Approximately when do Blue Books arrive?

[Kate-AHF]

One month out?  Six weeks out?  I'm betting it will go to my TA first, who will then ship it to me.  I don't remember when the last one appeared.

[Essiesmom]

Through a mis-communication between Oceania and our TA, we are not getting the Blue Book but our cruise e-docs arrived from the TA yesterday.  Too bad, since it is our first O cruise.  We sail Nov. 16.  EM

Edited October 28, 2019 by Essiesmom

[LHT28]

we got the last one 2 mths out 

[clo]

We sail early December and got the blue book a few days ago.

[Kate-AHF]

Okay - many thanks.  I'll give it another week to get to my TA and then mailed to me.... if not received by then I'll call.

[edgee]

We get ours 6 to 8 weeks out from our TA. TAs generally receive seven to eight weeks out. Last cruise we were visiting family out of town during the normal "arrival" time for our booklet, so I had the TA hold it until we were going to be home. 

[MamaFej]

Oceania newbie here.

 

What is a Blue Book, and is it vital? Our first Oceania cruise will start about 10 weeks into a 14 week trip. Our second will be immediately after the first ends. 

 

I'm wondering if Oceania might be willing to ship the books to my aunt in New Zealand, as we will be visiting her on the trip.

 

Thanks in advance for any help.

[clo]

1 hour ago, Kate-AHF said:

Okay - many thanks.  I'll give it another week to get to my TA and then mailed to me.... if not received by then I'll call.

From what I've read it's not a necessary item.  You already have all the info in your booking and can get baggage tags upon embarking.

[Mura]

No, the Book isn't really necessarily, especially if you have the email version which comes closer to sail date.

 

In our experience the Blue Book can come ANY time.  Sometimes it comes so far in advance that I misplace it ... other times it's been late.  Other times it's when you would expect to receive it.

 

But if you haven't received it, say 4-6 weeks in advance ... contact your TA or Oceania if you don't have a TA.

 

If for no other reason, the luggage tags are very handy to have!  The basic information comes with the email notice.  But as someone posted earlier, the booklet also has all ships tour information ... if you avoid ship's tours, you don't need that.  But many people like to reference it even if not using ship's tours.  And if you ARE using ship's tours ... very helpful.

 

I never worried about the past information as to staff on board but I know that many regret that elimination.  It can be nice to know just who is in charge, however!

 

I have learned to print out my latest invoice just in case.  That came in very handy when the ship lost our La Reserve reservation.  Based on the invoice they replaced the reservation with a higher priced one, but we didn't have to pay any more than we already had.

 

If you have other bookings on the invoice, having a copy could be good in case of problems such as we experienced.  In 16 cruises this only happened once, so I wouldn't over-worry.  But it's a good thing to bring along with you.

 

Mura

[LHT28]

2 hours ago, MamaFej said:

Oceania newbie here.

 

What is a Blue Book, and is it vital? Our first Oceania cruise will start about 10 weeks into a 14 week trip. Our second will be immediately after the first ends. 

 

I'm wondering if Oceania might be willing to ship the books to my aunt in New Zealand, as we will be visiting her on the trip.

 

Thanks in advance for any help.

Do you leave in 10 weeks?

Usually as others have said  they come 4-8 weeks prior to the cruise  really all that is important is the bag tags  but those you can usually get from the head porter at the dock when you drop your bags

[NoWhiners]

We are sailing on Nov 21 and our book just arrived today. I thought we would get it last week. I checked with our TA about 2 weeks ago and she said they don't all go out at the same time but "should" arrive about 4 weeks before. 

[rucruisn2]

We sail the middle of Dec. and got our docs on Fri. or Sat.  They came directly from Oceania, not our TA.

[CintiPam]

In our experience, from four to six weeks before embarkation date.  The final cruise docs email (ten days to one week out?) is all you need to bring (and really not even that.)

Edited October 29, 2019 by CintiPam

[Cruiser Gub]

We received ours today, we sail December 7th.  My first Oceania cruise!!!

[clo]

4 minutes ago, Cruiser Gub said:

We received ours today, we sail December 7th.  My first Oceania cruise!!!

Rio?

[Cruiser Gub]

32 minutes ago, clo said:

Rio?

LA roundtrip - 7 nights.  I wish Rio!

[clo]

Just now, Cruiser Gub said:

LA roundtrip - 7 nights.  I wish Rio!

Ditto.

[Flatbush Flyer]

1 hour ago, Cruiser Gub said:

LA roundtrip - 7 nights.  I wish Rio!

Just received the blue book today for this shortie December cruise. So, about 6 weeks+\- pre-embarkation is a good benchmark.

 

Though not "essential," since you'll receive e-docs (your individual registration forms including dining reservations, purchased tours etc) about 2-3 weeks pre-cruise, the "blue book" does have your pre-printed luggage tags and things like the tour descriptions (which come in handy should there ever be disagreement with destination services about what a tour was supposed to be). It also makes a nice "souvenir" and holder of any paper from the cruise we decide to keep as a memento.

[clo]

9 hours ago, Flatbush Flyer said:

It also makes a nice "souvenir" and holder of any paper from the cruise we decide to keep as a memento.

It IS very well done.  Not a cheap thing to do, I'm sure.

[MamaFej]

14 hours ago, LHT28 said:

Do you leave in 10 weeks?

Usually as others have said  they come 4-8 weeks prior to the cruise  really all that is important is the bag tags  but those you can usually get from the head porter at the dock when you drop your bags

Thanks. It's good to know that we can get by without them.

 

The cruises will be in March and April of 2021. We will have left home in late January. We will have about three weeks on land in New Zealand before the cruises, including visiting my aunt. Perhaps I can have the Blue Books shipped to her.

[CU64]

11 hours ago, Flatbush Flyer said:

Just received the blue book today for this shortie December cruise. So, about 6 weeks+\- pre-embarkation is a good benchmark.

 

Though not "essential," since you'll receive e-docs (your individual registration forms including dining reservations, purchased tours etc) about 2-3 weeks pre-cruise, the "blue book" does have your pre-printed luggage tags and things like the tour descriptions (which come in handy should there ever be disagreement with destination services about what a tour was supposed to be). It also makes a nice "souvenir" and holder of any paper from the cruise we decide to keep as a memento.

I might have thrown this Blue Book away thinking it was another big advertisement from Oceania. 

 

[ORV]

As I sit here looking through my current one I would have to say if you're new to Oceania that it is pretty important to have. For us that have been on multiple cruises with them we tend to glaze over much of it.

 

While true it is not necessary I think if I were a new cruiser with O that I would learn much from the Blue Book. It has all the information laid out in a much better format than their website. Besides that it has more complete information for the beverage package, internet, Oceania Club and other things than the website. It's the only place I can seem to find the latest Oceania Club benefits. 

[MamaFej]

1 minute ago, ORV said:

As I sit here looking through my current one I would have to say if you're new to Oceania that it is pretty important to have. For us that have been on multiple cruises with them we tend to glaze over much of it.

 

While true it is not necessary I think if I were a new cruiser with O that I would learn much from the Blue Book. It has all the information laid out in a much better format than their website. Besides that it has more complete information for the beverage package, internet, Oceania Club and other things than the website. It's the only place I can seem to find the latest Oceania Club benefits. 

Thank you. I definitely find that the website is not very helpful, and is not easy to navigate. for example it took far too many clicks and pages to finally found out the daily gratuity amount. I've searched quite a bit for better Oceania Club benefits information. Now that I know that an experienced Oceania cruiser can't find the information either, I shall abandon the search.

 

I truly appreciate the helpful responses of Oceania cruises. 

[panda62]

On 10/28/2019 at 10:07 PM, Essiesmom said:

Through a mis-communication between Oceania and our TA, we are not getting the Blue Book but our cruise e-docs arrived from the TA yesterday.  Too bad, since it is our first O cruise.  We sail Nov. 16.  EM

Same here, we didn't get any luggage labels either. Shame as like keeping blue book as a memento. 

[Kate-AHF]

FWIW, the blue books arrived from our TA today, 5 weeks out from the sail date.