Need advice about shore excursion screw up by Oceania

[anonymousegirl]

Hello everyone,

My husband and I are booked on the July 9th sailing Southampton to Reykjavik. Back in August 2022, I booked shore excursions including the Faroe Islands. I got a confirmation of our bookings. June of this this year, O refunded a mystery $529.50. When I called, they said we had been doubled charged for our Reykjavik excursion. This has now proven to be completely false. 

 

I discovered last week that we had no confirmed Faroe Islands bookings and now everything is sold out. Today, I pulled up every email from O and found the confirmations, and my husband ran all the numbers. We discovered that O took our money but failed to add our names to the shore excursion list. When they discovered their error, they refunded the money (the mysterious $529.50)--which is not the outcome I want. I want the excursions I bought almost a year ago. I'm not going to be coming back to the Faroes and the excursions are not ones we can just cobble together on our own. 

 

I am going to be calling O tomorrow, and try to work with the Shorex desk, but realistically, what can they do? I fear we are out of luck through no fault of our own, and I'm wondering what O is going to do. They had our money for a year, and then shafted us. 

 

Any advice?

Lori

[Mura]

Lori, I feel for you!  O should be able to make accommodations but whether they will or not is a big question. I wouldn't count on it either.  It was much easier to refund your $$$ and not tell you why they had done so.

 

We were there (at the Faroe Islands and Rejavik) a number of years ago -- I think it was 2006 but it may have been a little later.  But we were a group of 8 which allowed us to rent cars and go on our own both places.  You CAN do it independently BUT ... obviously it was cheaper for our group since we were 8.

 

Perhaps you can find others on your cruise (I know it is late) who would want to share with you? That is one use for the roll call ...

 

Good luck!

 

Mura

 

[anonymousegirl]

2 hours ago, Mura said:

Lori, I feel for you!  O should be able to make accommodations but whether they will or not is a big question. I wouldn't count on it either.  It was much easier to refund your $$$ and not tell you why they had done so.

 

We were there (at the Faroe Islands and Rejavik) a number of years ago -- I think it was 2006 but it may have been a little later.  But we were a group of 8 which allowed us to rent cars and go on our own both places.  You CAN do it independently BUT ... obviously it was cheaper for our group since we were 8.

 

Perhaps you can find others on your cruise (I know it is late) who would want to share with you? That is one use for the roll call ...

 

Good luck!

 

Mura

 

Unfortunately, it is so late that any private touring is full.

[Flatbush Flyer]

4 hours ago, anonymousegirl said:

Hello everyone,

My husband and I are booked on the July 9th sailing Southampton to Reykjavik. Back in August 2022, I booked shore excursions including the Faroe Islands. I got a confirmation of our bookings. June of this this year, O refunded a mystery $529.50. When I called, they said we had been doubled charged for our Reykjavik excursion. This has now proven to be completely false. 

 

I discovered last week that we had no confirmed Faroe Islands bookings and now everything is sold out. Today, I pulled up every email from O and found the confirmations, and my husband ran all the numbers. We discovered that O took our money but failed to add our names to the shore excursion list. When they discovered their error, they refunded the money (the mysterious $529.50)--which is not the outcome I want. I want the excursions I bought almost a year ago. I'm not going to be coming back to the Faroes and the excursions are not ones we can just cobble together on our own. 

 

I am going to be calling O tomorrow, and try to work with the Shorex desk, but realistically, what can they do? I fear we are out of luck through no fault of our own, and I'm wondering what O is going to do. They had our money for a year, and then shafted us. 

 

Any advice?

Lori

I would be amazed if you actually got to someone in Miami who handles Shore Excursions. Your best bet depends on who did your cruise booking and the purchase of your tours.

Hopefully, you didn’t do it online since, as I often report here, because the Cart is EXTREMELY glitchy.

However you booked, I hope you got (and still have) the original/dated “prepurchased shore excusions” PDF which shows all the math in a spreadsheet and confirms (without question) what you bought and when you bought it. 
 

Have that document with you and ready to share a copy with whoever your end up interacting (which, sadly, may be once you board the ship). Of course, if you’re using a top selling TA who belongs to O’s Connoisseurs Club or who is an O Preferred Partner, ask them to champion your pursuit of a “reasonable” fix, that being to add you to the tour list. BTW, from personal experience and being adept at getting what I am due, a little bit of gentlemanly but persistent “al dente” repetition of your complaint at a crowded Destination Services counter can work wonders (so glad I was born/raised in Brooklyn). If you’re an elite level O Club member, that can sometimes “grease the wheel” of solution. But, if you’re not elite and/or have no great TA, (and/or you don’t have the prepurchased shore excursions PDF), you may find yourself SOL.

 

If it was money you were owed, there’d be “light at the end of the tunnel,” since that’s the easiest fix for O. 

Final thought to all reading this. For the zillion threads time, do not buy your O tours online!!! Always make the call and get that PDF.

[anonymousegirl]

15 minutes ago, Flatbush Flyer said:

I would be amazed if you actually got to someone in Miami who handles Shore Excursions. Your best bet depends on who did your cruise booking and the purchase of your tours.

Hopefully, you didn’t do it online since, as I often report here, because the Cart is EXTREMELY glitchy.

However you booked, I hope you got (and still have) the original/dated “prepurchased shore excusions” PDF which shows all the math in a spreadsheet and confirms (without question) what you bought and when you bought it. 
 

Have that document with you and ready to share a copy with whoever your end up interacting (which, sadly, may be once you board the ship). Of course, if you’re using a top selling TA who belongs to O’s Connoisseurs Club or who is an O Preferred Partner, ask them to champion your pursuit of a “reasonable” fix, that being to add you to the tour list. BTW, from personal experience and being adept at getting what I am due, a little bit of gentlemanly but persistent “al dente” repetition of your complaint at a crowded Destination Services counter can work wonders (so glad I was born/raised in Brooklyn). If you’re an elite level O Club member, that can sometimes “grease the wheel” of solution. But, if you’re not elite and/or have no great TA, (and/or you don’t have the prepurchased shore excursions PDF), you may find yourself SOL.

 

If it was money you were owed, there’d be “light at the end of the tunnel,” since that’s the easiest fix for O. 

Final thought to all reading this. For the zillion threads time, do not buy your O tours online!!! Always make the call and get that PDF.

I do have the PDF and the original email from August 2022. At the time of booking, I was a TA and booked myself. But I worked for an agency in a respected consortium and have a few resources on which to draw. It is my first O cruise, so not elite by any stretch of the imagination. But I am good at being respectfully firm about what I am due, so we’ll see what happens 

[Flatbush Flyer]

7 minutes ago, anonymousegirl said:

I do have the PDF and the original email from August 2022. At the time of booking, I was a TA and booked myself. But I worked for an agency in a respected consortium and have a few resources on which to draw. It is my first O cruise, so not elite by any stretch of the imagination. But I am good at being respectfully firm about what I am due, so we’ll see what happens 

Use whatever clout you have if it’s needed. I’m unfamiliar with just how much a TA can accomplish in booking the tours. If they’re using the web, it may be just as glitchy as a passenger using the web. If it’s via a call to the TA’s O rep, that’s how I’d do it.

[AMHuntFerry]

One other possibility is that the excursion has been cancelled. When I first checked excursions for a September cruise that I booked in April, one of the excursions was waitlisted for the morning and available for the afternoon. I found this interesting since I knew the trail that was being hiked was closed (and not expected to open this year). When I was looking again recently, both times were listed as "closed" (or something similar); I'm guessing DS found out about the closure when they tried to book the first group of the season (started last month).

(And for FF...I was just looking at times and availability before calling...No buying online, got it!)

[anonymousegirl]

To compound this comedy of errors, one of the "missing" excursions was a free one for me, and two others (of the 6) were canceled by the supplier. So, now I have 3 free of the 6 free to us, and the others we're signed up for don't qualify (OS or OE). SIGH.

[AMHuntFerry]

I'm not quite following what was cancelled (I thought it was a single tour, but now it sounds like 3?). When on the call, find out if they refunded $100 for the cancelled OLife shorex or if you need to choose something else.

If there are no other available OLife-qualifying tours that interest you, this may be a time to consider switching to the ($600?) OBC OLife choice and utilize the YWC 25% off (but you'd need to add some OE/OS/etc. to get back to the minimum if I'm understanding what you've written). Your deadline to do this switch is very soon (14 days before sailing according to my Pre-Purchased Shore Excursions pdf).

[anonymousegirl]

56 minutes ago, AMHuntFerry said:

I'm not quite following what was cancelled (I thought it was a single tour, but now it sounds like 3?). When on the call, find out if they refunded $100 for the cancelled OLife shorex or if you need to choose something else.

If there are no other available OLife-qualifying tours that interest you, this may be a time to consider switching to the ($600?) OBC OLife choice and utilize the YWC 25% off (but you'd need to add some OE/OS/etc. to get back to the minimum if I'm understanding what you've written). Your deadline to do this switch is very soon (14 days before sailing according to my Pre-Purchased Shore Excursions pdf).

Our excursion in Eskifjordur was canceled by the supplier, that’s two of our 6 free excursions. Our four excursions in the two day stop in the Faroe Islands were paid for but our names were not put on the excursion list. Those excursions (indeed, all excursions for those two days) are sold out. We had originally 10 excursions booked each. Now we have 7 each. 
Also, there is nothing to switch too. Everything is sold out. 

[AMHuntFerry]

59 minutes ago, anonymousegirl said:

Our excursion in Eskifjordur was canceled by the supplier, that’s two of our 6 free excursions. Our four excursions in the two day stop in the Faroe Islands were paid for but our names were not put on the excursion list. Those excursions (indeed, all excursions for those two days) are sold out. We had originally 10 excursions booked each. Now we have 7 each. 
Also, there is nothing to switch too. Everything is sold out. 

Totally makes sense to me now. Wow! I've never seen all of the excursions sold out but I've only been cruising post-pandemic. I'm so sorry. Hopefully O at least refunds you the $200 for the two cancelled OLife excursions. If not, run the numbers to see if switching from OLife shorex to OBC is a good choice (or bev pkg if applicable to you). You can also ask O about waitlisting (both on the phone and when you board the ship).

If you're up for a little DIY, it looks like there are taxis and public buses so you can take a "tour": https://www.whatsinport.com/Thorshavn.htm

https://visitfaroeislands.com/en

Oh, and check your roll call to see if anyone with private tours has space for two more.

Edited June 22, 2023 by AMHuntFerry

[LHT28]

6 hours ago, anonymousegirl said:

Also, there is nothing to switch too. Everything is sold out. 

Can you ask to go on a waitlist  for the one you want

 People cancel sometimes   once onboard 

[Mura]

10 hours ago, anonymousegirl said:

Unfortunately, it is so late that any private touring is full.

That's a pity -- we particularly enjoyed our time out in the countryside.  The same was true of Reykjavik. We didn't use guides in either place since we were renting cars. And I consulted with a Danish friend about her suggestions as to where to go, etc.

[anonymousegirl]

Speaking with O now. Apparently, the three excursions were canceled by the supplier. We now have nothing available for the first day, and waitlisted on the panoramic bus tour for the second day. 

[meg1021]

18 hours ago, anonymousegirl said:

Hello everyone,

My husband and I are booked on the July 9th sailing Southampton to Reykjavik. Back in August 2022, I booked shore excursions including the Faroe Islands. I got a confirmation of our bookings. June of this this year, O refunded a mystery $529.50. When I called, they said we had been doubled charged for our Reykjavik excursion. This has now proven to be completely false. 

 

I discovered last week that we had no confirmed Faroe Islands bookings and now everything is sold out. Today, I pulled up every email from O and found the confirmations, and my husband ran all the numbers. We discovered that O took our money but failed to add our names to the shore excursion list. When they discovered their error, they refunded the money (the mysterious $529.50)--which is not the outcome I want. I want the excursions I bought almost a year ago. I'm not going to be coming back to the Faroes and the excursions are not ones we can just cobble together on our own. 

 

I am going to be calling O tomorrow, and try to work with the Shorex desk, but realistically, what can they do? I fear we are out of luck through no fault of our own, and I'm wondering what O is going to do. They had our money for a year, and then shafted us. 

 

Any advice?

Lori

We had a somewhat similar experience on a 48 day sailing on Insignia this past January/February.  One of our ports of call was Port Stanley, Falkland Islands, where we booked an excursion to the penguin Cove with an O rep, over the phone.  It was confirmed and we were charged.  Like you, we received a credit to my card, but no notification that the excursion was cancelled.  We found out when we didn't receive those excursion tickets while onboard.  I went to the Shore Excursion Desk, who proceeded to blame Miami for overbooking the excursion.  I spoke with the manager as well, and he confirmed that it was Miami's fault.  Like you, most of the excursions were sold out, but had we received notification of the cancellation , we at least might have had more choices in our re-booking efforts.  I emailed Carlos Ortega in the Miami office, but only received and auto response that he was out of the office.  I understand you frustration, and sincerely hope that you have a better outcome than we did.  Having proof of purchase on a PDF emailed to me was of no help, except for proof that I had a confirmed reservation at one point and had paid for it.  IMO, shore excursions on Oceania need a rework from top to bottom.  For those of us who have sailed with other cruise lines, shore excursions are more straight forward (and less confusing) than O's setup.  They can easily be purchased online.  But probably the biggest difference is the onboard administration of conducting the tours.  I have been on 4000+ passenger ships that have been able to get ticketed excursion passengers off the ship and loaded into tour busses with greater ease, than the 600+ passenger Insignia was able to do.  While the excursions themselves were often excellent, improvements need to be made to make everything a little more passenger friendly.  Good luck to you in resolving this issue.

[sunlover12]

@meg1021  I completely agree.  Oceania's handling of shore excursions onboard the ship can be frustrating.  We once had an excursion cancelled and were never informed of it.  We received the tickets in the excursion envelope and went to the meeting point near the pier at the designated time.  No one ever showed up. When we got back to the ship we went to the DS desk and that's when they told us the excursion had been cancelled. What a waste of time. This was on Regatta's first sailing post-Covid and there were many new staff so that had a lot to do with it.  

Hopefully as more staff become better trained things will run more smoothly.