Oceania Cruises is known for its high-end, casual country-club-style luxury. Join host CruiseCompete CEO Bob Levinstein and guest Bob Durnan of Cruise Vacation Outlet for an in-depth discussion of the Oceania experience. Bob shares his insider knowledge gained as a top luxury agent, and a veteran of 54 cruise sailings.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:20):
Hello and welcome back to CruiseCompete's Cruise
Podcast where we share tips,ideas, and inspiration to help
make your next cruise afantastic experience.
I'm your host Bob Levinstein.
Today we'll be talking aboutOceania cruises with Mr Bob
Durnan of cruise vacationoutlet.
Oceania is known for its highend country club casual style.
(00:42):
Bob is a top luxury cruise agentand a veteran of 54 crew
sailings.
We'll be back with Bob rightafter this cruise.
compete.com is a simple concept.
We give you the tools to findthe perfect cruise and request
quotes.
Independent travel agents canthen see your requests and they
(01:02):
respond with the best customcruise offers they can all
competing to offer you the bestdeal.
You compare these offers in oneconvenient place along with
consumer ratings and reviews ofthe agencies as only the best
agents survive in thiscompetitive environment.
You'll have some great optionsto choose from.
You then remain anonymous unlessor until you decide to contact
(01:23):
the nation by phone or by emailto ask questions or to book.
Find out why more than a millioncruisers are members of our free
unique service and start savingboth time and a significant
amount of money on your cruisevacation via cruise compete
today.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
Welcome back to the program.
My guest today is Mr.
Bob Dunan], a senior agent atcruise vacation outlet and a
veteran of more than 54 cruises.
Bob, welcome table to speak toyou.
Always great to talk to you myfriend.
So your favorite cruise line isOceania.
Y correct.
(02:19):
Um, I find it's more of what Iprefer in a cruise.
It's more of an adult cruise.
Uh, the, the food on there isexceptional.
The service is exceptional and Ijust, I just than what I like.
What, uh, what kind of, uh, uh,folks are typically typically on
an Oceania cruise are therelittle bit more fluent, better,
(02:44):
more well-traveled, you know, alittle extra cash to spend,
engender, educated.
So you find more interesting,more interesting stories, more
interesting advice, moreinteresting places they'd been,
yeah.
You find very well traveled.
Now they know.
And the way to find out aboutdifferent places around the
(03:04):
world that you may not havethought about going and you can
go to
Speaker 3 (03:09):
[inaudible]
Speaker 2 (03:11):
now you're a bit of a foodie.
So tell me about some of thethings that you like to cook and
how those compare to, uh, towhat you tend to get served on.
Uh, Oceania cruises.
Well, I'm bad when it comes torestaurants.
I mean, I was a broker on wallstreet for 17 years and you
know, when you're, when theycome out with Zagats we won't
(03:32):
use your, went through the first20 to 25 top restaurants within
the first couple of weeks.
So, wow.
The food, the food quality onOceana is similar.
I find that, you know,definitely well above most of
the cruise lines.
What are, uh, what are some ofthe favorite things you've, uh,
(03:54):
you've been served on onOceania?
I absolutely loved them.
Land shops, uh, breakfast, lunchand dinner.
Once you got to ask us, they'llbring him tea in the middle of
the night.
Uh, the stakes were really good.
Um, each of the, each of therestaurants has something
different.
In of the bending on the shipyou're on, you can have two to
(04:16):
two to four differentrestaurant, five restaurants to
eat at the buffet is for me andhas most everything you really
want.
Are there, are the restaurantson the Oceania that they have a,
are they all included or arethere, are there, um, yeah,
specialty ones.
(04:36):
The specialty restaurants areincluded except for the, the
wine restaurant was basicallythat you have to order in
advance and you have to, youknow, you pay a price for it,
but the rest of them you get topick one each.
And depending on the category,once you get on the ship you can
(04:58):
pick more.
Oh, nice.
Is there a particular, aparticular restaurant you've
experienced on a, on us Janeaship that, uh, that stands out
above the others?
Um, I mean, I like the mall.
I mean each one, you know, hasit's own its own flavor and it's
, and it's really good and thestakeouts is great.
(05:18):
Um, I mean, just, just all threeof them.
Well, four of them were reallygood.
Speaker 3 (05:22):
Huh.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
Um, so when you go out to choose a cruise, what,
uh, how do you go about it and,uh, what kind of, what goes into
you to the decisions that youmake?
Well, for me, I like to findstops.
I haven't been to a, I mean,granted there are cruises where
I've gone back to because Iliked them.
Southern Caribbean.
(05:46):
I find it a lot more diversethan if you go in into regulate
Eastern or Western Caribbean ona regular cruise line because
you can only go to Mexico andJamaica, you know, San Juan so
many times, you know, once youget to the Southern Caribbean,
the islands do change.
Yeah.
I feel the same way.
I really like the, uh, Aruba,the, uh, snorkeling and Aruba is
(06:11):
pretty impressive.
No, most, most of the islandsdown there.
You can do all kinds of funstuff.
What about in Europe?
My favorite cruise at a 54 was athe Christmas market cruise.
(06:31):
We went from a, we did threenights in Budapest and eight
night cruise, one night atNuremberg and then three nights
in Prague.
Wow.
Going back to do that when itwas so nice.
So that, so this is a rivercruise, which, which one?
Oh, that one was a, I'm awaterways[inaudible] and it
(06:53):
wasn't bad.
Second out of it.
How does the[inaudible] compareto Oceania?
Um, it's a different flavor.
Yeah, you're going, it'scomparing apples to oranges.
It's a smallest ship.
Again, it's a more upscaleclientele base, better educated
(07:15):
people, more well traveled.
And the food was absolutelyphenomenal on Alma waterways.
I got along with the chef allweek long.
My wife thought I was arguingwith them.
She has asked me to stop arguingwith him and he goes, we're not
arguing with discussing food.
It's nice at the ends of thecrews.
(07:38):
He came to my cabin and gave mea memory stick, would over a
thousand of his recipes.
Wow.
That's pretty great.
Pretty great relationship.
There's kind of like shack.
No, we had a great time.
It wasn't a bad second on thatcruise.
Wow.
So what I said I was going tosay I met Mimi from the drew
Carey show.
(07:59):
Oh wow.
That's exciting.
Yeah, she was across the hallfrom me.
Some really, some pretty, apretty diverse passengers.
Do you find people from a, arethey, are they mostly U S or are
they spread out among different,uh, different countries of
origin?
The majority of the people werefrom the U S there was some,
(08:21):
there were some Canadians, um, afew people from overseas in
Europe, a few, uh, it was acouple, two or three couples
from Japan.
So you got to get a little bitof everything.
But everybody on the ship didn'tmatter who you sat down with.
Everybody was, was in a greatmood, having a good time.
(08:42):
And we had Santa Claus on ships,so, you know, Hey, I've been
kinda like that.
What a, what about the, uh, theland portion, you know, being a,
being in Prague, being in someof these other ports and the
Christmas markets, uh, didappreciate the most.
Um, I mean, honestly, myfavorite town we visited was
(09:03):
pre-sale was, it was mainlyalong the new river in Germany.
Oh.
And they, when, when we wouldget known if they told us that
they would to, um, markets, itwas the big market that
everybody goes through.
And then there was a small one.
Don't try to find it.
Well, I found that as achallenge.
(09:23):
I wanted to go find the smallerthan we did.
And I literally thought I waswalking back into an old
Frankenstein movie.
I was waiting for people to comeout with pitchforks and torches
looking from Frankenstein.
It was just the buildings onthat old.
Wow.
So it really, yeah, we, we,we've found the small market and
(09:48):
then, uh, we were looking forthe large market and we got
turned around a little bit andstopped the woman with a little
little girl and it was about afoot of snow on the ground.
It was snowing out.
And as the woman that she knewwhere the big market was, you
says, yeah, sure.
And she walk like five blocks.
It brought us to the market.
Wow.
That's pretty nice.
(10:09):
You know, I told her I did notfind the first person that
wasn't happy to have a touristin their town on the whole
cruise.
Oh, that's nice.
Did you, uh, did you stock up on, uh, on gifts for relatives and
uh, and friends for the holidays?
Um, well we, we picked up somestuff, not much, but I tried
(10:30):
bringing back a bunch of, abunch of salamis in the, in
smoke cans with they, they woundup taking it away so don't,
don't get it.
Oh, let me, somebody ate, well,yeah.
Well they didn't take the off,which was good.
Oh, that's good.
Yeah.
You were talking about, we weretalking about earlier about how,
how free with the R with thecaviar on, on Oceania.
(10:55):
Oh, absolutely.
There's one night on everycruise at nights along the, with
in the, in the buffet area theyhave, so they had a fish section
where they had a whole tuna andthey would cut and tuna right
off the tuner split around atthe thing.
(11:15):
The same thing with the salmonand a couple of other fishes and
, and they, they had a threepound tin of black caviar and
grab what you want.
You know, they don't care.
You know, they, they're going togo through when we're together.
And I happen to like caveats.
I grabbed a couple oftablespoons poles wide shutters,
(11:35):
making a pig of myself, but Heywas free.
Why not go for it?
That's what, that's what thecations are about, right?
Oh, absolutely.
The overindulgence that's whyyou got to go on the short skirt
and she could walk off all theFuji.
What is that look like?
A Bordeaux Shania.
(11:56):
There's no entertainment.
You don't go on Oceana for theentertainment.
I mean, it's minimal at best.
Um, they do have on the Riviera,they do have a, a couple of good
comedians and then they have acouple of different, uh, music
groups.
But you know, it's, it's minimumat best, you know, it's nothing
(12:17):
to complain about, but you go onOceana more for the itineraries
and, and the, and the things ofthat nature.
Speaker 4 (12:25):
[inaudible]
Speaker 2 (12:27):
any, uh, any advice for, uh, for people that have
not been on the line or, uh,people in general in terms of
cruising on, on Oceania?
Well, if you're going to bookOceana, you want to book it as
close to when it comes down aspossible and cause the highest
and the lowest cabins are alwaysgoing to sell out first.
(12:50):
And then the stuff that Jimbetween, if it comes within 60
to 90 days, sometimes they offerreduced rates to upgrade, uh,
you know, balconies andconcierges class and 10 houses.
It's less now than it used tobe, but they still send me stuff
all the time.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
Well, it's really great that they take such great
care of you.
Bob, thank you so much for beingon the program.
Uh, again, my guest has been BobDurnin of cruise vacation
outlet.
I'm Bob Levinstein of cruisecompetes cruise podcast.
Thank you for listening and havea great day.
Hello and welcome back to CruiseCompete's Cruise
Podcast where we share tips,ideas, and inspiration to help
make your next cruise afantastic experience.
I'm your host Bob Levinstein.
Today we'll be talking aboutOceania cruises with Mr Bob
Durnan of cruise vacationoutlet.
Oceania is known for its highend country club casual style.
(00:42):
Bob is a top luxury cruise agentand a veteran of 54 crew
sailings.
We'll be back with Bob rightafter this cruise.
compete.com is a simple concept.
We give you the tools to findthe perfect cruise and request
quotes.
Independent travel agents canthen see your requests and they
(01:02):
respond with the best customcruise offers they can all
competing to offer you the bestdeal.
You compare these offers in oneconvenient place along with
consumer ratings and reviews ofthe agencies as only the best
agents survive in thiscompetitive environment.
You'll have some great optionsto choose from.
You then remain anonymous unlessor until you decide to contact
(01:23):
the nation by phone or by emailto ask questions or to book.
Find out why more than a millioncruisers are members of our free
unique service and start savingboth time and a significant
amount of money on your cruisevacation via cruise compete
today.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
Welcome back to the program.
My guest today is Mr.
Bob Dunan], a senior agent atcruise vacation outlet and a
veteran of more than 54 cruises.
Bob, welcome table to speak toyou.
Always great to talk to you myfriend.
So your favorite cruise line isOceania.
Y correct.
(02:19):
Um, I find it's more of what Iprefer in a cruise.
It's more of an adult cruise.
Uh, the, the food on there isexceptional.
The service is exceptional and Ijust, I just than what I like.
What, uh, what kind of, uh, uh,folks are typically typically on
an Oceania cruise are therelittle bit more fluent, better,
(02:44):
more well-traveled, you know, alittle extra cash to spend,
engender, educated.
So you find more interesting,more interesting stories, more
interesting advice, moreinteresting places they'd been,
yeah.
You find very well traveled.
Now they know.
And the way to find out aboutdifferent places around the
(03:04):
world that you may not havethought about going and you can
go to
Speaker 3 (03:09):
[inaudible]
Speaker 2 (03:11):
now you're a bit of a foodie.
So tell me about some of thethings that you like to cook and
how those compare to, uh, towhat you tend to get served on.
Uh, Oceania cruises.
Well, I'm bad when it comes torestaurants.
I mean, I was a broker on wallstreet for 17 years and you
know, when you're, when theycome out with Zagats we won't
(03:32):
use your, went through the first20 to 25 top restaurants within
the first couple of weeks.
So, wow.
The food, the food quality onOceana is similar.
I find that, you know,definitely well above most of
the cruise lines.
What are, uh, what are some ofthe favorite things you've, uh,
(03:54):
you've been served on onOceania?
I absolutely loved them.
Land shops, uh, breakfast, lunchand dinner.
Once you got to ask us, they'llbring him tea in the middle of
the night.
Uh, the stakes were really good.
Um, each of the, each of therestaurants has something
different.
In of the bending on the shipyou're on, you can have two to
(04:16):
two to four differentrestaurant, five restaurants to
eat at the buffet is for me andhas most everything you really
want.
Are there, are the restaurantson the Oceania that they have a,
are they all included or arethere, are there, um, yeah,
specialty ones.
(04:36):
The specialty restaurants areincluded except for the, the
wine restaurant was basicallythat you have to order in
advance and you have to, youknow, you pay a price for it,
but the rest of them you get topick one each.
And depending on the category,once you get on the ship you can
(04:58):
pick more.
Oh, nice.
Is there a particular, aparticular restaurant you've
experienced on a, on us Janeaship that, uh, that stands out
above the others?
Um, I mean, I like the mall.
I mean each one, you know, hasit's own its own flavor and it's
, and it's really good and thestakeouts is great.
(05:18):
Um, I mean, just, just all threeof them.
Well, four of them were reallygood.
Speaker 3 (05:22):
Huh.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
Um, so when you go out to choose a cruise, what,
uh, how do you go about it and,uh, what kind of, what goes into
you to the decisions that youmake?
Well, for me, I like to findstops.
I haven't been to a, I mean,granted there are cruises where
I've gone back to because Iliked them.
Southern Caribbean.
(05:46):
I find it a lot more diversethan if you go in into regulate
Eastern or Western Caribbean ona regular cruise line because
you can only go to Mexico andJamaica, you know, San Juan so
many times, you know, once youget to the Southern Caribbean,
the islands do change.
Yeah.
I feel the same way.
I really like the, uh, Aruba,the, uh, snorkeling and Aruba is
(06:11):
pretty impressive.
No, most, most of the islandsdown there.
You can do all kinds of funstuff.
What about in Europe?
My favorite cruise at a 54 was athe Christmas market cruise.
(06:31):
We went from a, we did threenights in Budapest and eight
night cruise, one night atNuremberg and then three nights
in Prague.
Wow.
Going back to do that when itwas so nice.
So that, so this is a rivercruise, which, which one?
Oh, that one was a, I'm awaterways[inaudible] and it
(06:53):
wasn't bad.
Second out of it.
How does the[inaudible] compareto Oceania?
Um, it's a different flavor.
Yeah, you're going, it'scomparing apples to oranges.
It's a smallest ship.
Again, it's a more upscaleclientele base, better educated
(07:15):
people, more well traveled.
And the food was absolutelyphenomenal on Alma waterways.
I got along with the chef allweek long.
My wife thought I was arguingwith them.
She has asked me to stop arguingwith him and he goes, we're not
arguing with discussing food.
It's nice at the ends of thecrews.
(07:38):
He came to my cabin and gave mea memory stick, would over a
thousand of his recipes.
Wow.
That's pretty great.
Pretty great relationship.
There's kind of like shack.
No, we had a great time.
It wasn't a bad second on thatcruise.
Wow.
So what I said I was going tosay I met Mimi from the drew
Carey show.
(07:59):
Oh wow.
That's exciting.
Yeah, she was across the hallfrom me.
Some really, some pretty, apretty diverse passengers.
Do you find people from a, arethey, are they mostly U S or are
they spread out among different,uh, different countries of
origin?
The majority of the people werefrom the U S there was some,
(08:21):
there were some Canadians, um, afew people from overseas in
Europe, a few, uh, it was acouple, two or three couples
from Japan.
So you got to get a little bitof everything.
But everybody on the ship didn'tmatter who you sat down with.
Everybody was, was in a greatmood, having a good time.
(08:42):
And we had Santa Claus on ships,so, you know, Hey, I've been
kinda like that.
What a, what about the, uh, theland portion, you know, being a,
being in Prague, being in someof these other ports and the
Christmas markets, uh, didappreciate the most.
Um, I mean, honestly, myfavorite town we visited was
(09:03):
pre-sale was, it was mainlyalong the new river in Germany.
Oh.
And they, when, when we wouldget known if they told us that
they would to, um, markets, itwas the big market that
everybody goes through.
And then there was a small one.
Don't try to find it.
Well, I found that as achallenge.
(09:23):
I wanted to go find the smallerthan we did.
And I literally thought I waswalking back into an old
Frankenstein movie.
I was waiting for people to comeout with pitchforks and torches
looking from Frankenstein.
It was just the buildings onthat old.
Wow.
So it really, yeah, we, we,we've found the small market and
(09:48):
then, uh, we were looking forthe large market and we got
turned around a little bit andstopped the woman with a little
little girl and it was about afoot of snow on the ground.
It was snowing out.
And as the woman that she knewwhere the big market was, you
says, yeah, sure.
And she walk like five blocks.
It brought us to the market.
Wow.
That's pretty nice.
(10:09):
You know, I told her I did notfind the first person that
wasn't happy to have a touristin their town on the whole
cruise.
Oh, that's nice.
Did you, uh, did you stock up on, uh, on gifts for relatives and
uh, and friends for the holidays?
Um, well we, we picked up somestuff, not much, but I tried
(10:30):
bringing back a bunch of, abunch of salamis in the, in
smoke cans with they, they woundup taking it away so don't,
don't get it.
Oh, let me, somebody ate, well,yeah.
Well they didn't take the off,which was good.
Oh, that's good.
Yeah.
You were talking about, we weretalking about earlier about how,
how free with the R with thecaviar on, on Oceania.
(10:55):
Oh, absolutely.
There's one night on everycruise at nights along the, with
in the, in the buffet area theyhave, so they had a fish section
where they had a whole tuna andthey would cut and tuna right
off the tuner split around atthe thing.
(11:15):
The same thing with the salmonand a couple of other fishes and
, and they, they had a threepound tin of black caviar and
grab what you want.
You know, they don't care.
You know, they, they're going togo through when we're together.
And I happen to like caveats.
I grabbed a couple oftablespoons poles wide shutters,
(11:35):
making a pig of myself, but Heywas free.
Why not go for it?
That's what, that's what thecations are about, right?
Oh, absolutely.
The overindulgence that's whyyou got to go on the short skirt
and she could walk off all theFuji.
What is that look like?
A Bordeaux Shania.
(11:56):
There's no entertainment.
You don't go on Oceana for theentertainment.
I mean, it's minimal at best.
Um, they do have on the Riviera,they do have a, a couple of good
comedians and then they have acouple of different, uh, music
groups.
But you know, it's, it's minimumat best, you know, it's nothing
(12:17):
to complain about, but you go onOceana more for the itineraries
and, and the, and the things ofthat nature.
Speaker 4 (12:25):
[inaudible]
Speaker 2 (12:27):
any, uh, any advice for, uh, for people that have
not been on the line or, uh,people in general in terms of
cruising on, on Oceania?
Well, if you're going to bookOceana, you want to book it as
close to when it comes down aspossible and cause the highest
and the lowest cabins are alwaysgoing to sell out first.
(12:50):
And then the stuff that Jimbetween, if it comes within 60
to 90 days, sometimes they offerreduced rates to upgrade, uh,
you know, balconies andconcierges class and 10 houses.
It's less now than it used tobe, but they still send me stuff
all the time.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
Well, it's really great that they take such great
care of you.
Bob, thank you so much for beingon the program.
Uh, again, my guest has been BobDurnin of cruise vacation
outlet.
I'm Bob Levinstein of cruisecompetes cruise podcast.
Thank you for listening and havea great day.
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