Oceania Cruises’ new Sonata Class of ships will see the introduction of new dining options, new suite categories and new education classes, the ‘Luxury by Choice’ cruise line’s Chief Luxury Officer, Jason Montague and Chief Commercial Officer, Nathan Hickman, have told LATTE.

Speaking exclusively with LATTE about the future new fleet aboard the freshly christened Oceania Allura last weekend, Hickman said the new 1,390-guest Sonata Class ships will provide the ideal balance between capacity, experiences and service.

“Oceania Cruises’ guests aren’t necessarily new to cruise, usually they are stepping up from a much larger ship, so they want that smaller ship experience which we can deliver, because that gives a better service, and then there’s a much higher space ratio and attention to detail.

“But they don’t want to trade off any of the options that they love.”

“When we talked to our guests to see what they wanted, and what we think that our demographic wants moving forward, we decided we needed a platform that’s large enough to have more dining options, culinary centre, hands-on cooking school, [and] that we had to go a little bit larger, but really the question was can we deliver that luxury experience, that personal experience,” Hickman said.

For perspective, Oceania Vista and Oceania Allura have a capacity of 1,200 guests, and the older Marina and Riviera have 1,250 guests, whereas Oceania’s R Class ships are significantly smaller, at 600 passengers.

“We’re now several years past that, and guests are telling us they love the dining options. They want choice and options, so we want to be able to deliver the favourites, Red Ginger, Jacques, Polo Grill and Toscana, but we want to be able to introduce some new dining concepts.”

The topic was discussed during a Town Hall aboard Allura, where it was confirmed two new eateries would be launched on the Sonata fleet.

Quizzed by LATTE if the new dining experiences may come at a surcharge, Hickman said no.

“It’s part of our all-inclusive philosophy. It’s the ingredients, its the quality of the food on the plate, its the choice. It’s core to who we are, so we want to ensure that’s an embedded value because that’s part of our brand promise.”

Hickman noted that the added dining options on the Sonata Class of ships provided guests on longer sailings of a week or two with a great selection. “You want that ability to scale up or scaled down on your vacation, and we want to make sure we’re providing that.”

Meanwhile, Oceania Cruises’ Link Digital Center has proven “hugely popular, so we want to be able to expand on that.”

Montague added that the classes are at capacity and there’s a necessity to expand the size of the centre on the new ships.

“We need more space for it. There’s too much demand for it.”

Hickman continued: “When we introduced it on Vista, we didn’t realise that we’d struck gold. We thought it’d be something nice to have, and what we’ve found is we’ve created a ‘guest safe space’ where they could ask questions. Maybe they felt a little bit behind the curve on technology, or it’s just moving quickly. They want to stay connected with their kids and their grandkids, so these classes that we started offering, they were full.

“At first they started out with education on how to take a picture on your phone, covering basic stuff, but then its evolved to how to protect your privacy and security, and AI now.”

Hickman said an upcoming development will combine the Link Digital Center with Chef Kelly’s Cooking Classes, with a new ‘Snap & Savour’ classes, which will showcase how to take photos of what guests have cooked.

The pair also discussed how Oceania will configure the design of the Sonata Class fleet, given that it will be 25% larger than Vista and Allura,

“This space doesn’t mean we’re proportionate to the number of guests because we’re going to shift the number of suites as a percentage of the total.

“On Allura, about 73% of our accommodations are in our Veranda Staterooms. They’re great, they’re well appointed and 10% larger than the industry average, but our ships tend to sell from the top down. So we realise there’s this demand for our Penthouses and higher, so not only do we want to have a larger percentage of suites, but we want to introduce a new category of suite, to complement our Penthouse and our Oceania suite.

Hickman said the new Horizon Suite will be the size of two Veranda Staterooms, with a separate living space and bedroom.

“I think they’re going to prove to be really popular,” he said, based on feedback from guests.

Montague praised Hickman for suggesting the concept, telling LATTE “we were knee-deep in looking at the plans for Sonata, and he piped in saying ‘Why don’t we just combine two into one?‘

For Allura, Oceania Cruises has shelved the single stateroom concept that was launched on Vista three years ago.

“We didn’t replicate it here on Allura. We find that there’s so much demand for our standard Veranda Staterooms and Suites, so that’s what we decided to focus on.”