ak1004

I agree. But Azamara has older ships and tiny cabins and showers, one of the reasons we prefer O newer ships. Explora is way to expensive, cannot justify their prices. Same for Crystal and Regent. SS and SB has some occasional good priced sailings, 10-15% higher than O. For people like us who tried 12 different lines and won't go back to large ships, but also won't pay more than $400-450 USD per night, the options are limited. Have yet to try Windstar.

Well, again, in my case, I don't know the whole picture and don't have the full information. Maybe the decision wasn't final in April? Maybe they tried to negotiate some kind of solution? A lot of pieces of the puzzle are missing. And the fact is that at least one more cruise line (Azamara) did the same, I think Regent did the same not sure. So if people think that O is screwing them, at least O is not alone, all lines do it. So to me, there are two options: 1. Stop sailing on the line that you think is screwing you (but then you probably should stop cruising at all because they all do the same). 2. Accept the fact that there are things that you don't know and give them the benefit of the doubt. Exactly. Getting a refund or be able to switch cruises is a form of compensation I would say?

Same for us. My TA used to joke that sometimes we spend more on business class flights than on the whole cruise.. OV is perfectly fine for us. As for all places available - it's the same in all premium/luxury lines with some very small exceptions (compared to mainstream lines like Celebrity).

But compensation was not the issue of the original post. OP suggested that "Oceania is doing this to save money and screw the public" To me, this is not the case, I simply don't believe that cruise lines do it on purpose. An example: on our "world cup cruise" on SS last December, they eliminated 3 days in Doha, and they sent a notice 6 weeks before the sailing, which was after final payment. The reason given was that Qatar banned cruise ships from entering their ports for the duration of the World Cup. Which was true - the only issue was that the decision was made by Qatar back in April. Same happened with Azamara. No compensation or way out was offered. Did they do it to screw us? I don't think so and I don't know the whole picture. But my answer is always the same: if you believe that the cruise line is there to screw you, find another line. Just be careful, because with such attitude, you might be running out of cruise lines very quickly.

I think that people have the right to be upset. To me, the biggest issue is that some people automatically assume that cruise companies do it on purpose to screw them. They don't have the whole picture and don't know all the factors involved. We have ports cancelled on our O cruise in May, and we had ports cancelled on our SS cruise last December. We were upset too, but our assumption is that no cruise line takes those decisions lightly and all of them do it only if absolutely necessary. So far, I have not seen any evidence that O does it more than other lines. I don't defend O, and I don't defend SS. I just give them the benefit of the doubt and trust that the captain has more information that we do and sees the big picture. The world now is very different from pre Covid, and all evidence or history that we have from pre Covid is irrelevant.

We sailed on QM2 twice. To me this is not a viable alternative anymore. Louse food (even in specialty restaurants), unprofessional service, almost 3,000 passengers, plus an absurd and archaic dress code - thank you, but no thank you.

Explora gets a lot of good reviews, but their fares are exactly double compared to O.

What you describe cannot happen on a private tour of 12 people?

Agree about PH. But PH can cost as much as SS or SB. Poor value in my opinion.

Thank you very much, very helpful! While cabins are not the high priority for us, I agree that cabins on the R ships are not the same league and below our comfort level. I'm curious what did you liked better in Viking cabins. O cabins are slightly larger according to the specs (240 sqft vs 225 sqft), and you mentioned lack of drawers as the only drawdown of the cabin on Vista.

This review is absolutely fantastic! Thank you! As someone who sailed on Oceania, Azamara and Viking, how would you compare them? I'm mostly interested in food, service. itineraries and excursions.

I see the same on the Canadian website. And $3949 CAD = $2925, pretty close to the full price mentioned before. But people in the US see $1,700, so I'm wondering why the Canadian site doesn't show the discount?

We stopped doing panoramic tours long ago. Still had at least 35 people on every single tour. Maybe an anomaly.

And facilities stop happen on semi private tours too. The only way to control them is taking a 100% private tour, but this would be in a different price category. So the comparison should be between the ships tours and semi private tours that have 15-18 people typically.

Regent pricing never made sense to us. Even accounting for air credit, Regent is at least 60% more expensive than O for similar itineraries.

Things are not black and white. For us it's 70% the itinerary and 30% the ship.

Which line would you consider a better value?

We do the same, but how do you know which excursions will be 30+ participants?

This is what I was thinking, but I doubt you will have enough SM credit. OE excursions are typically at least $200 I think and the credit is $400 for 10-12 nights cruises, and you need 5 excursions to qualify for the 25% discount. But 22 people is not too far from booking semi private tours (those are typically 15-18 people), so not too bad. But I'm wondering if this typical, or our cruise where we consistently had 35-38 people is closer to typical?

This is very good actually. On our Riviera cruise in May we had average of 35-38 people on buses.

Difference how? Don't they have a list of cases that are covered, and the list includes cancellation both by the supplier and the passenger? For example, some of the covered cases in my insurance are: Your emergency medical condition The emergency medical condition of your travelling companion The emergency medical condition of your travelling companion’s family member A travel advisory or formal notice issued by the Canadian government Default whereby a contracted supplier of air transportation stops all service Delay of your or your travelling companion’s common carrier etc etc

Thanks for the review. What was the average group size on O excursions?

We sailed on the Regatta in PH. Regular veranda cabins are really small and the bathrooms are tiny. Slightly below our comfort level, but manageable. We prefer the O ships, but would sail on the R ship given the right itinerary and price.

What is rarely mentioned on this board is the cost. For some people it might not be an issue, but for many it's an important part of the equation. Regent is almost double price compared to O (yes I accounted for air credit). While I would love to try Regent, their prices just don't make sense to me. I could sail 4 times a year with O or 2 times a year with Regent. To me it's an obvious choice. Same with Explora and Crystal. But we will be sailing on SS and SB because we found good itineraries at prices only slightly higher than O. Whoever gives us the best combination of itinerary and price gets our business. It's that simple. Zero loyalty to any brand.

Credit cards in Canada cover medical and evacuation too.