babysteps

Yup I have a spreadsheet but I put everything in a spreadsheet (not just travel plans). Maybe O just attracts us spreadsheet people lol? I also include weather averages in the beginning and then, 6 or so weeks out, long range forescasts. Perhaps us over-planners are over-represented on cc forums

We had an email that came before the boarding document phase. The email included a list of countries that required visas with a brief description of what was required on each. Our TA forwarded a very similar email even before we got the one direct to us.

Oceania does send out specific information per cruise if visas are required for US passport holders about which visas are required and whether you need to get them ahead of time. Our TA forwarded us the email (we also got one directly but that came weeks later iirc). Sometimes details change - we decided to let O do our Cambodian and Vietnamese visas and Feb 2023 arrived at the ship with forms for Cambodia as instructed. Forms not needed now it is all online - a recent weeks update at the time. We thought we'd need to do visa on arrival for Thailand but no visa was required for US and many but not all other passports (perhaps a months-ago or post-lockdown change).

I may be a risk-averse person, but to me it seems like the worst case could be that Oceania enforces their visa requirement even if you met the Chinese government's exemption. Does anyone have an example of O allowing such an exemption? If yes I would be happy to be wrong!

This is true. 2 things to add - if you want your GDR pre order in Terrace just ask. Once I was told no, all other times the answer was yes (total of maybe 5 asks over 11 cruises). Second, you get to know the chef They can often (but not always) make a GF version of an item whose buffet version isn't GF. Random aside, if you like soy sauce on your sushi bring your own GF version - it usually isn't available. One last thought, since COVID (3 cruises/4 segments so far) they now have a designated special diet person as part of dining staff. This does help and reflects an increased awareness/focus on O's part although aside from recognition it's hard to put my finger on any specific change that the diner sees. ETA they do now call you ahead of time to arrange a substitute if you select something that won't work. Used to be they told you only after you were seated in the dining room. I am celiac and now 15 yrs gluten free

Thanks @DCGuy64for sharing your experience! Your description of lack of salt/pepper/set-ups at Terrace reminds me of some noro containment protocols we have experienced. Or a staff shortage. Bummer you had to deal with it, not the standard that O aims for. @Charles4515I hear you - and yet good friends of ours who are extremely well travelled are taking a Windstar cruise in Japan this fall. Plenty of people do stuff I wouldn't do and yet have a great time - I guess I'll learn someday lol.

Goodness that updated page is terrible, I can see why you don't believe us @MEFIowa I did find an official Oceania FAQ that helps! "As long as the club number is attached to your future bookings, you will accumulate cruise credits based on the length of the voyage." And on the misleading page, "Club members qualify for Oceania Club level status based on the number of cruise credits earned."

@basor types faster than I do! And explains it well, Ok I'll take a turn lol. Let's see if I can make it more confused! There are two different times that cruise credits get analyzed. First when earning the credit. This is based on the length of the reservation. For example a 7 day cruise earns one cruise credit. A 24 day cruise earns 1 cruise credit. Two separate reservations B2B for a 10 and a 14 day cruise get 1 cruise credit each (you can't always book this way, but this is one reason you might try). The same ship and same 24 days someone else with a single reservation will earn 1 (not 2) cruise credits. This is where you need 55 days to get 5 cruise credits for a single reservation. You "earn" the cruise credit(s) as soon as you set foot on the ship for that reservation. I assume but don't know for certain that in the B2B example you would get 1 credit on day 1 and the second credit on day 15 (the first day of the 14 day segment) Second time to figure cruise credits is when calculating loyalty status. The number of cruise credits earned through the current reservation is what gets counted. 2 different bronze status members could have anywhere from 29 days sailed (day one of 5th cruise where the first four were each 7 days) to 120 days sailed (day 24 of 5th cruise where the first four were also each 24 days). This is where 55 days sailed doesn't tell us someone's loyalty status or cruise credit count. Could be anything from 3 credits (not-yet-bronze) to 8 (already bronze and closing in on silver - for example someone on the next-to-last day of their 8th cruise all of which have been 7 days).

That is a tempting idea! If you have time you could even plan on a few days in Singapore at the end of your cruise. Then that wouldn't be a "backup" it would be plan A. Less pivoting required if anything changes.

Exactly. Bangkok had a building (not that big) where we dropped luggage and checked medical basics, all other formalities were done in the lounge (theatre). At some points the tide meant some tricky temporary elevated walk ways were in use. Lima check in is also mostly on board. Ther adventurous travel for the adventure, right?

You may not want to put any more trust in O, but would it make sense to let them handle (only) the return air arrangements? That way if there are changes you don't have to mess with them. Understand completely if that is not something you wish to do!

This could be a whole 'nother hoped-for sticky: port terminal schedule rigor. Here's our experience so far Trieste Nov 2021 cared a little but only made you wait until there was space (not until your assigned time) Barcelona Aug 2022 did not care (or by 2pm didn't care any longer) Bangkok Feb 2023 did not care

Only 1/2 an O air package since COVID so take this with a grain or 7 of salt. Which port makes a difference would be my guess. For example our one transatlantic O air was Lisbon to NY (pre-covid). TAP is the main nonstop provider and that's who our nonstop tickets were on. Many non-hub European port cities have just a few non stops to a given US airport, and/or just one or 2 US destinations with nonstops. Given our out-of-date TA experience, looking at schedules to the given European city may help you guess best airports and most likely carriers for nonstops. If a nonstop is important I suggest you do the DIY math. Then if the math isn't compelling for DIY, you could make a deviation request for a nonstop (for a city pair you know offers nonstops). If you don't like what you are quoted you can always go DIY after all. Even then you may be at seasonal schedule mercies. We lost a DIY nonstop to Italy for a Nov 2021 TA when American shortened their Milan season. We did have 3 month's notice. It worked out and was also a bit of a scramble to adjust.

We got an Extraordinary Savings brochure in the mail yesterday, lighter paper than usual. It has a few non-sale voyages listed plus a whole bunch of the sale ones. Can't promise it's every sale voyage, not quite obsessed enough to double check (if the weather was bad I might already have done so lol). At least 2 sailings we were eying are on sale, woo-hoo! Fares for three categories on each sailing are listed, and it's not the same 3 for each itinerary. I assume that reflects on part which categories are on sale and those vary a bit. Also the discounts aren't 100% uniform. Look honey how much money I saved us!

Last Nautica ended March 1 2023 Next Vista scheduled May 2025 Highly likely we'll be on a cruise before Vista, we just haven't booked it yet 😄

Hello fellow planning-focused people! Loving the detail and advice in this thread. A few things to chime in from our adventures: ITAmatrix is another great tool, same data as google flights but more powerful/customizable search engine. You can't book in Matrix, there is an add-on (or separate app?) that will usually create a bookable link but I haven't used it yet, for many/most itineraries you can just go to the airline and build the itinerary yourself. Whatever search engine you are using there will be some missing info. If I understand this right -@FlyerTalker correct me please! - the ITA and Google data comes from the GDS system. Some airlines don't participate (eg Southwest) and some hold back certain parts of their available seats (just recently American). Seat maps show assigned seats. There may be way more ticketed passengers than the already-assigned seat map shows for airlines that charge a fee for seat selection. Expert Flyer (a paid subscription service) will show remaining tickets to be sold (by fare bucket), and you can also set alerts. Knowing this level of detail may not matter in most cases, but can be super helpful in some situations. So far I haven't subscribed to Expert Flyer. When booking direct with hotels, we join the frequent-stay program (if any) before reserving. They usually comes with more options and/or better pricing choices. We have used AirBnBs - yes it isn't perfect so we check property and host reviews in detail before comitting. I find Trip Advisor helpful to locate hotels and give an idea on pricing, but haven't used them to book hotels. When we get adventurous, we check about AC, elevators, private baths etc.- your flexibility may vary, check with your travel partners before making assumptions lol! We like AC and private bath, elevator is optional in most cases for us. Book indirect with caution. If anything goes wrong it seems to be much worse to resolve. There are exceptions, just make informed decisions! And indirect may not be what you think - we booked a rental car in Malta last year direct with the brand and got all the insurances. Picking up the car they wanted to charge us for required insurance! It was an independently owned location, not a franchise (who knew). We had enough paperwork showing the reservation that they were able to resolve it, but it took some firm requests and an extra 20+ minutes to fix. Stay flexible! Things are starting to settle, but change is inevitable. One itinerary in 2020 to reach a cruise we had a great nonstop using miles to Milan on AA, then the airline shortened their seasonal Milan service so we got canceled. We pivoted to paid-to-Trieste on LH (because the cruise start had also changed from Venice to Trieste) -- and then days later a major schedule change made that unattractive, got a full refund. Final answer was AA miles via LHR on a connecting BA flight to Venice. We made it fine and that was a lot of pivoting and planning!! My motto for travel planning is that a good plan B makes plan A behave much better! Happy planning 😊

To try to avoid being that person I take a screenshot of the boarding pass. That way even if I lose connection I still have what I need to board.

The "credits applied only on final summary" is the standard procedure in our experience. O usually issues printed ledgers the night before disembarcation, and you can check on the TV. If a credit is missing, contact or go to reception immediately to resolve. Most of the time the credits post fine, every once in a while we need to get them updated and corrected. I imagine the process to correct is much more difficult once you leave the ship - not a criticism of you, just a description of one more source of frustration on your situation. Suggest you get your TA involved if they aren't already.

We have only used O air twice. Once we got tired of waiting for ticketing and our TA reached out to O who then did get the ticket issued. The other time our tickets were issued as expected, no intervention needed.

Twice in 2019 we disembarked in NYC. Once we called an Uber (short wait, the taxi line was very long) to go to Newark/EWR. The other time we (well, my spouse - I hung out on the sidewalk with our baggage) walked to the nearby car rental location to pick up a car - I don't think this would make sense to drive to a local airport, we were doing a 4 hour drive. A noon departure could work but it's not a lot of space for anything going wrong. A later departure would lower the impact of any delays. Everyone has a different tolerance for risk and a different level of tolerance for longer waits at the airport.

Last I knew you could drop 'standard' air out before final payment with no penalty. Our TA usually includes O air at the beginning, and then we drop it if we don't use it. In the past the air credit # did indeed change over time for the same cruise, although more recently it seems to be more 'set'. Suggest you ask your TA before making any changes so you know what the changes will be!

We have had a guarantee cabin at least twice, once iirc we got a cabin number about 2 weeks out, the other time it was available just before boarding. I don't recall the exact specifics, but however the logistics worked it wasn't an issue for dropping our bags. Both times we sailed in the category guaranteed - no upgrade for us, we didn't really expect one based on reports here. We were happy both times 😊

One cruise we had 3 (or more?) partial bottles of wine toward the end of the cruise. We summoned the bottles and 6 or so glasses from room service and had our own de-cluttering happy hour

The least hassle imo is to arrange ahead of time for a car service. Either on your own (online) or through your hotel or TA. Less expensive but perhaps barely more hassle, in most cities you could also use a ride share app (could be a local brand eg in Bangkok or Singapore at the moment Grab works better than Uber) or in some cities you can easily get a taxi. You will need local cell service and data for the apps to work for you. The hotels that offer a shuttle may or may not be a good idea - once we stayed at a very dated Days Inn at Miami airport with included airport and cruise port shuttles. Old and crowded buses anyone? Although a very low price... O doesn't have a list that I know of and their hotel option is usually way more than you would pay directly to the same hotel reserving on your own.

Taste and smell are powerful senses that most of us don't understand that well. Plus our assumptions and what we see (visuals) have a big impact on our perceptions of taste and smell. Two examples - ask someone who's done dark-glass tastings how hard it is to tell the difference between red and white wines - it is quite difficult for most people, which seems hard to believe and yet is true.Or, watch at the next 'country fair' how many people get the match-the-spice activity 100% correct - hint, not many.