Flatbush Flyer

I’ll bet my almost 500 nights on O ships against your total experience on other cruise ships of equivalent vintage. Relatively speaking, Regatta is what we sailors refer to as “Bristol.”

Not about to do your research for you. That said, my knowledge is based on professional experience with standards of hotel and restaurant management. Thus, if you want citations and can afford it, I’d be willing to find you some valid literature references.

Zero scientific rigor to your comment (based solely on personal experience) while self serve buffets (on/off ships) are notorious for disease transmission.

This “R” ships “going away” is a much debated topic. One only needs to look at the various Vista (and other “new build” issues across the industry to realize that dumping the “R” ships may not be the best decision. Time will tell.

You are entitled to your opinion. But, those original Renaissance ships were built like a “brick out house.” As each of the four “R” ships (R for Regatta Class, NOT Renaissance) started the Oceania cruise line [Regatta and then Insignia], they received a multi-million dollar renovation (including Sirena which took $40 million to turn the Ocean Princess into an O ship (which then received a recent NEXT Era makeover. If a little rust here and there really bothers you, than a classic cruise ship like any of O’s four R ships are definitely not for you. But, don’t worry. The R ships have a very loyal following including us. All that said, note that, with Vista and Allura joining the fleet, the future of the R ships is a bit uncertain. O knows that, without the “R”s they will lose a significant number of regular passengers. But, then there’s the question of the viability of an 8 ship fleet given an uncertain future of the cruise industry. In any case, if you’re not a big fan of the “R”s, O may not be a good cruise line for you.

Not necessary on O, which uses only “local time.” Leave iPhone set to “auto” and put ports (plus “sea day” equivalent longitude cities) in your “world clock”) app.

If, after allowing some time for your device to lock onto a new location, all else fails in your attempts to correct it, a hard reset should work.

The major misconception I have encountered (and fully researched for accuracy in most cases) is the belief that “premium/luxury” cruises are more expensive than “mass market” ones. While it’s true that the published cabin fares for similar itineraries/dates between the various industry segments may be significantly different, the true cost comparison should be based on the “net daily rate.” The “net daily rate” is the total of all required and optionally desired trip cost items (not just the cruise fare) divided by the number of days in your cruise vacation. And for folks who fly to embarkation, enjoy soda plus alcohol and specialty restaurants, use internet and do excursions (plus other stuff), having some or all of it included in your base cabin fare is quite different than being nickel-dimed for everything on a mass market ship. And then, there’s what you don’t get on premium/luxury ships: thousands of passengers, smoky casinos, amusement parks on floating apartment houses, pesky photographers, incessant announcements, phony art auctions, lines for everything, lecturers who are salesmen rather than teachers…… So, next time you’re planning a cruise, particularly an intercontinental one where airfare is a necessary consideration, base your comparison of cruise lines on the complete “net daily rate.”

If you upgraded from the basic booze to the Prestige package, there is no charge for cocktails on O ships as long as there is a bar open AND you’re not ordering the top shelf single malt scotches and highest end cognacs. Gratuities are included too. Also, if you upgraded, you would need to get a new key card with the upgrade notated or else you would then be charged the full price of the drink. As for the “arrival” time you selected for embarkation, that time is for when you should enter the terminal. Depending on the specific port, what then happens may vary. Usually there are separate lines for different cabin levels and the highest category ones have priority in completing the check-in process. As for “room readiness,” that’s done by cabin category. So when you embark and when you can access your cabin are two different things. Just like there’s no self-service allowed in the casual restaurant/buffet, there are no ice machines to keep passengers from touching food products (including ice) with their grubby hands. This is actually a feature that helped many passengers choose O for sanitary/food safety reasons.

Setting your Apple device clocks to manual requires that you keep changing time zones as you traverse them. Really not necessary. if you leave your iPhone on automatic time adjustment, it will eventually change zones when your reach a port and your device’s GPS pinpoints that zone (even if the device is on “airplane mode”). Another tactic that avoids having to deal with manual time setting is to leave your clock on automatic zone setting and add your home city, embark city, and port stop cities to your device’s “world clock.” Then, when the ship says “adjust an hour” + or -, you can use your “world clock” which is showing you accurate times + or - from your home city. (BTW, you can accurately estimate a land setting by longitude for sea days and your world clock will then display each hour change across your entire trip). Next trip: leave click on “auto” while home and just change the listed cities to your new itinerary. Finally, all O ships on all itineraries use “local time” as the “ship time” (even on sea days).

There were no lids in May.

There haven’t been lids for take out cups on O ships since before the Pandemic started. They do have recycled paper sleeves for hot cups. Sadly, O has not renewed its coffee contract with Illy Coffee. Now they use a proprietary brand.

Actually, one of O’s strengths is to consider and pursue all possible avenues to maintain an original itinerary before making a change and also to not inform passengers prematurely with incomplete information that may change numerous times before all is finalized.

What exactly do you mean by “really long cruise?” For us, anything less than 4 weeks is a “boat ride.” That said, if you want a month+\- multisegment (minimum repeat ports) cruise, look to lines that specialize in that type of trip. We prefer Oceania particularly for the great crew and space ratios AND the excellent food/service. In addition, we’ve done numerous bottom line comparisons of O with both mass market and luxury lines and found that the net daily rate of required and optionally desired added costs above the fare is far better on O.

Regardless of who pays them (you, O Club, TA, OCAPP), the debit and credit for gratuities appears on your shipboard account.

Call it whatever you want- gratuity, tip, service charge. The gratuity charges for the cabin et al. are not posted daily to your account. Rather, they appear as a single total amount. For booze, it’s 20% on all non-package booze purchases and each of those purchases appears as a separate charge on your account.

You may want to look up the definition of “gratuity.”😳

Hawaii (all counties) is a trip best done by land. This is not the Caribbean with mostly scrubby reef islands and third world cultures once you turn left off the Main Street. And, if you can swing it time/money wise (e.g., at least 7-10 days each trip), I suggest you focus on a single island each time - starting with Kauai, the Garden Isle. But, if you’ve got your heart set on doing a cruise, my suggestion would be a partial or full transpacific (full between SYD and any west coast port (SFO, LAX) or partial between PPT and California with 4-5 days criss-crossing the Hawaiian Islands along the way. And for either of those options, I’d recommend Oceania since you could put together a variety of multi-segment itineraries that would introduce you to both Polynesia and Hawaii. And if you start or end in PPT, you could add a great extra few days in Polynesia. Of course, there’s one major caveat: Once you do Polynesia and/or Hawaii and/or the Western Pacific (incl Fiji, Samoa, Vanuatu, New Caledonia et al), you’ll say goodbye to the Caribbean.

I’ve been gone since my mid-twenties but have never really left.

Oceania used to have a search section for TAs (listed by zipcode. They may have been Connoisseurs Club members but not necessarily the “preferred partners” and/or “elite” ones (I assume this later group is some specific number of the top sellers of O cruises. I know that our primary TA is the top seller of Tauck in North America (and probably the world) and is also one of the O “Elite” group as well. And that kind of “status” does get rewarded in ways that benefit their own regular clients. As for finding these TAs, I suggest doing what we did for several years (as we went through several different TAs to arrive at a “short list” of folks I respect and use (and who takes good care of us). Once onboard an O ship, work “what TA do you use” into every possible conversation. Do it on every cruise until you start hearing the same handful of Agencies over and over again. Contact all of them and interview them to see just how knowledgeable they are AND which ones are a good fit for your own interpersonal style. That seems like a lot of work. But, it will payoff.

Don’t be “pennywise and pound foolish.”ALWAYS pay by credit card so that you have a built-in mechanism for disputes.Getting FF points is a bonus. And included trip insurance (albeit, most often, not as robust as it should/could be for truly comprehensive/flexible coverage) is another perk.

If you have one of O’s top performing “preferred partner” TAs (look for “Elite” on their O Connoisseurs Club logo icon), a quick call to their Regional Sales Rep may get your TA access to the ”quiet sale” price even it’s not your TA’s time in the rotation. In any case, like so many other O policies, a lot depends on the interpretation of the policy by whoever answered the phone. That can mean that a “No” needs to be escalated to get Miami on the “same page” that you want to be. My experience with O regarding rules exceptions is “you win some- you lose some.” Fortunately for us, it’s more often “thoughtful win/win negotiation that gets the “Yes.”

Most importantly, do not fly in on day of departure. Flight cancellation or delay, missed connection and rebooks on next flight out unavailable, misplaced/lost checked bags all can find the ship leaving without you. And, NO, the ship is under no obligation to wait for you if you buy your air through the cruise line. Read your Ticket Contract and T&Cs. NCL Holding (and other cruise line consortia) is not liable for performance issues related to their contracted services. That said, always book air on your own. It’s not just a price issue. When you book anyway other than directly with an airline, you must go through the ticket issuer (e.g., cruise line, TA, et al.) to make any changes. And while you’re trying to do that, DIYers will be contacting the airline direct (phone or airport rep) to grab those last available seats on the next plane out. So, learn to master the air routing web search engine ITA Matrix and DIY.

I’ve used the onetime switch of a BoB and not lost the bonus SBC for the original booking.

A number of folks here on CC have reported that they were told by someone (or read somewhere) that you could do the BoB deal for a month after the cruise (as well as during the month prior to embark) only to find that it was/is not true. Extension of the BoB deal has long been pre-cruise only (and limited to 30 days.