osandomir

With the introduction of two new ships are there any plans of the new itineraries and ports of call for Oceania cruises.

There’re several well regarded private tour operators in Egypt and Israel as well. You can research and contact them to arrange an overland tour for you. There are some recommendations on CC Ports of Call boards.

I agree - this dilemma comes down to the personal preferences. We were fine in the standard cabin on many Oceania cruises, but I can’t imagine us flying coach to Europe anymore let alone more far away destinations. It’s the best when the budget allows for both the comfortable flight and the preferred cabin at the same time.

Also, 15 years ago the Internet wasn’t the same it is now. So the learning process was much slower and we all made much more travel mistakes than we do now after getting all that wonderful help from the social media😀

If you sailed with Oceania long enough you would noticed that choosing your embarkation time is a COVID related thing. I agree - Oceania should have dropped it by now and return to the previous system when they assigned you the embarkation time accordingly your cabin category. But as far as I remember, even then there were people who for different reasons came earlier and watched others to board first. Apparently, it’s not that easy to follow the rules.

I find it to be very reasonable little perk given the amount of money the top suites pay for their cruises. One doesn’t get to drive the same Mercedes while paying for the Chevy. And NO, we’re not booking the top suites but never feel like “plebes” on the ship.

Maybe it’s related to the OP extensive postings here on the CC. Great marketing move for Oceania if this is the case😁

The wine we got on our last cruise on the Sirena to Caribbean wasn’t memorable - the reason I don’t remember the name😁, but it wasn’t undrinkable either, at least for our taste. So we didn’t feel bad that we have to give away something that we can’t tolerate ourselves.

While I agree with all the comments above there’s one thing that needs to be taken in the consideration. It’s often that the ship is earlier in the port of disembarkation. Oceania suppose to provide an airport transfer whenever the air booked with them, so they may arrange this transfer before the disembarkation posted time. My guess that’s not the fist time Oceania booked people on that flight out of FCO to Chicago. Anyway, I would think that you need to contact O air department to clear the situation and about the possibility to change you air arrangements.

United when booking award tickets.

I’d say that with today’s prices booking Premium economy air with O makes even more sense. We mostly book our own air, but for our upcoming cruise one way PE air ticket Bilbao to Los Angeles that O booked for us would cost us close to $4,000 if we booked it ourselves. It also may depends on your itinerary, but with one way flights you’ll save booking with O most of the time.

I can’t answer your question about safety, but I assume it’s safe. I’ve been to London and I’d say that your itinerary looks like an agenda for a week to me. You said that you hadn’t been to London before, may I suggest that you do some research and then decide what is more important for you and how much time you’d need to visit all the sites. Enjoy your cruise.

You can ask concierge on board for additional reservations. On the 17 days cruise you may have a chance to get in especially if you are open to sharing.

It’s specific to United. They require the tickets to be paid with their co-branded United credit card to get free checked luggage. With American, to check your bag for free when flying domestic you just need to have their credit card, but the tickets can be paid with any different one.

Normally you can get seasickness medication at the front desk when you need it. We also bring some with us just in case. I always was prone to seasickness, but not that much on Oceania ships later. These cruise ships designed to withstand the waves pretty good. When you are going to Antarctica though, it’s better to be prepared for some shaking most of the time.

Duplicate post.

All this is very predictable, especially when you are traveling to the particular regions. If you have certain limitations just don’t go rather than complain later. Some companies even have you sign a waiver that you are participating at your own risk.

We also like it that way. So much easier when we’re ready to go to bed 😀

Please, give Oceania some credit. I hope they have qualified analysts on their team to figure out what affects the bookings. All of us together won’t make them reverse their decision. Now, we also have some port times reduced for our upcoming cruise. I’m neither the deepest pocket here, no I’d no matter what defend Oceania, but look around - we all have much more serious problems than port time reduction. Well… when it comes to canceling ports altogether while already on board the ship for an undisclosed, not well explained reason other than the weather condition, that’s the different story. I will be also disappointed as much as anybody else here, but still that won’t prevent us from booking the future cruises.

Not too many companies are transparent nowadays. Better to learn how to read between the lines. If you have no interest to sail on Oceania why even bother to complain posting here?

I don’t believe that complaining will do anything good at this point. When people don’t agree they can cancel if outside of the cancellation penalties or stop booking their future cruises with the line. Only if Oceania see fewer bookings as the result of their “strategy” then they can decide to offer longer port time or do something else differently. We also cruise for the itineraries first and we are not happy with their decision. As with a lot of others products we have a choice where to buy. We’d like to continue cruising, and for now we don’t see any other cruise line that offer us better combination of value, quality and longer port stays.

Even it is so, they are finding the way to run their business in the way it’s make a financial sense for them. The other way is to raise the cruise fair even more. I guess not many will like that either. We also received the letter with the port time reduction for our Mediterranean cruise in April. I believe it’s four hours over 22 days. We don’t like it either but we’ll leave with it as long as it’s allowed us to afford our future cruises. Also, I appreciate they are doing that in advance now and not when we’re already on the ship. No guarantee though…

The booking schedule opens more than two years in advance now. So it’s probably way before they can finalize the dry dock arrangements for many different reasons. Some changes are unavoidable. When you booked you knew the ship hadn’t been refurbished yet. To avoid disappointment, it would be better to wait until later or book on the ship that satisfy your requirements.

For the rest of us who don’t sail in an Owners suite, I would say these two lines are more similar than different when you compare Azamara to the R- ships. We prefer Oceania for the food and personal service, so we mostly cruise with them, and we like R-ships as much as their bigger ships. We go with itineraries and because of that we sailed twice with Azamara. There were some differences but we also enjoyed these two cruises with them, and we’ll not hesitate to sail on Azamara again if they continue to maintain the same or higher level under the new ownership.

Welcome to our favourite cruise line. Hopefully you all will enjoy cruising with Oceania.