Equal benefits for non-americans!!!!

[lord of the seas]

I do, but I am not sure I want to publish it here, in fact I'm pretty sure I don't. I would really like to hear from you though. Any other suggestions?

 

I know, how about my facebook site - I can accept you as 'a friend' and then we can communicate whilst I can block others, it's:

 

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=546233662

 

The easiest way is to contact the person that posted in this thread #183

we have worked long and hard to acheive the right result.it will not be too hard as his address is in his post.

 

Good luck

[Aussie Gal]

I have just reread this topic after being away from the Boards for the past 6 and a bit weeks.

 

Whilst we were on Oceania's Nautica, we met up with quite a big contingent of Aussie cruisers. We discussed what we had paid for our cabins as you do! We had bought our cruise 18 months earlier through the same agency as Lahore when they were allowed to sell to everyone. The poor Aussie's who were all in the same verandah cabins on Deck 7 as we, had bought their cabins in Australia, and had paid more than $8000Aud a couple than us because they were unaware that they could buy on the net in the U.S.

 

There were a lot of them and they did complain to the Hotel Manager and the Cruise Director but of course that was a wasted effort as the policy comes from Head Office.

 

Needless to say, they are not going to book Oceania again. We too have moved on from Oceania due to the policy of not being able to buy the cruises in the U.S. and have now gone to Azimara and HAL. We have booked both of these cruises with our U.S. agent at a good saving.

 

I do not believe in being the underdog and paying top dollar for something that the rest of the world receives at a far lesser price.

 

Jennie

[lahore]

Lord: aha, I get it. Thank you.

 

Like Jennie above (welcome back Jennie) I now have two cruises booked with HAL (back to back) so I don't need someone at the minute, but it's great to know you solved the problem and how, and I'll bear that in mind for 2010! Enjoy whereever you are off to.

 

Jennie - interesting story, would have (not) liked to have seen the other passengers faces. Poor bugs. I will be really interested to hear what you find with Azamara. I didn't look at them, but will be for after our HAL cruise. Cheers for now.

[meow!]

Oh my, what a few short months have done. The A$ has fallen from some 98 cents to 72 cents. So how is Australian pricing of Oceania cruises these days? Is the local national agent eating the exchange losses or are they keeping the fare rates just several months ago? Do you know why the A$ has dropped a lot worse than C$, which is also a commodity currency in just this past month by an additional 22%?

 

P.S. Just while I am typing, the A$ dropped another 2 cents to 70 cents, the 60s cents days are coming! Perhaps Americans should travel to Australia to take advantage, just like in the first couple of years of this century.

[Paulchili]

While I wish them well, it would be nice if these favorable rates lasted into Jan 2010 when I'll be in Oz. It's a long way off though - a lot can happen between now & then.

[meow!]

Paulchili: Just curious, what is your icon picture, is it a cat by a stream? Pardon my eyes!

[myrtlewinston]

I've wondered that myself. To me, it looks like a black lab by a pool.

[Paulchili]

It's our wonderful black lab Pepper (full name Dr.Pepper) resting by "his" pool.

BTW,meow, he doesn't mind cats at all, unlike our last yellow lab.

[world~citizen]

So, ostensibly, I have just taken my last cruise with Oceania and will have to cruise with those lines that allow me to exercise the choice that I believe a consumer should be able to exercise. That makes me REALLY annoyed - in effect I am barred from doing something I really like. I LOVE Oceania, but I can no longer travel with them if they want to charge me 3k more than someone in USA for exactly the same thing.

 

Well, who could blame you!

 

Seems O has some rings to grow around its horns yet.:eek:

[digby]

Paulchili: Just curious, what is your icon picture, is it a cat by a stream? Pardon my eyes!

 

Icon? What icon? I don't see any icon.

[meow!]

You have to set certain settings to view it. Alternatively, don't log in, turn off your cookies, and the default will show you those individual icons (for people who have them).

 

By the way, when the Autralian daytime zone comes, I hope those posters from Australia who have contributed to this thread will comment on the effect of the A$ meltdown this week on Oceania's fare pricing in Australia.

[Aussie Gal]

Meow,

 

As I don't have any Oceania cruises booked, I cannot help you with how the drop in dollar is going to affect those who have booked here in Oz. I do know that there is always a clause written into the contracts stating that if there is a drop in currency, then the prices may change so I daresay that it may come into effect though I think most of Oceania's prices have been worked out around the .70 mark.

 

We have an Azamara cruise booked for February through an U.S. agency and we will have to pay for that in December. We may be paying around the .70 mark but I suspect from what I have read that our dollar will probably go up again to at least the.80 mark which is fine with us.

 

We cannot understand why our dollar has dropped so much against the dollar when our economy is in good shape whereas the U.S. economy is in such a bad way. Perhaps someone knows something that we all don't know!

 

Jennie

[Paulchili]

Jennie,

I suspect if any of us really knew how this works and why these things happen, we would be cruising on SilverSea, Seabourn or Crystal around the world right now and we would not be worried about fluctuating exchange rates.

At least speaking for myself, I have no idea why this is happening now.

I too would have thought the US $ would be in trouble now in view of our economy/banking - go figure..

Paul

[2kiwis]

Well $NZ is going down fast as well............. lucky we have already paid for this years cruise but heavens knows what will happen to next years cruise. Hopefully things may have improved by then. :confused:

 

Crazy isn't it. The US is in a mess yet we end up worse off. What's the bet those who got the million dollar bonuses before their companies went belly-up have their money stashed away somewhere safe. They may be the only ones who can afford to cruise soon. Feel sorry for the average American caught up in it all.:(

 

I suspect there will be a lot of cruise cancellations coming up so maybe there will be lots of specials. It might worthwhile cancelling next year's cruise now and waiting for the specials? :) . Either that or staying closer to home.

 

Just have to wait and see for now.

 

Cheers

2kiwis

[harryh]

Hi all

 

We had already cancelled a b2b cruise Auckland-Sydney-Bangkok in 2010 due to hefty Oceania price increases, and that was based on the much more favourable exchange rate of several weeks ago. We chose to try Azamara instead in 2010.

 

In the meantime our upcoming cruise with Oceania in 2009 is fully paid up about 2 months ago at an exchange rate of about 0.88, so we are very fortunate. If this is a long term trend I suspect our Oceania days are over!

 

Can anybody explain to me why such a dramatic move in the A$, and the US$ for that matter, I am very confused.

[LHT28]

Hi all

 

Can anybody explain to me why such a dramatic move in the A$, and the US$ for that matter, I am very confused.

 

The C$ is also down not long ago we were at par with the USD.

I am hoping it will recover a bit before final payment.

 

This is my take on it ...it may be wrong:

The world market revolves around the USD so when the USA does stupid things with their banks, mortgage companies the World suffers right along even though other Governments are smart enough not to allow 100% mortgages to people who are not in a position to buy property.

 

Off my political soapbox now!

 

Lyn

[Paulchili]

haryh,

if you can, please post your comparison of Azamara to O as I too am looking in that direction for 2010 & beyond.

BTW, which Azamara cruise are you taking?

[tiny_traveler_15]

Can anybody explain to me why such a dramatic move in the A$, and the US$ for that matter, I am very confused.

 

There is a very interesting thread on the Crystal section called 'What effect will the economic situation have on Crystal' which discusses the economic events recently. There is a lot of very thoughtful conversation that I found worthwhile to review as it will pertain to all cruise lines and consumer spending in general.

There is even some reference to Apollo and Oceania in the thread.

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=852358

[Paulchili]

TT 15,

What an interesting (and also sobering/depressing) thread that is.

It is very well articulated (mostly) - thank you for pointing it out to me (us).

[ging466]

Can anybody explain to me why such a dramatic move in the A$, and the US$ for that matter, I am very confused.

 

Hi

 

The Aussie Dollar is aligned with commodity pricing and when the big markets like the US and Japan are suffering the first thing they pull back on is commodity purchasing from Australia and so the Aussie dollar suffers too. The Aussie went to 67c today - it was 98c a couple of months ago...amazing. Watch as our stock market tumbles, the Aussie tumbles too - doesn't matter that our economy and banks are in better shape than other countries.

 

Cruising has just become extremely expensive again for Aussies!

 

Is anyone going to cancel their cruises? I've already paid for my Silverseas cruise so I'm ok but I'm just going to wait and see what happens with my Princess cruise next year....based on the current exchange rate, it's now gone up over $1500.

 

Cheers

Ging466

[meow!]

It is understandable that the A$ is tied to commodity prices. Somehow, the C$, which should also be tied to commodity prices (and is more important to cruisers as more Americans take the Alaska voyages and northern east coast voyages) is still lofty at 90 cents, instead of below 70 cents. Does anyone know why the C$ is the "sacred cow"?

[Paulchili]

For a deeper understanding of the current financial crisis ( and a bit of comic relief) you might enjoy this clip:

http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/187.html

It's about 8 minutes long but very good.

Have fun!

[Aussie Gal]

We are still doing our Azamara cruise for next Feb/March and our tour in China, but we will be watching the share market etc. as we are retirees and rely on our dividends and if the companies we have invested in do not perform then we will be thinking about cancelling our cruise at the end of November, 2009 and then the one in May, 2010.

 

At the moment, it is all doom and gloom and we are being told this is only the tip of the iceberg so who knows what the future holds.

 

We are lucky in that we have done so much travelling over the past 14 years and have seen most of the world. It may be time to spend our hard earned dollars on visiting some of the areas in our own country that we have yet to see eg. Uluru and Kakadu and perhaps Broome.

 

I wish I had a crystal ball to see what the future holds. If I had it a month ago I would have purchased our cruises in advance. Unfortunately or fortunately we were in Alaska and Canada for over a month and missed the boat in regards to our dollar going down so quickly. I cannot believe that we were at .92 at the beginning of the 1st Sept and it is now at .65.

 

Jennie

[Paulchili]

PS the above posted clip was not meant to "belittle" this grave situation but I think we all can use a laugh even at difficult times; and these definitely are trying times.

[Aussie Gal]

Paul,

 

That is so funny. We have a duo here in Australia who do similar skits each week either about our politicians or what has been happening in the news. They are John Clarke and Brian Dawes and are extremely funny.

 

Jennie