Flatbush Flyer

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Excellent observations. FWIW: one of O’s great flaws is a lack of coordination regarding what/when various departments weigh in on published policy changes. That said, it may have something to do with the nature of your booking. If it’s a custom/combination cruise that you assembled (vs it being published as a single extended journey), that may account for the additional tour SBC (often, combo cruises get double perks though extended journeys net pricing is better than the 5% combo discount). Otherwise, it’s evidence of a possible O SM startup strategy to overdo some of the earliest SM booking perks and win folks over before settling in to the new normal. Likewise, if you call O about the upgrade cost for “prestige” booze, you may get all sorts of different answers. That said, however, there appears to be no benefit to pre-doing the upgrade. Once you’re onboard, you’ll see wine stewards hawking the upgrade deal (which I expect will cost an extra $30/person/day. FWIW: The “prestige” booze gets you almost unlimited spirits (no on top shelf single malts and cognacs). But, the wine-by-the-glass is the same mostly mediocre list for both basic and prestige. So, if you daily drink doubles of complex cocktails made with premium booze, “prestige” may make sense. Because our O Club level is in the elite tier, we get multiple O Club free booze invites in addition to captain’s party for each segment and officer invited dinners (and bartenders we’ve known for years take good care of us. Plus we bring our own wine onboard and replenish our stock at appropriate ports. Of course, we pay the $25 corkage if we drink personal wine outside the cabin. But, that cost is minor vs the difference in price (ship vs US retail) for good vino. All that combined with Happy Hour twofers found us dropping the prestige package years ago. I know I don’t have to tell you to do the math.

Looking forward to seeing how it all pans out.

They only need one (two max) expedition ships. But, that wouldn’t solve the problem of the missing 750+\- class for the segment of unusual (non-expedition) itineraries (think Nautica perhaps more than the other R ships) that earned O its reputation.

Oh that FDR- such a kidder.😉 Don’t make me drag out his Sail Safe promises. As for Sycamore, by the time they’re ready to get rid of the Azamara fleet, they’d have already profited significantly on their measly $200M purchase. Perhaps those ships will end up beached in Bangladesh where so many ships go to die. In all seriousness, while a third A ship might reduce overall ship ops expenditures compared to 2 or 3 R ships, the accompanying reduction in hardware means a significantly negative impact on the breadth and depth of the traditional itinerary offerings. Regardless of passenger load, the current fleet (including the upcoming Allura) is/will be eight ships covering the globe. Jettisoning the Rs while adding a third A ship to two existing ones and the two O ships will mean only five ships at sea (instead of eight) and not a one of them capable of visiting all of O’s current ports. As a regular O passenger, that doesn’t sound very encouraging or responsive to the need for smaller ships capable of doing the most exotic itineraries. After all, a lot of O’s rep is based on its smaller ships’ itineraries. And regardless of the bathroom size, O is O in large part because of that small ship advantage.

No one can recommend an insurer without knowing your circumstances. Check with a reputable broker who specializes in travel insurance. We use InsureMyTrip.com (as do many cruisers). Give them a call. There’s no charge to you. For a good comprehensive policy, expect to pay about 10% of your trip cost as seniors 65+\-.

R Ships ain’t going anywhere for a very long time. The soon to be total of 4 small (R) and 4 medium (2 O + 2 A) ships is the almost right sized fleet for O’s traditional itineraries and the expected continuing demand. The only thing that’s missing is an expedition ship for the SouthWestern “quartersphere.” Vista will not do an ATW. That would mean deleting too many cabins from the better revenue generating stock of segment cabins. Riviera (or Marina) moving permanently to a Pacific homebase (most likely L.A. [though I’d selfishly prefer SF) makes good sense since Vista (and, eventually, Allura) will now handle the “Atlantic” milk runs. And “Marina in the Pacific” years ago was a touch premature due to O’s youth. Cruising on the Pacific Rim today has sufficient demand from both West and East. The R ships will do what they do best- add flexibility in addressing the rest of the globe.

On the O website, you can search by region(s). But, there’s also a category called “Grand Voyages.” In essence, with the latter, O has already combined some segments they know will sell. If your preferred itinerary is not listed there, you can combine single segments for a custom cruise.

No problem. In October/November of 2022, we did a multi-segment Oceania cruise (on the 1200 passenger Marina) from Barcelona to Civitavecchia to Miami (total of 47 days). The first half (approx three weeks) included Israel and Croatia plus Malta, Greece and Turkey. FWIW: Extended journeys that accomplish exactly what you’re looking for are O’s hallmark. You can even custom combine segments (always with a discount for the extended journey). Add to that excellent food, service and included perks at a value laden price and you can’t go wrong.

One other item: If the “cruise bug bites you” and you want to start doing more adventurous cruises, do a one way and/or multisegment cruise that starts and ends in different interesting ports where you can add a land stay at either or both ends. Not only will you get the most out of your airfare. You’ll also have the necessary time to delve deeper into the “sense of place” including its true nature. One of our domestic US one way favorites is SF to NY - 3 weeks via the Panama Canal (perhaps the two most cosmopolitan US coastal cities with excellent museums, performing arts, ethnic foods et al.) And, if you do a “one way” abroad, consider anything that starts or ends in Cape Town (add a Safari), Lisbon, Sydney, et al. Here I also suggest that you view some of Anthony Bourdain’s old “No Reservations” (and his other) series’ shows- each focused on a particular city/region. One of our favorite 3 day land stays recreated Bourdain’s 3 day stay in Lisbon right down to each restaurant he visited. It was terrific. Another great resource is United Airlines’ ongoing series (of many years), Three Perfect Days (found in their Hemispheres magazine). Enjoy your cruise.

The practice of naming port calls after the nearest most well known city is for the convenience of folks who don’t know their geography. (What a shame). A great example is “Rome.” The city itself is nowhere near the ocean and is about an hour drive from the actual port at Civitavecchia. Similarly, “Santiago” is not the real “embark port” for Chile. Instead you’d head to one of its major ports like Valparaiso (approx an hour drive to this coastal city).

Conventional wisdom would suggest that there will be an O class ship regularly serving all four Pacific quadrants, since at least one of the new A class ships will focus on the Atlantic “milk runs” replacing that transferred O ship. That said, it doesn’t mean that any Oceania ship would never venture out of its “comfort zone.” That surely would keep things interesting!

Increasingly negative? Where’d you get that idea? Was it from the handful of complainers here on CC rather than all those who have been O regulars for more than a decade? Perhaps your concerns will be relaxed when you find that more than 75% of the passengers on most O itineraries are repeaters. (And many of them were folks who had “jumped ship” from Celebrity and HAL).

With a major embarkation port for the Caribbean being Miami, that’s yet another reason we have so little interest. Maybe if the embark port was Charleston? Sure, as long as the ship was headed anywhere other than South Florida - the Capitol of “there’s no there - there.” Though Brooklyn born and still drawn home occasionally to enjoy the northeastern US (for all the obvious reasons), living on coastal California has spoiled us when it comes to expectations for domestic travel. Our SF Bay location is the standard bearer for our version of “staycation” (e.g., Wine Country, Tahoe, the North Coast, SoCal beach towns, even the real Disneyland). And if we need a change of scenery/weather, we can head in any direction to equally beautiful/interesting places- even out the Gate to “western” California (aka Hawaii). That said, I do understand that it can be a somewhat expensive effort for Eastcoasters to opt for the Pacific ocean over the Atlantic side. Nonetheless, many do and are richly rewarded.

Since we never use O air (especially for bizclass), I haven’t needed to challenge the air policy. But I expect that, if you take a closer look at the T&Cs and Ticket Contract, you’ll find that O certainly can change all sorts of policies as needed.

I wouldn’t spend even just $1400 on the Caribbean. There’s just no there - there.

In terms of O “sliding,” being more specific might help the discussion. We’ve done about 100 nights on O ships over the past 12 months and the only significant issues noticed/experienced are fourfold: 1) Because of the pandemic shut down, many of the seasoned long-serving hotel crew moved on to other pursuits. Industry wide competition for replacements has been fierce, particularly with several new cruise lines coming online. This has resulted in a challenge to acquire and train/acculturate new hires and there will naturally be instances where tyro status and “new hire” performance will be noticeable. 2) Somewhat similarly, Destination Services has been impacted, not only by onboard staff replacement but also, by the upheaval of “restart” changes among the contracted tour providers and experiences themselves (including existing ones needing to return to service and new ones coming online). Note as well that many of the pre-pandemic private tour providers are permanently shut down. 3) Breadth and depth of food and beverage service provisioning (the “supply chain”) was especially hard hit by the pandemic and full recovery is still a long way off. Occasional hiccups in food prep and service are nothing new. Yet, IMO (as someone whose standards have been fashioned in cosmopolitan cities like NY and SF), O still does an exemplary job in keeping us (and you) well fed -particularly across the span of multi-segment cruises. 4) Itinerary modifications have certainly been noticeable (more so in 2022 than in 2023), again, primarily due to weather and, to a lesser (but significant) degree, the restart of cruise port operations (also impacted by staffing and equipment challenges) among everchanging Covid et al. restrictions. But, let’s be realistic. No cruise line wants to modify itineraries. On our multiple recent O segments, there have been several missed/replacement ports and what some average cruisers seem to not understand is the significant cost in time, work and navigational/operational $$$ to replace a port with added expenses (while still paying for, at least, some of the contracted services in the missed port and not passing the net added cost on to the passengers). And, yes, even added sea days come at a cost of additional food expenditures and manpower scheduling. To those who may disagree with these observations and who still insist that their prognosis of perceived O shortcomings is permanently irreversible, I suggest that you jump ship and choose another line (which, of course, will have exactly the same issues for the easily foreseeable future). Don’t worry about O. There are already plenty of other new and veteran cruisers ready to replace you.

O would be crazy to use a ship that can often be filled to (or almost to) capacity with segment and multi-segment cruisers. Look at the comparative pricing and you’ll see what I mean.

The R ships aren’t going anywhere for a long time. In fact, I’d keep an eye on Azamara. When Sycamore Partners gets tired of its “plaything,” there’ll be several available for a figure far less than the bargain price they paid. Fortunately, those ships were very well made and there useful life is easily extended by major refits like the NEXT project.

Prestige has spirits too and it’s all day.

Both packages have the same cheap wines-by-the-glass. Better to bring your own wine and use prestige package for better spirits in double cocktails.

The CYA statement says only 6. But the reality is you can bring as much as you can carry on segment cruises. Depending on where we embark, we may bring a case to start and replenish enroute depending on the itinerary. We leave next week from home in SF and will start with a case.

While I agree that Vista will never do an ATW in this lifetime, I do need to remind you that ATW cabins on Insignia (or any O ship) are purposefully limited because segment passengers produce significantly more revenue. An R ship could possibly fill if with ATW passengers if the population was not limited. But, that would mean an increase in the fares to make up for the loss of the segment fares.

But they do include gratuities via O Club when you hit Silver (10 cruise credits). OR, your TA may receive O’s OCAPP pass through gratuity funding (that you’ll see on your O invoice). OR, your TA may find them out of their own resources. IMO, you’ve got to try pretty hard to stop them from covering your gratuities😎

So, to sum up- there was an important lesson learned from all this: fly United.