pinotlover

There is an extreme divergent of opinion of the evening entertainment level on Oceania. Personally we don’t find it nearly as lacking as some. We find many that retire to their cabins by 21:00 like to comment on the quality of ship shows, casino activities, and late night entertainment of which they haven’t a clue. My advice is to go to ship’s evening shows at 21:30; hit Horizons for late Happy Hour, and slide by the Casino in the late evening and judge for yourself. Draw your own conclusion.

Bad advice, based on an era of significantly reduced passenger capacity. I just recently ACTUALLY booked and found my optimum evening already taken and a limited number of evenings still available/open for booking . I believe if one follows Mauibabes’s advice they may well be “ left in the cold”. This Board struggles with the differentiation of those sailing during Covid conditions at very low ship capacity and those sailing at past , and future, full capacity. Our October fully waitlisted cruise versus our recent barely 50% capacity summer cruise is a perfect example. My advice: If one desires a Privee evening, they had better book it sooner than later. Ten is the max capacity. I can’t imagine adulterating a wonderful evening by attempting to exceed capacity.

This thread prompted me to get Privee booked on my next Marina cruise. My TA has taken care of it for me. Looking forward to the new additional menu items. Another wine dinner to be planned! 😁 Since we’re doing South America, I think the wine theme is self evident. Salivating already!

Totally depends upon the popularity of the tour versus what else is being offered that day. I’ve seen 60 passenger buses being entirely full before, and that’s on longer more active tours not just panoramic ones. Some days Oceania will run 2-3 bus loads of the same tour. Meanwhile, other tours may have 15-25 on the bus. It’s really a box of chocolates. If you see a tour that you’re signed up for has sold out, expect that bus to be full. If Oceania is offering 3-4 shorex, at a given port, that are 2.5-3 hours long, and then just one that is 5.5 hours long expect that latter one to be packed.

Perhaps you’re correct. Even then, destination and timing matters. In the middle of the summer, going somewhere in Europe, it should be no problem. Huge NCLH pool. Shoulder month or lower used area, the tickets might not be there. Bulk discounted rate plane tickets are an entity of their own with multiple organizations, including cruise lines, chasing a limited number of such tickets. If travel remains as hot as it is currently, and the specific airline issues don’t significantly decrease, it is easily predictable that the number of such seats available will plunge.They may have already done so.

Also don’t forget the 24 hour rule for canceling a shorex.

I love Privee. I know you’re not much into wines, but I typically do byob wine dinners there and they are well attended. As a Newbie, here’s a fact. Lots of people lurk on this Forum and the Roll Calls. To “ Lurk” means they read the various posts but never post themselves. Therefore, never try correlate readers to posters. I always leave my email address when setting up private tours and have multiple participants contact me direct that won’t post or respond to anything online. Privee has worked the same way. Your options are many.

This part is incorrect . Having (and still) ran Group trips on group rate fares, the airlines are very strict on certain timelines. One of those time lines is having a specific name on a seat/ticket/fare. Initially one can hold X seats without names. Then seats must be ticketed with a name. Beyond that date all the group rate seats are released . Any seats acquired after that cutoff date are done so at the then market price, not the bulk rate price. With all of the airlines currently flying full ons/or overbooked, how many tickets do you believe are available inside 30 days? For those choosing to fly on cruise line bulk rate tickets, you do realize that your ticket class puts you first in line to be bumped, for itinerary changes , or cancellation? That ticket class, which appears on all tickets has a meaning.

Nothing confusing about this at all. Oceania mostly just got out of the Covid business. No more pre board testing, it’s all on the passenger. Now, if infected travelers come aboard, tough luck for you. If you get Covid, you get quarantined, and you no longer get any refund/ FCC for time in Covid Jail. It’s the Wild West now with the new variants both nationally and internationally firing up. This slack attitude is exactly what many here have been pleading for months to occur. We’ll see how it works out. Huge economic relief for NCLH and its Lines.

I can’t speak for all airlines, but the lines for assistance we saw we lllooonnngg! The staff was making regular announcements saying “ if you booked through a Travel Agent or other ticket consolidater, you need to call that Agent for assistance “. Not only was those with tickets from Expedia, Cheap-O Air, etc, being caught up in this but also the Cruise Air people. That port Agent had all they could handle ( and more) with direct sales.

Let’s keep things in perspective. Things are dynamic right now. If you get to the airport at 06:00 in Rome to find your connecting flight has been cancelled, it’s midnight in Miami. There’s no one at O to help you until afternoon in Rome. What we discovered was that some flights were being cancelled 24-48 hours in advance. Some, particularly those intra European flights, were being cancelled by the hour. If your response is “it’s Oceania’s responsibility to fix this “ and you wait for their actions, be prepared to not quickly return home. We had passengers bumped off our international flight home. Most were refugees from other cancellations. There are no empty seats right now. The SAS debacle has made things worse. An acquaintance that just got home had to take a train from Copenhagen to Frankfurt, to catch a flight on Lufthansa, and get the only two seats he could find home. Those seats were to DCA, not JFK near where he lives. Another train home. He got home three days late, but happy to be home. Will Oceania help you? I believe absolutely. If one isn’t willing or capable to help themselves, how long do you believe you might be waiting right now to even talk to O Air? We had people show up 1-2 days late for our cruise due to enroute air issues, and that doesn’t include baggage issues. A rhetorical question: whose on top the O Air in basket priority list, those trying to make it to the cruise, or those trying to get home? I’m sure that basket is overrunning right now.

Thanks! I figured out my problem, I was logged in on the site earlier and had to log off and then back in to get the new updates! 🥺 After 8/1, you totally roll the dice and all the risk is on us. I didn’t mind the testing requirements at all. The majority got what they asked for with this.

So back to the second half of the question. No pre testing required. So if you now come down with Covid while aboard and are quarantined should you expect FCC for time in quarantine?

I didn’t find it! So if they drop pre testing, would that also mean no FCC for those that come down with Covid aboard?

NO!

Yes! An 18.5% gratuity is automatically added to all drink orders.

Be careful giving them cotton clothing that can shrink in a large industrial clothes dryer .

I think we had itinerary changes on 50% of our port calls. Huge time swings on when we were scheduled to arrive and depart. Example; one port we were scheduled to leave at 23:00. Changed the day before to 17:00. Lots of us changing and cancelling plans. With ship capacity at 50%, numerous ship tours either cancelled or consolidated with other tours. Part of the problem was long time shorex operations are kaput! Gone! We had one private tour with an operator that had cancelled all his ship sponsored tours. Said the cruise lines wouldn’t pay enough to cover his fuel costs, no less labor. You never really knew what you’d get with a ship tour until it was over. If you can’t handle changes, now is not the time to travel. It’s a new world for all right now.

I asked you this on the other thread and you didn’t answer. Still waiting. Are you implying that if two people go , at the same time, to United’s official website and search a route, those two people can/will be offered different fares based upon their inquiry history of those routes?

My highly professional Travel Agent with which I have worked for years gave me a call late this morning. As typical, she was checking up on how everything went on our just completed cruise and to get some feedback. I was surprised she called so soon and on a major holiday weekend. All I can say is Ssshh! 🤫 You don’t get that call from a Oceania phone rep you DIYERS! 🤫

Here’s a rhetorical question. How would a passenger that goes to their cabin and/or bed almost every night by 9:00 pm know if the ship has any nightlife? Ask someone that does the same?? 🙄😂 As I posted earlier, some of the cruises have a very robust nightlife while others can be very sedate.

On our return from AMS all the flights were completely full and oversold. In AMS about 20 passengers got bumped from our AA AMS-PHL flight. Most all of the BA ( AA’s oneworld partner) flights to London had been cancelled. Those affected didn’t know how or when they’d get home. Our cruise was just over 50% full. The cruise after ours ( sailing now) is at 25% capacity, the next cruise was expected closer to 50%. We’ve heard similar numbers from those on both Oceania cruisers and the other lines. We had more staff than cruisers on our ship. The Lines were expecting to be back at full capacity by now. Late cancellation is high. They are hemorrhaging! At the end of our cruise lots of staff was being sent home. There was talk of cancellations/consolidations of upcoming cruises. Now here’s the scary part. Imagine the flight nightmares if all those cruise lines and all of those cruises had indeed been booked full as was earlier expected!!! Literally imagine all those additional 10’s of thousands trying to get themselves and their luggage through the airports!!! To steal a movie script “ Houston, I think we’ve got a problem!”.

Then you understand the drill with what happens when you call O’s 1-800 line. Not sure what your complaints are. Enjoy your cruise.

Would have been far easier to have just called your Travel Agent in the very beginning and let them work it. One phone call or text and it would have been taken care of. No bad information, No HUCA, no exasperation. Expending all that wasted time and energy must be something some people enjoy! Otherwise, they have excellent options.

Best advice is to call your TA and have them give you all the details along with applicable discounts.