shank63

We did 12 days on Sirena at the end of July, our first cruise on an R ship. The ship size, layout and service were all outstanding. We have cruises booked on Riviera and Marina, but look forward to sailing on Sirena again, sometime in the future.

First and foremost, fly in with a minimum of 2 days before sailing. This requires custom air with a $175/pp deviation fee. As recommended earlier, chose the flights (or have your TA choose) and submit to Oceania air. The deviation fee is charged only if you agree to what Oceania offers, and is non refundable at that time and flights may not be changed. We have used Oceania air in the past and found it to be the most affordable for us, and we fly out of a hub airport. However, our last cruise we had flights cancelled, missing connections and a one day delay. Oceania was only able to give advice in rebooking, we were required to deal directly with the airlines for rebooking which was time consuming and frustrating.

We are currently in transit for an international cruise, missed the first overseas flight due to delays (in spite of a 3 hour connection window), same overseas flight was sold out for the next day, but was open for the 3rd day getting us to the port on embarkment day. No good options. If we do this again, we will fly in at least 3 days in advance. Flying in on same day is crazy, one day in advance still a big risk, two days if fine if everything works as it used to. Three days to be more safe.

We fly to Edinburgh on 7/20 (with a connection) which gives us 2 nights before boarding Sirena. I now think 3 nights would have been better, but air travel was not so convoluted when we booked. We plan to use more carryons than in the past to have a few days of clothing on hand as well as cross packing our checked bags.

We once had a Norwegian fiord cruise booked on Viking and opting for their bargain air fares. The booked flights were horrible, booking us on a two stop connecting flight to LHR from CLT, instead of a direct flight on AA. The cruise was cancelled due to Covid and we have not tried Viking since. Our experience with Oceania flight service has been much better, but these are challenging times to be traveling on airlines for anyone. The best practice is booking your own flights but flights can still be cancelled leaving you in a bind, that’s the playing field for now.

Welcome home!

I have changed cruises and transferred the deposit within Oceania. My TA handled it so I assume it was a done as a cancellation and booking.

Safe to assume that prices will increase with the current inflationary cycle.

We cancelled our July 3 booking weeks ago thinking that the chance of HAL extending the lease was a given. Not likely that we will be sailing on HAL again.