cynalan

thanks for the comments. We are embarking in Copenhagen and disembarking in Stockholm. Looks like local taxis and/or transit will get the job done.

Our sailing includes airport transfers, however, we have a deviation in flights as we are arriving 2 days pre-cruise and leaving 2 days post-cruise. Does anyone know or have experience as to whether Oceania will still provide transfers given that we are not on their regular flight schedule?

On 8/2/2021 at 9:39 AM, joetop2467 said:

I am vaccinated but will not wear a wristband to indicate such. They bother me greatly and I won’t stay at a resort if I must wear one. 

Why not? What is so difficult about wearing a wrist band? Years ago they were de rigeur for many charities.

My wife and I live in Burlington, Ontario... about 40 km west of Toronto. The Canadian response to the pandemic has been mostly one of compliance. Our provincial and municipal governments have declared that masks must be worn indoors and most are doing so without incident. Of course there will always be a few alt right deniers who complain that there rights are being infringed upon but fortunately, not nearly the proportion as we have been seeing in the US. Our infection and death numbers were decreasing considerably through the beginning of September, but now with kids going back to school, we have seen a small bump in the number of cases. 

Personally, we have been taking the pandemic very seriously. We pretty much kept to ourselves since the beginning venturing out only to the grocery store and pharmacy. Other than a few contractors for some home renovations, no one has been inside of our house since February. In June, we started entertaining one couple in a socially distanced manner on our backyard deck. We feel quite safe and have been streaming a lot of British murder mysteries and Scandinoir shows. In August, we felt safe enough to visit restaurant patios for dinner but kept our masks on constantly except when eating. My oh my how times have changed. 

In 2021, we are booked for a week in Jamaica in April, Oceania Baltic Sea cruise in July and lift and shifted our Mekong river cruise and trip to Australia, Viet Nam, Cambodia and Thailand to November. I am not overly optimistic about the first two going forward but have my fingers crossed that there will be a vaccine or at least instant screening to allow us to do our Asia trip. 

On 7/9/2020 at 9:55 AM, nigelc said:

 

I am sure that they want my money to ease their cash flow problems. 

I am an avid cruiser and also own a home based travel agency. I can assure you that your assumption is wrong concerning cash flow. Any funds paid prior to a trip go into a trust. Travel agents are not paid their commission until after your cruise has been completed. 

On 1/28/2020 at 1:50 PM, capitalbarry said:

Entertainment was the worst we endured from MSC, TOTALLY AWFUL..

Really? Having more than 50 cruises under my belt I can say without reservation the shows in the Broadway theatre were by far the best i have ever seen on a cruise. The lounge bands (excluding Kene), not so much. 

We just completed our first MSC cruise. What we liked... Best shows we have ever seen on a cruise ship (and we have taken nearly 50), beautiful ship (Meraviglia), excellent service, good shore ex options, international passengers. What needs improvement... Food in MDR is hit and miss (all meat way overcooked, boring menus and presentation), buffet options for lunch and dinner are terrible and food is really nit good (avoid other than breakfast which was excellent, desserts were like those you would find in a Chinese restaurant), hated the tiered beverage packages (Easy Drink Package pretty much limited to bar rail drinks), fancy cocktails were excellent but you have to pay full price, not incremental, lounge acts very similar (mostly light jazz and Latin),  lots of nickel and diming (like Carnival and NCL), specialty dining packages have limited menu (need to upgrade for interesting menu items... Expensive and mediocre, tough to find a lounge chair on sea days. Bottom line... For its price MSC is an OK choice UNLESS food selection and quality is very important to you. If all the cruises we've done, only the Holland America Westerdam had worse food. 

On 1/16/2020 at 6:22 AM, xcell said:

Would a TA be able to help you with your boarding pass or excursions (that you would see what is available on the US site)?

Lol... I am a TA. 

Thanks for all of your comments. Everything everyone has said makes a lot of sense. My comment was concerning how far in advance the stop was cancelled, particularly how fluid weather patterns are. At home in Toronto they are always forecasting Snowmageddon which almost never arrives. A veteran of more than 50 cruises on nearly every major cruise line i have never had a stop at a private island cancelled before. It was very disappointing. Costa Maya IMHO is nothing more than a shopping stop, particularly if one has already seen the Mayan ruins. Oh well, at least I got a great massage at the Mayan Healing Rituals shop. I enjoy the Meraviglia, particularly the theatre shows... Best I have ever seen on any of our cruises. 

i am currently sailing on the MSC Meraviglia. This evening, around 6:00, we received notification from the Cruise Director that Ocean Cay (a day and a half away) was being cancelled due to bad weather and is being replaced by a stop at Costa Maya. Frankly, I find this hard to believe. The weather on our cruise has been perfect... the seas have been as smooth as glass and there has barely been a cloud in the sky for the whole cruise. I recognize that weather can change so I will report back in a couple of days to see if bad weather actually does materialize. My wife and I are very disappointed as we were really looking forward to the stop. 

15 hours ago, houseofduck said:

How long is the Viaggio show on the Meraviglia?  Trying to decide if a 10pm show would be too late for our family!

My wife and I saw it last night. It was 40 minutes long. Excellent show. Strongly recommend it. 

Canadians are not allowed to book excursions through the US site. We are on the Meraviglia January 26, 2020 cruise. There are maybe 1 or 2 completely useless excursions posted for our whole cruise. Never in my life have I seen such a poorly executed website. Most of the time, I cannot even access my booking details. We leave in 9 days and I cannot print my boarding pass nor baggage tags. Definitely note impressed. i can only hope that the ship offers a better experience.

The Canadian site has to be the worst cruise site I have ever seen. Completely useless.

1 hour ago, Shippy said:

ALTHOUGH THIS DOESN'T SEEM TO MAKE SENSE....

  I loved the YC cabin we were in last month.  We have never booked through directly with the cruiseline, so while onboard, I went to my internet TAs site and held the same cabin for next September.

That offer came with free gratuities and $625. OBC.

I later went to see the booking agent onboard because I had a question. She said to let her handle the booking and she would give me an additional $200. OBC AND I would be able to keep my agent.

 I was really skeptical but let her do it. She used the booking number I had held the cabin in and did some things in the computer.

I had to sign a paper allowing her to do this.

The booking number changed but everything stayed the same but showing an additional $200. OBC from MSC.

When I got home I called the internet agency and they said it was all there and they still had the booking.

Made no sense to me ....but I sure would do that again !

 

 

Actually, makes a lot of sense. We often book our next cruise onboard. We get an immediate OBC for the cruise we are on and a credit for the next one. The booking stays with our travel agent who then services our account. Win / Win!!!

6 hours ago, ready2cruzagain said:

 

After 40 cruises, I find that I know a lot more than most TA's.  I hate booking through a TA because I do not like trying to get a hold of the agent, waiting for them to call back, waiting for them to take care of a problem, etc when all of this can be done directly with the cruise line if I book through the cruise line.   There is nothing worse than getting a TA and having to tell them how to do their job.  Been there and done that. 

Everyone has different experiences. With your experience posted in the above quote, I probably would not use a TA either. Mine is fantastic. She is knowledgeable, has provided great advice, if we do not get through to her immediately a call is returned within minutes, always has additional perks for us, etc.  We also have done nearly 40 cruises and travel at least 12 weeks a year... nearly 90% of which she arranges. We throw out an idea, she works on it and gets back to us with itinerary suggestions. Could never do this on my own. In Ontario, Canada, TAs must pass a provincial exam and be licensed. I know in the USA that is not the case everywhere. Don't know the professional requirements for a TA where you live, but with that kind of service (or lack thereof), a TA here would not last very long and I can understand why you feel the way you do.

We always book with a travel agent. Whatever benefits that may be obtained by booking directly are also available through a travel agent. Plus, our agent takes care of all of the paperwork, books our flights, prepares a detailed itinerary and more. Finally, our agent can generally find us additional discounts or perks that we cannot get on our own, e.g. OBC. She always has a bottle of wine waiting in our stateroom when we arrive with her compliments. Once, we were stranded in Hong Kong due to a British Airways flight attendant strike. We were assigned another flight 4 days later which did not work for us. Our agent got us out on the same day we were supposed to leave. Frankly, I fail to understand why anyone doesn't use an agetn.

Interesting, we have 2 MSC cruises coming up. 

1. For the Caribbean cruise on the Meraviglia the upgrade from Easy drink to Premium is $189 USD per person for the week. 

2. For our Mediterranean cruise on the Seaview, it is only $98 CAD per person per week. 

Huge difference!!!

2 hours ago, jelayne said:

According to the info tge OP posted a few hours ago the cruise was not cancelled it was “shortened” from 8 night to 4.  What happens when a cruise is shortened?

Changing a cruise from 8 days to 4 days is breaking the contract that the cruise line had with their client as it is a fundamental change to the expected deliverable through no fault of the client. The client has the right to a full refund if they are unhappy with the change. If your travel agent is not getting a satisfactory answer with the Celebrity rep they should escalate to their regional development manager for assistance. The OP said "big box travel agent". If that means somewhere like Costco... good luck, all bets are off. I am not sure where the OP is located but in Ontario, Canada there are very precise rules that cover a situation such as this.

I am a travel agent and can definitely tell you that if Celebrity cancelled your cruise, you are entitled to a full refund of your deposit. If you have not received it or Celebrity is balking, sorry... but time to get a new travel agent. He/she is doing his/her job.

On 10/19/2019 at 12:15 PM, Cruise Junky said:

Keep an eye on prices and don’t lock in. 

Even if you deposit a cruise, you are not locked in until you put down your final payment 90 days before embarkation. For example, we originally booked an Oceanview for an upcoming New Zealand cruise on the Solstice. I guess it was not selling that well as we were able to secure a Concierge Class Balcony for only $300 more than our Oceanview. The original difference when we booked was in the $900 range pp.

On 9/29/2019 at 7:19 PM, NMTraveller said:

Thanks for pointing this out.  I thought that we always had 90 days before the cruise to cancel without penalty.

Not for an NRD booking, unfortunately.

On 8/30/2019 at 10:41 PM, Jimbo59 said:

 

I’m considering a Celebrity cruise Buenos Aires to Santiago (or reverse) this winter. Anyone who has done it: What did you like? What did you dislike? Recommendations?

We just completed an around the horn cruise from BA to Lima on the Oceania Sirena. Strongly recommend flying to BA a few days early and taking a side trip to the Iguazu Falls. Absolutely amazing. Stay at the Melia hotel inside the park... walking distance to the falls. We visited the Falkland Islands for penguin viewing... amazing!!  Unbelievably our sail around the cape was in calm waters... almost never happens. Ushuaia was beautiful. Enjoyed visiting Tierra del Fuega national park. Viewing the Chilean fjords and glaciers was special. Do it... you will have a great time!!!

My wife and I recently visited Machu Picchu, Cusco and the Sacred Valley. In preparation for this trip, my GP gave us a prescription for Dimoxx. This is a diuretic that helps reduce the symptoms of altitude sickness. We arrived in Cusco, much higher than MP, and immediately after deplaning my world started spinning a bit. No question the air was thin. Pausing for a few deep breaths I regained my bearings. All through the trip I was chewing Coca leaves, drinking coca tea and sipping Gatorade or Powerade. My wife and I both had symptoms occasionally, e.g. shortness of breath, mild dizziness and lack of stamina. Whenever we felt a bit "off", we simply took a break and after a few minutes, all was good again. The simple rule... use common sense. However, we did see a few people in our hotel and at the airport who were ill and taken by ambulance to hospital. So, altitude sickness is a risk, but you will not know how it affects you until you are there. Having said that, I would not have missed Machu Picchu for the world. One of the world's truly amazing sites to behold. 

On 1/18/2019 at 12:02 PM, jo-b said:

 

Price comparison

 

Oceania include air, unlimited wifi per cabin, one night at each speciality restaurant (at least)  and a choice of benefits either OBC/tours or drinks.  As the drinks package offered is only wine with meals I included the OBC. So to even the offering up I have added in tips and the ultimate drinks package  ( which is better than the Azamara included drinks) to get parity .

 

For Azamara we chose to not use their air as we wanted business class and could buy it ourselves for half the price of their offering, so I added in a cheap economy airfare, the cost of an internet package and the cost of the speciality restaurants.

 

Service

 

Overall we found little difference. In the MDR the service was similar, likewise in the bars &  from the cabin stewards.

 

Where we did find a difference was in the speciality restaurants. On Oceania there is a sense of theatre, the service is more attentive than in the MDR. On Azamara there seemed to be the same number of servers per head as in the MDR but they had to do more, filleting fish at the table side, more people having different wines which seemed not to be stored nearby etc., which meant that service was actually not as good as elsewhere.

 

The much vaunted (from the Azamara fan club) officer presence seemed less obvious than on our previous trips when,for example,  there were always a few officers taking their coffee break in the coffee shop. When you did meet them they were always friendly but we have found the same on Oceania.

 

Entertainment

 

There was a CD, Ernest Marchain, & deputy Geoffrey plus 2 guest lecturers, a bridge instructor and an art instructor.

 

Also there were 4 Opera Singers & their pianist supplied via Magic City Opera company. They were scheduled to do 3 shows, one of  Broadway songs, one Opera hits and a 45 minute Carmen in English. In addition they were also the Ents team, they did all the trivia bar the Progressive, napkin folding, Spanish lessons, car racing on the running track etc etc as well as two extra shows with the CD. They had been on for a few months and were due to leave the ship mid January.

 

A couple of Aussie comedians came on also for a couple of shows.

 

Although  we normally don’t bother with the shows the singers catered to our taste and they were super. They were also very personable and outgoing so excellent at the quizzes and other activities.

 

I’m not sure if the daily programme was normal or beefed up having the singers doing so many things, but for trivia lovers it was excellent there being 4/5 trivia events each day and they were all well attended.

 

Food

 

Quality in the MDR was on a par with Oceania in the main, there may have been more choices at dinner time but nothing much to choose. Presentation was good. The buffet is self service and I prefer the Oceania way where they serve you.

  

Bread was OK but uninspired and the pastries, Danish, croissants etc, were poor.

 

The speciality restaurants weren’t particularly special and given that you paid extra were a disappointment. The food was a similar quality to the MDR and on two occasions the Chef’s special was almost identical to a dish served the day before in the dining room. There were no extra touches like the oil trolley in Toscana, and it just didn’t feel as different as the Oceania specialities. Service as I mentioned did not seem to be as good as the MDR particularly given that we ate early when they were relatively quiet.

 

Drinks

 

We had read on CC about changes to the included drinks policy so were aware of what to expect but we did find the whole process byzantine. Wines included were  2 white 2 red a rose and a sparkling. Red & White different every day from what seemed to be a range of about six each. But sometimes if you wanted say a Sauvignon that was yesterday’s wine you could get it, sometimes not. It felt a little bit conspiratorial as if you were asking for something special. Why not have a choice of every included wine every day?

 

Then the cocktails. A one page list at the back of the bar menu of included spirits and cocktails. Just a list of cocktail names, no idea what the ingredients were so it made ordering difficult, and if you knew the ingredients of one that wasn’t on the list and it could be made from the included spirits (eg a Martini!) you could order it!

 

Again every time we ordered a pre dinner drink it felt like we were either cheapskates (possibly true!) or were asking for some under the counter favour. Would it be so difficult to just put an asterisk next to cocktails in the main menu where they were listed with all the ingredients to show which were included so you had some idea of what you were ordering?

 

The ship

 

Obviously exactly the same as Oceania R class but with some redecoration to a lighter colour palette which we preferred. The bedding wasn’t as nice as Oceania. Cabin bathrooms had been lightened and brightened but are small and still have shower curtains.  Cleanliness was excellent. Poolside blankets and towels freely available. Generally much of a muchness with Oceania.

 

Head Office

 

One evening each cruise there is an Azamazing Evening bookable free as a shore excursion. This became available to book online for a symphony orchestra concert in Hobart, just up our street, so we booked and got a confirmation. Later it was removed from the excursions and an evening in Adelaide with a singer replaced it. Again we found out through CC, the poster had phoned Azamara and been told that  anyone who had booked would be contacted. Again we heard nothing.

 

 

My wife and I are definitely not brand loyal. Of more than 35 cruises, other than Caribbean "fun and sun" cruises where we want to be entertained, our key driver in selecting a ship is itinerary first, ship second. To that end, we recently had the opportunity to take our first Azamara cruise. We sailed on the first commercial voyage of the new Azamara Pursuit from Southampton to Barcelona in September. Our last cruise on Oceania was in the Far East several years ago on the Nautica from Bangkok to Beijing, including S. Korea and Japan. We will be cruising on the O Sirena in February for a S. America circumnavigation . I thought that I could offer a few comments from my perspective and experience. 

Ships - We've not experienced the larger O ships, only the smaller R series. Perhaps it is an unfair comparison as the Pursuit is just out of dry dock, however, she is stunning. We loved the muted earth tones of the public rooms. Furnishings were both constructed of high quality fabrics and quite comfortable. The linens and pillows in our stateroom as well as the quality of the bed made for a wonderful night's sleep. Granted these were brand new.

Food - Both ships provide an excellent MDR experience. I thought that the specialty restaurants on Az were adequate, but nothing special. I think O wins this one.  However, I must give a big thumbs up to the Az Chef's Table dinner. At $100 pp it was worth every penny We were treated to an amazing 5 course dinner with exceptional wine pairings. One of the senior officers of the ship hosted the dinner and we were feted by the Head Chef and Chief Sommelier. The evening was magical. Our Scottish host even broke out an exceptional Single Malt from his personal stash to share with us. (it was not on ship's liquor menu)

Drinks - I hate, repeat hate the Az drink policy. They have 3 tiers of drinks. The basic package includes drinks but is restricted in options. The next tier adds a few more options, the highest tier includes just about everything except high end single malts. Amaretto is only available in the high end package. Seriously!  I think their policy should be changed. We purchased the middle package and one night with new friends, tried to order an amaretto on the rocks. The response... "Sorry sir, your package does not allow that."  Very embarassing. I commented in the mid cruise questionnaire, spoke to a few ship's officers and provide the same comments in the final cruise review. Change your policy. At Az's price point, this feels like cheap nickel and diming. It is not becoming of the cruise line. I have no problem with the O policy of wine and beer at lunch at dinner. An upgrade to a full package is only $20 per day. Reasonable in my mind. 

Special Events -  We had 2 experiences like no other. Azamara has hit a home run with their Azamazing evening and White Nights celebrations.

Azamazing - This is a shore excursion that is provided free to all passengers. On our cruise, more than 550 of 702 passengers availed themselves of the opportunity. We were taken to the Chocolate Box theatre in Bilbao for a wonderful evening of Basque music including a fantastic folk dance troupe. We were greeted at the concert hall with a glass of wine. Research after the show revealed the band to be one of the most highly rated bands in Spain. They were exceptional.  Back at the pier, the ship's orchestra was playing at the gangway as we walked up the red carpet to the greeting of senior officers having been served a glass of champagne. It truly was Azamazing!!

The white night deck party was the best that I have experienced on any ship. The deck was beautifully decorated and lit. Tables had been placed on the deck in groups of 4 - 8 seats. Senior ship staff served dinner buffet style. Not your average buffet. We were served Filet and Lobster Tails by the First Officer. All of the food was not typical buffet fare but was exceptionally prepared The band played nonstop for  2 hours. Definitely a great night.

We are very much looking forward to sailing on the Sirena in February to compare our experience. 

On 11/4/2018 at 11:30 AM, Cruise Junky said:

Azamara has drinks and tips included but not specialty dining which Oceania does. 

Generally true. We just sailed on the new Azamara Pursuit. Although drinks are included, there are significant restrictions in what they allow one to drink. For example, Bailey's is considered a premium liqueur and is charged extra at full price. The basic drink package is limited to ordinary spirits and a very restricted list of liqueurs.