slewis7

Excited to follow along.  We board the Oosterdam when you disembark.  Have a great cruise!

@MEFIowa I agree that the PH cabins are not a good value.  However, we read that the R-Class bathrooms and showers are tiny on non-PH cabins, so we went for the PH cabin on the Insignia.  Otherwise, that ship is a no go for us (yes, we are a bit spoiled).  We may find the regular veranda cabins on the Vista class ship to be acceptable and a better value and it would dispense with the unnecessary butler.

I enjoyed meeting Felicia onboard this cruise.  It the first Oceania experience for my wife and myself (we had an earlier South America booking which was mysteriously canceled by either our travel agency or the cruise line - they blamed each other) and we had a somewhat different take on the cruise.  Overall, we enjoyed it, but we were not at all blown away.  Our recent cruising experiences are mostly on Celebrity and Viking Ocean and Oceania didn’t compare favorably in our opinion.  Perhaps we had higher expectations as we paid for a Penthouse Suite cabin which was not a bargain like Felicia’s booking.

What we liked:

- the convenience of a small ship

- the buffet food had excellent variety for such a small ship and we appreciated the nice selection of cooked to order dishes.  Also, it was never super crowded like most ship buffets.

- service and crew seemed about par for the course

- our cabin was comfortable enough and the balcony furniture was nice, but then again we paid for it.  Actually when we pay extra for nice cabins in other lines we get a much larger amount of space.

- main dining, the few times we tried it, went much more quickly then posts in this forum had me expecting

- the ship TV had a good selection of live broadcasts and an excellent variety of movies and television shows.  It also worked pretty consistently throughout the cruise.

What we did not like:

- the evening entertainment held no interest for us

- very much an older crowd, but probably the time of year and itinerary had a lot to do with it

- main dining food was pretty average with some hits and some misses and not a lot of choices

- specialty dining was sometimes very good and sometimes not very good (lukewarm dishes a number of times)

- if your tagline is “finest cuisine at sea”, we will hold you to higher expectations and Oceania fell well short

- WiFi was just adequate and there was a lot of things blocked that I can usually accomplish on other lines (eg, uploading photos to Google, downloading podcasts,YouTube, etc)

- the whole butler thing, a first for us, did not amount to much of anything

- the one Oceania shore excursion we took was very pricey and the promised “included food” turned out to be two varieties of cheese doodles (if you are going to serve alcohol, you should also serve food)

- we missed having a phone app like we have had on every other line.

As a result of this experience, we are still on the fence as to whether we will sail on Oceania again.  We prefer our Viking experiences.

4 minutes ago, Mercruiser said:

What documentation did you provide to show a round trip reservation to/from Brazil (see red text below)? I ask because, like you, I was planning to make a day trip from Argentina to the Brazil side of Iguazu falls. That trip across the border would be on a taxi or bus.

My application was approved (after several attempts) supplying a screen shot of our flights in and out of other countries in South America.  That same image of our flights has been rejected for my wife’s application.  I have not been any to get any feedback now as to what alternative is required.  I will try the chat function this week and see if I can get anywhere since they are not responding to emails from me.  If that fails, I will see if I call make a phone call for help.  SO FRUSTRATING!

Has anyone had success recently getting responses to emails sent to Brazil eVisa Customer Support?  I have tried sending several emails to them over the last week but only once got a response and it was an automated one.  

One of the pieces of information requested in that response is the “Application Centre”.  Does anyone know what they are looking for here?

Even though I have received an eVisa for myself (but still trying for my wife), I am close to giving up on this process.  It is not worth the continued frustration for a one day visit to the Brazilian side of Iguazu Falls.

3 hours ago, oldfashioncruiser said:

One  more question:   I have my bank statement from December dated 12/03/2023.    Will that be too old for them?    

Just a couple of days ago, they accepted my November bank statement.

Now if I can just get them to accept our South America flights (not into Brazil) for my wife’s application that they already accepted for mine, we would be all set!

I have received my e-Visa and have pending documents for my wife’s.

I have received my Visa!  My wife’s application requires a few documents to be updated (I had previously updated my rejected documents but had failed to update hers).  I also need to get her photo to specifications.  
 

Unfortunately I am currently cruising with weak access to the internet and only my phone and tablet to work with, but I will try to find an online photo edit to allow me to properly get her photo resized.

My online status has graduated to “Approved”!  I am hopeful I will soon receive an email confirming this and providing the actual eVisa documentation.

That repair noise and mess on the pool deck is unacceptable.  We are on the next cruise and if that is going on then, I will voice my displeasure.

8 minutes ago, safarijm said:

I received Quality control complete 12-3 and still havent received the visa. Do you have any other contact info ? Brazilevisa@vfsglobal.com (6 times) ,they give case # and 24 hr response time but nada! Frustrated

My application status now shows “Under check”.  I share your frustration with this process.  You might consider trying the Chat function using your phone, however there was no one available to answer on their end when I tried it.

Thanks to the OP for an excellent comparison!

My wife and I have done a number of Viking Ocean cruises and we really like the product, although the food seems more hit and miss on recent cruises.  I also tend to prefer outside excursions and feel like I am paying for something I will not likely take advantage of on Viking (you also pay for excursions with Oceania Simply More but you can pick excursions at a few ports and use up your  included budget there).  Also, the variety of Viking itineraries seem a bit limited.
 

We are about to go on our first Oceania cruise on an R-class ship.  It will be a somewhat of an evaluation run for us on the line and will partly determine whether we keep a long cruise booking on the Vista booked for 2025.  We liked the itinerary on the Vista 2025 cruise better then the Viking alternative.

@cashmeremypuppydog I have a very similar situation and similar experience with my eVisa.  I applied on December 3 and had to upload some new documents a few days later and the application seems to have been in limbo ever since.  Today I received an email from VFS and the status now shows “Quality control completed”.  Apparently the application has transition from VFS to a review by Brazilian authorities now.  I am hopeful it will be approved soon.  
 

Good luck! 

My application is shown as “Active” and the status shows as “Pending document uploaded”.  Does anyone know what this means?  I am not sure if anything is currently required on my end.

I got a similar email reply.  The part that applies to me is:

”For Land Travel: Upload your hotel reservations. If unavailable, submit your passport copy again to proceed with the application.”

As I don’t have a hotel stay in Brazil, I need to do something with my passport copy, although the instructions are not clear to me.  Does anyone here have an idea about this?  
 

I emailed them back for clarification and if I learn anything, I will report back here.

Thanks to the most recent post by @cashmeremypuppydog, I will try to engage again with the eVisa help desk by email.  They have been responsive to emails so far and with the new text in the web site now mentioning transit by sea and land, it seems like there is some recognition of the mess this eVisa process has created.

The Brazil eVisa folks have told me the same information that @cashmeremypuppydog is reporting.  The eVisa is only for travel to Brazil  via air.  They were not able to tell me whether we will need another sort of Visa for other forms of entry.

I am pretty angry that this was not stated clearly on the eVisa web site.  A significant amount of money and time wasted due to these folks’ incompetence.  I most likely will not be visiting Brazil if any Visa is required for travel by car.

1 hour ago, deec said:

this is very encouraging to me since we will be visiting by land Iguassa Falls....I wish Brazil e-visa would put this on the Web site.

Same for me.  My Visa application is submitted and I believe is being evaluated, so it is too late for me to get my money back.

32 minutes ago, deec said:

We wanted to cross the border with a private tour company form one side of the falls to the other...I wonder if there will be a way to do that?

That is exactly what we hope to do and I am working through the Visa process now after getting requests to resubmit some documents.  I will post again after things get resolved.

@vince_g Your comments are very encouraging and it I am guessing that was also a lovely itinerary. I am even more excited for our mid-month boarding now!

We are boarding the Insignia for our first Oceania experience in less then 2 weeks.  I appreciate any comments left here and I will remember to add my own after this cruise.

I got applications for my wife and myself submitted.  My credit card payment showed as failed on the website after submission but I got an email from VFSGLOBAL stating the payment processed successfully and my applications are under review.  The email’s link to check the status of the applications is a broken link but you can go back to the original web site and there is a link to check the status - mine show there as submitted.
 

This is a bit of a messy process currently.  Good luck to everyone!

The FAQ recommends to apply for the e-Visa 2 months in advance of your travel to Brazil, although the typical processing time is only 5 working days.

Since we are traveling to Brazil in late January, I will start working on the application right away.  If the cost was any higher, we would likely forgo our 1 day visit to the Brazilian side of Iguazu Falls.

Like several of you, my wife and I are only planning to briefly visit Brazil to see their side of the Iguazu Falls.  Based on everything I have read online, I fully expect to see an easy to get e-Visa to become available well in advance of our late January 2024 visit.  
 

If the process is complicated or expensive we will forgo that part of our plans.  Let’s just keep watching for news and post to this thread when there are updates.

6 hours ago, deec said:

https://formulario-mre.serpro.gov.br/sci/pages/web/ui/#/instrucoes-iniciais-visto

Looking at this web page: even though the paperwork is filled out online, it seems like the resulting form must be printed out and brought to a Brazilian consulate.  My understanding is that closer to the implementation of the visa requirement, an e-Visa will become available which is completely an online process.