Flatbush Flyer

Holiday sales usually last for a week.

Perhaps you mean the “current” Memorial Day Sale (which is only several days long). It’s the Ultimate O Life and Extraordinary Savings Sales that are supposed to last longer.

Check your Oceania invoice: if the gratuities coverage says OCAPP next to your TA’s (or his/her consortium’s) name, those $ are pass through incentive funds from O via your TA.

You’ll find that many O regulars jumped ship from wannabes HAL, Celebrity and Viking.

Other cruise lines do demos. On O, you cook!

A few clarifications: you get an allotment of pre-cruise specialty reservations. Additional ones are no cost and space available. If you’re flexible and willing to share, you can eat many times in the specialties. But don’t misunderstand “specialty” on O. Unlike other cruise lines where you go there for better food, all dining venues on O are excellent with the best ingredients and prep. The only difference with the Specialties is a focused menu and accompanying ambiance. There is no “faster” internet. Paying a premium over the included wifi only removes the streaming block.

Perfect example of my post above. The first thing to do is review the O website link to “promotions” If you’re sort of lucky, the “O Club special” should be addressed in terms of its restrictions. If not, the somewhat most flexible/combinable deal is the book onboard price drop match guarantee (though it does require availability in your cabin class and you lose the book onboard discount if it’s a rebook vs a price adjustment. The last line there is a key item. One O person you (or your TA) talk to may say “rebook” while another may say “price adjust” and a third (incl. your TA) may say “haven’t got a clue.” Bottom line for me: You or your TA should always get several “interpretations” of uncertainties about big discounts/price differences/combinable offers in writing (email is fine) if there’s interpretation disagreements and save the “best” one (for your benefit) that comes directly from an O employee. That’s powerful ammo for you or your TA to get some financial consideration - even if it’s just more SBC (to get you to say OK).

If it’s not the Knicks or Celtics against the Warriors or Lakers, why bother 😉

Reread my related posts. What can be confusing is the special pricing - sales, combination discounts, etc. And it’s not the policies themselves. Rather, it’s the interpretation of those policies by different O employees who come into contact with your booking. One person says NO. But, their supervisor or a different department “up the food chain” says YES. That’s what drives me crazy. But, a little perseverance gets to the right spot with the right answer.

In the US, there are still “blue books” (though now multi-colored) with the new style luggage tags in the back pocket. We just got ours for a cruise that embarks in about 1.5 months. Beyond that, you also get the traditional “final docs” (cruise vacation summary) email though it now comes immediately after you complete the online checkin (w/i 21 days of embark) and receive the email with your boarding passes. So, 3 items: Blue book with luggage tags Boarding passes email Cruise vacation summary email Final note: The blue book used to have two brochures: the preliminary cruise summary with T&Cs, policies, etc. and the available Shore Excursions descriptions. O has eliminated the Shore Excursions brochure and asks you to rely on the emailed Shore Excursions PDF instead (comes with your O invoice - though it is updated over the months prior to embark and can be obtained via a call to O).

While I understand (and somewhat appreciate) your point, the issue of TA “service” is multi-layered. There are those of us who, for the most part, DIY. We book onboard or via a trusted long serving O rep (no waiting if you have their direct contact info). Once the O parameters are set, we transfer that cruise to our preferred TA. We manage our own air, ground transport, pre/post cruise land stays, excursion purchases (both O and private) and keep an eye on O sales. In short, zero TA “handholding” required. Collectively, we are the poster children for “low maintenance” clients and most TAs with whom I have dealt are glad to see us coming back again and again to book 2-3 long O cruises per year. Moreover, they appreciate our knowledge of O policies and idiosyncrasies. The usual efforts for these TAs consist primarily of a handful of brief phone calls/emails for each booking (e.g., the initial booking transfer and sale et al. price adjustments plus the extremely RARE situation where the heft of a high volume preferred O partner TA needs to fix a FUBAR). Sharing commissions is a very common practice in the TA industry. Always has been. Always will be. And zero “handholding” for regular repeat customers makes for happy TAs. All that said, let’s not forget that there is also a group of passengers to whom money doesn’t matter or who would love to get a significant rebate but are too lazy or confused to seek out (or renegotiate) a better TA situation. To each his own.

Perhaps most importantly, remember that you (and I) are less than a drop in the bucket of O’s daily bookings. Though Covid certainly took a toll on the entire cruise industry, O is quickly bouncing back with ships starting to once again fill to capacity (and one of two new ships already on the high seas). As someone newer to Oceania, you’re just not understanding that your nomenclature concerns are irrelevant to the vast majority of O regulars whose enjoyment of the unique O (and O Life) experience, particularly when the true “bottomline” value is seen in perspective, dwarfs any hubbub about advertising practices. Give it a rest. Pick one of the four available booking scenarios (again, clearly presented and not rocket science), add the occasional price break from a holiday or special sale and/or book onboard, master the art/science of using O Life and YWYW to your benefit; find (and use) an O preferred partner TA who shares commissions. OR pick another cruise line (which will have its own “gimmicks”) and often provide to you a lesser quality experience than you’ll find on Oceania.

Don’t hold your breath. Thr issue is not so much the complexity of the pricing and allowable discounts as it is the vast array of interpretations across the span of O staff that come into contact with your cruise costs.

With the caveat that perks are not the only factor in picking a TA for O (O “preferred partner” status and mastery of O’s idiosyncrasies is priceless): When it comes to add-on TA perks, you want a share of the TA commission (at an average of approx. 5-10% of the commissionable fare. Besides that, you want coverage of gratuities if paid by the TA using O’s incentive OCAPP pass through $ for select cruises. In most cases, pursue that even if your O Club status gives you gratuities. In that situation, if the TA covers grats from other than their own pocket (e.g., with OCAPP $), O Club will give your cabin $250 “in lieu” of its normal coverage. You don’t want the TA paying for grats out of pocket. If they do, your share of the commissionable fare commission would be reduced. Because commissionable fares can vary significantly based, in part, on itinerary, there’s no way to pinpoint what 5-10% of the commissionable fare might be when you’re bottomline fare on cruise x is $20k.. Another factor is that O pays commissions on a sliding scale. So, using top producing agencies can make a significant difference to the $ back in your pocket. But, as a rough guesstimate, figure that a $25-30k O cruise should be able to net you $2k +\- as a rebate or refundable SBC. BTW: Ask around on your O cruises regarding who other O regulars are using for TAs. Eventually, you’ll be hearing a lot about the same handful of US Travel Agencies more than all others.

Anyone with the most rudimentary v understanding of basic math can quickly get to the cost of the four ways to book: cruise only w/air cruise only w/o air o life w/air o life w/o air And all the numbers you need are on the first and second webpage of each specific cruise. Not rocket science.

The cruise terminal is on the west side in the 50s. We spent a few years in upstate New York (just west of Albany) about a decade ago and regularly took Amtrak down for the day. Way better than driving. It’s about 2 miles drive from Penn Station. The challenge will be the luggage and getting the right size storage capacity. Besides a taxi or Uber, you could look at private transfers (e.g., Execucar).

Actually, sometimes their art for sale can be seen in the long hall either side of the entry to Jacques on the O ships.

Nothing new about that. The artists-in-residence often have their work on display and “for sale.”

This is an excellent point. Whoever makes these announcements should delay the actual items 5-10 seconds after signaling a non-emergency PA announcement.

Of course, if you pick the excursions option for O Life which, using you $300/person fare difference for that would translate to 3 tours per person where you could book tours with up to $199 retail cost. You come out even when compared to buying those tours retail (pay $300 and get $600).

Maybe it covers the cost if you’re willing to accept the “swill” of airline reservation itineraries. Want non-stops or intercontinental hub connections with 3-4 hour layovers and/or biz class on your preferred carrier’s “hardware?” You’ll pay the same fare differential that equates to the DIY price (if you know what you’re doing).

So, gotta ask: what did you think accounts for the extra cost of the O Life fare, when compared to “cruise only?”🤔

For most (if not all) disembark ports, you need to plan on being off the ship by 9:00AM.

I hope you understand that the amount of the air credit can vary significantly based on the start/end ports. It can be as little as about $250 to more like $1500.

Call O every month or so and ask for the most current shore excursions PDF. Often more accurate than the web listing - particularly if you’re doing a multi-segment cruise.