O Life Perk Options

[Empehi]

For you experienced Oceania cruisers: When choosing an O Life option, what does everyone think is the most valuable? Does it depend on the itinerary?

Also .... if you opt for the air and discover a lower air option can you opt out of the O Life air?

 

Thanks ....

 

E

[tropicalkerry2002]

It is Oceania air, nothing to do with O Life.

I always have booked with Oceania air, and then cancelled when able to use my points, or found a good airfare.

The only problem is, the credit for Oceania air may not be as good as the cruise gets closer.

[IWantToLiveOverTheSea]

I'm a little rusty on the options with OLife, as we normally just buy the cruise itself and pay for everything else on our own, i.e., a la carte.  But if we do take OLife, we take the onboard $ credit instead of the excursions or drinks, as it seems the most flexible, plus we're practically non-drinkers.   We can use credit on an excursion or two and if anything is left over, purchase something from the store or (less likely), alcohol, or if available/allowed, a spa treatment.  There may be others ways to use the credit, but someone else will have to fill you in on that, or perhaps it's in the FAQs action on O's website.

 

Hopefully someone will mention if there are restrictions on type of excursions you can purchase with the OLife option, and alcohol. 

 

We usually don't take O's air, because it tends to be cheaper but not as good in terms of routing, than we can find on our own.  Unless you pay extra, they don't immediately book flights for you, so that can result in less choice than if you booked something early on your own.  I think, but am not sure, that you can elect to take O's air before final payment if you didn't choose it before, so that may be one more thing to keep in mind in deciding what options you want.

Edited November 15, 2020 by IWantToLiveOverTheSea

[Paulchili]

5 minutes ago, IWantToLiveOverTheSea said:

If we do take OLife, we take the onboard $ credit instead of the excursions or drinks, as it seems the most flexible

Actually, that is the worse choice among the O Life options.

You pay $300 or $400 ahead of time just to get them back. Worse, you have to spend it all or lose the balance. Where is the benefit in that?

I cannot comment on the value of drinks package but excursions can double your value.

You pay $100/excursion in O Life cost but can get excursions valued up to $199 - potentially doubling your investment.

As mentioned above, air is not part of O Life - you can take air w/o O Life if you wish.

[Paulchili]

Just now, Paulchili said:

Actually, that is the worst choice among the O Life options.

You pay $300 or $400 ahead of time just to get them back. Worse, you have to spend it all or lose the balance. Where is the benefit in that?

I cannot comment on the value of drinks package as we don’t drink but excursions can double your value.

You pay $100/excursion in O Life cost but can get excursions valued up to $199 - potentially doubling your investment.

As mentioned above, air is not part of O Life - you can take air w/o O Life if you wish.

 

[Flatbush Flyer]

While flexible in use, the SBC choice has no added value. $800 SBC O Life w/o air is exactly the same price as "cruise only."

 

But, that $800 SBC would be 8 tours with a value up to $199 each if you take the tours O Life.

Drink much and don't mind mediocre wine by the glass? Then you might want the booze O Life to which you could pay $20/day pp extra for unlimited booze.

FWIW, we do O Life with air credit since we prefer biz class on United/Star Alliance where we have a bank of FF miles. We always take the tours and book the most expensive of the allowable ones to which we may add enough added expensive ones to qualify for the YWYW 25% discount. Depending on the particular cruise, this can save you $2000+\-. And you can add your own private tours to your plans (though that may be a moot issue in the "new normal").

As for the booze: The Prestige (unlimited) package ($60 daily pp or $20 daily pp if you upgrade the O Life package) would equate to 2-4 doubles of premium booze (tip included) to break even and your still stuck with so-so wines-by-the-glass.

Short or long cruises, we bring a case+\- of our own wine and take advantage of officer invites, O Club events etc for many cocktails. Our out-of-pocket  bar bill generally would not hit $60 pp per day. And that usually would be covered by our Platinum SBC allowance.

And we don't mind paying the $25 corkage for our own wine at dinner. That $80 retail-at-home bottle plus the $25 corkage (which includes tip) would sell for $250+ onboard (plus tip). And that's if they even have it. We also replenish wine along the way.

 

BTW, avoid Oceania bizclass air. The ticket price might be less than you can find on your own. But, you need to pay the "with air" fare to get a bizclass quote and it is not deducted from the bizclass price. In essence, you are then paying for two tickets per person. Even the O air department will tell you that their bizclass is not a good deal.

[CintiPam]

I agree that that the shore excursions are the best choice monetarily even though I never went on a single ship-sponsored excursion until Oceania started the O-Life excursion choice. I enjoyed setting up excursions with others I met on the roll calls for our cruises, and have made friends from around the world through those arrangements. 

 

In fact, I still bemoan the introduction of the excursion O-Life option because it has destroyed utterly the private excursion sharing opportunities that IMO were the main purpose of the Roll Call board for a cruise. I personally prefer a day spent with six others max to 30 others. And I still plan most days DIY. 
 

On the bright side, I have very much enjoyed all my O Life Caribbean excursions that involve sailing or snorkeling or both. And now I meet new friends primarily through playing trivia. 
 

You can change your mind about O Air at any time. We usually have it included until I have completed my own airfare research. Of course, I always fly in at least one day before the cruise sails, although at my spouse’s insistence, we have arrived in the morning on the day of all of our Miami departures, which I have found very nerve wracking.

[Croooser]

It is worth it to double check with Oceania based on your exact booking. We booked on Riviera for March 2022 and with the O Life option the price was $1000 higher than without...and the OBC for the O Life was $1000. Naturally, we booked without as we always arrange our air ourselves. The Oceania website did not list the option to book without O Life. We had to call to get that pricing.

 

HTH

[ORV]

3 hours ago, Croooser said:

It is worth it to double check with Oceania based on your exact booking. We booked on Riviera for March 2022 and with the O Life option the price was $1000 higher than without...and the OBC for the O Life was $1000. Naturally, we booked without as we always arrange our air ourselves. The Oceania website did not list the option to book without O Life. We had to call to get that pricing.

 

HTH

There is a way to do it online. Just do a dummy booking and it will ask if you need air. That will give you the price with Olife but not air. 

[pinotlover]

For us, the answer is: there Is no such thing as a one size fits all answer. Predominantly, we prefer planning and booking our own shore tours. I have rarely had any problem filling group tours on the Roll Call section of CC. Besides the advantages of a small group, vastly lower prices, more customization of tours, multiple other issues are eliminated. However, some destinations this has proven difficult so we grudgingly take the shorex package.

 

Typically, we take drinks package and upgrade. Like Flatbush Flyer, we often take wine along and supplement along the way. However, the price of wine or booze in someplaces like Norway and the Baltic States, Iceland, Vietnam, Thailand, and other lands are so expensive, due to tariffs, or are just not locally available. You have a twenty (20) day cruise to some of these locations, you’re not buying along the way, nor are you carrying enough with you . You’re buying on the ship, most economically with a package. OTH, when cruising Australia, NZ, southern South America, and the South of Europe great local wines are abundant at very attractive prices. We always go local when we can. No onboard drinks package is then required.

 

That leaves OBC. We don’t normally take it as our option, but we have. Consider anywhere in the Med/Adriatic or Australia/NZ. Wonderful local wines are readily available plus arranging private  shore tours is simple. Take the OBC and do some fun stuff like getting that wonderful massage on a sea day, or some other treatments. Do something out of the ordinary, you might not otherwise do! Get out of the rut! 

 

We look at every cruise individually. If it’s a 10 day cruise, with only one sea day, the drink package isn’t worth it for us. We will be onshore everyone of those sea days eating lunch and having drinks ashore. We never rush back to the ship to have lunch when we can eat local cuisine ashore. For those that prefer returning to the ship for lunchtime, the answer may be different. There is no single answer. Depending Upon local and personal habits, the right solution for us varies every cruise.

[Paulchili]

1 hour ago, pinotlover said:

Take the OBC and do some fun stuff like getting that wonderful massage on a sea day, or some other treatments. Do something out of the ordinary, you might not otherwise do! Get out of the rut! 

I am surprised that an experienced O cruiser like you would ever consider or recommend doing this.

Choosing OBC as an O Life perk is essentially pre-paying for things 1 year ahead of time. You get no savings at all - why not just skip O Life and pay for things as you go. It will cost you the same and you won't be under pressure to spend it or lose it.

[pinotlover]

2 hours ago, Paulchili said:

I am surprised that an experienced O cruiser like you would ever consider or recommend doing this.

Choosing OBC as an O Life perk is essentially pre-paying for things 1 year ahead of time. You get no savings at all - why not just skip O Life and pay for things as you go. It will cost you the same and you won't be under pressure to spend it or lose it.

1. We booked past the FP date and hadn’t decided which option we wanted at booking. Didn’t until a month out. 

 

2.  Last cruise before PPG kicked in. Part went there.

 

3.  Extra non refundable remaining OBC was easy to spend . Once aboard it was like having a gift card. Get that massage or not? Get out of the rut, it was mostly paid for already, so of course you do! No justification of expenditure required!

Every cruise for us is different, with different considerations. If we had booked 12-24 months out, perhaps a different decision. No one size fits all.