Psoque

Hi. We are booked on this cruise (a charter...not sure if we can name the company...probably not). We are looking forward to our first time on a Star Clippers ship.

When we booked a cabin on Riviera last year, we booked an A3 cabin close to midship on Deck 9. I did not see any reason to book A1 or A2, despite the fact that our TA really pushed us to do an A1. Is there a good reason to book A1/2 vs A3 on Riviera?

We are surprised to hear (even though we haven’t been on Vista, so we can’t disagree with you) that you found the storage in your cabin to be inadequate. We wonder Oceania skimped on drawer space when they built Vista. We were on Riviera late last year and thought there were almost too many drawers in the room, specially in the bathroom.

We are happy that you managed to make that kind of savings when you actually had the option to take advantage of Simply More!!! or not. For new bookings, we will not have that choice, and for that matter, we can't really quantify the actual "savings" from the program because we will never get a quote without the program. That's my point. The whole debate whether Simply More!!! is going to help us in the future bookings or not is entirely philosophical.

You missed my previous post on this. With opaque pricing, we will eventually lose an ability to know exactly what we are paying. 1. The actual quality of "free-included" wines could change without our knowledge 2. The cost of shore excursion could change, and we would never know of this change until we are ready to book 3. The actual availability of shore excursions could also change It's not that simple. Also your current per diem metric will eventually become obsolete.

Another related topic...is Oceania the only cruise line shying away from Antarctica? We are somewhat interested in visiting Antarctica on the cruise, that being the last continent we haven't visited. If this is the beginning of a trend, we might hold off on booking something like this anytime soon.

Now that the ONLY "option" you have is with Simply More!!! for new bookings, it is already impossible to really figure out if you are getting a good deal or not, unless the cruise was booked a while back. And eventually, we will never know if we are getting a good deal or not. Sad, but also makes me fee a bit liberated...but sad mainly.

Your analysis is only valid if you believe that the "price" of the items included in Simply More!!! actually corresponds to the value of the items. For example, if you believe the value of the beverage package before Simply More!!! was reasonable to begin with, it might lead you to the conclusion that the inclusion in Simply More!!! makes it an attractive offer. However, as bundling continues with Oceania, their pricing will continue to be more opaque (that's the definition of opaque marketing...bundling to hide the itemized costs), and it would eventualy (if not already) become a challenge to make this kind of an assessment.

I'm hoping this question is not too "unrelated" to this thread, since I have no intention of hijacking it. However, I am really curious to know why Oceania dropped the Antarctica segments of this itinerary. I would like to know the "reason" Oceania sent out as well as "the real reason" if such a thing is known. Is there a huge decline in passenger interest to explore the Antarctic? Or is there a change in the environmental regulations that is now precluding this ship from going there?

I guess my best option for the next cruise is to just take it home and recycle it, since I have no idea what Oceania does with these bottles, whether they are used or not. I'm assuming that not all ports of call that they offload their "trash" also have recycling infrastructures.

That's an option to save space in our house, but I'm afraid the bottle might end up in a landfill if the store decide not to sell it or it never sells. My understanding that some of the big-name thrift stores are guilty of sending a lot of stuff to the landfill instead of recycling.

That’s an example of how the laws in UK are still giving the cruise lines an advantage over the customers in regard to a drastic itinerary change made by the cruise line. That’s not any better than what is in operation here in the US. What we need is stronger consumer protection, not just a random change to something equally bad.

We did the same as well. However, we are not quite sure what we will do at the conclusion of our next Oceania cruise.

Not only the introduction of Simply More!!! effectively resulted in a price hike, the structure of Simply More!!! allows for Oceania to increase the price to the customer/decrease the cost to Oceania without changing the advertised price by just decreasing the “excursion credit,” getting mealtim wines at a volume discount or stocking budged wines, limiting the actual number of excursion slots, or increasing the price of the excursions.

Simply More!!! is nothing more than a compulsory fee for mealtime wines and some excursions. Oceania is making us pay for them, whether we want to or not. I don’t consider if to be a “perk,” but a “feature.” So, we are basically stopped trying to make sense out of it.

One way to, at least partially, resolve this questions is look at how this particular Antarctic cruise was marketed to the passengers. I haven't read it, but I'm assuming that Antarctic sail by was marketed as the main attraction. If so, the change is very notable. However, does that justify a refund? The second questions is a bit more complicated to answer. From a pure legal standpoint, the cruise ship can change its itinerary in almost any manner and still not be required to give a refund. I guess one exception is that, if the ship never leaves the port of embarkation, they would be required to do something to compensate the passengers. In my opinion, the legal contract we all "agree" to is favoring the cruise line in many ways. Ideally, there should be some sort of an incentive/disincentive to preserve the original itinerary, instead of allowing the whims of the cruise line to change its itinerary without any immediate consequences. I am hoping that there will be a political will with our lawmakers to consider something to push the balance to cruise passeners' favor, the same way a similar push is currently being considered for airline passengers.

It's a typo. I meant "You should be prepared to be assigned the LEAST desirable cabin in that category.)"

I'm not sure if this would make it way too complicated for Oceania or their passengers, but I personally think it would be a great idea if we can opt out of having these bottles. There are three ways it could occur: 1. Make this part of the online check-in. Ask every passenger if they want a bottle in their cabin or not. 2. Allow every passenger an opportunity to opt out after checking in. (Ask the cabin attendant to take them away?) 3. Just have the bottles be available but not in the rooms. Only those who want them to get them. And also, encourage any passenger to bring their own reusable bottles with them to the ship.

To answer the question posed by the OP: -There is a finite (but perhaps) small chance that you will be assigned a cabin higher in category than what is guaranteed. -When you book a guaranteed cabin, you are agreeing to be assigned ANY cabin in that category or higher. (You should be prepared to be assigned the most desirable cabin in that category.) -I guess, theoretically, there is a chance that you are effectively on the list just above the "waitlist" crowd when you book a guarantee cabin.

Regardless of whether the cruise line managed to entice any passenger buy up to a higher category or not, only way to "clear" the overbooked situation is to have less people booked to be on the ship. The problem with the denied boarding was that there were more passengers than what the ship could hold. Moving passengers around the ship would not have solved this problem, since I highly doubt that the ship sailed out from Brisbane with empty cabins. So, I can't see any way this would have remedie the actual problem with overbooking. Only "remedy," if you can even call it that, is to entice some of the booked passengers to forgo their cruise for some compensation, and to make this arrangement much sooner than the day of embarkation. Another remedy is to not overbook in the first place.

So, is it safe to assume that most repeat customers are leaving these bottles behind in their cabins?

I don’t think it works like that.

Perhaps I’m misunderstanding it, but the main dining room is first-come, first-served, with not reservation required, so it should not make any difference which cabin you select.

I’m assuming that everything about “Simply More!!!” will continue to evolve. One volatile component of it is the amount of shore excursion credit, which has changed already. Also I guess Oceania will probably mess around with actual “pricing” of excursions based on demand created by these credits. Another easy thing for Oceania to do is to change what wine is served “free” on their included beverage package. I’m hoping that they will not go super-cheap (like US domestic coach flight “wine”. The horror!) on the wines, but I guess that’s also an option they can easily consider. My guess is that this whole thing will slowly (or quickly) evolve/devolve and be replaced by another promotional program with a catchy name.

(I haven’t read all of the previous posts here in this thread…I’m such a BAD BOY…) We have just done just one cruise with Oceania, on Riviera in category A4. I’t hard to tell if the “benefits” of concierge was “worth it.”. However, this cruise was initially purchased when A4 was much more expensive than lower category cabins (and we initially booked the lowest category balcony, if I remember correctly). Then the Extraordinary Sale or something like that made A4 substantially lower than that and we went for it. From my understanding A1-4 cabins are pretty much identical in size/features to lower level balcony cabins. We didn’t really think the concierge lounge was something we valued much. Three free bags of laundry was great. We didn’t think the “free” champagne was worth our time. And we could not really finish the whole bottle. It would have been better if we have gotten several glasses of free wine in the dining rooms instead (this was a pre “Simply More!!!” booking). I think we had one pair of shoes sent for free shoe shining. The concierge person in the lounge had very little knowledge of the ports of call, much less than us, so that did not add any value to us. The lounge was a bit small for the crowds. We never went to the area in front of the spa…it was a bit cool for that most of the cruise late November Mediterranean cruise). So, it really depends on the actual dollar cost of booking A1-4. My suggestion is to add up the potential cost of all of the “free” stuff you get in A1-4, and see if that is equal to or greater than the price difference.