PBtroy

The Email in part: We have been monitoring the situation in the Red Sea and despite our best hopes that it would de-escalate, prudence dictates that we alter our published voyage itineraries that were to transit through the region. This includes Insignia’s 2024 Around the World cruise, of which your sailing was a segment. With this in mind, we must cancel your booked voyage aboard Insignia that was scheduled to depart Dubai on May 13 due to the re-routed Around the World cruise itinerary. You will automatically receive a full (100%) refund to the original form of payment received by Oceania Cruises of all funds that have been applied to your reservation. If a Future Cruise Credit was utilized as payment in part or in whole, the same amount will be credited back to a Future Cruise Credit. Future Cruise Credits do not expire. All government taxes along with ancillary items purchased through Oceania Cruises will also be refunded. Ancillary items eligible for refund include Oceania Cruises’ travel protection, transfers, shore excursions, hotel/land packages, air add-ons and fees, visas, pre-purchased beverage packages and culinary experiences.

Lauren, funny you should have mentioned next year. We had just said to each other that we would have to look for it next year. It had a nice bunch of sea days up through the Red Sea, which we love more than a lot of ports. We did another segment a few years ago for 35 days from Hong Kong to the cape with 17 ports, and I can't recall much about a lot of them. Of course this couldn't be ageing.

We had a GREAT deal for the Dubai to Barcelona leg going through the Red Sea. Of course we anticipated an itinerary change, and thought it would turn into a 24 day cruise down the east coast of Africa maybe starting somewhere other than Dubai. Didn't expect the cancellation notice today. Oh well...

We are new to Viking, with a couple of recent trips on Ocean and Exploration ships. After booking the repositioning cruise on Octantis from Buenos Aires to Barbados (which we thoroughly enjoyed) we were cold contacted by a TA who promised a better deal, but of course couldn't make it good because we had already committed to Viking. I concluded that he was pretty much a flake anyway. We had an agent we liked that got us some amazing discounted cruise opportunities several times on Oceania, and wonder what the experienced Viking community has to say about booking direct as opposed to using a TA.