Psoque

Hi. I see that there has been no activity here since early May. Is it the case that there just aren’t enough people to keep this going?

I think the main point bubbaed is making about his Viking experience compared to that with Oceania is that what Viking calls “Free Airfare” is different from that with Oceania.

Obviously, if we know that the cost of OLife is the same as the “free” onboard credit, anybody with basic math skill can figure all of that. I cannot argue with that. It’s the way Oceania presents the information in a way that is NOT straightforward and makes somewhat contradictory and false statement about what is being offered for “free.” Furthermore, when I spoke with a Oceania person who was assigned to me to help me somehow (I’m not sure why/how Oceania decided to assign me a person…I booked this cruise, which I subsequently cancelled for a entirely different reason, was originally booked with my usual travel agent.) about the cost of OLife, he kept telling me that the cost of OLife is “included in my fare” and that the OLife benefits are “free to all customers.”. When I further digged in by asking how much I would pay less if I drop OLife, and also asked if that amount is equal to the “free” on board credit, he pretended like he did not know the answer. It is true that most of us will eventually figure this all out, but I think the information presented on the website and the brochures are extremely misleading, and that’s the reason this very thread was even created.

Hi. I’m sure many of you received this also, but I received an e-mail from Crystal announcing a $ 1,000 air credit for booking a 2023 cruise by July 31. I believe this is in the form of either $ 1,000 credit for Crystal Air or actual reduction in the cruise fare per cabin of $ 1,000 if you choose to book your own flights. I sort of welcome this. My hope is that Crystal will experiment with this kind of “price reduction in disguise” for them to get more marketing data to consider actually lowering their prices. I consider the current prices to be a bit too ambitiously high.

I just received an e-mail from the new Crystal that they are now offering “air credits” to those book by some arbitrary deadline. I guess those cruise marketing people think (don’t think) alike. The madness continues…. But to their credit, they have not gone “all-out Oceania” yet. They are definitely not saying “FREE AIRFARE!!!” yet.

Oceania thinks it is “clever” marketing to never directly mention the cost of OLife add-on. It is a mystery to me how that is clever or for that matter, beneficial to their bottom line. Call me crazy, but if I were running a cruise line, I would want all of my customers to pay me money for a great cruise with great service, and I would like my customers to be well-informed. My suggestion to Oceania is for them to list three items, separately for each itinerary/cabin class: -Cruise Only Cost (which Oceania already does…BRAVO!!!..with sarcasm!) -Cost of (basic) Airfare (and airport transfers) Arranged by Oceania. -Cost of OLife Add-On (they can call it whatever they want to call it, but it is NOT free, and they need to make that very clear.) If they do this, more customers new to Oceania will be spending less time scratching their heads about how their cruises are priced. They also needs to rethink if it is even profitable to keep saying “FREE AIRFARE! FREE AIRPORT TRANSFERS!!!” on almost every page of their brochure. I guess some customers may get hooked by this, but does Oceania really consider highly impressionable careless readers with substandard analytical skills to be their target customer base? Can you imagine a car dealership say “FREE TIRES” when the invoice include a charge for tires? I don’t think a car dealership cannot get away doing that. For some reason, Oceania is getting away with it. I have no idea why. Or when you buy groceries, and you choose not to buy milk, for example, can a grocery store “charge” you for milk, then refund you for “milk credit?” All of this is pure insanity. ….my disclaimers… -I have no axe to grind with Oceania. I’m just making an observation. I don’t feel I was ever harmed by the questionable marketing practices employed by Oceania. I’m hoping that I will have a great time on Riviera regardless of what Oceania decides to include in their marketing strategy. -I am aware that Oceania is not the only cruise line that participates in questionable and confusing marketing behavior. Many other cruise lines do similar/not so similar things in the name of marketing. However, I think the whole “FREE AIRFARE! FREE AIRPORT TRANSFER!” thing shrouded in this mysterious OLife “perk” along with this “air credit” you receive when you decide to book your own airfare, in my experience, marks a new low for me. -For those who think I should just not take an Oceania cruise because of it, thanks for your suggestion. However, as I mentioned earlier in this disclaimer, their questionable “marketing practice” does not bother me enough to ditch Oceania.

I agree with all of that. However, I think it makes no sense whatsoever to call the money you don't give Oceania for them to book flights as you as a "credit." Yes, Oceania wants you to call it that, to reinforce the illusion of "free flights" that they are somehow offering their passengers. I have no intention to criticize how you book your cruises/flights. I was making a point, however, that this so called "credit for airfare" and its amount is very telling of the cruise line business model in regard to this. If the "credit" you receive to book your own flights comfortably covers everything you need to book your flights and even for the local transfers, that is a very good proof that the cruise line is making a killing on the those passengers who do not book their own flights, since the cruise lines more commonly source their flights from consolidator inventory, and the cost of airport transfers, per passenger, is peanuts compared to what the cruise lines charge to those who wants to just buy it.

Nothing will be subtle if Park West is involved.

I, for one, never thought airfare from the cruise line is a “bargain” as you call it. They typically overcharge for inferior itineraries, typically on consolidator inventories. And some cruise lines are notorious for keep changing the itineraries as cheaper consolidator seats open up. My points are: 1. The “Air Credit” from Oceania is not a “gift” to you, but a refund of what they were planning to charge you for whatever flights they were planning to foist on you. 2. If the amount of “Air Credit” appears “too generous” to you, that’s the sign that you should never bother to pay them that much money when you first booked the cruise, but to just book your flights on your own. (Obviously, I have no idea if that is possible with Oceania when you are a UK customer. This is 100% possible in the US.) 3. When you do the math to estimate the value of airfare from the cruise line, one must not just accept the advertised “cost/value” of airport transfers, which are over-inflated. Depending on the ports involved, the cost of group bus transfers offered by the cruise line could be (sometimes a lot) more than the actual cost of a taxi fare.

I’m not sure how Oceania is sold in UK, but if the “credit” covers the flights with no problem, that’s a sign that Oceania is overcharging for the flights for those who decide not to take the “credit.”

In my experience, the cost of airfare from the cruise line is rarely cheaper than what you can find yourself. In the case of our upcoming Oceania cruise, we managed to get airfare much cheaper than what the cruise line was asking for, and the itinerary was very humane. Often, the cruise line would give you a less than optimal itinerary on a consolidator bucket, hoping that the passenger would not notice. Also, cruise lines inflate the actual cost/value of transfer to/from the airport.

I am not sure this is really true. Unless your TA has an exclusive access to some secret super-low early-booking prices, what you have been told is basically a reflection of the (un)willingness of your TA to re-price a booked cruise when it comes down in price.

When we were in Southampton just before boarding a cruise ship there a few years ago, we visited an old house/museum with a rooftop garden. I think it was called something like Tudor House Museum or something like that.

There will be all kinds of people, some rude, some not rude, some similar to us, some not similar to us, some with “indoor voices,” and some without. The list goes on and on. I just can’t imagine how any particular cruise line can somehow hand-pick those who somehow are acceptable to their whatever target audience the cruise line wants the customer to think they belong to. Almost every cruise line I have done business with you tries convince customers that the cruise line somehow defines who you are. And I have a hunch that many of us are totally on board with that illusion, based on what I read here, especially on this thread. As long as a person owns a credit card with high enough credit limit, he/she can book a cruise with any cruise line, including (gasp!) Oceania. Being on any particular cruise ship does not give one a guarantee that the experience on board will not be marred by (unacceptable) behavior of other passengers on board. We have been on a few cruises at various price points, and I never felt any particular cruise line to be free of poor passenger behavior. On the other hand, I have noticed that people in general area misbehaving. And I don’t think this is just my opinion. I don’t think being ensconced in a cruise ship, at any price point, would protect any of us from this trend.

I think some tiny ships are still allowed to dock in Venice somewhere, and that’s what we are doing with a cruise on a Star Clipper ship next year. Obviously a completely different beast from Crystal (old and new), but we are looking forward to it. Also, I read some nice things about Trieste. I believe there is an Italian-American expat who wrote a book about her experience there.

I often use Google Flights to check and track prices, as well as to obtain the typical pricing spread for particular flight itinerary. I believe it does now work well for open jaws, but it has helped me decide on when to pull the trigger on flight purchases. But my recommendation (which is the same as what others have shared) is to book the flights when you find an itinerary that works well for you at the price point that you are willing to pay. Also, since many airlines have very generous rebooking policies, it MIGHT be possible to re-book it if and when the prices come down after you book. I have done that also and ended up with credits (not cash back) that I then used on another flights with the same airline. So, it might be a good idea to check the re-booking policy on the ticket before pulling the trigger.

This may be just a poorly worded excuse to raise the base price of the cruises. I just can’t imagine how Oceania (or any other cruise line) can sustain its bottom line if they have to resort to this kind of discounted sales indeinitely.

I’m not holding my breath.

Our upcoming cruise would be our first one with Oceania, so I’ve never booked a shore excursion with Oceania. So, could you explain to me what does/can go wrong when we book the excursions online?

I’m suspecting that Oceania contacted you because you are new to them and that you booked a PH cabin (and if I remember correctly, you booked more than one cabin?). I firmly believe that cruise lines respond to $$$$ a lot more than to anything we post here.

Most of our flights “up front” are to Asia, mainly Japan, and I would never use any US based carrier for that route. We recently flew United “Polaris” to Reykjavik and back from Heathrow, and that was totally disgusting. The cabin was not properly cleaned. The food was borderline inedible.

I’m sorry you had a bad experience last fall on your flights. I’m not trying to defend any particular airlines, but from what I read/experienced, almost all airlines treated their customers poorly in the summer/fall of 2022, especially in regard to their luggage. I’m not sure avoiding Lufthansa would have prevented your plight. Here’s what we know: KLM had a meltdown in Amsterdam. British Airways had the same in Heathrow. Similar issues in Atlanta with both Delta and Southwest. I don’t think avoiding any particular airline would have be a helpful strategy, especially last year. However, do agree with the fact that Frankfurt is not the easiest airports to transfer, especially if your itinerary is tight. It takes forever to make some of the connections there, not only because it is a giant maze of an airport, because it appears it is in the constate state of flux in terms of construction. When we fly through Europe, we try to avoid connecting in Frankfurt unless there is at least 2-3 hours connection time, assuming that it can be bad connecting there. We have a few airports we prefer to connect: We have had very good connection experience in Zurich and Amsterdam. One of the reasons we almost always book our flights to/from the cruises on our own to have a better control over our itinerary. Also, we have never found the airfare charged by any of the cruise lines we have used to be competitive. It usually costs more, and typically a lot more, that what we can get ourselves. There was one exception, though. When we did a Panama Canal transit cruise, we had to fly to Costa Rica and back from Florida. Airfare from the cruise line was much cheaper than what we could find, so we did buy airfare from them. However, the cost savings may not have been worth the trouble when the cruise line refused to help us when our flight to Costa Rica was cancelled because of fog. We had to buy our own airfare from an alternative airport, and the cruise line initially refused to reimburse us for it. It took a few months of back and forth with the corporate office before getting that reimbursed. And this was with a “luxury” cruise line (more “luxurious” in price than Oceania).

Those are some fighting words…lol.

I agree. Every time Oceania adds "Free Airfare!!" to their brochure, they are consciously adding a piece of false information. Also, showing just "OLife with Air" and "Cruise Only" prices on each of the sailings, Oceania is intentionally making it somewhat difficult (but not impossible) for a new customer to figure out the true cost of OLife add-on. I have this funny feeling that someone in the marketing department foolishly thought tactics like this were clever. I don't really think they are. It really makes the company look bad. If Oceania is offering a good product at a fair price point (and I like to think they are, based on personal recommendations from those who has done cruises on a variety of lines) they don't have to resort to this pure madness. I think Oceania is truly doing themselves a great disservice in doing this.

You are too kind. In my view, Oceania is blatantly confusing their prospective customers with intentionally misleading and some patently false marketing language on their brochures and their website. I’m really hoping that our first onboard experience with them would not be like that at all.