Flatbush Flyer

As aforementioned, most first world countries also would not charge for a shipboard Field Rescue. Medical Evacuation (by insurer definition) is not the same thing.

Technically, you are not on Medicare. Rather you have chosen a Medicare approved substitute offered by a private company. From Medicare.gov: Medicare Advantage (also known as Part C) Medicare Advantage is a Medicare-approved plan from a private company that offers an alternative to Original Medicare for your health and drug coverage. These “bundled” plans include Part A, Part B, and usually Part D. In most cases, you’ll need to use doctors who are in the plan’s network. Plans may have lower out-of-pocket costs than Original Medicare. Plans may offer some extra benefits that Original Medicare doesn’t cover — like vision, hearing, and dental services.

Actually, the USCG and equivalent services in most other first world countries do not charge for field rescues and transport to an initial facility capable of rendering emergency treatment and stabilization.

Good idea. Of course, OP might need to formally give HIPAA permission to the consulate to have access to medical records. And local congressman could certainly “grease the wheels.”

In this case, it’s “really a thing” since the reimbursement is for payment made to the Air Force (whether O pays it or the OP pays it). Someone needs to produce the bill from and payment to the service provider - the Air Force.

From your reply: We have in our possession a bill from Portuguese Air Force identifying us as the recipients of the service and ultimately responsible for the bill. So: I’m still unsure what any of this has to do with NCL unless you mean NCL Holding. Even then it appears that your concern is that Oceania has not provided you proof of their being billed nor their paying that bill in a timely fashion. In any case, you are fortunate to have the California Dept. of Insurance available to you. I suggest you talk with them about for guidance. In particular, ask them about this possible strategy: Inform Oceania by certified mail (the CEO if you can’t get a correct contact person (check with Elliott.org regarding who that might be)) that you have been informed in writing (add copy to your certified letter) by the Portuguese Air Force that you are ultimately responsible to pay the bill and (not having received any proof of payment by, or even a bill from Oceania) you are submitting the Portuguese Air Force bill to your travel insurance company within the required claim time limit. Then, your insurer can pay the bill and, if O also did pay the bill without responding to your request for proof, O will need to seek a refund of overpayment from the Portuguese Air Force. That call to the CA Department of Insurance and any contact with Elliott.org needs to happen ASAP. In short you need to make your problem O’s problem and get out of the middle of the mess.

Chris Elliott - world renown syndicated Travel Columnist who also runs a non-profit consumer advocacy group. One of its services is to provide direct contact info for top execs of various companies if they find your situation warrants it.

When people get the run around with anything related to travel, among the the first folks to contact in your research is elliott.org

Sorry to hear about your grief. But your post raises a bunch of questions. Are you saying that the Portuguese Air Force performed a “field rescue” of your partner from the deck of an Oceania ship? And where did the helicopter take your partner? Were YOU sent a bill directly by the Portuguese Air Force for the “field rescue” to the land facility that provided first emergency treatment and/or were you billed by that Air Force for “medical evacuation” from the land site of emergency treatment to a hospital for inpatient treatment/care? If YOU made any payment of that nature, that bill and your payment proof should satisfy the insurance company (along with the various medical documentation you have demonstrating the MD(s) diagnosis and orders for field rescue and/or medical evacuation. However, it sounds like you’re saying that Oceania Cruises or it’s NCLH consortium or a specific Portugese Port Authority or Oceania’s Port Agent may have been billed by the Portugese Air Force and cannot produce possibly the bill and definitely not any proof that the paid it. If this is true, are you then saying that one of those non-Air Force entities has now billed YOU for reimbursement? If that’s the case, any entity(s) claiming that they paid anyone should be able to demonstrate with documentation that A) it/they were billed AND B) it/they paid it/them AND C) it/they have provided you with copies of A and B AND D) it/they are billing you for reimbursement. As for your insurance company, it makes sense that they want proof of necessary treatment incl. emergency transport of any particular type AND proof of billing and payment. AND, likewise so should you. I want to ask if you have talked with your insurer about this - particularly if the none of the entities above can demonstrate that they were billed by and/or paid the Air Force. And, yes, I understand that you may be under the gun with time allowance to make a claim. But, do you even have a basis for a field rescue reimbursement claim if it wasn’t you who paid or you who was billed by the Air Force? So we’re back to many unanswered questions related to your post. And I’ll add one suggestion/question. Have you spoken with your insurer and/or insurance broker regarding what can be done to direct whoever may want payment from you (now or in the future) directly to your insurer? (Just like what would happen with an auto insurance claim). I’m no attorney. But I’m guessing that the insurer’s or your own attorney could inform whoever from the above group that bill and payment proof is required before XX/XX/XXXX date to be considered and decided.

Didn’t miss the 4 days comment. Just trying to broaden OP’s unrealistic horizons. As far as cruises go, 4 days is barely a boat ride.

You couldn’t pay me to vacation in Florida. I’ve been many times over many years and, basically, it’s like an extended trip to a hot/humid WalMart parking lot. Same goes for most cruises in the Caribbean (particularly on some mass market floating amusement park headed to their money grabbing “private islands”). The “exotic island cruising” that so many of us older folks remember still exists. Before you decide on land vs sea, consider premium/luxury lines on ships with <1500 passengers (better still, make that <750), inclusive pricing, great crew and space ratios and excellent food/service/amenities. Add to that truly exotic destinations like Kauai in Hawaii or French Polynesia (or a host of other island locations worldwide) and plan a OW cruise between two locations with brief land stays at either end.

You left out an important piece of info. While the deposit is refundable, does your current TA charge a cancellation fee? That said, honesty is the best policy. Just show your current TA what was offered an see if s/he will match it.

Really depends on the embark port authority policy. Some ports won’t even let you in the terminal until your appointed time. We’ve experienced that twice in SYD.

Amen to that! If you’ve got it in writing, it’s really not YOUR problem. It’s “their” problem and you can tell “them” that, if needed, perhaps the GM can help “them” figure out how to honor your reservation.

We spend a lot of time on O ships (about 100 nights annually). Even before the Pandemic, it was nice to see our normally “retired” demographic shifting in a younger direction (particularly with the short cruises of 7-10 days). And many of those folks with whom I chatted gave as their reasons for choosing O: value laden quality, the food reputation, and the itineraries. IMO, it’s no coincidence that so many short summer European and Alaska O cruises are even seeing more multi-generational families. BTW, for many years, Azamara and O (both with some of the identical former Renaissance ships) were considered competitors - each with their own following. However, Azamara suffered through the Pandemic ending up sold by its parent company to the well known “takeover” outfit- Sycamore Partners (zero experience in the cruise industry). Last I heard, the jury is still out on how Azamara has ended up in the deal. Can’t comment on Seaborne.

NEVER use the web cart to buy O tours. Call O or have your TA do it (though I recommend DIY). The O website for tours has long been glitchy- particularly as regards tour availability and the cart itself (e.g., wrong prices display). Another issue is that what you see regarding tours in the shore ex pdf and on the O web may not be the same. Likewise, what the O phone rep sees may be different than what the other sources have. This is because different departments deal with different tour sources AND there can even be differences in what availability a single segment cruisers sees on the web compared to what a multi-segment cruise sees. They can be vastly different (in part because tour adds/changes that are done for a segment cruise may not be done at the same time for multisegment cruises that include that segment. We recently ran into this problem recently when culinary classes were available for each segment of our upcoming cruise but showed full in our multi-segment booking! Quick call to our long-serving O rep and he got it fixed while we were on the phone. And, since the O phone rep has real time access to the tour bookings, s/he has the useable interface that is as close to the real situation as one can get and can alert other departments when you’ve experienced a disagreement among the sources or have other problems with availability/selection/etc. Another issue is that the O website will not let you book two tours on a single day (e.g., AM & PM) even if there is the acceptable 90 minute buffer between tours). And, of course, if you want to cancel a booked tour, you’ve got to call an O rep anyway. Finally, even if you have a TA, the O rep can sell you all optional purchases and send you a copy of the all-important “pre-purchased shore ex” PDF which has all the computational math that comes in handy if there’s tour cancels/changes/etc once you’re onboard. So, what you’re seeing/not seeing on the O tours web/cart may have nothing to do with reality.

I don’t see why not since, if you booked within the 30 day precruise window, you could always ask the O Club Ambassador to adjust your booking once onboard.

If you book within thirty days prior to embark, O will extend to you the BoB price.

Just to be clear, OCAPP and O Club $ perks are different things. OCAPP $ are “pass through” funds from O to a TA and/or it’s consortium (on select cruise segments) who then provides the credit to passengers - primarily as gratuities coverage on one or more cruise segments. O Club $ perks include gratuities coverage for members who are “silver” and above. When a segment of yours gets OCAPP $ and you are silver O Club or higher, the O Club perk becomes $250/cabin “in lieu” SBC. (Many years ago, the “in lieu” was the amount of the actual gratuities. That’s now gone except for some folks who were grandfathered in due to their O Club status at the time the policy changed. OCAPP vs O Club has one major issue though. If you’re silver/above O Club doing a multisegment cruise and only one segment gets TA OCAPP, you should get OCAPP for that segment and O Club gratuities for the other segment (in addition to O Club “in lieu” $250 for the OCAPP segment). However, an O software glitch that never seems to get fixed is that your O invoice will show the OCAPP $ for its segment and will also show the expected O Club “in lieu” $250 for that segment. BUT, the “in lieu” replaces the O Club gratuities for the second segment. NOT NICE! However, O is aware of the glitch (now years old) and they are supposed to correct it for your shipboard account close to embark day. It’s happened to us on several occasions. But, at the bottom line, we’ve always gotten full gratuities coverage and, except for one occasion where I had to push the $250 O Club “in lieu” for the OCAPP gratuities issue, your onboard account will show things correctly. BTW, I like everything in writing. Why? Even if your initial O booking invoice shows all OCAPP AND O Club perks correctly, the booking software glitch will introduce the error on subsequent invoices (e.g., generated by tour purchases). So, since I always initially book onboard or with a long serving O phone rep and then transfer the cruise to my TA (for their perks), I have the initial O rep add a booking notice that states we will receive full gratuities coverage. I also have our TA get a note from her O rep that all will be fixed before embarkation. A bit of extra effort that you probably don’t need? Perhaps (until you do need it someday). Finally, if you’re a newbie reading this, let me alert you to one very important fact. As you’ll read here on CC, there’s quite a number of O policies and procedures that are interpreted/applied differently by different O personnel (particularly when comparing Miami Office to the Ship. If you (or the right TA) know your O stuff inside out, the FUBARS will get corrected. That said, however, when it comes to O policies/procedures, remember the learned words of Captain Jack Sparrow when he explains that the Pirate Code is more realistically a Set of Guidelines. (Aarrghh!🏴‍☠️)

See my post #26.

Of course, my advice assumes one is on a ship that uses local time. FWIW, I’ve never been on a cruise ship that didn’t use local time. Must be a mass market thing for Caribbean cruises (?).

My understanding is that, right now and for the time being, LaReserve can only be booked onboard.

Odd that you wouldn’t know. Check-in process is on the top of your list of action items (right side of your account management page for the particular cruise).

Out on deck or in Horizons, the locks are worth seeing “up close and personal” through a couple of opening/closing activities. IMO, any more than that is like watching paint dry. Of course, that comment comes after having done the transit several times.

Seriously, with or without a veranda, the truly best view is the Bridge Cam in your cabin.