No Result
View All Result
Eye of the Flyer
  • BANK & Travel Cards ★
    • Credit Cards
    • CardMatch™
    • Eye of the Flyer Recommended Cards
    • Best Welcome Offers
    • Travel Rewards Cards
    • Airline Credit Cards
    • Hotel Credit Cards
    • Cash Back Credit Cards
    • No Annual Fee Credit Cards
    • Small Business Credit Cards
    • Gas Rewards Cards
    • Balance Transfer Cards
    • Student Credit Cards
    • Visa Credit Cards
    • Mastercards
    • Bad or Poor Credit
    • No Credit or Limited Credit
    • Secured Cards
  • CardMatch™
  • Cruises
  • Rookie
  • Elite Mileage Runs
  • Merchandise
  • αbout US ✉
  • BANK & Travel Cards ★
    • Credit Cards
    • CardMatch™
    • Eye of the Flyer Recommended Cards
    • Best Welcome Offers
    • Travel Rewards Cards
    • Airline Credit Cards
    • Hotel Credit Cards
    • Cash Back Credit Cards
    • No Annual Fee Credit Cards
    • Small Business Credit Cards
    • Gas Rewards Cards
    • Balance Transfer Cards
    • Student Credit Cards
    • Visa Credit Cards
    • Mastercards
    • Bad or Poor Credit
    • No Credit or Limited Credit
    • Secured Cards
  • CardMatch™
  • Cruises
  • Rookie
  • Elite Mileage Runs
  • Merchandise
  • αbout US ✉
No Result
View All Result
No Result
View All Result

Our Experience on a (Nearly) Inaugural Sailing

Michael by Michael
May 11, 2024
in Cruises, Trip Reports
4
a deck of a cruise ship with a pool in the background

Oceania Vista Top Deck and Pool Area

Advertiser Disclosure: Eye of the Flyer, a division of Chatterbox Entertainment, Inc., is part of an affiliate sales network and receives compensation for sending traffic to partner sites, such as CreditCards.com. Some or all of the card offers that appear on the website are from advertisers. Compensation may impact how and where card products appear on the site. This site does not include all card companies or all available card offers. Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed, or approved by any of these entities. Some of the links on this page are affiliate or referral links. We may receive a commission or referral bonus for purchases or successful applications made during shopping sessions or signups initiated from clicking those links.

  • Introduction: Oceania Cruises’ Vista Inaugural Sailings
  • Tips For Maximizing Your Oceania Cruises Booking
  • Flying to Ljubljana, the New Gateway for “Venice” Cruises!?!
  • Flight/Lounge Review – United Polaris Experience
  • Flight Connection at Brussels International Airport (BRU)
  • Intercontinental Ljubljana Review – Booked Using CC Free Night Certificate
  • Getting From Ljubljana to Trieste, Our Experience Using Daytrip
  • Our Experience on a (Nearly) Inaugural Sailing
  • Ship Review – Oceania Cruises New Vista
  • Oceania Cruises New Vista Dining Review
  • Oceania Cruises Bars, Lounges, and the New Mixology Program
  • Oceania Cruises Vista Cabin and Suite Overview Including Penthouse (PH-2 with extended balcony) Review
  • Athens to Atlanta via Doha, Our First Experience in QSuites
  • Katara Hills Doha, LXR Hotels & Resorts Review – Booked Using CC Free Night Certificate

Spoiler Alert – everything that you have read about inaugural cruises is mostly true; but don’t let the negative comments deter you from sailing on one.

Background

First a disclaimer, we are unapologetic Oceania Cruises fans with 60 past nights on board and another 21 booked.  For those unfamiliar with Oceania Cruises, they slot in between The Haven on NCL and the over-the-top luxury (and cost) of Regent Seven Seas cruises. All three are owned by Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings Ltd.  When the announcement came out that Oceania Cruises was launching a new ship, we knew that we had to be among the first to sail on the then unnamed ship.

We happened to be sailing on Oceania Marina in 2019, not long after the announcement was made and booked what was planned to be the fourth sailing on the new ship approximately two years out.  We did so with high hopes and not a lot of details about the next ship other than the promise that “This new class of ships will represent an evolution of the Oceania Cruises experience with all the elements our guests treasure – a warm, intimate, residential style; the most spacious standard staterooms afloat; amazing suites, and of course, the finest cuisine at sea,” stated Bob Binder, President and Chief Executive Officer of Oceania Cruises.

a drawing of a room with stairs and chairs
Initial rendering from the Oceania Cruises Press Release issued January 8, 2019

Well, a lot happened over those next two years, including more than a few COVID variants, countless cruise cancellations and delays, as well as a near collapse of global supply chains.  I write all of this to explain that what was once to be the fourth cruise of the inaugural season ended up being the first.  Well, sort of…

We watched with building anticipation as the ship was named – Vista.  Then Oceania Cruises started trickling out a series of images of the new public spaces on board, announced a new restaurant – Ember, a new cocktail program, and even a new Scotch whisky available exclusively onboard.  Then came the announcement that they were going to cancel the first three sailings as the ship’s delivery was delayed due to supply chain issues.  This meant that our cruise was going to be the “first cruise” aboard Vista.

a restaurant with tables and chairs
One of the New Spaces onboard Oceania Vista – Ember

I note that while it was the “first cruise,” it was always going to be the second cruise following a short “shake-down” cruise with invited guests including company officials, travel consultants, and the media.  These shake-down cruises are industry standard and are not typically advertised and are not officially “maiden voyages.”  Then came the announcement approximately five months before the sailing that the ship was in fact going to be available a bit sooner than anticipated and they were adding a Founders Cruise, to be hosted by Frank Del Rio the President and CEO of Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings and a founder of Oceania Cruises, then that would become the official inaugural sailing and that passengers booked on our cruise would have first opportunity to book into the Founders Cruise as well as a back-to-back sailing.  Unfortunately, our schedules could not accommodate an additional six nights added to our existing twelve-night booking.

Experience

Let’s start with the positives.  Firstly, it’s unbelievably exciting to board a new ship.  All your fellow passengers are even more excited to board, given the opportunity to explore the new vessel.  The staff are excited to have been hand-picked from the existing fleet to open the new vessel, new restaurants, new menus, new facilities, etc.  Secondly, every port you visit is the first visit for the ship, meaning the people in the ports are excited to see the new ship and ask you about it, as are passengers on other ships in port with you.  Thirdly, and this is stating the obvious, but everything is shiny and new.  No matter how well a ship’s maintained you’re bound to see scratches here and there, a bit of rust, wallpaper starting to curl a bit at the seams, a stubborn stain on the carpet, frayed upholstery…well there’s none of this.

Now for the negatives.  It’s hard for me to say, but perhaps the biggest negative is the service.  The crew are ALL exhausted from setting up the new ship and working twice as hard to figure out how everything works on the new ship.  They want desperately to provide the best possible service, but they’re struggling behind the scenes with equipment that’s still not working 100%, furnishings that aren’t on board yet, and simply navigating all that’s new.  Typically, some percentage of the crew on a ship is always coming/going in major ports; this means that there are always experienced team members on board to train the new ones.  On a new ship, everyone is new to the ship.  This poses a lot of challenges in training.  As hard as they try to hide it, it still shows at times.

Most passengers accept that service isn’t yet up to the standard they’ve come to expect on other Oceania Cruise ships, but there are a small minority that are unkind to the crew.  Watching that small percentage of ungrateful passengers was the hardest part for us, when the crew are really what make the entire experience so special!

two men in vests and yellow bow ties
Two of our Favorite Crew Members Aboard Oceania Vista in the Founders Bar, only available on this ship

This one is both a positive and a minus – a new ship still has that new-ship-smell.  Look out for the “wet paint sign” because that smell is likely new paint, varnish, glue, etc.  The ship still has a crew on board from the shipyard working on the “punch list” during the initial sailings alongside the maintenance crew on board.  For example – we came back to our cabin late one night after a show to find a dozen crew and shipyard workers mounting a light fixture in the elevator lobby on our deck.  The fixture simply wasn’t ready when the ship entered service, so it was picked up at the dock at the beginning of our cruise and they were installing one each night during the cruise on a different deck.

Not everything works.  In an ideal world every item would have been tested and re-tested multiple times before bringing on passengers, but this simply isn’t how it works.  In our lovely cabin we had a recurring issue with our toilet where it would not flush in the mornings during peak times when others above us were using their showers, sinks, toilets etc.  We phoned this in each morning to maintenance and each morning they came and checked it out, but inevitably the issue would return the next morning.  I noted this on our mid-cruise survey and boy did that get a response.  The head of engineering and housekeeping came to our cabin multiple times that day and replaced parts, checked, and re-checked, eventually solving the problem which was a faulty valve from the initial construction.

a counter with a mirror and a phone and a tray of wine
Oceania Vista Bar Set-up including the offending ice bucket, tongs, and complimentary Vero water bottles

Another example of something they didn’t know until we knew – on this cruise they had new trays, ice buckets, and tongs.  They were shiny and perfect, that is, until the ship moved.  Then they rattled like crazy.  We discovered this unfortunate condition our first night and started putting random pieces of paper under them each night.  But each day our well-meaning cabin stewards kept removing the papers.  We would have let it go, but because the papers kept disappearing, the issue also made it into our mid-cruise survey.  Well, the head of housekeeping visited again (we became friends, and she received great praise in our end of cruise survey) and asked about it.  I showed her (fortunately we were at sail) and she agreed that she couldn’t sleep with the racket either.  On the last day of our cruise, we noticed that the stewards had placed a linen napkin on the tray under the offending ice bucket and tongs.  We asked our cabin steward and he said they’d been instructed to do it throughout the ship.  I like to think that from now on everyone will sleep a bit better on Vista because of me.

So, would I do it all again?  Absolutely!  Do the negatives of a new ship outweigh the excitement?  Absolutely not!  Do I feel the need to be on the very first cruise?  No, I’d be perfectly happy sailing at any point during the inaugural season to get a similar, though likely more refined, experience.

Much more detail to come regarding the ship itself.  Stay tuned! – Michael

Advertiser Disclosure: Eye of the Flyer, a division of Chatterbox Entertainment, Inc., is part of an affiliate sales network and receives compensation for sending traffic to partner sites, such as CreditCards.com. Some or all of the card offers that appear on the website are from advertisers. Compensation may impact how and where card products appear on the site. This site does not include all card companies or all available card offers. Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed, or approved by any of these entities. Some of the links on this page are affiliate or referral links. We may receive a commission or referral bonus for purchases or successful applications made during shopping sessions or signups initiated from clicking those links.

Responses are not provided or commissioned by the bank advertiser. Responses have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by the bank advertiser. It is not the bank advertiser's responsibility to ensure all posts and/or questions are answered.

Tags: First CruiseInaugural CruiseMaiden VoyageOceania Cruises
Previous Post

Tips For Maximizing Your Oceania Cruises Booking

Next Post

Inside the Cruise Ship Tours: Why you Shouldn’t Miss it (if you can go)!

Michael

Michael

Next Post
a man pointing at a board

Inside the Cruise Ship Tours: Why you Shouldn’t Miss it (if you can go)!

Comments 4

  1. FrequentWanderer says:
    2 years ago

    I think it’s truly beta testing, but in the cruise ships world they call it “inaugural” to price it higher?

    Reply
    • Michael says:
      2 years ago

      @FrequentWanderer – The “knock-down” cruise for TAs, media, etc. is really meant to be the “beta” cruise not the “inaugural” or in Oceania’s case the “Founder’s Cruise,” but the reality is that it can take a handful of cruises before everything is running as intended. Cruises on new ships definitely price higher than those that have been sailing for a bit.

      Reply
  2. FrequentWanderer says:
    2 years ago

    I think it’s truly beta testing, but in the cruise ships world they call it “inaugural” to price it higher?

    Reply
    • Michael says:
      2 years ago

      @FrequentWanderer – The “knock-down” cruise for TAs, media, etc. is really meant to be the “beta” cruise not the “inaugural” or in Oceania’s case the “Founder’s Cruise,” but the reality is that it can take a handful of cruises before everything is running as intended. Cruises on new ships definitely price higher than those that have been sailing for a bit.

      Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

➤ Search Eye of the Flyer

No Result
View All Result

Subscribe

Subscribe To Our NewsletterJoin our mailing list to receive the latest news and updates from our team.

You have Successfully Subscribed!

GREAT Travel and Cash Back Card Offers for Spring 2025!

Eye of the Flyer may receive a commission from the links below. See our Privacy Policy

See some of the biggest and best offers now!
Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card CardBIGGEST EVER OFFER! Earn 100,000 bonus points after you spend $5,000 in purchases within three (3) months of being approved for the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card! (Learn here how to apply. All information about the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card was gathered independently by Eye of the Flyer. It was neither provided nor reviewed by the card issuer.)
Capital One Venture X Business
Capital One Venture X Business: Earn 150,000 bonus miles once you spend $30,000 on eligible purchases within three (3) months of being approved for card membership. Then, earn an additional 200,000 miles after you spend a total of $200,000 within the first six (6) months. That's a total of 350,000 miles. Learn here how to apply.

Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant® American Express® Card

Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant® American Express® Card: Earn 185,000 bonus Marriott Bonvoy points after you spend $6,000 in eligible purchases on the card within six (6) months of being approved for card membership. (Terms Apply. This offer expires on May 14, 2025.). Read more and learn here how to apply.

Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card
Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card: Earn 75,000 Miles once you spend $4,000 on eligible purchases within three (3) months of being approved for card membership. Plus, receive a one-time $250 Capital One Travel credit in your first cardholder year. Learn more here.

 

American Express® Business Gold Card

American Express® Business Gold Card: Earn 100,000 bonus Membership Rewards® points after you spend $15,000 on eligible purchases with the Business Gold Card within the first three (3) months of being approved for card membership. Plus, enjoy a 0% introductory APR for the first six (6) months from the date of account opening on purchases eligible for Pay Over Time, then a 18.49% to 27.49% variable APR. (See Rates & Fees) Terms apply.. Learn more here.

The Business Platinum Card® from American Express

The Business Platinum Card® from American Express: Earn 150,000 bonus American Express® Membership Rewards® points after you spend $20,000 on eligible purchases on the card within the first three (3) months of being approved for card membership. Plus, earn a $500 statement credit after you spend $2,500 on qualifying flights booked directly with airlines or through American Express Travel with your Business Platinum Card within the first 3 months of Card Membership. You can earn one or both of these offers. This offer expires on June 30, 2025. Terms apply.. Plus, enjoy select airport lounge access, statement credit opportunities galore, and more! Read here why we love this card.

 

Eye of the Flyer partner offer!CardMatch™CardMatch™
Offers may not be available to all users.

Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Eye of the Flyer with appropriate and specific directions to the original content.

Subscribe

Subscribe To Our NewsletterJoin our mailing list to receive the latest news and updates from our team.

You have Successfully Subscribed!

Resources

  • ✍ Editors Disclaimer
  • 💰 Advertiser Disclosure
  • 🔒 Privacy Policy
  • BANK & Travel Cards ★
  • CardMatch™
  • Cruises
  • Rookie
  • Elite Mileage Runs
  • Merchandise
  • αbout US ✉

Copyright © 2025 Eye of the Flyer. All Rights Reserved.

No Result
View All Result
  • BANK & Travel Cards ★
    • Credit Cards
    • CardMatch™
    • Eye of the Flyer Recommended Cards
    • Best Welcome Offers
    • Travel Rewards Cards
    • Airline Credit Cards
    • Hotel Credit Cards
    • Cash Back Credit Cards
    • No Annual Fee Credit Cards
    • Small Business Credit Cards
    • Gas Rewards Cards
    • Balance Transfer Cards
    • Student Credit Cards
    • Visa Credit Cards
    • Mastercards
    • Bad or Poor Credit
    • No Credit or Limited Credit
    • Secured Cards
  • CardMatch™
  • Cruises
  • Rookie
  • Elite Mileage Runs
  • Merchandise
  • αbout US ✉

Copyright © 2025 Eye of the Flyer. All Rights Reserved.

Cleantalk Pixel
No Result
View All Result
  • BANK & Travel Cards ★
    • Credit Cards
    • CardMatch™
    • Eye of the Flyer Recommended Cards
    • Best Welcome Offers
    • Travel Rewards Cards
    • Airline Credit Cards
    • Hotel Credit Cards
    • Cash Back Credit Cards
    • No Annual Fee Credit Cards
    • Small Business Credit Cards
    • Gas Rewards Cards
    • Balance Transfer Cards
    • Student Credit Cards
    • Visa Credit Cards
    • Mastercards
    • Bad or Poor Credit
    • No Credit or Limited Credit
    • Secured Cards
  • CardMatch™
  • Cruises
  • Rookie
  • Elite Mileage Runs
  • Merchandise
  • αbout US ✉

Copyright © 2025 Eye of the Flyer. All Rights Reserved.