lj77346

For individuals with mobility problems who need to use an elevator, getting to the speciality restaurants before 6:30 is being polite to other cruisers. With only 2 elevators aft, getting space on an elevator with a walker or scooter at prime meal time is an issue. Perhaps people are waiting in line not because they are hungry, but because they are being thoughtful and don't want to inconvenience others.

On a recent cruise we had a large onboard credit in addition to the Simply More shore excursion credit. There was nothing of interest to buy in the boutiques, but my wife found that you could use the onboard credits to buy products in the Aquamar Spa and they could ship them to your home address for a reasonable shipping fee ($8.95 in the U.S.). The Aquamar Spa has a facility in the U.S. that takes care of orders that are shipped to your home. We have had no problem using onboard credits at the spa even in combination with our Oceania Club $150 spa credits - just can't use the Oceania Club credits on spa special sales.

Currently on the Vista and I agree with the OP that something needs to be done with the shore excursion portion of Simply More. On this cruise (3/16-3/27), we missed the first day in Bermuda and the day in Norfolk and I was also on the previous cruise (3/9-3/16) and we missed Costa Maya which was the last port of the cruise. At Costa Maya I had a $349 excursion booked which would have used my $300 Simply More excursion credit plus some of my regular onboard credit. The regular onboard credit went back to my onboard account, but the Simply More excursion credit became Simply Nothing for me. The same is happening on the current cruise as missed shore excursions in Bermuda and Norfolk result in Simply More shore excursion credits that are Simply Worthless. I feel that Oceania needs a plan B so that there would be some value (at least some onboard credit) to passengers for Simply More shore excursions cancelled because of missed ports. Prior to Simply More I had 25 Oceania cruises under OLife and missed shore excursions always resulted in an onboard credit for the value of the missed excursions. The port cancellations on my current Vista cruises were clearly good decisions because of weather conditions, but in any case value to me was lost because the Simply More shore excursion credits became worthless as they could be used for nothing else,

Since December 2023 I’ve taken 5 Vista cruises and have been in 8130 (concierge veranda), 7077 (French veranda), and 9123 (concierge veranda) and have not noticed the noise being any different than on the other Oceania ships. Occasionally I might hear the TV from an adjacent room or voices, but nothing more than usual. I think a lot depends on your neighbors and how loud they are.

I was on the Regatta's repositioning cruise from Vancouver to San Pedro last September and I also found many meals on that cruise to be subpar. I requested a meeting with the GM and Food & Beverage manager on that cruise to find out what the problem was as I was also on the Regatta in July and the food was good. They listened to my concerns but were at a loss to explain how the quality of food declined so much in two months time. Perhaps it was a one off occurrence. Since then I've sailed on the Vista 3 times and the food was at the standards I expect from Oceania - very good in all venues. So hopefully all will be well on the Regatta this year as I will be sailing on her for 23 days in April and May. You can't get a hit everytime you go to bat, so I hope the Regatta isn't in a prolonged slump.

I also was on the Vista in December and I don't think the end of cruise survey was even mentioned in Currents.

Chair hogging can be viewed as sort of a "tragedy of the commons" issue. In the context of deck chairs, if a number of people enjoy unconstrained access to a finite resource, such as deck chairs, they will tend to over use it and destroy its value altogether. To exercise voluntary constraint for individuals desiring to use deck chairs is not a rational choice because if they did, other individuals would use the deck chairs and take spaces that they desire. Thus the predictable result is a problem or at least an inconvenience for everyone. Empirically, the tragedy of the commons relative to deck chairs can be observed on a cruise. On the first day of a cruise some individuals "reserve" deck chairs by placing items on them. Other individuals see this behavior and decide that the only way to get deck chairs in a favorable location is to "reserve" deck chairs for themselves - the problem snowballs. As the cruise progresses, this behavior becomes widespread until demand exceeds capacity. This occurs because the benefits of chair hogging accrue to individuals who are motivated to use deck chairs to the point that they become reliant on it (even if they plan to use the chairs for a limited time). However, the cost of this behavior is borne by everyone who wants to use a deck chair. Absent some response by Oceania to curb this behavior, the problem will persist because there is no cost associated with "reserving" a deck chair. So, while you might expect people who pay thousands of dollars for a cruise to have some class and play nicely with others, it won't happen voluntarily as there is no consequence for selfish behavior. (Wow, I really am boring. I guess that happens to economists who try to rationalize behavior.)

An issue with Oceania is that it requests you vacate your room by 8 a.m. In general people do, but there is limited space to sit and wait, so lines start. Add to that the almost complete lack of anyone in authority being visible during disembarkation so that's like giving tacit permission to line up anytime you want as no one is checking to see if your tag color was called yet. I find a good solution is to eat breakfast in the GDR and plan to finish eating at 8:30 or later and that eliminates some of the cluster problems.

On the Vista now and a gingerbread village is now in the deck 5 reception area.

The roll call is still there, but for some reason does not show up in the search. It's about halfway down the second page of Vista roll calls.

I also booked the Vista for the March 9, 2024 cruise at an online site in the past few days and can confirm that the price was low as reported and it includes "Simply More."

The new itinerary on Oceania's website shows that Safaga, Aqaba, and Muscat are no longer listed as ports. After the Nautica leaves Crete there are 9 sea days until it arrives in Dubai.

Are you feeling lucky? Since December 2021 I've taken 15 Oceania cruises and missed 2 ports because of weather - Ensenada because of a storm and Great Stirrup Cay because it was too wavy and windy to tender. I took 1 Princess cruise and missed 2 out of 3 ports because of weather - Costa Maya and Roatan. So, from my experience, Mother Nature and not some devious plot from a cruise line appears to be the factor that determines if a port will be cancelled.

I’m on the Regatta now as well and the interesting thing is that both the cruise itinerary and yesterday’s Current indicated that we would be “cruising the inside passage” but we did not. The weather today in Victoria is beautiful - sunny and mid-60’s. The weather the entire trip was great. At Hubbard Glacier a few days ago, I took the small boat excursion that gets close to the glacier and it was very good - sunny day, got to within 1/2 mile of the glacier and there was lots of calving. There were only about 70 people on the small boat that can hold about 250 so it was easy to get a good place on deck to view the glacier without having to squeeze between others. On the way back to the Regatta we cruised close to the shore and got a great look at stellar sea lions basking in the sun.

From experience, signing in to complete the survey is a problem. When you try to set your birthday, even when you select the correct month, day and year, it seems the program will put in a random year which is frustrating to correct. Then, you need a password - why? You should just need to enter your room number. Usually around this time I give up. You can tell this is an Oceania IT product - basically unusable. Paper surveys may be old fashioned, but at least they worked. Maybe Oceania's new slogan should be "complex solutions for simple problems."