ak1004

For Platinum is $10k per trip - https://www.americanexpress.com/content/dam/amex/us/credit-cards/features-benefits/policies/pdf/Trip_Cancellation_and_Interruption_Insurance.pdf But this is still very generous - In Canada the maximum we get is $2,500 CAD per person. The cost of third party cancellation insurance is around $70 per $1,000, so for 10k it would be $700 which is pretty significant. If the trip is more than $10k, you can add a third party insurance to insure the difference.

We must have very different friends.. all friends that we have love O food and the line in general. We did not see any difference between our first sailing on O in 2018 and our last few sailings. But people like to complaint. O has 7 ships and the ships sail at 80-100% capacity most of the time, so they must be doing something right..

If you want to shoot, shoot, don't talk. The SM subject has been discussed more than enough already. If it doesn't work for you, find a line that provides you a better value and takes a better care of you. It's that simple. For us, we try not to complicate things too much. We look for the best combination of ship, itinerary and price. We are booked at O, SS and SB for the next 2 years. We don't consider any line "our line". But yes, I know that some people think they know better than the captain about weather, ports, berthing, navigation etc. I'm trying to do my job and let others do theirs.

As Keith said, we are all unique. For me, SS and Crystal were only a small step up compared to O, and not always worth the extra cost. I'm pretty sure that an "average" cruiser won't notice much difference (except for the all inclusive part). I know that some people sailed on SS, then tried Regent and went back to SS, and vice versa. The main difference is that to me, the itinerary is king. The ship is not the destination, it's a floating hotel. And as a floating hotel, any of the premium/luxury lines is good enough because we spend most of the time in ports anyway. Our last cruise in June was on O and we loved it! What's not to love? Excellent food, excellent service, spacious cabin, a lot of dining options etc. In the next 2 years we are booked on O, SS and SB. I'm sure we will enjoy all of them, and we would enjoy Crystal too if we could find a good itinerary at reasonable price. Right now Crystal prices are a fantasy land (for me), but I understand that they work for others. This is just a different point of view, that's all. I don't expect everyone to agree.

Looks like you are right unfortunately. Interestingly, the same Amex Platinum in Canada doesn't have this limitation: https://www.americanexpress.com/content/dam/amex/en-ca/insurance/pdfs/certificates-of-insurance/The-Platinum-Card-COI-EN.pdf Correct me if I'm wrong. There is no mentioning that the whole trip has to be paid with the card.

I agree. It says "The Eligible Traveler charges the full amount of the cost of the the transportation by Common Carrier(s) to your Eligible Card." But you did pay for a full amount of your cruise with Amex.

This is an assumption that has zero proof. But of course you must know something that the captain doesn't about the anticipated weather and all other things that impact the sailing. Looks like you completely lost your faith and trust in O, it's probably better for you to find another line that puts the customer first. Just make sure to check the posts about that SS sailing I mentioned before with at least 5 cancelled ports.

@Cruzin Terri very helpful thanks for sharing! Any Canadians who read this, any idea if this is true for Canadian credit cards? I read my Visa Aeroplan Infinitie privilege card, as far as I could see, it covers all expenses paid by the card. It doesn’t mention that all expenses including air has to be paid by the card.

Good plan. After sailing on mainstream lines for years, we tried Oceania 5 years ago and never looked back. We sailed since then on Oceania, Crystal, Silversea, Azamara and will try Seabourn next year. We don't have a new home - we have few new homes and find all of them excellent. Itinerary and pricing are the main factors for us. Variety is good. All premium/luxury lines have their hardcore fans, but they have more common things that people think. Personally I don't believe that Oceania is better than Azamara, Crystal is better than Silversea or Silversea is better than Seabourn. To me they are all comparable, and it's a matter of personal preference. Of course someone who spend hundreds of nights on one specific line would disagree - to me, it would be boring, but that's just me.

Correct. Most cancellations are weather related.

More reports from Silversea about cancelled ports. One of the cruise had cancelled ports in Hamburg, Saint-Marlo, Bordeaux and Bilbao. Other cruise cancelled Morocco due to security concerns. So it's definitely not only O.

What were the loads on the recent sailings?

What a balanced and objective review! Thank you!

Thank you Hank, very helpful. I know that you got a great deal on your sailing, but would you pay their current prices? They are 30-50% more expensive than SB, they have to be in a completely different league to justify those prices. Are they? And how many people can afford their prices, considering their ships are close to 1,000 guests and 6 more to come? Not to mention that for many luxury cruises guests the ships might be actually too large - there are a lot of complaints that SS new ship Nova is too large at 730 guests.

Yes, but they will need much fuller ships to survive. Same as Crystal. And at current prices, I doubt they will ever sail full or close to full.

Well the price is almost double compared to O. Significantly higher than SS and SB too. At those prices they better be perfect.. As for no other people in the elevator, from what I read they sail half empty. Might explain no other people in the elevators and other public areas..

Things change all the time. When we sailed on Celebrity last time in 2018, the Wifi plans were for one device. I believe at some point they switched to "all included" model where drinks and Wifi were included, but now you can select if you want Wifi for extra cost or not. I stopped following all the changes on Celebrity because we have no interest sailing on 3,000+ guest ships anymore. But I don't believe it's unlimited. btw, if I remember correctly, WiFi on Silversea is also one device per guest (same as the new SM on O).

What's the main difference between lines like Celebrity/Princess and lines like Oceania/Silversea? When they renovate the ships, Celebrity removes or reduces areas like libraries and art galleries and adds cabins instead. Oceania/Silversea do the opposite - add public areas.

Not necessarily. Wifi now had 2 devices which is a major improvement. And Elevators issue - my understanding is that some of them were broken too many times, which is something that hopefully can be addressed, it's not a fundamental issue. Sometimes we can be critical of some issues and still like the cruise line overall. In fact, I would be very suspicious of a review that has only positives (or only negatives). The avatar has a badge "great review" which was awarded by CC for this post - the funny thing is that the post was just a link to someone else review, so I don't really think I deserve it.. I do have a blog and a forum, but they are not travel related.. I'm glad you booked another O cruise - actions speak louder than words!

And this is exactly why different lines exist. From the comparison of different areas, I can see that O wins in areas that are important to us, and V wins in areas we couldn't care less about. We never had any issues with one device for WiFi - the ship is small enough not to get lost even if you cannot communicate, and we usually don't use more than one device at the same time - vacation time is too precious to waste it on the Internet. We never had any issues with elevators. We always considered a 240 sqft cabin very spacious, with more than enough storage for 2 people (but we are light packers). We couldn't care less about promenade deck. But we do consider food, service and comfortable beds the most important factors of the ship experience. So those comparisons are very helpful to see what's important to YOU and make an educated decision (although I wouldn't sail on V anyway with their current prices and booking policies).

For some reason, V has a very loyal customer base (I think only Crystal has more hardcore loyalists), so they must be doing something right, and I'm sure they have a lot of positives. It's just strange to me that people who consider their beds "almost unusable" even consider sailing with them again, when there are so many good options.

Every time I looked at V prices, they were not only higher than O, they they were higher than SB and in some cases SS. With all due respect to V.. To me those prices are absurd. So the pricing is NOT a tie. Far from it. I cannot comment on the comparisons because I was never on V. But do want to comment about three things. First, the elevators. Having 6 elevators on a ship that size is pretty standard I believe. Riviera is the same size, we never had any issues with the elevators. Second, the following comment: "My bed on Viking was almost unusable. It was way too hard for me." What can I say? I can tolerate broken elevators, lack of Promenade Deck, too much music (we actually thought there is not enough live music on the Riviera), waiting 3 days for my laundry, bad furnishings etc.. but if my night sleep suffers because of the bad bed, everything else is insignificant. To me, this alone would be a deal breaker and I would never return to a ship that has bad beds. Comfortable beds, mattresses and bedding are more important to me than all other factors combined. But that's just me, we all have different priorities.

It hasn't been 90 days for a while. It was recently changed from 120 days to 150 days.

No they didn't. Penalties start at 6 months, final payment still 5 months.

The numbers don't support your conclusion. O cabins Veranda 240/290 (without balcony/with balcony) PH 350/420 V cabins Veranda 225/270 PH 280/340 So O has 15 sqft more of internal space on regular veranda, and 70 sqft more of internal space on PH. And as I showed, O is also significantly cheaper in each category.