Tour and cruise costs

[ToniL]

I've been checking tour costs on the Princess and RCCL sites and they are virtually identical to those on Oceania cruises. I also checked costs for similar cruises, same time of year. HAL, Celebrity and RCCL ranged between 1200.00 and 1800.00 without flights, for the same category of room that I paid 1700.00 for, including flights, from Oceania. Crystal would have been around 4000.00 without flights ( I realize that it is not comparable but was interested in the difference). I thought I'd share this information in light of the comments that have been made about Oceania's pricing.

[meow!]

Would you kindly indicate which itineraries, dates and lengths you have been comparing? I am just curious, thank you.

[ToniL]

I just went to Travelocity and Vacations To Go, and looked for only Western Med trips, so they all had almost the same ports. I included 10 to 12 day cruises, although my Oceania cruise is 11 days. The dates that I used were mid to late October.

[roothy123]

That's interesting. I always assumed Oceania cost at least a little bit more than the larger ships, but perhaps they don't ....nice to know. What a deal - fantastic food and less than 700 people mulling around you!

[roothy123]

Just out of curiousity, I decided to do a similar comparison for 17 day cruises through the Panama Canal, smallest cabin, in January. It was a bit hard to compare that, since O's trip is a little longer than most cruise lines. However, it looks like HAL and Princess are at least $500 more than Oceania, even with a slightly shorter cruise. Of course, to do a REAL comparison you might have to figure in any extras like drinks (although I suspect HAL and Princess' policies ar similar). However, our "extras" on O. were few, so I wasn't too worried about that. I also couldn't really check air prices. Crystal's oceanview was definitely more expensive than O's verandah. Based on what I saw, Oceania is definitely a good deal, especially if you like the smaller ships. (HAL's passenger count was higher, but not substantially so.)

[meow!]

Since there are usually not many minimum priced cabins on any cruise line, it may be more representative to compare the most popular cabin category prices instead, e.g. the basic balconied cabins on modern cruise ships. Would the results be any different? Thank you.

[roothy123]

You're right - there aren't too many of the small, cheap cabins available, (and most people probably don't want them anyway!). I just manage to find them because I book WAY in advance. Maybe if I get some time I'll go back and look at medium priced cabins. The problem is that I'm not sure what I'm looking for/at, and wouldn't want to compare apples to oranges. For example, Crystal's Panama Canal cruise, 16 days, had an oceanview available (at least on *************) or $3900, but I wasn't sure it that was comparable to Oceania's typical veranda cabins, or what!

[ToniL]

I was expecting Oceania's tours to be more expensive than others because of comments on this board. But a tour of Rome (no Vatican museum) is 148 with Princess, 150 with RCCL and 129 with Oceania. With the Vatican museum it is 175 with Princess, 179 with RCCL and 149 with Oceania. I also checked others and found the same sort of pattern. We expect to do most of our touring independently, so I was mainly checking to get a sense of the validity of what was being posted.

[meow!]

Interesting numbers, it is nice to compare statistics!

[roothy123]

Well, that doesn't surprise me. Some people might be remembering their experiences a year or two or three ago, However, gas is so expensive now in Europe, and the exchange rate is bad, so there aren't going to be any cheap tours - even on Oceania! Of course, the price of a train ticket is certainly cheap - round trip to Rome from Civi was 9 euros in May, and that included use of the Metro! Of course, you get no commentary, you might have to fumble around trying to find your way, and you risk getting back to the ship in time to see it sailing away if you mess up!

[didi7]

Hi. Not sure you are still watching this post, but wondered if you can tell me how long the trip by train is from Citivecchi to Rome & how frequent the departures. Did you use one of those "on/off" tour vehicles in Rome? We travelled Scandanavia with Rennaissance (reason we're now going to try Oceania) & did most of our travel in all the cities this way. It was perfect!

[PETER M]

Trains run 2-3 per hour; about 50 min. to Roma San Pietro (Vatican) or 65-70 min. Roma Termini (main stn.). From San Pietro it would be 10-15 min. walk to Bascillica, or we took taxi to the Museum -Sistine entrance for 5 euros. Return taxi from Piazza Navonna was 6.25.

On a Saturday we beat the ship's tour buses to the museum by 10-20 min., but had to pay 10 euros for a Chita. taxi (rip-off). Double up when you go down gangway or look for free Port shuttle and walk 4 blocks.

It really was easy. Enjoy the Eternal City on your own schedule.

:cool: Peter M

[elin]

Hello, we just came back from the Oceania Barcelona to Venice (Aut. 17 - 31) cruise. What we ended up doing was arranging with Paolo (www.driving-guide.com (http://www.driving-guide.com)) to pick us up at the dock and take us into the city (we got dropped off at the Colosseum) and then picking us up at St. Peter's Square and taking us back to the dock. He charged us $150EUR each way for the car (this was a mini van), since we were more then 4 people (4 people were $130EUR each way). We had 8 people in a mini van that easily held 12 people.
It worked out to $75EUR per couple round trip (much cheaper then the $90 US per person that Oceania wanted to do the same thing.
I also have to say that dealing with Paolo was great! He let me contact him the day before to let him know how many people were going in with us (2 of the couples we met on the ship and they came along with us). It was very convenient!

[ClaudiaF]

Hello, we just came back from the Oceania Barcelona to Venice (Aut. 17 - 31) cruise. What we ended up doing was arranging with Paolo (www.driving-guide.com (http://www.driving-guide.com)) to pick us up at the dock and take us into the city (we got dropped off at the Colosseum) and then picking us up at St. Peter's Square and taking us back to the dock. He charged us $150EUR each way for the car (this was a mini van), since we were more then 4 people (4 people were $130EUR each way). We had 8 people in a mini van that easily held 12 people.
It worked out to $75EUR per couple round trip (much cheaper then the $90 US per person that Oceania wanted to do the same thing.
I also have to say that dealing with Paolo was great! He let me contact him the day before to let him know how many people were going in with us (2 of the couples we met on the ship and they came along with us). It was very convenient!
I am confused you only used him for taking you and dropping you off? Why didn't you have him take you and wait?
Better to pay 400 EU for the whole van and keep for the day..( holds 6 people)..if he doesn't than call on someone who does.
there are a few guys that are fabulous who do..

[elin]

I had been to Rome before and knew where I wanted to go and what I wanted to see. I actually was looking forward to walking around. We walked the route from the Colosseum, to the Palatine/Forum, up to the Trevi Fountain (past the Victorio Emmanuel II monument), to the Pantheon, Piazza Narvona, Spanish Steps and a little shopping all around. Then we bought a $1Eur bus ticket and took the bus to St. Peter's Square.
We could have arranged for him to stay with us, but we had 4 different couples who wanted to do different things, so we did some stuff together and then split up and went our own way.
When I'm on vacation I enjoy walking around the different towns/cities as much as possible, as I also think that part of the charm of a city is absorbed by foot instead of out a window.

[trvlnliz]

Elin,
This is exactly what we planned to do in Rome next month on our Regatta cruise. We love walking all around and you see so much more than driving around in a car. I had reserved a car to take us into Rome and drop us off at the Borghese and pick us up at the end of the day. I had reserved tickets for the Borghese Gallery and wanted to do the English tour. Oceania changed the day from Sat. to Monday so the Borghese is closed. We'll catch it next year. We are now taking a train into Rome and meeting a guide for a tour of the Coloseum and then spend the rest of the day doing whatever. We're so excited!! :D