Excursions online cancel and change

[GICNJC]

Is there a way or trick to canceling a booked excursions and ordErin a different one.  This decision being made well before the cut off date.

[sammiedawg]

We’ve done it when we had O life excursions booked.  It was easy to do on line, just look at your booking, shore excursions listed by date.  You will get a flurry of emails confirming cancelation,  then a rebooking.  Just make sure what you want is available.

We also canceled an O life excursion while on board, we changed our mind and didn’t want the tour.  We did not  rebook anything and we were given $100 pp OBC.  

[roothy123]

I'm not an expert, but I think the only thing people need to be mindful of (besides cutoff date for canceling) is that during the week before your cruise, you cannot make changes online.  You must wait until you're on board.  This means that if an excursion you want to cancel is on the second day of the cruise, if you wait until a week before the cruise to try to cancel, you'll find that you can't.  Then when you get on board you might be told you haven't met the cutoff requirements for canceling.  This may not happen very often, and if it does, Oceania might be willing to make an exception to their rules.  But I just thought I'd mention it.  We start our cruise off with some sea days, so it doesn't affect us.  But many people will have a different situation.  

 

Here's the email I received April 5 regarding my cruise: 

 

Dear Valued Guests and Travel Advisors,

 

We want to provide you with an important update regarding the use of shipboard credits prior to sailing.

 

In October of last year, we introduced a guest experience enhancement which enables guests to use shipboard credits prior to sailing to pre-purchase amenities and services such as beverage packages and shore excursions. This enhancement went into effect for all voyages that sail on or after May 1, 2019.

 

To provide guests with a seamless experience and an up-to-date summary of shipboard credits used and/or remaining, the cut-off for making any pre-cruise purchases will now shift from three to seven days prior to sailing. Any changes to, or additional purchases, using shipboard credits or credit card will need to take place once guests have embarked the ship.

 

We thank you for your attention to this change and appreciate your understanding.

 

Warmest Regards,

Oceania Cruises

[redraider1966]

20 hours ago, sammiedawg said:

We’ve done it when we had O life excursions booked.  It was easy to do on line, just look at your booking, shore excursions listed by date.  You will get a flurry of emails confirming cancelation,  then a rebooking.  Just make sure what you want is available.

We also canceled an O life excursion while on board, we changed our mind and didn’t want the tour.  We did not  rebook anything and we were given $100 pp OBC.  

Just wondering how recent was the cruise on which you cancelled an O Life excursion while on board and were able to receive OBC as you didn't rebook something else?  I ask because we're struggling to come up with our four O Life allocated tours for an upcoming cruise and would love to "trade" two we would book now in for OBC once on board by cancelling them (obviously before the onboard cancellation deadline) and not rebooking something else.  Many thx.

[GICNJC]

I ended up calling oceania directly and it took less than 4 minutes to cancell one excursion.  I also firmed up our free olife  excursions.   We also signed up for a culinary tour and we're offered a discount on the tour of 25%.

[GICNJC]

Thanks to those who responded to our two day Bali private driver excursions. We have reached capacity.

[Paulchili]

On 7/8/2019 at 12:44 PM, redraider1966 said:

Just wondering how recent was the cruise on which you cancelled an O Life excursion while on board and were able to receive OBC as you didn't rebook something else?  I ask because we're struggling to come up with our four O Life allocated tours for an upcoming cruise and would love to "trade" two we would book now in for OBC once on board by cancelling them (obviously before the onboard cancellation deadline) and not rebooking something else.  Many thx.

My experience is different from that of sammiedawgs’. Once onboard an O Life excursion can be changed for another (within the time limit) but cannot be cancelled for OBC. “Regular” paid excursions can be cancelled for OBC.

AFAIK, ALL O Life choices (excursions, drinks package or OBC) have to be made no less than 14 days pre-boarding and while they can be cancelled or changed before that time, no changes can be made after boarding (i.e. O Life excursions cancelled for OBC or excursions changed for drinks package).

That is my experience (at least with excursions).

[Paulchili]

30 minutes ago, GICNJC said:

Thanks to those who responded to our two day Bali private driver excursions. We have reached capacity.

Did you mean to post this on your roll call?

[redraider1966]

On 7/9/2019 at 7:49 PM, Paulchili said:

My experience is different from that of sammiedawgs’. Once onboard an O Life excursion can be changed for another (within the time limit) but cannot be cancelled for OBC. “Regular” paid excursions can be cancelled for OBC.

AFAIK, ALL O Life choices (excursions, drinks package or OBC) have to be made no less than 14 days pre-boarding and while they can be cancelled or changed before that time, no changes can be made after boarding (i.e. O Life excursions cancelled for OBC or excursions changed for drinks package).

That is my experience (at least with excursions).

Your experience may be closer to what is Oceania's current practice regarding cancelling an OLife excursion once on board and not rebooking, but hoping for some other "compensation," i.e., OBC.  I spoke to someone in Miami today, who was decidedly coy about indicating how Oceania would handle a request to cancel an OLife excursion once on board.  The response was that it would be dealt with on a "case by case" basis, without volunteering what the result would be.  As we are booked in an A level cabin on our upcoming cruise, he suggested we seek assistance from the Concierge should we have to cancel an OLife excursion on board.

[Paulchili]

1 hour ago, redraider1966 said:

Your experience may be closer to what is Oceania's current practice regarding cancelling an OLife excursion once on board and not rebooking, but hoping for some other "compensation," i.e., OBC.  I spoke to someone in Miami today, who was decidedly coy about indicating how Oceania would handle a request to cancel an OLife excursion once on board.  The response was that it would be dealt with on a "case by case" basis, without volunteering what the result would be. 

I think what they might have meant by dealing with these requests on a case by case basis is the practice of exchanging prepaid excursions for refundable OBC and then use non-refundable OBC to rebook the same excursion. 

This was a fairly common practice to use up non-refundable OBC but not wanting to wait to book the excursion until being onboard for fear of losing the availability. Sometimes this was allowed but at other times this was denied - it was up to the concierge and how persuasive the passenger might have been.

Now with the option of using OBC to pre-book excursions this is no longer an issue and no longer an option. As you start booking your excursions (beyond the O Life allowed ones) your OBC is used first before you have to pay for them.

Edited July 11, 2019 by Paulchili

[redraider1966]

15 hours ago, Paulchili said:

I think what they might have meant by dealing with these requests on a case by case basis is the practice of exchanging prepaid excursions for refundable OBC and then use non-refundable OBC to rebook the same excursion. 

This was a fairly common practice to use up non-refundable OBC but not wanting to wait to book the excursion until being onboard for fear of losing the availability. Sometimes this was allowed but at other times this was denied - it was up to the concierge and how persuasive the passenger might have been.

Now with the option of using OBC to pre-book excursions this is no longer an issue and no longer an option. As you start booking your excursions (beyond the O Life allowed ones) your OBC is used first before you have to pay for them.

The OLife "allowed" excursions were frankly not to our liking in several ports on our upcoming cruise and we had opted for private excursions, so in effect we had OLife excursions left over to "spend."  Taking sammiedawg's cue we've gone ahead and filled our quota of Olife excursions (not being big alcohol consumers and being Gold O Club members with sufficient OBC to cover occasional wine purchases the OLife excursion option is the least of the three "evils").  We're in hopes that once on board we can trade in some of those OLife excursions for OBC to be spent somewhere, somehow, rather than just sitting them out at no cost to us.  The hypothetical nature of my query to Oceania Miami was apparently reciprocated.

[Paulchili]

22 minutes ago, redraider1966 said:

The OLife "allowed" excursions were frankly not to our liking in several ports on our upcoming cruise and we had opted for private excursions, so in effect we had OLife excursions left over to "spend."  Taking sammiedawg's cue we've gone ahead and filled our quota of Olife excursions (not being big alcohol consumers and being Gold O Club members with sufficient OBC to cover occasional wine purchases the OLife excursion option is the least of the three "evils").  We're in hopes that once on board we can trade in some of those OLife excursions for OBC to be spent somewhere, somehow, rather than just sitting them out at no cost to us.  The hypothetical nature of my query to Oceania Miami was apparently reciprocated.

Then why not just book a cruise without the O Life "evils" (with or without air) since you don't like the excursions, don't drink enough for a package and don't need extra OBC. That way you won't have to worry whether you can cancel the excursions for OBC. ☺️

Edited July 11, 2019 by Paulchili

[LHT28]

if people  are going to take a couple of the O Life  excursions then "cash in" the ones they do not want  for OBC

At some point  all good things will end ..due to abuse

JMO

[Paulchili]

6 hours ago, LHT28 said:

If people  are going to take a couple of the O Life  excursions then "cash in" the ones they do not want  for OBC

I am still not convinced that this is allowed currently.

Maybe someone here can give us the answer with some authority and certainty.

[LHT28]

14 minutes ago, Paulchili said:

I am still not convinced that this is allowed currently.

Maybe someone here can give us the answer with some authority and certainty.

I agree

I have heard  that if O cancels the tour you get the OBC   but seems like a good scam if Pax can take a couple of tours up to  $199  then get an OBC for others  .

sounds .too good to be true 😎

[Paulchili]

2 minutes ago, LHT28 said:

I have heard  that if O cancels the tour you get the OBC

This is true - one gets a $100 OBC (non-refundable) in case of O cancelling a tour. That OBC is only $100 regardless of the cost of the tour.

I know I have been told on a cruise that O Life excursions cannot be cancelled although they can be changed for another tour (if available).

That is my experience.

[redraider1966]

On 7/11/2019 at 9:39 PM, Paulchili said:

I am still not convinced that this is allowed currently.

Maybe someone here can give us the answer with some authority and certainty.

Certainly agree it would be useful to have authoritative current info (something more timely than from 2 years ago as policies and practices do change).