ColoradoCruiser88

Yes, the waitlists do clear. We are also booked on Marina for Northern Europe/Norway cruises starting in late June, and booked shorexes because of the mandatory Shorex credits. We booked 5/6 months out and were waitlisted on 3/6 Shorex for the first cruise. Two months later, one cleared. Oceania sent our TA the notice and he forwarded the email to us. We called O to authorize the payment and confirm the credit card. Two weeks after this, we got another notification that another waitlisted Shorex on this cruise was cleared. At this point, we looked for a “cheap” still available Shorex at a port that we were originally planning to DIY and tried to book it so that we would have the minimum 6 Shorex to get 25% off (all the shorexes). The online cart didn’t work, so we called O to book to ensure we got the 25% discount applied to all 6 shorexes. We still have 1 pending Shorex waitlisted for this cruise. We have a back up privately booked excursion for this port so will decide what to do if/when this last waitlisted Shorex gets cleared.

Do they still do the port pictures when you disembark at each port?

WOW! Thank you so much for this information! I really appreciate you taking the time to answer all my questions, @mahdnc! A lot to think about.

Thanks, @Jim_Iain! PS. As with @mahdnc, I greatly enjoy reading your beautiful live reports and learn so much!💐

Thanks again, @mahdnc! I think I understand more fully now the nuances.

@zgscl 👍 thank you!

@juanrod Thanks for the tip! Happy to hear you were able to get it resolved.

Since the group cruise pricing usually is refundable fare and cheaper, plus AI.

Thank you, @mahdnc. Do you know if you can assign the Book Later cruise to a TA of your choice if you book later? If your TA has a “Group Cruise” pricing on your selected cruise, do you lose the benefits of booking onboard? TIA.

Thank you! @mahdnc PS. Thank you for doing your “Live from” threads also. They are beautiful to read and I also learn so much each time.💐

But if you try to shift the booking to a different cruise, you will be charged a fee of $100/pax, correct? Just like there is a fee of $100 for shifting a cruise if you had booked it “normally” not onboard or with a FCC.

It’s a little scary there are so many minute details to watch out for! I’m less inclined to buy a FC certificate now. But will perhaps hold off final judgement on booking a new cruise while onboard until I maybe talk to them (I have never thought of doing that before on prior cruises). That is assuming I find a suitable cruise ahead of time.

🤦🏻‍♀️ Thanks for asking that! That’s why I originally posted the question above - I was all confused.

@mahdnc & @dunedinmaiden Thanks for the further confirmation. @mahdnc screenprint prompted me to have a second look at the last 2 pages of my guest ticket booklet (printed 3 days ago). It doesn’t say “non refundable “ deposit, just “reduced”.😁 As @jelayne wrote - conditions can change so rapidly. It seems Not even Celebrity themselves can keep up.

@dogsdogs, @Jim_Iain, @DingoMom, @BettyCruiser, @kokopelli-az, @jelayne Thanks so much for your responses! I think my personal take-away is that if you already have a particular cruise in mind, there is some benefit to booking onboard, but the Book Later deal is no longer as beneficial. And conditions change so frequently I had better read the fine print of the LATEST flyer I get once onboard!

@jelayneand @BettyCruiser Thank you .

Hello, We will be cruising Celebrity next month for the first time since 2019, and I wanted to understand exactly how the “booking new cruise while onboard” works. I think that I understand that if you don’t have a specific cruise in mind, you can buy a certificate for the reduced deposit of $100 pax. Your perk is NR OBC up to $500 depending on cabin class and cruise length. You have up to 6 months to pick the specific cruise you want? If you don’t use the certificate within 1 year, they will refund your $100 deposit. After you book a cruise, there is no cancelation fee (like normal) if you cancel before 90 days of sailing. You have a one time option to move your selected cruise to a different sailing without losing your OBC. I think if you book a specific cruise while onboard, you have 30 days to transfer to a TA of your choice if you ask for the booking to be in your own name rather than the TA you had used for your current cruise. What options do you have re TA assignment if you take the future cruise certificate instead? Can you assign the TA once you book the cruise, say 5 months down the road? My current TA may be about to retire and is certainly far less responsive than he used to be (even from 3 months ago) so I would like to keep my options open rather than automatically give it to him. Please let me know if my above assumptions are correct. TIA for your help.

Write to Carlos Ortega. I understand about the port changes, but do not understand why we have to be held hostage during 9 days transiting the Suez Canal and Red Sea when it is in effect a war zone. Last week the U.S. navy ship USS Carney shot down 4 cruise missiles and 14 drones fired by Yemen aiming for Israel. Carlos Ortega’s rhetoric in a letter responding to a poster on another post stated “the safety and security of our guests, crew and the communities we visit remains paramount”. The canceled ports in Israel, Jordan and Egypt are deemed not safe and therefore canceled. How is it that the Suez Canal and Red Sea (which has seen military fire just last week) deemed safe? You can have armed guards onboard to protect against pirate attacks. What protection do you have against military fire shooting down hostile missiles overhead? The FCC should be offered to all who request it.

That’s what we thought, but our TA said O told him no this morning. Hence our fury. It is mind-boggling at Oceania’s lack of transparency in sending out mass emails informing its clients that itineraries changed but not bothering to say that you could cancel and get FCC. it was only thru reading here and on roll calls that I even knew to do do this.

We have just been informed by our TA that Oceania has rescinded its offers for FCC for this cruise when he called them this morning. As of yesterday, they were still giving him the details for cancelation and FCC - FCC = cruise price less port taxes port taxes to be refunded to credit card Replacement cruise to be booked by 11/30/23 for travel by 12/30/2025. FCC can only be used on 1 cruise, so if your new cruise costs less than FCC, you lose the balance. The O agent was flip-flopping on that last point and finally confirmed to our travel agent yesterday afternoon that it was 1 cruise, use it or lose it. We are 4 couples traveling together and 3 couples immediately confirmed to cancel and take the FCC. Some of us also canceled our flights as flight cancellation deadlines were coming up. I am beyond speechless at Oceania. I will be canceling my other booked O cruises.

I stand corrected. I just heard back from our TA regarding a confirmation on a different issue for this cruise cancelation and part of Oceania’s response addressed this very issue. They state that any “non-refundable ancillary items which are under penalty (ie hotel stays, land packages, custom air fees/differentials, visas, travel insurance, etc) will not be refunded or included in the value of the FCC.” WOW! Now that I know this, I will never book pre or post cruise excursions, hotels or land tours with them.

We just canceled our 11/29/23 Holy Land cruise and the FCC was the price of the cruise less port taxes. The port taxes will be a refund to our credit card used to book the cruise. We had 3 shore excursions booked with O (the rest were private) and we had to call Oceania and ask them to cancel the Shorex. One excursion was in a canceled port and although they “automatically” canceled it (no longer showed in our booking), the refund to our credit card did not show up until we called them and asked. The other 2 excursions were in Istanbul and Ephesus (not canceled-ports) and so we called to cancel them this morning. They said the refund will show up in 3-5 days - different than the <24 hours on the first cancelation. I guess they must be a little swamped right now. We used a TA to book the cruise, but we called O directly to cancel the shorex. Could it be that you need to call Oceania separately and specifically ask to cancel the pre-cruise excursion and they will refund (to whatever method you originally booked with?) I have no experience with pre or post cruise excursions. On a side note, we had also booked a pre-cruise trip to Capadocia, but private. They will be refunding our deposit (balance was to be in cash or credit 1st day of tour) less €20 per person cancelation fee for the internal flights- Istanbul to Capadocia). Many thanks to OP @GeorgiaPeach51 for starting this thread. Otherwise we wouldn’t have known to contact our TA to ask for a FCC.

Aah….both scenarios makes sense! So sorry you lost your card - I scrapbook, which is why I wouldn’t be happy if I couldn’t keep mine!

Agree there is lots to see and do. On one of the turnaround days, was debating the early morning bridge climb for 3 of us - not sure if I would be able to do it myself so was going to wait for them in my cabin onboard ship. Then all of us go off exploring. This isn’t going to work, but no worries. Lots of alternatives!

@Orator and @Northern Aurora, Thank you both for the additional info! I like to keep all my seapasses, so good to know I can get them back. Makes it a little tricky that we all Must get off the ship (by 10 am) and then cannot get off again once we come back onto the ship. I will need to strategize a bit more, but I have some time. This is all good info - thanks again, everyone!