"25% off for > 5 excursions" - but they didn't actually give me the discount....

[EJL2023]

This topic has become extremely confusing as all over the place. I don’t really know the answer but to me we have two scenarios. 
 

1) You purchased the minimum number of cruises under SM to qualify for the 25% discount.  PRIOR to the cruise one of the excursions gets canceled by O for whatever reason so you now no longer have the minimum and all other excursions now revert to full price.  Assuming O has notified you of the canceled excursion so you now need to add another excursion prior to cruise to get the 25% discount back on all of your excursions. 
 

2) You have purchased minimum number again, however ONCE ONBOARD AND CRUISE HAS STARTED, O cancels an excursion due to missed port or whatever. Even though you are now below the minimum, since it was canceled after start of cruise, the remaining excursions will still be with the 25% discount AND you will not be required to purchase another while onboard to get back to the minimum number.

 

If a seasoned O cruiser could confirm or correct what I have outlined above it would be greatly appreciated.  Thanks. 

[1985rz1]

21 minutes ago, EJL2023 said:

This topic has become extremely confusing as all over the place. I don’t really know the answer but to me we have two scenarios. 
 

1) You purchased the minimum number of cruises under SM to qualify for the 25% discount.  PRIOR to the cruise one of the excursions gets canceled by O for whatever reason so you now no longer have the minimum and all other excursions now revert to full price.  Assuming O has notified you of the canceled excursion so you now need to add another excursion prior to cruise to get the 25% discount back on all of your excursions. 
 

2) You have purchased minimum number again, however ONCE ONBOARD AND CRUISE HAS STARTED, O cancels an excursion due to missed port or whatever. Even though you are now below the minimum, since it was canceled after start of cruise, the remaining excursions will still be with the 25% discount AND you will not be required to purchase another while onboard to get back to the minimum number.

 

If a seasoned O cruiser could confirm or correct what I have outlined above it would be greatly appreciated.  Thanks. 

This is what has reported by several others on this forum as their experience.

[Tranquility Base]

39 minutes ago, EJL2023 said:

2) You have purchased minimum number again, however ONCE ONBOARD AND CRUISE HAS STARTED, O cancels an excursion due to missed port or whatever. Even though you are now below the minimum, since it was canceled after start of cruise, the remaining excursions will still be with the 25% discount AND you will not be required to purchase another while onboard to get back to the minimum number.

 

If a seasoned O cruiser could confirm or correct what I have outlined above it would be greatly appreciated.  Thanks. 

 

15 minutes ago, 1985rz1 said:

This is what has reported by several others on this forum as their experience.

Thanks.....that would seem logical & fair.

 

As  mentioned earlier, I am fine with the pre-cruise situation as you still have a choice as to how you wish to proceed regarding the remaining bookings / discount / no discount situation.

[jbandkb]

Don't think I have seen this question discussed on this thread - does the 25% off discount apply to all sailings as long as you are booked with SimplyMore?

[ORV]

2 minutes ago, jbandkb said:

Don't think I have seen this question discussed on this thread - does the 25% off discount apply to all sailings as long as you are booked with SimplyMore?

No, there has to be a minimum number of ports. 4 I think, but not sure on that. 

[1985rz1]

25 minutes ago, jbandkb said:

Don't think I have seen this question discussed on this thread - does the 25% off discount apply to all sailings as long as you are booked with SimplyMore?

No.  There is a minimum number of excursions required, the number of which depend on the length of the cruise and the number of ports visited.  Your pdf of the excursions available will state the number required.

[Redtravel]

On 5/24/2024 at 10:52 AM, Redtravel said:

No.  That happened to us.  We prebooked 6 tours. That was the number that got us the 25% discount.  Later a port where we had an excursion got cancelled. It was replaced with another port.  We were down to 5 excursions.  The price of the remaining 5 tours jumped back to full price.  Called O and was told that we had to have 6 tours to reinstate the discount.   We booked an inexpensive 6th tour to recover the 25% discount.  It’s a crazy system.   We are on Marina now. We decided to switch to a different excursion. My account has the refund for the cancellation.  The replacement is posted at full price. Destination services assured us that eventually we would get the 25% discount.  It hasn’t happened yet.  
 

The credit still hasn’t been posted to my account. I am getting very annoyed. By the time they post the 25% discount on the replacement tours, I won’t have time to book anything.  With so many people taking ship tours using SM, many tours are sold out.  I am starting to think my discount isn’t happening. 

[Flatbush Flyer]

45 minutes ago, jbandkb said:

Don't think I have seen this question discussed on this thread - does the 25% off discount apply to all sailings as long as you are booked with SimplyMore?

Not necessarily- the old 25% YWYW, now called SM tour package, may not be offered on shorter cruises or cruises with few port stops.

[jbandkb]

Thanks for the replies - I believe our cruise will qualify - 12 days with 10 port stops.  Shore excursion PDF will be available soon so will look at that as a guide for the number needed to book for the discount.

[EJL2023]

23 minutes ago, jbandkb said:

Thanks for the replies - I believe our cruise will qualify - 12 days with 10 port stops.  Shore excursion PDF will be available soon so will look at that as a guide for the number needed to book for the discount.

It will qualify. Most likely either 5 or 6 will be required for the 25% discount. 

[roothy123]

16 hours ago, EJL2023 said:

It will qualify. Most likely either 5 or 6 will be required for the 25% discount. 

Our cruise is 14 days/nights, and we need 5.  So for a 12 day cruise, I doubt it will be 6.

[roothy123]

Here's what my travel advisor told me.  Sorry, his answers were in red but the coloring didn't come over when I cut and pasted this info.  But you can probably tell what the answers are versus my questions.  (Note the first paragraph is specific to our 14 day cruise and numbers vary for other cruises.).:

 

We each got $400 in shoreX credit. To get 25% off the price it's my understanding that we each need to book a package of at least 5 excursions and do so at least 7 days pre-embark day. That is correct.  

 

1. Since I'll likely choose excursions totaling more than $400, can I use regular shipboard credit to pay for the overage? Yes, simply more credits get used first then regular SBC, then cash.  

2. If I buy a package of 5 excursions pre-cruise and when on board one gets cancelled by Oceania, am I required to purchase another if I want to maintain the 25% pricing for the ones I previously purchased? No, you won’t be penalized on the ship, but if the change is made before the cruise, you will have to buy another excursion.  And will the shoreX credit amount, and the $$ I paid, go back into my account?

3. Once onboard, can I make any changes or additions to my "package" and pay/use shipboard credit, assuming I meet cancellation policy and space is available? Onboard the discount is 15%.

4. Before the cruise, is there a way to know if Oceania has cancelled an excursion?  

Yes, they will notify you.

[Redtravel]

Great questions.  I am on Marina.  Before we embarked we booked 6 tours to get the 25% discount. After taking the first few tours, we realized that they were very strenuous even though they were listed as moderate. We visited Destination services. Can we change tours?  If so, and we select the same number of tours, do we get the 25% discount for the newly selected tours? They said YES!  We selected new tours. That was more than a week ago. Our account got credited for the cancelled tours. The new tours were posted at full price. I questioned why we didn’t get the discount posted. I was told that they post discount toward the end of the cruise.  The cruise ends in 2 days. Again, I asked about the discount . Again, I was told it gets posted toward the end of the cruise. Got the disembarkation tags. I pack my bags tomorrow. If I don’t get the discount, my only option is to dispute the credit card bill. I would rather not have to do it.  Simply More is just more problems.  The tours are often very disappointing. Out of the 6 tours, one was really good.  

[roothy123]

Maybe they have to wait for Corporate to make an adjustment, as Oceania's stated policy is that a package cancelled after embarkation incurs a 100% cancellation fee.  

[EJL2023]

5 hours ago, roothy123 said:

Our cruise is 14 days/nights, and we need 5.  So for a 12 day cruise, I doubt it will be 6.

It depends on the number of ports, not the length of the cruise. They indicated 10 ports for their cruise. They usually run at least 50% and sometime one above the 50% threshold.  We have a 20 day cruise coming up with 19 ports and 10 is our minimum. 

[EJL2023]

1 hour ago, EJL2023 said:

It depends on the number of ports, not the length of the cruise. They indicated 10 ports for their cruise. They usually run at least 50% and sometime one above the 50% threshold.  We have a 20 day cruise coming up with 19 ports and 10 is our minimum. 

Actually 18 port days and 10 required. Maybe they have lowered it since they lowered the excursion credit amounts since the introduction of SM??

[Redtravel]

Today is last full day of my cruise.  They finally posted the discount for excursions booked onboard. Of course, now there is no way that I can spend anything on excursions.  Most are already underway.  Others are likely fully booked.  

[Flatbush Flyer]

26 minutes ago, Redtravel said:

Today is last full day of my cruise.  They finally posted the discount for excursions booked onboard. Of course, now there is no way that I can spend anything on excursions.  Most are already underway.  Others are likely fully booked.  

For future reference:

If you have/had on hand your prepurchased shore excursions pdf (the one with all the math), you can use it as a worksheet as the excursion situation changes once onboard. If there are tour cancels, I know how much is due back to me (even if they don’t get “posted until the last cruise day). Same goes for added tour purchases for which I’m due a 25% discount (that will also appear late in the cruise).
You can spend money coming back to you before it is posted. So, you don’t have to wait until the last moment.

And just to CYA, get a full account printout from Guest Services midway through the cruise and prior to the last day to make sure call is balanced before leaving the ship.