ak1004

The cruise you referred to is TA. Those are always significantly cheaper. We have no interest in TA cruises. This cruise is still $315 USD. The June 3 cruise we booked on the Vista was booked on the first day as well, as we always do. The cruise was already $350 USD per person for FV, even including the 5% early discount. Same cruise now is $430 USD, I don't believe the new release of 2026 will be cheaper, but I hope I'm wrong.

Absolutely! This is how it works with any product. If people continue booking at the same price without SM, they have no reason to reduce prices. My point was that $300/day for balcony is virtually impossible to find today. In fact, I would consider even $400/day a bargain.

This might be a bit challenging with the current prices. This is a link to all Oceania cruises for 2025 in Europe, 10-14 nights, sorted by price. Out of 56 sailings, only 7 priced below $300/night, and those are inside prices. veranda is typically at least $100/day more. I know there are sales - somehow none of our cruises never goes on sale.. if I booked based on maximum of $300/day, we would be staying home probably..

So less than $400 CAD per day per person? All I can say is you got an excellent deal.. But gratuities are still only 6% of the total fare. Nice to have, but definitely not something that would impact our decisions..

If I paid ~$40k for a cruise, extra $1400 wouldn't make much difference to me. It's all relative to the overall cost and how much you would pay for other lines that do include gratuities.

Agree - but can you find anything with prices anywhere close to O? We looked at 10-12 nights cruises to Europe, much more expensive than O.

We are currently looking at Windstar for 2026. Waiting for O 2026 itineraries to come out to compare. WS has "all inclusive" promotion for 2026 where all drinks, Wifi and gratuities are included, and prices start under $400 USD per night, with everything included.

I don't think we are really risking anything.. we sailed on SS 3 times in the last 2 years and enjoyed it very much. SB is pretty similar. Small ships, excellent food and service, unlimited black caviar.. what's not to like? We booked when we saw excellent itinerary at reasonable price. I don't think you can go wrong with any of those lines.

I don't disagree. If you look at loyalty perks just as an added bonus ("nice to have"), that's fine. But some people are too focused on achieving certain levels of status and just ignore other options. For us, O is the best option at this point in terms of the overall package, but it doesn't mean we don't check other options. Going on our first SB cruise next week, will report back how does it compare to O.

I will be interested to see your findings. My first priority is the itinerary and the price, but the overall ship experience matters too. O became too expensive, but other lines also increased significantly. SS is now out of reach completely. SB used to have some itineraries priced close to O - not anymore. Azamara can be an alternative, but I'm not sure they are cheaper, and their ships are much older compared to our preferred O ships (Riviera, Marina and Vista). So what's left? Windstar?

But now the question is: if someone books a cruise for 2025 or 2026 on Sep.30, they get SM but no gratuities. If they book the same cruise on Oct.1, they get gratuities but no SM for the same price? I don't see prices going down on Oct.1 to reflect less inclusions..

Those changes (whatever they are) are exactly the reason why I pay zero attention to loyalty programs. I mean, people make an effort to get to silver, are so excited to get PPG and $250 OBC.. oops, now everyone gets it. Loyalty means nothing to us. We sail based on itinerary, price and the overall experience. I could never understand the attractiveness of loyalty programs. You pay $500+/day for a cruise and you care about $18/day gratuities?

This post is probably the best summary of the whole topic. At the end of the day, history is not important. oLife, Simply More, Simply Less - doesn't matter how you call it and what was it a year ago or 5 years ago. The only thing that matters is NOW. What the price is now, what does it include and how does it compare to other lines. That's it. They can remove SM and increase the prices by $200/day. If the new price is still competitive compared to other comparable lines, people will continue booking. If not, O will start losing customers. I'm sure they know how to do the math. Our upcoming cruise in November is sold out. Our cruise next June half of the categories sold out. To O management, this is the only thing that matters.

Take a look: We enjoyed our SS cruises very much, but to me the price difference is not worth it. The service might be slightly better on SS, but not a huge difference.

We sailed on SS 3 times, had similar cases. I'm not sure it was handled much better on SS which is considered a luxury line.

Maybe. But they also risk losing customers. Windstar and Silversea currently have some great promotions for 2026. I won't wait for O to release itineraries if I can book a good cruise with another company. We are currently fully booked for 2024 and 2025, so looking for 2026. We booked two O sailings for June and Oct 2025 when they just got released last October. Now we would pay at least 20% more, and some categories already waitlisted.

The problem with waiting too long is that Oceania is not the only show in town. Many lines already have 2026 itineraries. If I see a good itinerary at good price with Windstar (for example), I will book. Booking early usually gives the best price and best perks, so I will not wait for Oceania and hope that maybe they will have a better itinerary and price. I suspect that there are many cruisers like us who are not loyal to any specific line.

Price is obviously only one of the factors. To me, if the itinerary is good and the price reasonable, I book. $50-100/day difference won't make it or break it. WiFi is important, but having variety of dining options is important too. One of the factors to consider is good space to passenger ratio. O newer ships have much better ratios than WS - do you feel it while on the ship, or it's more a theoretical number?

Reminds me our river cruise on Uniworld that we did last year.. a tiny 150 sqft cabin with a small window, only one dining venue and one small bar. But it was one of the best cruises we ever had. But this cruise had no sea days. Most of the time in ports. I cannot imagine spending a full sea day on one of those tiny ships, and WS small ships look similar to river ships.

To me the proper comparison would be OV since WS is mostly no verandas (verandas are typically MUCH more expensive), and then comparing OV on O ships to OV on the bigger WS ships, and R ships on the smaller WS ships since they are similar sizes. Many European sailings on WS are under $400 USD per night in OV. O is closer to $500.

Completely agree. And I would probably not sail in the Caribbean on either of them. We will be trying the MSC Yacht. But speaking about cancelled ports, I would probably still prefer to be on a ship like Vista on unexpected sea day than on a 5 ton small MS ship.

We are looking to try Windstar, so this comparison is very helpful. The problem is I would prefer their 3 larger ships (star class, 312 guests) and not the smaller ships with 150 guests, but smaller ships have better itineraries.. Also WS provides better value for us since we don't drink and prefer private tours. O became a bit expensive, lets see 2026 prices (does anyone know when rest of 2026 comes out?)

We did 4 O cruises so far and are scheduled 3 more in 2024-2025. So will be bronze anyway on our November 2024 cruise. While those perks are nice, the itinerary is more important. If Riviera had one of Japan itineraries, this could be a factor. But since Azamara and O sail on the same class ships, the ship is less of the factor, and loyalty level even less. While O is our favorite line, we are not loyalists. We are driven mostly by itinerary and price.

I would definitely prefer to be on the Riviera, but we are fully booked for 2025, and it looks like in 2026 Riviera doesn't have those itineraries anymore. btw, this might be not the right place to ask, but I just found out that Princess has some very interesting cruisetours, for example - https://www.princess.com/cruise-search/details/?voyageCode=M519&resType=T&tourCode=T5J03D It's a combination of land and sea - 5 days in Tokyo, Kyoto and Yokohama followed by 8-10 days cruise. I'm aware of course that ship experience won't be the same as O, but any feedback on the itinerary?

Wow, thank you so much everyone, very helpful!