Daniel A

Before you cancel and rebook, look before you leap. I booked my next (and first O sailing) last August. I just got to final payment and before making the final payment, I checked the current prices for the same booking. It was more expensive and the benefits of "Simply More" turned out to be simply less. Now, there's no prepaid gratuities and the shore excursion OBC was reduced by $200 for the cabin.

O will only open up online check in 3 weeks before the sailing. I believe that's when I am able to select a boarding time. If we are sailing from the Manhattan Cruise Terminal, how strict are they about boarding at the assigned time? I am looking to book my car service now, but I won't know my boarding time until 3 weeks before. Has anyone had experience with this?

O will only open up online check in 3 weeks before the sailing. I believe that's when I am able to select a boarding time. If we are sailing from the Manhattan Cruise Terminal, how strict are they about boarding at the assigned time? I am looking to book my car service now, but I won't know my boarding time until 3 weeks before. Has anyone had experience with this?

I just checked on my booking and I see the PH3 category is now showing as available. We're getting close to last payment date so I suspect a number of people have changed their minds.

My first experience with an upsell was on a NCL cruise. We were waiting for our car service to take us to Kennedy Airport for our cruise when our phone rang. It was NCL offering an incredible upsell. We were already booked in a standard balcony stateroom and for $600 we were being offered a two-bedroom suite in the Haven. We jumped on it. This was our first NCL cruise and now, we are hooked on the Haven. It was explained to me that they had a number of guarantees for the standard balcony, so they made more money for NCL by upselling us, making the guarantee available to someone for the cost of the balcony cabin rather than putting the balcony guarantee in the Haven suite. I guess each line does the process differently. I see now that more and more lines are now using a bidding system to open up cabins for the guarantees.

Thanks to all who have been responding to this "O newbie." I'm sure I'm not the only person who transfers their knowledge and experiences to first time sailings on a new cruise line. This really helps. 💁‍♂️

Thanks, it's funny how the cruise lines handle the same things so differently. I'd never heard of a 'waitlist' before, so I was presuming that waitlist was the same thing as a guarantee on another line. I'm perfectly happy with my assigned PH3 and wouldn't be disappointed at all if I didn't get an upgrade. I'm aware that other lines will sell a guarantee and then offer a paid or comp'd upgrade to free up an already booked cabin in that category. I really don't have an urge to pay extra just to move into the same cabin four doors down the passageway. Not that it really matters, just so I understand, one can make a booking for a particular waitlisted cabin category and if none open up, then the booking would void, or do you have to book another cabin category in order to get on a waitlist for the category you would want? I'm now just interested in learning how it works. Thanks again.

Thank you, I am content with the PH3 I have booked. I was wondering if O would prioritize early bookings for upgrades before wait listed bookings. I am happy with my booked PH3, but I would welcome an upgrade.

We have a PH3 booked. I see that the PH3s are now waitlisted but the PH1s & 2s are still available. Has anybody had experience with upgrades to make room for the waitlisted bookings?

I wonder if when they had the skeet equipment there were fewer chair hogs??? 😄

On my first cruise, I was disappointed that they no longer had skeet shooting from the stern. It was replaced with an arcade video game of skeet.

DW & I used to go to a resort in south Florida. It was a fairly large place with several buildings. Our main entertainment was having our morning coffee on our balcony which overlooked the main pool at the resort. That pool remained locked until security opened the gate at 8AM each day. There would be a line of people waiting at the gate starting at about 7:30 or so. The people in line were loaded down with cheap beach towels purchased at local souvenir shops. When the gate opened it was like the start of the Kentucky Derby! We saw many people grabbing poolside tables, placing a couple of towels on some chairs at the table and then dragging over four loungers to the table and placing the remaining towels on the four loungers. Then they would leave the pool and return to their condos for breakfast or whatever. The pool area was once again empty in ten minutes. Those tables and loungers would remain empty until about 11 AM and then they'd be empty from about 12:30 to 1:30 for lunch. On checkout day, they wouldn't even take the towels home with them. I suppose they wouldn't fit in the luggage for the flight home. Year after year we saw this happen until we finally stopped going there and switched to watching chair hogs on cruise ships. 😄

That's probably why I never saw any numbers. DW & I tend to shy away from special receptions and M&G with the Captain.

I don't doubt your theory at all. Your post does bring up a side issue I've always wondered about. How do you get the numbers you cited? I've seen posts on many other threads where numbers and percentages are offered. I've been curious as to where the numbers originate. Are the numbers posted somewhere on the web? Again, I'm not questioning your numbers, I'd be interested in seeing the numbers for future cruises I may take or decide to book. Thank you.

I think the real answer to the question posed in the title is "yes'" unless and until the paying customers demand proactive crew responses to chair hogs. As long as the various cruise lines aren't getting a hoard of demands by the customer base, they will continue with a laissez faire approach to the issue. The cruise lines don't really want to intervene, so they put the onus back onto the passengers to enforce their rules by either taking direct action or reporting the chair hogs to crew members already present on the lido. I have two suggestions for mitigating what has always been the nagging problem: Everyone completing the all-important post cruise surveys should add complaints that the crew are neglecting to enforce the chair hog issue. When they ask in the survey what could be done to improve service, make a point of suggesting they take the chair hog issue seriously. They tend to pay more attention those post cruise surveys. A second suggestion would be to have a crew member assigned to issue a time stamped card to any passenger needing to vacate their lounger for a short time. The card could read something like "RESERVED UNTIL 1:15 PM." If one is looking for a chair, they could look at the reserved cards until they find one that is expired and either that crew member would be responsible to collect any belongings, or the passenger could remove the items themselves. Also, the rule should be only one card per passenger. That being said, I have no realistic expectation that either suggestion would ever happen. Once people are off the ship, they no longer have any interest in the issue until they are once again on board and have something to complain about that nothing is being done. 🤷‍♂️