WESTEAST

Certainly sounding like 'Simply Less'🤨

Thank you for posting. Simply More certainly had a very short life - "a lot more info.." is quite the teaser. Hope for those that have O Club level with current included gratuities will receive comparable benefit (perhaps O Club benefits are also changing). With prices not impacted, look forward to how the Ultimate Value tag which now includes the SM statement, "virtually everything you’ve ever wanted is now included'' remains. Must have been significant negative Corporate impact to make such a reversal.

We were on the same cruise and remember the CD announcing the delays with technology which most in the long line-up greeted with much frustration! Wasn't a good experience but overall we loved the itinerary, ship and service so that is what counts.

We always check the credenza like desk behind the Dinner reservations desk where there is usually a stack of them (at least on the Riviera) . Always enjoy the hunt and often crew will see we are looking and give us hints!

Will chime in to say we agree completely with the above points. Re #2, when we arrived back to Japan from South Korea in March, the Japanese authorities boarded the ship and all passengers had to line up to go through fingerprinting, photos and passports which took time (we went through the same process when we left Japan to sail to South Korea) - pack your patience.

An option for sailing from/to Miami: https://www.travelweekly.com/Cruise-Travel/Oceania-Cruises-short-homeport-Tampa

Agree with ask your Cabin Steward. We do every time and they change out the standard Green for our preferred Blue or White promptly and since we don't use the Shampoo, we request they exchange for Body Lotion and again done quickly. They have a non-scented if you wish as well.

Would be interested as well in understanding as we have attempted to cancel excursions (more than once) and despite hitting remove or delete, have not been successful. A call to Oceania and they quickly took care of deleting on our behalf. Also, the only way we have been successful in adding our names to Wait Listed excursions, is to call Oceania. When the Wait Lists cleared, we've been notified by email (direct or via our TA).

Can't comment on Azamara as have never sailed and the itinerary does vary from the Oceania itinerary that you posted. What we can offer is that we sailed mostly the same itinerary though our cruise was 14 days in March/April this year and loved the itinerary. Most ports of call were identical. We were onboard Riviera which we prefer for the choice in restaurants. We've sailed onboard Regatta many times and always enjoyed the ship and service. If you have any questions regarding ports of call, happy to answer. Overall we loved the cruise. One must pack their patience as Japan has tight security protocols upon arrival to/fro their country and you must carry passports at each port of call. Enjoy your cruise and Japan - lovely scenery, culture and people.

There are a few recent threads commenting on seeing an increase in the number of children onboard and other threads inquiring about activities for children. Hence, curious to know what is the cruise fare for a child under 18 e.g. % of adult per person fare?

Enjoying reading your posts thank you. Will add Code Oscar to our O terminology - we've experienced two Code Mikes (medical emergency) and on the same cruise. The first Code Mike required a helicopter rescue which was a first for us to watch. Recall one Code Mike was a crew member and the other a guest. This year, we had a guest on another O Excursion bus, collapse while walking on tour, ambulance was called and sadly we learnt that she passed away. Our bus group were walking near her when this happened and was upsetting for everyone. Enjoy your cruise and hope the parents of children onboard 'parent'.

You beat us by a minute to post about Leslie Jon😄

Gee first Leslie Jon retires and now Ray Carr moves to another cruise line (which many ex-Oceania have gone). Two outstanding CDs to replace in less than one year and not sure it will be easy to fill either one of these men's shoes!

We watched the original post on Dining and then looked at their recent one on the their Full Experience. Have never watched nor read their reviews prior. They seem to compare Oceania with Luxury lines like Regent etc. which is unfair IMO. On this O cruise they were on Deck 4 in an Ocean View stateroom and interesting that they didn't book a higher level stateroom if comparing to luxury lines where staterooms are larger and additional services are offered e.g., complimentary laundry which seemed to bother them (Concierge and above have complimentary laundry). They did use the free laundry room and no surprise it was crowded on a sea day as there is only one launderette onboard the R ships. That said, they seem to enjoy the ship and the two Speciality restaurants especially Red Ginger. With respect to their comments of the GDR and Waves, we too have had some meals that were not the best. As to the service and waiting to be served wine, we haven't had this issue pre-SM and now with SM and overall excellent service all round. Glass of wine in our neck of the woods is at least $12.00 upwards. Use of the word 'Finest' is subjective as we are all well aware of.

This is wonderful - thank you for taking the time to do this and hope that new additions can be added!

We always check whatsinport.com though usually only once when we are researching our trip. Thanks to your suggestion will now look at more frequently and particularly close to embarkation date to see what other ships are on the schedule and the related number of passengers.

Our observation is that the overall demographic is changing no doubt to the increasing number of loyal Oceania passengers who are all aging. Even when in Japan this year, most were in the 70 plus category which surprised us as it was a port intensive itinerary and many had mobility issues. However, with Covid delays and then Japan opening up later than other countries, both could be a factor in having more older passengers who had Japan on their bucket lists and were going regardless of age/mobility.

Thank you clarifying that if passengers went to cruise terminal they would have to leave/go to the hotel. Never heard of such a mess and hope Port Authority improves process by the time we depart next year. Thanks to these posts, we will make sure we check our email daily as we arrive in Lisbon a few days prior.

Thank you for your reply and must say that giving all passengers notice the day prior very short notice as many do fly in on the day of and don't check email as soon as they land. Some passengers probably went directly to the terminal info on their final document! It does sound like chaos and if any consolation our embarkation in Yokohama, Japan this past March was also chaotic as Port Authority had everyone waiting in the cold weather (outside canopy) with no respect to time frames or stateroom category and not one Oceania staff in sight. Complained to Concierge and did receive an apology saying they could have done better and looking to improve. Perhaps another anomaly but our worst embarkation to date.

Other passengers arriving at Narita did not have this issue and all Haneda counters were fully staffed; it wasn't just that the queues were long (no longer than waiting at other airports) but mostly having to do this check-in three times that was surprising to us.

@mb777 and @Pearl64 Interesting to read the embarkation experience you encountered as we will be embarking in Lisbon next year. We have disembarked in Lisbon but never embarked. Were you staying at a pre-cruise Oceania hotel or, did you receive notification that all embarkation must take place at a designated hotel, then be transferred by bus to ship or, opt to take your own transportation to ship e.g., Uber? Thank you.

Hope your experience is better than what we had onboard Oceania in March/April this year: Japanese authorities boarded when we returned from South Korea, it was a very long queue with no preference/priority to passengers for shore excursions, etc. Of note, when we departed Japan for South Korea, it was same process (plus, Japanese officials had problems with their equipment which resulted in a longer queue). Pack your patience - in Japan at each port of call you carry your passport with you which is checked by Japanese authorities when you depart the ship and repeated when you return to the ship after your excursion/tour. That said, we loved our visit to Japan.

Our experience was that despite having pre-registered on the Visit Japan Web app and with our QR codes in hand, we still had long queues upon arrival in Haneda. We had to line up three times and scan our QR codes, complete finger printing scan, facial recognition and passport review. In addition in one queue, the machine would not read one of our QR codes - we presented the hard copy of the yellow forms and was passed through quickly. Hence, wise to complete the manual forms as a back-up!

First must say that we loved Japan and the only negative was with the Japanese customs/immigration upon arriving at Haneda airport and subsequently onboard Riviera departing to South Korea and then returning: facial recognition, fingerprinting and passport control! Each Japanese port of call, we also had to present passports disembarking and embarking to the ship hence, you carry your passports with you. Found the Japanese people to be very polite, courteous and helpful; also, very strict on debris and even Tokyo was the cleanest big city we've visited. To your question, we decided to have a lazy day in Beppu and merely walked around the dock area and returned to a lovely lunch in the Terrace Cafe as we were busy every other day. There was a complimentary shuttle to town though observed long queue and not too frequent. Enjoy Oceania and Japan.

Good question. We have always had WiFi while sailing - when ashore, one would need to use public WiFi. We have never had a need/requirement to use public WiFi and using the ship's WiFi while sailing has worked out for us. In the event of an emergency to connect with family/friends while in port with no O Wifi, we would go ashore and use public (usually free) WiFi which seems to be easily available.