MEFIowa

We've had 4 cruises on O since our very first cruise ever on Riviera (12/2021), two in the Caribbean and 2 in the Med. 1) We've NEVER eaten in the GDR/MDR on any of our 40 nights. We much prefer the Terrace Cafe (eating under the stars) and don't want to sit down for slow table service, other than in the specialty restaurants. 2) We also mainly do our own excursions, only having done a few O excursions on the last cruises. But we did all of our own for the first 2 cruises. And we do our own for the truly "important" ones. We did private driver/guide for Rome & Ephesus, and took public transportation (bus & metro) in Istanbul for the 4 days we were there (2 separate overnights on a B2B) to get to the old walls of Constantinople 4 miles out with a walk back to the metro for the return.

Though the current New Year Sale ENDS 2/29/24. Presidents' Day is 2/19/24. Previously the Presidents' Day Sale started on or around 1 February. Forget if they ended at the end of February or some time in March.

Unless one has the details, hard to assess subjective issues tied to food and restaurants. Our biggest complaint was being forced to eat at 8:30 PM, even though we made our reservations on the first day we could. The B3 is in the same group as the G-F-D-Cs. So that mean late dining most nights in the specialty restaurants. Arriving at 8:30 with few others and the places emptying out around 9 pm. Made us rush our meals a bit, but the food was good.

Though when we were on Riviera 10/30-11/19/2023 we had the exact opposite dining experience. We don't dine in the GDR, so can't comment on that, but the food in Jacques, Red Ginger, Polo Grill, Toscana, Waves and the Terrace Cafe was uniformly outstanding. I loved every meal. (We also had enjoyed the food on Riviera 12/13-23/2021.)

And if Dottie is there, her husband, the comic Tom Drake, likely to perform. We were blessed to have them both on the Sirena Caribbean cruise 11/2022.

Really, we're discussing prices and sales. And NOT just for experienced O cruisers or those with powerful TAs or annual whale cruise budgets. I just wish some people on the O cruises I've taken had paid attention to sales. When I've told them how little I paid, and they could've too, they all but cried. O has SO MANY different sales annually, at the very least people should know, for example, what a "cabin-upgrade sale" entails. Seen those in 2021, 2022, and 2023. Wanna bet we may see one in 2024? To paraphrase an underappreciated thinker, who made an appearance in a commercial during the Super Bowl, I pity the fool who doesn't know about O sales or use them. 😉

As you rightly surmised O has a ton of legalese boilerplate with their sales. I pulled out the large 2023 "Extraordinary Savings Sale" brochure. The legal terms, conditions, restrictions, etc. found on the bottom of p. 38. AND YES VIRGINA, it says "for new bookings only". Yet, O also had a price guarantee. So, IF you called your O rep, as I did, she changed the booking. I did the same with the 2021 Presidents' Day Sale. I remember that call well, as I said something like, "How come you didn't tell me about the sale?" And I was told, "You have to monitor that yourself." Something I took to heart. So I said, "So do I need to cancel the booking to take advantage of the sale?" And it was, "No, give me a second and I'll change it." Have always kept the same booking # no matter how many times I've modified the booking or changed cabins due to sale. With all things O, seems like there are few "set in stone rules" and there are exceptions for everything. Knowing the right person or being a big spender or having a powerful TA likely help, more so on the margins of sales, since the ones I'm discussing are public and openly available to all.

We're discussing sales in general, sales in history, and possible sales in the future. So, we can "know" about the first two, but can only be hopeful about the third. Assuming one pays attention to the future. To paraphrase a great thinker, those who don't know the past are doomed not to be primed to take advantage of the future.

Iowa has a Bangor, Birmingham, Brooklyn, Cambridge, Delhi, Lisbon, Macedonia, Madrid, Moscow, Oakland, Paris, Rome, Scranton, Ventura, Waterloo, and more. But no states that I know of. I mean, our Washington is indeterminate.

A lovely irony there: "Samuel Langhorne Clemens, born November 30, 1835, Florida, Missouri, U.S." I didn't know there was a Florida in Missouri.

I felt like an "honorary Brit" reading the Daily Telegraph, The Sun and something else British daily in the Riviera concierge lounge last Nov. (Do any of the papers still have the page 2 women?) There were enough Canadians on Riviera last Nov 2023 in the Med, the #2 nationality, that they get their own edition of the Currents. And I think there was one Canadian newspaper daily in the Concierge Lounge (the National Post?). But obviously, I love newspapers. As do Brits!

Concierge cabins also have access to the therapy pool and area forward, too. The big therapy pool on Riviera is quite nice. (Others can pay to access.)

The better cabin-upgrade sales certainly can and do reduce prices for Bs. And that ESS did for the Bs and As. I booked our 2023 Med cruise on Riviera when it first opened in early 2022. Rebooked it once during a 2022 sale and then rebooked it again in 2023 with the ESS. Got rock-bottom low prices for a B3 and an A3.

Let us know what ends up happening. A good reminder in the real world to "always be checking O sales", esp. when you've booked a cruise. Hope something good comes out of it.

I used an O sale in October 2022 to rebook a 9/2024 cruise in the Baltic on Sirena, from a G (60xx) to a C1 (one of the big ones on deck 7, 70xx). Cruise only. Had booked the G on 7 May 22 for $2499 PP and rebooked it into that C1 on 20 Oct 22 for $2849. So here I used a sale to pay a bit more for what we think is a far better room. Part of a 22-night B2B, where the first 12 days are in an F (70xx), booked under the Summer Sale of 2023. Today that C1 is $3,899 (promotional fare, no airfare, with SM).

The POINT of this is to EDUCATE actual or potential OCEANIA cruisers of what O does with its sales and sale history. I could care less about Azamara, Regent, Silversea, or Viking. They have their own groups and pages. What is sad is how many O cruisers seemingly book a cruise and then fail to monitor sales to see if their cruise could cost them less. Some claim their TA does that for them and others have encountered resistance from TAs when prices dropped significantly. I book directly thru O using the same O sales rep each time. I've rebooked nearly all my 6 cruises (so far 3 of 4 taken and 1 of 2 for the future) and I hope to rebook the 2 later this year, if they go on sale (again for the one I've already rebooked once).

Though if you look over ALL the cruises O put on sale in 2023, almost impossible to say it was the least desirable ones only. BUT one thing that seems to hold true is that the sweet spot for so many sales is the B-A cabins. The G/Fs are the floor. The cabin-upgrade sales nearly always bring prices of B-A cabins down. Rarer for PHs to be in the cabin-upgrade sales. And seemingly rarer still for suites (not sure I've ever seen them in a cabin-upgrade sale).

The POINT is that O has SALES after SALES each year, going back to 2021, when there was the COVID restart. I booked our first cruise (12/2021) off the Presidents' Day Sale in 2021. Cabin upgrade sale. That is pretty routine. Had been around Memorial Day and Labor Day, too. There were 2 cabin upgrade sales in 2023. So the KEY is to WATCH each and every SALE to see how it may apply to an already booked cruise or one you may be interested in.

High volatility in the stock. Over past year has bounced around from around $12 low to high around $23. Now about $16. Down a bit over 4% over the past year. From a few days ago: "Shares of cruise ship company Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings (NYSE: NCLH) dropped 11.2% in January, according to data provided by S&P Global Market Intelligence. Cruise stocks weren't exactly popular during the month, and Norwegian is viewed by some as one of the riskier publicly traded cruise companies."

No, in 2024 and 2025 there are cruises that people booked BEFORE SM. And now O may have sales for those cruises that has SM. The full reality you describe won't happen until ALL the cruises booked before SM have actually taken place. So, in Aug-Sep 2024 I've got one pre-SM and one post-SM as a B2B. I booked the one pre-SM on 7 May 2022! And I'm watching all the sales to see what may happen to their respective prices. So far, SM has not been competitive compared to the former "cruise only".

Really, saving thousands of dollars is too much "shopping"? When it takes a matter of a few minutes to scan prices when O announces each new sale. They send out the sales brochures. I can go to the web site. BUT take just the ESS from 2023, 10 nights in a B3 for just $1749 PP and 10 nights in an A4 for just $1899 PP. Both on Riviera. Mediterranean. Oct-Nov 2023. 20 nights for just $3648. When I told some people on these cruises how LITTLE I paid, they almost cried!

I think you're missing something. I book for destinations and ports and excursions, too. AND I RE-book the same cruise when a BETTER sale comes along. So I may start in a G then re-book to a C then re-book to a B or an A. So that means...STUDY each new sale carefully from the moment you book your cruise. Get it? Sales matter.

Between my wife's research and Rick Steves' guides, I was almost afraid to tell fellow passengers on Riviera (10/30-11/19, 2023) how LITTLE we paid to use local transportation in Venice, between Venice & Trieste, in Athens, and in Istanbul. We paid 15TL PP (about 54 cents) to take the #38 bus about 4 miles to the outer fortified walls of Constantinople. We then walked much of it back following a route by Steves. The metro back was another 15 TL. There was a metro station just outside the cruise port terminal. For 15 TL each ride we went all over town! We just bought the card and loaded it up and reloaded when it got low. It was about 28TL=$1.00 then. The 3-day Venice pass for the museums and unlimited water bus (vaporetto) use literally paid for itself! Starting with the public bus from Marco Polo Intl to the initial Vaporetto stop on the west end in Venice, which was just one stop from the train station and two from our BnB, which was about 100 yards from the stop. And only E15.50 PP to take the train from Venice to Treiste. We paid about $2 each way to take the light rail from the port to the Acropolis and back!

As someone who has PRICED O excursions with comparable non-O excursions, you've left out the very high mark-up of the O-provided excursions. And that isn't even taking into account "quality issues", where you pay O more or the same for "less". For example, riding a bus to some city center and then getting out to walk around yourself isn't much of an "excursion" and can be horribly priced by O. Having $1250 in your hand is cold hard cash. No such concept exists with the prices O sets in regard to excursions, excursion discounts and excursion credits. Take a $50 "excursion" (that you can hire yourself) and then have O reprice their bus version at $200. Then have O discount it 25% or give you $100 excursion credit. Even if they gave you $150, you didn't "save" a thing! When a product is marked up by a factor of 3-5, hard to get true savings off discounts to inflated prices.

If there is ONE CONSTANT with O it is...SALES. Sales after sales. All sales are not created equal. BUT both before you book and certainly after you book, pay very close attention to each and every sale. For the devil is in the details with O's various sales. One sale after another. Which can save you a fortune. Ask anyone who booked off the Extraordinary Savings Sale of 2023. This was the mother of sales for 2023. In 2024 we've got the New Year Sale that ends 29 Feb 24. Sadly, looks like NO Presidents' Day Sale, which ran, for example, in 2021 (from which I rebooked our very first cruise. I pulled out my pile of saved brochures... 2023 Sales: 1. 20th Anniversary Sale, January-February. 2. OLife Ultimate Sale, March-April. 3. Explore More (Land Programs), April-June 4. Extraordinary Savings Sale, May 5. 4 Category Upgrade Sale, June. ----------------------------------------------- 6. Summer Sale, July-August. [START OF SIMPLY MORE] 7. 4 Category Upgrade Sale, September. 8. Experience Europe 2024 Sale*, 1 October -20 November. 9. Black Friday Sale, November. 10. Holiday Sale, 6-31 December. I'm not sure I'd count either #3 or #8 as "major sales". So, I'd count at least 8 (eight) major sales in 2023. * "2 for 1 Deposits and up to $1,000 onboard cash"