pinotlover

I don’t believe that insignificant cancellation charge will slow them down in the least. Some people book multiple cruises every year, thus having thousands of dollars out in deposits, only to then cancel all but one or two. Maybe losing their entire deposit might slow them down, but not O’s meager charges.

I have always been able to fill my private tours via CC. Most often end up having to turn people away. This is my personal experience, fwiw. I book tours and advertise them on CC Roll Calls. The 3 cruises booked to every cruise taken rule lives and breathes. After Final Payment date, I’m always scrambling to fill my tours, but always do. Notice all the Oceania constant sales, a lot of folks don’t book until six months prior to sailing and are eager to sign up for private tours. One very good fellow Oceania cruiser doesn’t even advertise his tours until after FPDate. He claims he bypasses all the lookie loos and still fills his private tours with fewer problems . I wouldn’t worry about the status of tours 9+ months out. Come final payment and the lookie loos bail, availability often follows. Also, unless you’re one of those that really needs Oceania to hold your hand if/when you leave the ship, try browsing your Roll Call right here on Cruise Critic. Opportunity awaits! 🥂

A totally personal decision. Some cruise ships give a very local immersion experience on their various cruises, while others take a Unitarian approach. Paul Gauguin in the FP verses other lines for example. Some travelers live to feel like they never left Omaha, while others want something different. Some love ships where the menu is the same in Italian waters as in Vietnamese waters. Others find that contrary to international travel. People have choices.

In Bora Bora, we did the private jet ski tour @$150 each. Part of our contingency that day were four (4) passengers from the ship paying Oceania $450 each to do the exact same tour and eat the exact same food. This scenario has happened several times with us, being in the same van with those on OE ship tour, doing exactly as we at a multiple of our costs. Remember, you’re only promised a group of 16 or less, not who those other participants may be. 😂. Destination Services and the ship tours are a profit center for the ship, not a cost center. No one is forced or obligated to take the ship tours. One can do as many of us do and primarily take private ones. Is the price of a hot dog and beer at the foot ball stadium in any way related to the cost of materials? Your only choice there is to neither eat nor drink, or pay the price . Oceania allows one to choose, but for those that choose the ship tour, it can be a very expensive hot dog! 🙄 But, it’s your choice.

It has been my experience that most of those wearing the lanyards are in a defined group such as a GoNext group or a F&WT group. The lanyard is there to identify you, allow entrance into group only events, and eliminate the need to make name tags for every event. It’s a rarity for an independent traveler to wear a lanyard.

We all view Simply More differently. To us, it was merely a price increase. That’s all, just a price increase. I don’t understand all the anxiety people are expressing. Every day aboard ship we have three meals ( at a minimum) paid for along with the Afternoon Tea. I pay for all those meals as part of my cruise fare. When in port, we always eat the local fare ashore. We don’t rush back to the ship to eat that included meal. It’s what we choose to do. Those SM tour credits are the same for us. If We find a ship tour we really want, we’ll use the included tour credit. If we don’t, they’ll be just like those included meals we miss.It’s all just part of the fare, just like the evening shows. I wonder, do people feel compelled to eat three meals a day, with all the offered courses, because it’s part of the fare? If not, why all the hand wrangling over SM tour credits? 🤔

You have one guaranteed sitting in each of the Specialty restaurants. If you don’t choose a reservation before boarding go to the dining reservation desk and they will get you one. If you ask nicely maybe even a two top.

There was a recent thread on this. As of yet Oceania hasn’t made any statements or commitments. Several WAGs have been advanced ranging from Sep/Oct to next March/April. All WAGs, so take them as such.

An important part of this to remember. They had five (5) additional Specialties meals, plus the four (4) guaranteed, making nine in total on a 12 or 13 day cruise. They got all those additional reservations without the aid of a butler. If one will be flexible with timing and sharing, they will often find the opportunity for extra Specialty meals to be plentiful, except on maybe the seven day cruises. It is primarily only those that choose to be inflexible that typically have difficulty.

Advantages for tour guide: They can speak in a normal voice to any size group giving instructions or information. Disadvantage for tour guides: People take comfort in being able to hear the guide’s voice and wander off, dilly dally here or there, etc., and soon get separated by a considerable distance from the group. They think they’re close because they can hear the guid’s voice. People get lost! I have found they are great if I’m doing a vineyard tour or somewhere I can keep eye contact with everyone. I hate them on busy city streets where people easily get strung out. Advantages for tourists : They can easily listen to all commentary of the guides. Disadvantage for tourists: Much like some posters here on CC, some guides attempt to give a new definition to verbose and verbosity. Take an eight hour tour, they’ll talk every minute of that eight hours. It might be about their neighbor’s second cousin’s granddaughter, but they talk on and on. The only way to stop the noise is to unplug. Then you lose possible information or instructions you need. Their sole tip at the end is me , or others, not having strangled them after hour 3 or 4. 🤬 Fwiw, the sponsor company of the tours set the rules. I’ve taken groups out with a ten minute rule. The group will wait ten minutes after the assigned time for any stragglers and leave. Other sponsors will require the guide to wait and search for at least an hour. It isn’t up to the guide. I have no idea what Oceania requires.

Viking does not run its own tours in most ports. They use third parties like everyone else. The passengers have their Vox system, with charger in their cabins and are supposed to bring them with them on each tour. Viking provided the main headset , and instructions as needed, to the guides for us on the tours. After the tours, the guides return the equipment to the Viking rep. The system has advantages and disadvantages for both parties.

I think that cost cutting may come in many forms not always disagreeing. Waste on a ship is costly. Reducing portion sizes is cost cutting, but we don’t need the huge portions we were often served. One of my chef owner clients was discussing menu with his underlying chefs. He talked about the huge increase in fish prices being brought on by the decimation of fish stocks by overfishing and the inability of fish farms to keep up with growing demand. He plainly said the availability and variety of fish served will go down. The prices are higher than customers are willing to pay. My guess is that will likewise occur on cruise ships. People won’t go hungry, they’ll see plenty of options, but the availability of many fish options will probably decrease in the near future in order to cut/reduce costs. Miami buys everything aboard ship. The availability of any product in some foreign port doesn’t play into Miami’s need for products in bulk amounts at an acceptable cost. Just look at all the fresh fish markets around the world with fish readily available while you eat frozen fish. All that fish you see of a certain variety may not feed 30 people on a 1200 passenger ship.

Just for general knowledge sake, since you start booking ship tours a year in advance, how often, or how many times during the course of that year, do you request a new tour pdf for each cruise?

The “ whisper “ systems used on my lines are efficient and preferred by most over trying to hear the voice of a talking guide. They have their advantages and disadvantages for both the guides and the tour participants so they get varying use.

I have found ouTA fully competent in this area. All I have to do is send her an email, anything 24 hours a day, of what we want and it’s done. If one prefers to spend time on the phone, or is otherwise bored with nothing else to do, then calling Oceania is the thing for you. Myself, I have golf to play and a yard to mow, all that including cleaning up storm damage from last weekend. Whatever rocks your boat. Some people are far more into DIY than others.

The only question I see is who are the picky eaters: 1. the NoNos; 2. People wanting flavors, herbs, and spices? 🤔

They didn’t on Riveria and hopefully not on Marina. We don’t stay aboard for lunches normally, and on the rare nights we can sit on the outside Terrace at night, we enjoy watching the stars. Last thing we want is a cover hiding the sky! Obviously not a popular position.

So 50ish %. Not uncommon at all. We had a large GoNext group on my last cruise that were all mostly newbies. I think we ran About 50% repeaters.

People have to understand, they don’t always get to choose in these matters. As FF has frequently posted in the past, Oceania has often taken booked b2b and converted them to an Extended Voyage which typically resulted in fewer cruise credits. For several years there was an array of combinations of segments making b2b even difficult to find. That has now changed when it’s in Oceania’s best interest. The decision on whether a cruise is an Extended Voyage, a Grand Voyage, two Extended Voyages b2b, or multiple b2b lies solely with Oceania. One can have their TA attempt to affect that decision, but in the end, O decides.

😂. You probably never read my rants back pre Covid “ The Terrace is for Teatotallers!” Your experience has been long felt and discussed. Additionally, as you state, it may get worse with SM. I say may because so many O cruisers don’t drink for various reasons. Having free wine or beer won’t change that. Personally, we avoid the TC at dinner. We enjoy being served opposed to serving ourselves. We enjoy the leisurely paced meals in the GDR while typically sharing a table with fellow travelers, and importantly to this thread, except for the rare evening, overall service including beverage service is far better in the GDR. I have experienced far too many instances of poor or no adult beverage service in the TC. I once sat for over a half hour refusing to go through the buffet until I placed my wine order. The waiters kept coming around asking if there was a problem and I’d tell them “ yes, no wine steward “. The restaurant mgr came by and asked what the problem was. He’d assured me he’d take care of it. Ten minutes later he’s back, still no wine steward. He finally got me a glass himself. About two minutes later a wine steward appeared for the only time. Plenty of good food elsewhere on the ship.

While I agree there are a very tiny number of boutique Travel Agency, some which might primarily concentrate on Oceania and Regent, that universe is small. As continually demonstrated on this Forum, many of we cruisers are not solely wed to Oceania. While my TA is a high volume Oceania seller, my of those cruisers likewise sail Azamara and Celebrity. Being a boutique, and not a member of a Consortium, may mean the Agency avoids Consortium fees, but it also means they miss out on the various Consortium deals for many lines that aren’t available to the otherwise small volume Agencies. If one is a dedicated Oceania only cruiser, then the boutique will work very well. If not, a member of a prominent Consortium will work better. That is , of course, except for those that change Agents like they change their underwear.

Nothing unusual about those numbers. I’ve been on O cruises where the percentage has ranged from about 50% to a high of 82% repeaters. Your number is within that normal range. Several factors seem to affect these numbers including season, location of cruise, and very importantly if Oceania ran country or regional specific sales on certain cruises. I was on a cruise back in 18 with a significant number of Germans and Austrians. Found out that Oceania, wanting to attract new blood from that market, had ran very specific sales within that market. The campaign worked and I got to practice my German regularly on that cruise in that combined the two countries equaled the number of Americans aboard.

Oceania doesn’t have glass doors separating the stairwell/elevator area and the hallway corridor. It does have metal partitions that separate the two that are most always open. The only time I’ve ever seen them closed was on my last cruise during Boardamania. The staff had closed and locked off the partitions to keep guest out of the cabin areas until those rooms were called.First time I had seen that done, but not normally there for Boardamania. As far as your exact cabin location, I’d suggest you view the deck plan for your ship which is easily obtainable. It is rare when people complain about noise from the elevator areas. Happens occasionally, but rare.

But I bet it’s not NoNo chili, so forget about it! 😇

Why? Just hit delete and move on. If from O, and they happen to get their back side together, you’ll probably get another request. Otherwise, you wasted no one’s time including your own.