lorimay

I booked with FBC last week for an upcoming October cruise. ITA has a non-stop from MIA - FCO. Last week if I booked it as an ITA flight the cost was $50 one way. As a Delta code share operated by ITA it was $240. FBC said that if we booked Delta we got one extra bag and could reserve seats (plus the frequent flyer miles) so we booked that. Found out today that I can't book seats in advance for the flight. Delta says ITA has to do it and ITA says no seats until we show up at the gate. But the prices have gone way up - the ITA flight is now over $250 and the Delta $450. So apparently I paid extra for basically nothing. Not happy.

It's still the same - you have to upgrade to stream. I worked on our Caribbean cruise in March and did upgrade the last couple of days because I had to do a couple of zoom calls. But I could not do them from my cabin - had to go to one of the public rooms to get internet that was good enough, even with the upgrade, to zoom. The basic internet is free and does everything you want it to do except stream although it's slow. However, I hear Celebrity isn't much better -

We are on Beyond in October and we’re assigned late dining even though we request select. I called Captains club today to make sure I was on the wait list and was told the wait list doesn’t exist and there was nothing I could do. I guess I will keep calling until someone at least acknowledges there is a wait list.

I have to agree about the main dining room on O and we don’t do suites so I’m comparing to celebrity dining room. Good for breakfast but dinners were very disappointing. And you are restricted to one time in each specialty restaurant unless space available or you are in a suite. We ended up eating most of our evening meals in the buffet which has a wonderful outdoor area. The buffet is pretty limited and food was good but not mind blowing. However they have a grill with cooked to order steak, chops, fish, lobster etc that is excellent. And O life is incredibly difficult to figure out.

We did two Oceania cruises in the last year on the Marina in Europe and the Riviera in the Caribbean. Before that we had cruised only celebrity for the last few years. The pros on Oceania- service is very good and very personal. Food is great and the specialty restaurants are no charge. Cabins are nice with very nice bathrooms. We had a penthouse suite on one cruise and the amount of space was incredible. Smaller ships mean getting off for excursions very easy. We don’t drink alcohol so can’t comment on that but soft drinks are included including large bottles of sparkling water. Cons - the passengers are much older than the average Celebrity passenger. We felt very young and we are not! Also the passengers are a little more refined. Don’t expect much entertainment. You see the same string quartet and house band everywhere. The shows in the theater are at 9:30 at night and while the quality is good they are not big production shows. During the day there is great trivia and sometimes a lecture but otherwise a ping pong or putting tournament is it. Cooking and painting lessons are an up charge. Compared to Celebrity there was definitely a lack of “energy” on the ship. Itineraries are usually port intensive and smaller ships can get to more interesting places. We’re booked on two cruises on Beyond this October so it will be interesting to compare.

I was look at flights on FBC today for our upcoming cruise in October. For MIA to FCO I could choose the ITA non-stop flight for $50 (yes that's the correct price) or the exact same flight but labeled as Delta but operated by ITA, same flight, plane and itinerary for $200. If you looked at the details, the ITA flight did not allow seat selection in advance and only 1 checked bag and no carry ons. The Delta flight allowed advance seat selection, 1 checked bag and 2 carry ons. I also think you can get Delta Skymiles for the Delta flight but not the ITA branded flight.