Sebbiesgrammy

Maybe the only R ship, but on Marina, restrooms are in th outer area of Horizons. I assume Riviera is the same.

If memory serves, on Nautica, the nearest ones were down one deck but it was a year ago right after the refit. I remember thinking it was strange then.

Why the hate? Using my suggestion, the later cancellation would be refundable in green dollars. And as far as being "enamored" with O's excursions, not many people would book SM and leave $ on the table. The $100 credit for Olife would still be applied to another excursion. You don't get refund and you might have lost a $199 excursion only to get $100 toward a replacement. Geez, I thought you knew this stuff...

One possible solution to avoid this problem is to book all your SM credits for excursions in the early days of the cruise and use your cash to pay for the later ones. If an excursion that was paid for with SM gets canceled, the credit gets applied immediately to a cash paid for tour and your on board account is credited as a refundable credit. We're on a 51 day cruise now and this method has worked for us after 2 excursion cancellations by O. I agree with the posters who recommend using your SM shore credits very early in your planning process to avoid sold out tours. Example: there are about 1200 of us in Marina now in Brazil. The very popular Boi Bomba show in Paratins is coming up in a day or so and has been sold out for ages. The show only gave O 500 tickets so you can imagine there are a lot of disappointed folks who are calling SM a bait and switch, but that is not the case here.

Always, always call OceanIa to book excursions directly with them. We are in a 51 day on Marina now and some people are telling us they booked on line, paid for what SM didn't cover but found no reservations when they boarded the ship. Some disappointed people who now think SM is a Simply Misleading if there are no available excursions to book. Lots of excursions sold out weeks or months before they even booked and they feel they should have been told or they should be able to use their shore excursion credit as a shipboard credit. We booked and paid the difference 6 months ago or more and we were able to get pretty much what we wanted.

You can book as many excursions as you want to spend your credit although, frankly, you'd be lucky to get one, maybe two really inexpensive ones. If you go over, the excess is payable in order to keep the reserved tour. HAL lets you book excursion as soon as they are available but you must pay with credit or green dollars to reserve them.

We are on Marina now in an A1 concierge level cabin. No butler service available. That is Penthouse and above. 3 bags of wash and fold laundry on a 21 day itinerary but they no longer offer 3 free garment pressings at this level. Must also clarify that a concierge cabin in the R ships is significantly smaller than on the purpose built Marina or Riviera.

And you can only book in advance if you take a cabana for the full duration of the cruise. A day pass can be purchased at any bar in board but good luck getting one for the days you want.

I know its common practice to one up on this board sometimes so I hope I don't come off that way , but we are USA based travelers taking only our second O cruise in two weeks. We are only blue status. We booked in March last before SM, then switched to SM and paid only $100 extra pp and gained so many percs and saved $. One big one is partial PPG of $918 pp. Ours is a 51 day trip so we will have to pu the difference, but still a good deal imo. Our TA is amazing but I doubt she worked any magic and the PPG is not from her agency.

Agree completely. Isn't the Sea View pool adults only anymore? Agree that the Lido pool can be noisy even when there aren't many kids since that is where poolside activities are normally held but the smaller Sea View on most, if not all ship classes in the HAL fleet, is usually quieter.

And, once again, a case where a good TA with expertise in cruising, might have saved you a lot of grief and not cost you a dime. Folks, if we don't support these valuable businesses they will disappear and we will be the less well served for it.

Not true when we spent 32 days on Nautica this year. We ordered 2 of the same drink, one for each of us, every afternoon. We boarded in Cape Town with 8 bottles of wine. We don't drink a whole lot, but after 32 days our total drinks bill was about $950, which included the corkage fee for our wine. A good deal for light drinkers I'd say. In February next, we have Simply More for a 51 day trip. We won't bring wine but will still rely on happy hour deal for our afternoon cocktail most days. I expect our drinks bill will still be less than 1k.

Also, a space for Morimoto specialty restaurant included in the Tamarind/ Nami Sushi space. Already booked our table for opening night😃

In February this year we had a wonderful 3 days with Ligia who we found through Tours by Locals. Can't say enough great things about our time with her.

Only thing I can imagine could be an issue is walkers or scooters that get left in hallways but that could happen anywhere. Were booked in 10053, starboard. We noticed the inside rooms near us, but cabin doors open to port side.

We were on that sailing also. I was served bloody chicken and after sending it back the Captain came to apologize but that was it. I was too skeeved (a NY term) to eat there again. Chef Vijay was pleasant but cold food served with a smile still doesn't do it for me. Some folks clearly liked the food but we didn't. Understand that food is mostly subjective. We'll be giving O another chance (because if itinerary, not food) in February on Marina for 51 days, so we hope it will be better than Nautica.

Why?? Because Oceania has made it a point of pride to have more unique and less traveled ports on their itineraries. Many of these newer cruise stops have no passenger docks and, if you're lucky, a commercial dock that is adapted for cruise passengers. Some are scary places but at least the ship is docked. Unique stops in exotic locales -- Thus, more tendering. Thus, more risk. Thus, unhappy passengers. To manage our expectations we can choose boring itinerary, carbon reduction efforts or overcrowded ports. Pick two. Life is an adventure and aren't we lucky that we get to visit some of these places, drop a few bucks and leave and that we don't have to solve the problems we leave behind us.

I think you're making my point for me. Simply put, they don't want you to have such an easy time doing that. Switching, upgrading, perk shopping costs them time and money. Maybe this is a good loyalty test??? Will the avid O lovers fall out of love?? Strict rules haven't hurt Viking if these boards are reflective of the average premium line cruiser.

We can give advice all day long about if, when and how to buy insurance to cover the penalty of canceling and losing a small deposit but no insurance company is going to cover you for "I prefer not to" unless you can get cancel for any reason insurance which, in my experience, is not easy to get and not cheap. To the point -- Jan is kindly warning us that O will join the other luxury lines in expecting us to actually want to take the trip and not just hold a space waiting for a better deal. Let's admit it, we all know people who do that 😉

Travel insurance makes sense once you have made final payment or a very large deposit, but I see no reason why anyone would buy insurance to protect a $150 deposit. Even credit card insurance requires a valid "covered reason" to make payment to insured so likely no refund. I agree, this penalty, which a number if luxury lines require, will keep the number of cabin hogs down.

We spent 32 days on Nautica early this year in concierge level cabin and, yes, the biggest surprise was the tiny bathroom. Otherwise, we were comfortable and, being honest, we are not tiny people. The best thing I brought with me was a 12 large pocket hanging shoe bag and 2 magnetic hooks. The wall above the toilet is about the only magnetic place in the cabin except for a few small spaces around mirror and the back of the main door. That shoe bag was a lifesaver and held all my cosmetics, lotions, potions, book, sunglasses, you name it. Won't ever cruise without it although it is getting difficult to find magnetic wall space on refurbished or new ships. HTH

Our sentiments exactly!! We agree with your assessment. #1, itinerary, #2 price, #3 food, #4 ship. We sail both lines and like different things about each. We didn't find the O food consistently better to warrant their claim. Both lines have misses sometimes.

On our February cruise Mumbai was a "turn around" stop where the BTB joined. To say it was a goat rodeo is an understatement. Be aware that O excursion staff will be very anxious at this stop if conditions are the same. Mumbai was our first Indian stop. O pursers will have taken your passport early on in the cruise, possibly at embarkation, depending on the port. Because Mumbai was our first Indian stop, everyone, including crew and officers, had to disembark and go through immigration, customs and security. The lines were unbelievable. Pursers will give you your passport and e visa before you enter the bldg and then your e visa will be stamped again at each Indian port but, even if we were not taking an excursion, everyone had to exit in Mumbai or we couldn't exit anywhere else in India. The shore ex folks shut down their set up in the Main stage precisely at the meeting time for the last sponsored excursion so, if you were even 5 minutes late, you were SOL. Yet, nothing moved for at least 90 minutes. My advice is if you can find a private excursion that you like, take that as they will wait for you to get through n the mess but you won't have to wait for 1000 other people to get through the morass.

Viking would allow me to rebook same date, but pricing differences made it unattractive to me. The suggestions that date would have to change was made by others.

So here's what I learned after my TA called V to ask for a change to final payment date: We would have to cancel and rebook. Old $50 deposit and $25 deposit offers are same base price for D2 cabin which is still available Air quote for PE is the same for both offers. The big difference is the "discount" on the base fare -- $1000 on the old offer and only $200 on the new. We would loose $100 pp deposit if we changed. My math skills are not the best, but it seems like it would cost about $1800 total to delay payment for 3 1/2 months. We're going to suck it up and keep it. My TA agrees with those that say V doesn't sweat this stuff. Their customers are loyal and they sail full every time so they are not motivated to make exceptions. Thanks for your input and advice