Hello again- Thank you for your interest and support. This is most difficult for me as I don't usually complain and don't like to be seen in this manner. I had posted very late at night and when I made the post, I was shocked at how long it was. I thought it had repeated or something. Nope. It is hard to put these things briefly without explaining your intent. So rather than you thinking the worst, I had printed the thread before I deleted it and I will re-enter it for your review. It does not cover everything, just some of the things I could quickly recall.

We arrived at the pier in Lisbon with great anticipation. We were sure that we got there by 11am promptly because we had been told that if we pay for the Concierge Clas, we would be boarded early along with the Suites and Penthouses. Unlike the Suites and Penthouses who got larger cabins for their increase in price, we were only paying for a few privileges, not a larger cabin. Well, no one was boarded for quite some time. People were really complaining but we just kind of stood and looked around. Some of the people were asking for wheelchairs since they couldn't stand for so long. We were told that Customs was holding things up at one point. I can't say for sure how long we stood there, but it was quite a long while. I was surprised that the people who were to be boarded at 3pm were complaining almost louder than anyone. Well, it didn't matter to us. We did pay extra for this honor, but it looked like that was forgotten. I can remember before we left that someone had posted on the board that he always showed up 11am and talked them in to boarding him early. I figured he would be fooled on that. So we went with the flow. We decided to never pay extra for things we might never see.
When they finally started boarding the ship, the gentleman in charge announced that he could not leave people in a wheelchair behind others who weren't. Well, wheelchairs yes, everyone standing there, uh no. Wrong! The 3pm people were actually boarded right along with everyone else. They were charging the desk just like everyone else. We waited our turn but I think there were still some Penthouse people left when we were checked in. There was no order. Everyone was jamming the desks by then and we were boarded as if we all were in one line. We had been smart and purchased our water and sodas just before getting in line and as we stood there, we began to wonder if that was so smart. They were getting heavy and we also had carryon luggage. What a mess. We ended carrying these drinks all over the ship since our rooms weren't ready and we couldn't even get in to the rooms to set the things down. The plastic bags the drinks were in began to rip. Oh well, at least we would get our bags delivered before everyone else and we could unpack. When we got the call that our rooms were ready, we went to the room. I was very surprised to find the refrigerator full of things for sale. I started off down the hall to find someone to remove the things as I didn't want to be responsible for any missing things. I came upon a young lady and asked her about it. She said 'Just calm down! You won't be charged with it. Just put the things anywhere and put your things in the refrigerator." We'd had a problem on RCCL doing just that and I again requested that someone remove the things. No, that wasn't going to hapen. So we made an inventory and took out the cokes, sodas, nuts, M&Ms, etc. When our cabin attendant came by that evening, I asked her to take the things away. She said she would but didn't. We put them in a cabinet where they stayed until half way through the cruise.
We saw that the folks were getting their luggage, even the inside cabins. Still no luggage for us. Then one bag showed up and not the other. We had been in the cabin and no had knocked or anything, so I checked about every 5 minutes for the next half hour waiting for the other bag. Then I went off in search up and down the halls determined to find it. I never saw a soul in the halls to ask where the bags came in and eventually found it at the other end of the ship just sitting in the hall. I took it to the room and we finished unpacking. We left then to go to afternoon tea. We had no sooner settled down than some jackhammering started in the deck over us. I asked a waiter what the noise was and he said "Scheduled maintenance, changing the dining room carpet. We do it every year during the TA." Funny but we weren't told they would be doing the scheduled maintenance on this trip. I thought that was always done in dry dock. Oh well. Also the dining room would be closed for the first three days of the cruise. Double wow. So far nothing very luxury. Since we had booked Polo for the first night we didn't have to worry. Also we were told the ship was only half full. Gee, we were told over and over that all the ships were sold out for practically the next year. Well, not this one. We were to find out later that this would be a big blessing. Anyway, I stopped another waiter and complained about the terrible racket. It was giving me a headache. The waiter told me "Well, I have a headache too. I don't like this anymore than you do." I had never been spoken to like this on a cruise ship before by the waiters (or anyone else), and I said "Well, I don't think YOU are paying for this cruise. We are." He said, "Well, no." That was the end of the conversation. We left then and went to the cabin amid the noise. The next day the same noise was going on, I swear it sounded like jackhammers. We were told they were taking up the carpet on the upper deck to do some changes. That deck remained close for the entire cruise. We never got up there. They also closed one half of all the elevators for maintenance. We never saw anyone working on any of the elevators, nor did they ever open any of them for the whole cruise. We'd never had this happen on any trip before. We'd been on rough seas before but never heard any of their excuses before.
Whenever you would pass any of the crew in the hallways, they seemed to divert their eyes to avoid talking to you. Gee, on NCL a crew member never passed a passenger without saying "Good morning, Madam", or "Good evening, Madam." This was not how it was going to be on this ship. We never got that on Oceania. Once in a while someone cleaning the halls would say a quick "Hi". Nothing more. I thought it was standard on all ships to be greeted. The higher the rank, the more ignoring. This crew seemed to be acting as if THEY were the passengers.
In the morning we ate at the buffet because we eat early after we work out in the gym. We are ready to go when they open the buffet. Well, we always found the waiters unprepared for our arrival. There was never coffee until about 15 or 20 minutes into our arrival and by then the waiters were still huddled and visiting among thenselves. One day we never did get any coffee or water during our whole meal. Usually we just chased one of the waiters down and requested something. Then he was off to the other side and we never saw him again. As for the buffet, you were never allowed to serve yourself. All the food was covered and two servers were on each side of the buffet to serve that side. Everyone was to wait as the server showed the next passenger into each covered dish, then served them. Then he would come back to serve the next person. I usually got tired of waiting and would reach through to reach the spoon to grab just a bit of something. Inevitably someone would run over, grab the spoon from my hand and demand to serve it. I only tried that twice. I learned. I ate cold cereal mostly to avoid that. Some of the passengers said it was done to conserve food. I don't know but the routine was lost on us. There just weren't enough servers to make that work right. I am aware that this stuff all sounds so petty. It felt that way too. I just wanted to eat and have a cup of coffee and get out of there. Two or three times I wanted something besides cereal and I quickly found out the food was at best lukewarm. Never hot. I found out that I could get fresh fried eggs at the omelet station. They would be hot and good. Then came the problem. Do I take the lukewarm potatoes, toast meat while I waited for the eggs to be fried, or would I get the eggs and then have them get cold as I waited for the server to get me the other stuff. I couldn't ever get everything warm at the same time. We were used to an open buffet, filled often by the kitchen and going up and serving ourselves, getting our own coffee from the urns and returning to the table and eating while everything was still hot. The ritual of servers was just lost on us. Hot food meant more than waiting for the service. They just seemed to be understaffed and not quite trained well. We still were never addressed with a "Good morning, Madam". Forget that.
Okay, we ate at the Polo that first night. We figured that it would be packed that first night since the dining room was closed. We were the first two there and had requested a table for 2. We were taken the full length of the dining room and around a corner to the back most corner where they had two tables for 2. We never saw more than 10 or 15 people there and yet we always were taken to this far back corner. I mentioned one time that those front tables for 4 were always empty, but no, we went clear to the back. So, I ordered the rack of lamb I thought. Maybe it was lamb chops but I thought it was rack of lamb. Anyway I got two lamb chops, one arranged on top of the other one. I cut in to the first chop and it was delicious. I gave my husband a taste and he agreed it was good and tender. Well, I went to cut the other one and it was tough as it could be. I couldn't even cut it. I tore a piece off and tried to eat it. Not so. I had to remove it from my mouth as I couldn't chew it. Go figure. Also I wanted a glass of wine. I couldn't believe wine could be had for just $5.00 a glass. That sounded very reasonable. I ordered one and when the wine steward brought it to me I just stared at it. The glasses were HUGE! Not counting the stem they had to be 5" to 7" high. One inch of wine was in the bottom of the glass. I called the steward back and asked what happened. She said, "Well, that is a glass of wine." So for me to have a glass of wine with the glass only half full I would pay at least $15.00. With these glasses it would be more like $20.00. Well, I ordered a bottle and saved most of it for the next night. Later that night we were out walking around the ship a gentleman was talking about eating at Polo for dinner. I said we had too. He said he had the lamb. I said I also had the lamb. He said well, one lamb chop was tender and one was very tough. Now I know this sounds made up, but I swear it happened just like that. Still nothing very luxury as far as we could see. I had had rack of lamb many times over on NCL in the main dining room and it was very tender and tasty. So okay, will someone please tell me what luxury is? Just so I can read it. You see from what I gather you would be treated so nicely, your food would be brought to you and it would be good and..............oh well, you get the picture.
I don't want to go in too much detail about the flooding of the Starboard cabins. It was on a particularly violent night of high seas. The next day the passengers were moved to the port side of the ship. Fortunately since we were only over half full they had the space. The water came into the halls in some areas on Deck 7. One guy said he was awakened when his bed was wet. Apparently the water wicked up the bedclothes into the bed. Anyway after a few days a smell gathered that was pretty bad. Our cabin at the back end stayed dry, but whenever we opened our door we here hit with a stench and we would scurry down the Port side to get away from it. It smelled like the toilets had overflowed but the Customer Service denied they had. I asked them what they were going to do about it as obviously mold was growing by the smell. I'm from a damp climate and I KNOW the smell of mold. They said they had 4 crews of carpet cleaners scheduled to come on as soon as we docked in Miami.
Now I don't really care to continue this item by item retelling of things as I recall them. You can always say something to belittle me for being picky or you can say something to support what I say. I really do not care that way. I just wanted to nudge a few people to look further when they were asking the right questions, but I didn't see them getting the right answers and getting incomplete answers. No, that balcony cabin is NOT arranged so that it appears spacious. It is TINY. You put a large bed, a sofa, a chair, a table and a desk in there and it is crowded as heck. The bathroon is even smaller. We had to sit sideways on the loo. We never like to book a cabin under 200'. We listened to all that spacious stuff and felt well.......okay, we'll try it. But even that doesn't excuse the way the crew talked to us. We didn't try to itemize a bunch of stuff, we were just hit over and over and over. Finally we said ENOUGH. Other passengers brought up similar complaints. Customer Service was even worse. We had had a particularly rough night on the ocean one night and things just flew around the cabin. You could hear them in the dark. We heard glass breaking and waited until morning to investigate. The champagne glasses and the champagne and ice bucket were knocked from the table. The ice bucket upended on the sofa and soaked it, the glasses broke on the floor and everything came off the desk and went on the floor. The cokes flew out of the cabinet I had stored them in and had broken. These were cokes in cans. Holes punched in the sides. That day I wrote up a complaint and delivered it to Customer Service to come and get the contents of the 'fridge THAT DAY. Someone came to take it out. She is the lady I had first talked to that first day, not our regular cabin attendant. She was very nice and took the stuff away. We were to be stuck with the broken bits of glass though as their vacuum cleaners couldn't pick up the small stuff. We were told to not go barefoot during the trip. The next door cabin was an owner's suite and a single lady was in that. She said the same thing happened in her cabin and she too had bits of glass throughout the cabin. She told us it was worse than that though as she said the people in the cabin above hers also smoked on their deck and the smell bothered her. We never smelled the smoke though. One night I was awakened at 2am as I recall. I could hear music playing. I looked all over and out the sliding door. Lights were on in the next cabin toward the port side, so I reported the noise as coming from there. The security guy came right up and said that cabin was not occupied. He was not able to hear the noise though. I could still hear it and it seemed to be coming through the ducts. The noise did stop and I wasn't bothered again by it. The lady in the owner's suite told me yes, she had also heard it and it was coming from the upstairs cabin over hers. She said whenever Customer Service saw her coming, they were getting to where they said, "Oh no, not you again." I can't verify that. They never were that rude to me, just very curt and never smiled. The main lady just always seemed so perturbed. So I got off track and didn't finish the 'fridge contents story. The one lady had taken it all but that wasn't going to be the end of it. That evening when the evening shift came on our cabin attendant came bursting into the cabin and she said to me "You NEVER asked me to remove those things." I said I had too. I had asked the other lady and she told her. When I tried to tell her she had stopped me and said she knew all about it. Well, she said "I asked you to store the things in your cabin." I said I wouldn't have agreed to that and she stormed out. She didn't speak to us at all for about 3 days. It wasn't very pleasant. So this is how the whole mess went. We filled out the opinion poll at the end of the cruise and turned it in to the Purser. She said it would be sent directly to Miami. It wasn't a nice report. I had paid for a cruise and I expected to get a nice cruise. I paid extra for some things we didn't get and so far no one has offered to refund those direct charges to us. I won't be writing a trip report or posting one.
We met some lovely people on board too. We also met some that didn't fall in that category. Mostly the passengers were nice, but there were what seemed like lots of travel agents on board. They always mentioned this to us. We did meet one couple one evening at dinner who really liked the cruise. We were at a table for 8 and she said in a very loud voice. "Gee, we just LOVE this cruise." No one else said anything. Pretty soon the gentleman next to me said very quietly to me "My wife likes Holland. We'll probably stick with them." The lady who liked the trip then told about their next cruises and none of them were on Oceania. I told her we were going on the Prinsendam, and she said she had always wanted to go on that ship. That is supposed to be the elite of the Holland Line. That was about the only time we met them. They seemed a lot of fun. I think we felt that way about a lot of people.
Please read back and see that when I made this first posting you all wanted more detail. I didn't want to do this. I am not this kind of person. We didn't ask for any of this. I had asked these questions before we booked. I had called Oceania and asked specifically if the food would be of a lesser quality because the per diem on TAs is less than the other trips. They told me no. The food would be the same high standard. Whatever is going on? Maybe the quality of the food is good and in being lukewarm it just loses its flavor? That doesn't answer why all the pies and cakes were bone dry. The deep dish fruit pies at lunch had not one drop of moisture in them. The pies served at Thanksgiving, one of pecan and one of pumpkin could be picked up in your hand and crumbled into crumbs on the saucer. Dry as a bone. The dressing with the turkey was just corn meal with a small bit of moisture to hold it together. No flavor. The cranberries had fermented or something. I had to remove them from my mouth.

I suppose you can tell that I am about 70 and do not organize my thoughts as I did 20 years ago. I would say, try the line for yourself and see what you think. We never tried to influence anyone with our opinion. We never asked first for anyone's opinion. Most people just asked this outright. I don't think we'd ever had anyone do this so much on a previous cruise. We saw a lot of the passengers are still sailing Renaissance and call it that. I don't know if they are living in another time, or just forget the newer name. My husband said he wouldn't go back, and I don't think I ever want to go through any of this again. Liz