and go to bed. Who said we were too young for this cruise?
We’d been worried that there would be noise in our cabin due to it being directly above the Insignia lounge. We only heard noise from there twice, once in the afternoon when they must have been rehearsing for a show, and on Halloween when there was an Abba night. Because we’d been to a speciality restaurant, and the show was a Halloween themed – yes Halloween and Abba, who would have put them together? It was popular so we were late and when we got there, we couldn’t get a seat. We left and went to our cabin and for a little while we could hear the music, but we weren’t ready to sleep so it didn’t bother us. The shows always finished by about 10:30 at the latest.
Walking through the casino, on one side there was an artwork that I didn’t like – it looked like a wall of ears. So, I’d usually go the (slightly) longer way round to avoid it. Michael found this out about halfway through the cruise and if he was first out of the lift, he’d always go past it to annoy me!
Yes, we usually took the lift – I have problem knees, particularly going downstairs, and I try to baby them, so they won’t give up on me.
We found the food in the Grand Dining Room to be mostly excellent and not too bland. I’m not a big fan of extra spicy food anyway but I do appreciate well-seasoned food. I enjoyed it all, even the roast chicken on the bone I had the first evening. I don’t enjoy buffets, so we only had dinner in the Terrace Café a couple of times. We had breakfast in the Grand Dining Room once, and lunch once too. Both were great – the waiter poured me a glass of wine with my lunch. I usually don’t day drink, but it would have been rude not to, right?
The first speciality restaurant we went to was the Polo Grill. I had Oysters Rockefeller followed by surf and turf. I think a dinner of oysters and steak has to be my all-time favourite meal. Michael had Lobster Bisque – he said it was the same as the one in the Grand Dining Room except it had chunks of lobster in it – followed by the most ridiculously huge piece of meat I’ve ever seen served to a single person – the King’s Cut Prime Rib. I helped him eat it and we both struggled. The food was excellent, and we thought we might try to come back.
A couple of nights later we went to Toscana. We just loved it. I had Caprese for a starter and Aragosta Fra Diavolo Con Taglioni – lobster with Taglioni, garlic, chilli, parsley and tomato sauce. A.MAZE.ING. Michael had Fritto Di Calamari to start then Risotto All’aragosta – risotto with lobster. He liked it but would have preferred mine. No chance! But we would definitely go back.
We made two speciality restaurant bookings before our cruise started, despite my fears of missing out. We chose to visit fairly early on in the cruise so we could go back if we wanted to experience them again. And we did – so next time we passed the reservations desk we got another booking for Toscana.
Walking around the ship and in our cabin, it seemed to be in perfect condition. It had a major refurbishment just before covid so that helps, but the crew obviously take pride in the ship and keep her looking her best.
One strange thing, and an artefact of a bygone age perhaps, was that we had a bottle opener attached to the bathroom door frame. Who else has seen this on a cruise ship? And speaking of strange things we found that at evening turndown our cabin steward would put a mat on the floor next to the bed. It was like a tea towel – not a woolly rug but a cloth mat. We had no idea what this was for and never found out. If you have any ideas about this comment below.
Another place we enjoyed eating was Waves Grill. I had the Texan burger once – but with tomato instead of barbecue sauce. It’s basically a cheeseburger, but other than that the classic hot dog was usually my go to. And Michael loved the Wagyu burger with lobster on it. I’m getting really hungry right now!
Almost as soon as we crossed from Canada to the USA the weather warmed up. From freezing cold and rugged up in Canada to a summer dress and sandals in Boston where I got too hot walking around, it was quite surreal. I talked about packing for this trip in another video – I’ll link it below – and the change in climate during the trip made it quite the challenge, although I expected the warm weather to be when we hit Bermuda, not in New England in the fall!
We did an Oceania walking tour in Québec City and that was the coldest we had felt for a looong time. Fully rugged up, gloves, scarves, two coats and multiple layers and we still had to defrost with hot chocolate so we could spend some more time on land. The other Oceania excursion we did was in Halifax, and we went to Peggy’s Cover. It’s beautiful out there but the wind was icy cold – not surprising when you look at it on the map! It’s close to where the Titanic sank, and we all know she hit an iceberg. We finally got a chance to try a lobster roll in Halifax too.
In Newport we’d booked a tour at the Breakers, the Vanderbilts’ summer home. The scale of it is incredible, particularly when you think they spent just a few months of the year here. It was another warm day out and the only tender port – watch out for your hair when tendering!
Michael likes to do a bit of gambling in the casino, but he prefers craps, and they didn’t have a craps table. He’ll play roulette if there’s a table with people on it but doesn’t like being the only one playing. The casino was VERY quiet on this cruise, so we never stopped there. There were usually people on the slots but that’s not our thing.
Going back to Toscana we had the same great experience – including the olive oil and balsamic vinegar cart. A crew member brings a cart with oils and vinegars and describes them in terms you’d usually hear for wine. We made our selections and then dipped bread from the amazing breadbasket into our concoction. It was unbelievably good, and I don’t even like bread all that much! This time Michael had the Carpaccio Di Manzo – beef carpaccio for starter, and his main was the one I had the first time. I couldn’t go past my first experience and repeated both my choices. No regrets!
On the last full day, the O prizes shop was open for business. A number of points was allocated as the price of various items – I thought I had a list to put on screen, but it seems I don’t. It ranged from things like keyrings for just a few points, up to 30 points for an Oceania windbreaker. We had 27 points, and the first step was to line up, hand over your points and say how many there were so someone could write that number on a slip of paper. I was cheeky and said, “we have 27 but you can round that up to 30 if you like”. The crew member said “I heard 30” so that’s the number we got on our slip of paper! We decided to buy the Oceania windbreaker for Michael. He found it really useful during the rest of our trip, for days in New York that were damp but not freezing cold. His previous windbreaker/rain jacket was neon pink (I bought it for him) so he much prefers having a subtle navy blue one.
Let’s look at what we paid. There’s a mixture of Australian and US dollars here so I’ll put both versions of everything I mention on screen.
Our fare for a B2 balcony cabin was $9,980 AUD per person on special reduced from $11,980 when we booked. After booking we saw two further reductions – the first was before we’d made final payment, so they reduced our fare by $2,780 per person, taking it to $7,200. The second was after final payment. They wouldn’t reduce the fare and give us a refund but instead provided non-refundable onboard credit of $606 AUD per person.
We bought the premium beverage package for $479 AUD per person – this was $30 US per person per day. We booked under the short-lived Simply More inclusions program and received shore excursion credit that covered both of our excursions with a few dollars to spare.
Once onboard we both upgraded to streaming wifi – it’s hard to manage a YouTube channel and associated social media without streaming, to the extent that without streaming wifi I couldn’t even use the YouTube Studio app to check our stats – and that’s not streaming! So that cost us an extra $209.79 US for both – we upgraded on different days so one cost $109.89 and the other $99.90.
Once onboard we discovered that although we had paid for our beverage package upgrade by credit card prior to the cruise, the payment was in our account as refundable onboard credit. Which worked out really well if you know the story of how I forgot to take the card that allows us to withdraw money from overseas ATMs with us!
We received shareholder benefit onboard credit of $100 USD too. Our total onboard account credits were $2,211.74 USD, $655.78 refundable for pre-paying the beverage package, and $1,555.96 for our Simply More excursion credit, the fare drop onboard credit, refund for the basic internet packages we replaced, and shareholder credit. We used all except $62.17 of our non-refundable credit – I’m still kicking myself for not indulging in some perfume in the boutique! And $24 of our excursion credit. We had $655.78 refunded to us in cash. This gave us some spending money in New York! Since I’d forgotten to bring a card for ATM withdrawals this was a life saver.
In total we paid $9,925 USD or $14,400 AUD. Reverting to AUD here, that’s $7,200 each or $655 per person per day. I call that a pretty good price for a cruise that included all food and speciality restaurants, all drinks including many, many cocktails each evening – and expensive Scotch Whiskey for Michael, afternoon tea every day and a perfectly maintained ship and spotless room! Not to mention the two Oceania excursions we went on, both of which were lots of fun.
I’m not sure we’re Oceania’s target market; we were certainly the youngest by almost a decade on this cruise I’d guess. But we loved it and felt very comfortable onboard and would love to return to Oceania soon. We’re very glad we did this. I’ve spotted a 24-day cruise from Perth to Auckland next month on Insignia but sadly Michael doesn’t have endless annual leave so that won’t be happening. We’ll see Oceania again another day soon, hopefully!
Has this put you in the mood for your next cruise? To learn cruise cabin etiquette, click here, and to find out more about cruise ship drink packages, click here!
Or click here for all my cruise tips.
Links to products
Items for your cruise packing list (may be affiliate links):
🪝 Magnetic hooks https://geni.us/fZ2C9l
📋 Magnetic clips https://geni.us/Av4sxur
🚪 Over the door organiser https://geni.us/ZYSDgz
🪟 Blackout curtain https://amzn.to/4e8q5X7
🪪 Lanyard with sleeve https://amzn.to/4e5brjq
📱 Phone card holder https://geni.us/J7vn
📱Phone case with loops and cross body strap https://geni.us/EgqhaY
🔌 Cruise safe power adapter USB https://geni.us/BOI64Fs
🔋 Cruise safe power strip with cord https://geni.us/lQrtk2
🪫 Cruise safe power strip plug in 3 https://geni.us/xb3Z
🔋 Anker MagSafe power bank https://geni.us/0ESRI
🛍️ Mesh zipper pouches https://geni.us/I3DSu
📡 Wallet tracker card for Find My network https://geni.us/IGUrR
💊 Dramamine motion sickness medication https://geni.us/AhAxd
🧥 Eddie Bauer Girl on the Go Trench https://geni.us/4bnBOsO
🪫 Multiple Apple device charger https://geni.us/A785
🔋 USB wall charger https://geni.us/BOI64Fs
🔌 USB C to C cable https://geni.us/a3fU Portable fan https://geni.us/ScqeB4b
💡 Motion sensor rechargeable magnetic lights https://geni.us/a1b8C
🍾 Wrinkle release spray https://geni.us/aAjj5
🚨 Travel carbon monoxide alarm https://geni.us/Z6a4
📱 Phone case with cross body strap https://geni.us/EgqhaY
☕️ Insulated mug https://geni.us/ATZXa
🪪 MagSafe wallet for cruise card https://geni.us/J7vn
⚡️ International power adapter https://geni.us/KbU5dgO
✈️🛳️ When we travel, we use the following (may be affiliate links):
📱 Phone data: AloSIM eSIMs. Use code 7NBZZYI
🔐 Data and device security: NordVPN
🎟️ Tours and tickets: Viator
🧳 Away luggage. Get $40 off and we get a commission if you use this link
🏷️ Air Tags have helped us find lost luggage
🛍️ Mardi’s favourite toiletry bag
🧴Larger containers to decant toiletries into
⏰ Philips Hue 2 can be used as a sunrise lamp
🌅 Philips Sunrise alarm clock
🪝 Suction hooks for additional hotel storage
🧊 Packing cubes
🪞 Folding lighted makeup mirror:
🪭 Handheld fan for warmer climates
💍 We use this hanging jewellery organiser as a travel medications organiser
🎧 Airfly allows Bluetooth headphones to connect to in-flight entertainment
🧳 Level8 luggage
About
We are Mardi and Michael Linke. We’ve been travelling together for over 25 years and we love to share our experiences, showing the places we go and reviewing hotels, airlines and cruises.
Our main content is on YouTube. Click the image above to see it!
