O Excursion Plans

[cbb]

We've put our deposit down for 2016 RTW, and now have questions about ship excursion offerings, however, I think the following questions could pertain to any cruise. (We've taken a few a la carte O tours and have done the rest DIY in our many cruises with O)

 

Is the "Unlimited Passport Collection" a list of pre-chosen (by O) excursions and one signs up for that collection and fills the rest of the ports with DIY or a la carte ship excursions? (or stays on board and rests!)

 

Will that "Passport" list be published soon?

 

Is the "World Collection" the passenger's chosen ship's excursions and one receives a discount (depending upon number of excursions chosen?)

 

Does one sign up for one of these collections before leaving home or once on board? I'm assuming that if chosen off ship, one cannot use OBC, but once on board I would go to excursion desk and sign up using OBC?

 

Of course, I know about roll calls and small group/private touring but there are some ports that we would feel much better hanging out with O tour people.

[Arusha]

I've bought the Unlimited Passport Collection on both of my previous Oceania cruises (Alaska and New England/Canada). You choose any from the complete list of O excursions offered.

 

Here's the info fom the Oceania website:

http://www.oceaniacruises.com/docume...s_Packages.pdf

 

Unlimited Passport Collection

• Save up to 40% off à la carte retail prices
  
• Enjoy UNLIMITED shore excursions throughout the voyage
  
• Choose from a wide array of exciting excursions
  all for one low price
  
• As an added bonus, receive additional savings on
  Oceania Choice and Exclusive excursions
  

Your World Collection

• Save 25% off à la carte retail prices
  subject to a minimum number of excursions reserved
  
• Flexibility to custom design your own
  collection of excursions
  
• Select desired number of excursions
  from our entire portfolio
  

Guests in all stateroom categories who reserve either the Unlimited Passport Collection or the Your World Collection can also book 180 days in advance and receive priority confirmation of their participation and selections.

[cbb]

Arusha- two questions:

 

1. how many days before the cruise did you find out what the list of "passport" collection excursions were?

 

2. I see you have been on one of the safari cruises....did you take a safari and which game reserve did you choose?

 

thanks for your reply....i really appreciate it....c

[Floridiana]

I've bought the Unlimited Passport Collection on choose any from the complete list of O excursions offered.

 

 

We bought the same package for one of our O cruises. We also chose from the complete list of all excursions Oceania offered for the cruise. The list was published long after our booking the cruise. Certainly not more than a few months before the start of the cruise.

 

Impatient as we are, we checked the excursion list of the identical cruise at an earlier date to get an idea what was going to be offered. It then turned out that there were no changes for our cruise.

[travelglobetrotter]

Some of you have experience with the Unlimited Collection purchase, which we plan on using for our Nov. 7 day Med. cruise. My contact at Oceania told me that we could purchase the Unlimited the first day on board, thus using our OBC, for a 10 % surcharge, and I have that in writing. Have any of you done that? Seems to make sense to us to wait til be board to book it. Marlene

[cbb]

Floridiana--I, too, thought of looking at the World Cruise 1/2015 for their list of excursions but so far, I haven't found one posted.

 

Thanks for the great idea! c

[LHT28]

I have had a list of the excursions for our May cruise for a few months now ...ask your TA they may have the PDF file

[cbb]

Yes, I've asked the TA and he thinks because it is 2016 when we sail it will probably be a long time before we can get that info but we're hoping we can find what 1/2015 is going to offer and plan from there.

 

thanks!

[Paulchili]

Yes, I've asked the TA and he thinks because it is 2016 when we sail it will probably be a long time before we can get that info but we're hoping we can find what 1/2015 is going to offer and plan from there.

 

thanks!

 

c,

That is quite the itinerary - enjoy your cruise and Angkor Wat.

We just may be joining you for some of the segments :)

Paul

[Arusha]

Floridiana--I, too, thought of looking at the World Cruise 1/2015 for their list of excursions but so far, I haven't found one posted.

 

Thanks for the great idea! c

 

 

The excursions for the 1/2015 World Cruise are listed here:

 

http://www.oceaniacruises.com/findcruise/worldcruises/ins150110g/excursions/default.aspx

 

You have to select each port one at a time from the Port dropdown field to see the excursions for that port. Time consuming, but all excursions are there.

[Arusha]

Arusha- two questions:

 

1. how many days before the cruise did you find out what the list of "passport" collection excursions were?

 

2. I see you have been on one of the safari cruises....did you take a safari and which game reserve did you choose?

 

thanks for your reply....i really appreciate it....c

 

1. When I booked each cruise, the lists of excursions were already available. I wasn't booking a year or more in advance.

 

2. I did not go on a cruise to Africa. I flew to Tanzania and spent 9 days on safaris at 2 of their national parks (The Serengeti and Lake Manyara) and the Ngorongoro Crater Conservation Area. I did not go to private game reserves.

 

Frankly, I would not go on a cruise to Africa. The ports and big cities do not interest me. I would rather spend my time and money on safaris. The only cruise I would go on is the 3-day Zambezi Queen cruise on the Chobe River (Zimbabwe, Zambia, Botswana, and Namibia).

[cbb]

Paul, thanks for the note! Little bit of anxiety on my part being away from family for 6 months but it will be mostly during the school year so the family won't be around much anyway!

 

Arusha, I spent an hour yesterday just pulling down the ports from 2015 to see what tours might be on the "passport" collection and it is pretty tedious so that's why I wrote the note to CC to see if anyone knew how to find the list offered in 2015.

 

Safaris are among the excursions offered out of the southern Africa ports and can last 1 day or several days depending upon what one chooses. Different ports = different Preserves and we'd be there approximately 3 days.

 

I am interested in Capetown as a big city port so that i can see Robbins Island, vineyards, the Table & the Escarpment as I sail by--all cool stuff to me!

[CAG]

Paul, thanks for the note! Little bit of anxiety on my part being away from family for 6 months but it will be mostly during the school year so the family won't be around much anyway!

 

Arusha, I spent an hour yesterday just pulling down the ports from 2015 to see what tours might be on the "passport" collection and it is pretty tedious so that's why I wrote the note to CC to see if anyone knew how to find the list offered in 2015.

 

Safaris are among the excursions offered out of the southern Africa ports and can last 1 day or several days depending upon what one chooses. Different ports = different Preserves and we'd be there approximately 3 days.

 

I am interested in Capetown as a big city port so that i can see Robbins Island, vineyards, the Table & the Escarpment as I sail by--all cool stuff to me!

 

If you send me your email address, i will be more than happy to send you a pdf file of the 2015 Shore Excursions for the cruise leaving January 10, 2015, returning July 8. My email is ceniag at g mail dot com.

 

Cenia

[cbb]

CAG--thanks so much for your offer but Mr. Wonderful copied the 2015 excursions from the big brochure as a pdf file as well as the "special events" from both 2015 and 2016.

 

Our problem was trying to figure out the difference between the 40% off offerings and the 25% off offerings. We believe that the 40% offerings are from an O list and one purchases that "list" of excursions whereas the 25% off the passenger chooses from a variety of offerings and receives the discount from what he/she chooses.

 

Since we are working from the 2015 catalog, we are uncertain how many excursions must be chosen to receive the 25% but we're betting it is 25.

 

Also undecided is if we should choose those 25 and pay for them before we board, meaning we couldn't use the OBC, but would be assured that we weren't on a wait-list.

 

Also unknown is if the "Overland Excursions" that we want Angkor Wat, Safari, and HaLong cruise will count toward the magic number of excursions to receive the 25% off.

 

We wonder how many cruises we will get credit for doing the 180 days. It has been suggested in another forum that perhaps it might be 15 but that is unknown to us.

 

Paul, which segments might you be interested in? c

[Paulchili]

 

Paul, which segments might you be interested in? c

 

We might take the Cape Town to Singapore (if that will be a segment) and then try to add the Singapore to HKG as our "free" cruise after 20.

We were thinking of HKG to CPT on Insignia in 2015 World cruise but this would be better for us.

We'll see.

[CAG]

CAG--thanks so much for your offer but Mr. Wonderful copied the 2015 excursions from the big brochure as a pdf file as well as the "special events" from both 2015 and 2016.

 

Our problem was trying to figure out the difference between the 40% off offerings and the 25% off offerings. We believe that the 40% offerings are from an O list and one purchases that "list" of excursions whereas the 25% off the passenger chooses from a variety of offerings and receives the discount from what he/she chooses.

 

Since we are working from the 2015 catalog, we are uncertain how many excursions must be chosen to receive the 25% but we're betting it is 25.

 

Also undecided is if we should choose those 25 and pay for them before we board, meaning we couldn't use the OBC, but would be assured that we weren't on a wait-list.

 

Also unknown is if the "Overland Excursions" that we want Angkor Wat, Safari, and HaLong cruise will count toward the magic number of excursions to receive the 25% off.

 

We wonder how many cruises we will get credit for doing the 180 days. It has been suggested in another forum that perhaps it might be 15 but that is unknown to us.

 

Paul, which segments might you be interested in? c

 

The unlimited shore excursions are just that, you may book any of the excursions from the pdf file for the set price you are given (for our 2015 word cruise that cost is in excess of $11,000 per person) except those that are identified as OC or OE that have an additional cost to them, since they are considered "special" excursions. This is where Oceania says you can save up to 40%, the key word is up to 40%. The 2 times I have considered this option, I could not verify a 40% savings. The Your World excursion package is a savings of 25% based upon booking a set number of excursions from the pdf file. For the 2015 January World Cruise you need to book 25 excursions to receive the 25% discount.

 

Unfortunately, the Overland trips, i.e. Angkor Wat, Taj Mahal, overnight Safari, etc. do not count toward the magic 25.

 

In the past, on a non World Cruise, you had to purchase the Unlimited or the Your World package before boarding and pay up front. I have seen nothing different than that with respect to the January 2015 World Cruise.

 

Purchasing ahead does not guarantee that you won't be on a wait list. I am on a wait list now for 4 different excursions and just cleared the wait list for 2 other excursions I had been interested in and the cruise is not until January.

 

Planning excursions for the World Cruise takes a lot of time and if you want to do private excursions, even more time. I am looking at private excursions for some of our ports in late March, early April and May, and some tour guides have not yet revealed their calendar for those months.

 

I have heard that we are suppose to be getting 15 cruise credits for our 180 days, but have not yet seen anything official to verify that.

 

Have fun planning and if I can be of assistance, you have my email address.

 

Cenia

[cbb]

Cenia......you are awesome....you have answered my questions! Nothing like the voice of experience! Have a wonderful cruise and please send in reports or publish a blog of your trip.

 

I hope you get the excursions you want; I figure this is the trip of a lifetime and I'm sure there are places that are high on your wish list--good luck!!

 

I'm in the process of compiling the list of excursions that are "must do" and will send it to our TA so that as soon as the excursions open for 2016 he can get us signed up for those.

 

Paul--if we were to change our plans and only do segments we would probably do Capetown to Miami but my husband thinks that the whole trip is a price performer compared to doing segments--we'll see! My responsibilities at home are now over so I'm pretty much free to go.

[Paulchili]

Paul--if we were to change our plans and only do segments we would probably do Capetown to Miami but my husband thinks that the whole trip is a price performer compared to doing segments--we'll see! My responsibilities at home are now over so I'm pretty much free to go.

 

c,

We have (or will have by the time of the cruise) visited all the places on the itinerary, save a few, but we want to revisit some places more than others.

Pricewise the 180 days is a better deal than segments but I honestly could not stay on the ship that long at one time - a world cruise is not for everyone.

Enjoy the cruise - it IS a trip of a lifetime :)

Paul

Edited August 13, 2014 by Paulchili