Supplement to Travel Trade
July 2004

Oceania's Insignia:

Another Winning Experience

By John Stone

When Oceania Cruises introduced its new 684-passenger Insignia this past spring at christening ceremonies hosted by Prince Albert in Monte Carlo, the pleasing visual similarities between this second vessel, the former R1 of Renaissance, and its twin sibling, Oceania’s Regatta, the former R2, were obvious.

While the sisters are virtually identical in their classic stateroom designs of nautical blue and white with rich, dark woods, their warm, hearth-centered public room layouts and their color schemes, any thought that Insignia is simply a repeat experience vanishes quickly once the arriving passenger steps onboard.

Like visitors to a fine restaurant, a favorite hotel or, in the case of Oceania, a posh country club, guests are pleasantly surprised each time they are welcomed back to the friendly confines of its vessels.

Passengers encounter on the Insignia the memorable amenities of Oceania’s Regatta in a new package, but also find new improvements, subtle but substantial, that the line’s second vessel brings to the already winning experience established by the first.

While Oceania is a young, second-year line, it is already moving to new and improved levels. The ongoing effort by Oceania president and CEO Frank Del Rio and chairman Joe Watters is to position the line as a “premium-luxury experience.”

Among the heady upgrades, introduced with Insignia but being installed on both vessels, is the introduction of butler service in owner’s, vista and penthouse suites. According to Del Rio, there will even soon be a “new and improved ‘Tranquility Bed’” at suite levels.

Another Oceania first is the introduction, for 2005 cruises, of “concierge level staterooms” with an array of new guest services on decks 7 and 8 for its category A1 and A2 accommodations with verandas. There will be more than 100 concierge level rooms each on Regatta and Insignia.

A new onboard look is in the restyling of two alternative restaurants. These include a new parchment-gold color scheme in the Toscana northern Italian eatery on deck 10, where a”grappa bar” now graces the reception area of the room, and an expanded, buffet-style dinner service in the casual Tapas on Terrace restaurant located aft of the pool on deck 9.

Even the entertainment onboard Insignia demonstrates Oceania’s ambition to provide a wider variety of performance styles in the evening hours. The line’s cruise director, Leslie Jon, has moved over from the Regatta and, during an inaugural cruise of the Insignia, presented an original Oceania-produced show called “Ah Yes, It’s Love.”

Supported by a talented quartet of performers singing and dancing selections from the American popular songbook, Jon plans to follow a personal ambition of creating and producing more of these cabaret-style shows for the Insignia and Regatta lounges on each vessel. The nightclub stage onboard is perfect for this intimate entertainment style which has the feel of a lively, hip off-Broadway musical.

Our accommodations on Insignia were in one of 52 penthouse suites on deck 8. In addition to 322-square feet of living space, including a wide teak veranda, the suite came with an attentive, tuxedoed butler.

Our butler, “Sorinel,” who hailed from Romania, explained to us on departure day the variety of services at suite guests’ command. He presented a list for guests to check off and leave for him to make alternative restaurant or spa reservations as needed for any specific day and time, just as one would check off a dry cleaning order form.

Sorinel, when asked if he could replace a lost comb, soon returned with a complete toiletry kit. He also proved valuable in delivering messages to other guests, such as confirming dining times when friends were off on their varied daytime activities.

While not as personalized as the butler service, the new concierge level staterooms in category A1 and A2, starting in 2005, will include a welcome bottle of champagne, as was found in our penthouse suite. Other concierge features are a refrigerated mini-bar; a DVD player; a cashmere throw blanket; a complimentary Oceania tote bag; a hand-held hair dryer; and upgraded bathroom toiletries.

Other concierge level services will include priority embarkation and a dedicated check-in desk; priority luggage delivery; priority restaurant reservations; complimentary shoeshine service, and complimentary pressing of two garments per stateroom upon embarkation.

Oceania should have little difficulty delivering on these services with its 400 onboard crew members serving 684 guests, an almost 2 to 3 ratio.

As for Insignia’s dining, the quality of Oceania cuisine continues to come through. As with Regatta, it is difficult to argue with Oceania executives’ claims that there is no finer cuisine at sea.

One pleasant surprise onboard the Insignia is that the dining room service staffs are confident and efficient, displaying little of the nervous inexperience that characterize many new vessels. Oceania’s management has wisely transferred about 60% of its experienced crew members to the Insignia from the Regatta, with a supplement of crew coming from other lines or as first-timers to cruise contracts.

In Insignia’s panoramic Horizons lounge on deck 10, for example, we observed two staffers with a year’s experience on Regatta training a third employee hired from another Mediterranean-based line and serving her first cruise aboard Oceania. The trainers were benefiting from their familiar surroundings on Insignia, identical to those of their first year serving aboard Regatta.

Under the frescoed ceiling of Insignia’s Grand Dining Room, a mirror image of Regatta’s, the food choices, under the guidance of renowned culinary executive director Jacques Pepin, continue to be outstanding.

On a departure evening dinner following a sailaway from Monte Carlo, one of the mouth popping starters was a “salmon and scallop carpaccio ceviche style with peppers and greens.” A seafood choice for a main course was a Mediterranean sea bass in a white sauce that tasted fresh enough to be the local catch of the day.

One of the signature Oceania deserts, among several other chocaholic indulgences, is a decadent molten chocolate cake with an apricot sauce center that, like a good-luck charm, has delighted guests at the onboard christening dinners of both Oceania vessels.

For those guests more at home with classic meat dishes than artistic nouvelle cuisine, the Insignia is like the Regatta in fulfilling their desires.

The Polo Grill, a warm, wood-paneled steak house on deck 10, offers the requisite steaks, roasts, potato dishes and even fish courses in abundance for non-beefeaters. And many of the cuts of beef can be ordered in the Grand Dining Room as an alternative to the featured continental dishes on the menu.

Alongside the Polo Grill is the newly-refitted Toscana, with classic northern Italian cuisine. It now is fitted in new muted gold and rust colors to give more of a true Tuscan feeling. Our dining esperience in Toscana was excellent. There is a wide assortment and price range of Italian, as well as California, wines for accompaniment, and the adventurous can sample a digestive grappa from Toscana’s grappa bar as a post-meal indulgence.

The third alternative restaurant, Tapas on Terrace, located aft on deck 9 in the same buffet space where breakfast and lunch are served, is new and improved. Instead of the limited, set Spanish tapas menu of Regatta’s early days, the Insignia now has a full dinner buffet. It is available without dinner reservations with an array of choices, including cuts of beef and chicken, but with the tapas selections still available.

For guests returning onboard after a long shore excursion, the new Tapas on Terrace buffet is a fast option to the structure of the Grand Dining room, or the fancier alternative restaurants on deck 10 where a multi-course service is the norm.

In all cases, resort casual wear is proper in the evening on the Insignia, as it is on the Regatta.

The ship’s library on the Insignia, as on the Regatta, is one of the nicest spaces onboard, with the expansive, comfortable seating of a library in an elegant country house, complete with a painted aviary ceiling in restful colors.

The selections in the library are straight from the best-seller lists. Some of the titles included “Kate Remembered,” the Hepburn biography by A. Scott Berg; “Atkins for Life,” the diet book by Robert Atkins, and “Tis Herself,” the autobiography of the Irish film actress Maureen O’Hara. There are current travel guidebooks in abundance.

The evening focal point of Insignia socializing is the Martinis Lounge, adjacent to the casino on deck 5, where the talented pianist Jerry Blaine creates a successful party atmosphere before and after dinner.

Here is the natural meeting point for teaming up for pre-meal cocktails with companions on the way to the dining rooms, or setting a post-dinner plan. This could include some gaming in the small but lively casino, or a visit to Insignia Lounge for a cabaret show hosted by cruise director Leslie Jon.