SellaVee

Check out the Roll Call for your cruise. You may find details of private, small group, excursions there.

Ah, but, I'm not that daft. I would already have worked out how I was going to spend that $300. We have gratuities to pay, and the odd cocktail to enjoy. I've never had a problem spending on board credit. YMMV.

The biggest revelation for me was finding out about air credit, back in the days when O charged a deviation fee to fly in a day or two early. It's often a surprise to me how much the "free air" usually costs. On our upcoming cruise we wanted to take the excursions as best use of the O life benefit. Unfortunately, I learned from the roll call, that included shore excursions were mainly full, so we opted for OBC. Then I did the maths! Choosing the drinks package works out at just under $27 per day, as opposed to $39.95 if we bought it, and having just a couple of glasses of wine per day would run to almost $34 when you include gratuities. We like wine with dinner, so I asked my TA to make the change. Something that astonishes me is the price of a post cruise hotel booked through Oceania. They offer a post cruise hotel for £299 pet person, so £598 for us, for a standard room. I've booked a superior room in the same hotel for £159 and change. I know we'll have to organise our own transfers but we can take a taxi or a shuttle bus. That being said, I don’t think paying $300 for $300 onboard credit is a rip off, it's just like paying ahead of time, and we never book that far in advance, post pandemic.

Oh dear, P&O Ventura, following friends' experiences, not a ship I plan to sail in anytime soon. Glad you took a positive, and humourous view of the situation. I love being on deck at the Terrace Café.

We've spent an overnight off the ship on a previous cruise. I think we let O know well in advance. It makes sense that they should know in case of a worse case scenario where everyone has to be evacuated!!

Some years ago we booked a private excursion in Istanbul because I had a leg injury and I didn't want to hold everyone up. One advantage was that with just a guide and the two if us we were allowed to go in ahead of the coach party queue, so spent a lot less time waiting than the O excursion passengers did. We found the guide independently of the ship.

The ESS has worked for me, as post pandemic I was keen to return to cruising and had been looking at a Windstar cruise, and a cruise out of Liverpool with another line. When the sale brochure landed and I saw the reductions we opted to book a 5th cruise with Oceania. I know the product and enjoy the port intensive cruises they provide. I'll be interested to see what, if any changes have been made. We've cruised on the R ships and on Riviera, but this will be our first time on Marina.

I always take the air credit when I book so that I can get on with booking our flights and accommodation. Am I right in thinking that your cruise is next year? I added cruise cover onto our annual multi trip policy, for a very reasonable sum, when I was renewing it, so that I'm covered for the year.

Apologies for the delay in replying. My cruise is soon. I can't see, without a booking number, whether the excursions I’ve chosen are available or not, but since I posted word on the roll call is that most of the O Life excursions are sold out, so I've gone with the on board credit. We usually book our own excursions anyway.

We fly from Manchester, but using O's air means getting to London which means an extra fight for us. So, when I book cruises with O, I ask for the air credit, which is the money you save if you don’t take the O flight. You get a deduction in sterling from the cruise price. This can be more than you think if you have 2 Scandinavian flights. It's obviously less if you're sailing from a UK port as it only covers the "continental" flight. I much prefer direct flights and flying from London always means an extra leg. I don't know what happens if you've already paid for the cruise, but you could try asking your TA, or contacting Oceania. We're flying to Copenhagen on a budget airline (EJ) so there's no business class, and coming home from Tromsø on SAS changing in Oslo. We will have to organise our own transfers. This is our fifth O cruise, and the 4th where I've organised our own air from Manchester, and transfers to and from the ship. Most of the time I've added on hotel stays at either end. I hope this helps.

Thank you both. We can't drop O life, but I've been told by a TA, I can swop the excursions for the onboard credit if they aren't available.

Does anyone know how often the "free" shore excursions sell out? What happens in that case if someone hasn't yet booked any.