zalusky

I don’t believe you can split a voucher. All money has to be applied to a single cruise. I am also u clear if you can use it as a down payment. Please correct me if I am in error.

Ditto! We had a Viking Midnight Sun sailing this summer with about $28K invested as well and got Covid a week before. My wife continued to test positive through the sailing date. We chose to cancel for insurance reasons rather than get the voucher. It took about 60 days but we got all our money back sans insurance premiums. Yes the vouchers would have move that over as well but we did not want the risk. No more Tripmate coverage for us.

My problem is the wife is diabetic and on transplant drugs so she at mosts takes a sip of what I am drinking. As a result the SSBP would be twice as much if I wanted to partake. On top of that we are in a PV cabin and have booze in the room. I also just prefer a cocktail or two at most. I am not really a wine drinker so unless you guys can persuade me otherwise I don't think the SSBP is worth it.

O cancelled an excursion and we lost our YW discount. We had to search for something else to get the minimum.

I am the reverse I have no interest in beer or wine. I would rather have a good cocktail so its cheaper to pay ala carte then effectively $40/day

Princess no more then. I wonder if cruise lines could institute a reservation policy and only allow so many off the ship as a solution!

True originally Denim was designed for cowboys doing laborer work. Now days the clothing companies are DESIGNING denim for social events and charging appropriately.

I am at a bit of a loss why people seem to prefer a plasticy looking tux to nice looking jeans! Our local NBC news casters are doing the Friday night news wearing jeans and suit jacket and no tie. Does not bother me and personally I think it looks good!

I long ago donated my Tux to Goodwill. Just not worth packing it and times have changed. I can't think of the last time I got some upsell from the cruise line about renting tuxes. It's not 2004 any more.

Likewise I have seen Tuxedos that look like clown outfits.

So question about this! I thought you only had access to the Polaris lounge if you were in a Polaris seat or you had the Amex Platinum card. Do Star Alliance people have access to the Polaris lounge such as Singapore Business Class?

Yes in fact that's what I did as well. My example above is our first Oceania cruise which I booked online last minute because a cabin opened up on a normally full sailing. We transferred it later to our TA. When I booked it I also chose the OBC and soon learned that was the worst option. The shore excursion package costs $400 or $100 for each of the 4 excursions but you can choose excursions up to $199 so you can magnify your savings. My wife is diabetic and only sips my drinks. I also am not a wine drinker and prefer cocktails so that math totally failed. As a result of learning the math I asked our TA to switch the package and all was well. Now we have chosen some private excursions as well since we have a 3 week sailing.

We did a Celebrity cruise in 2016 from Sydney to Auckland. We flew business class from SFO to Sydney via Auckland. The first leg was 14 hours plus the 2+ hour connection to Sydney. It was worth it. First we are CPAP users and we weee able to use our machines on the flight. We have another cruise booked this winter to Australia and will book business class again. I paid for the return flights with points on United’s Polaris class.

Looking at the PrePurchase spreadsheet we got from Oceania where we Took the Olife Shore Excursion package which gave us 4 excursions up to $199 for free We booked 8 total excursions giving us the YWC 25% discount The total raw price of my selected 8 tours was $1272 or $159/tour on average Sorting my tours by price descending I removed the first 4 tours under $200 I then took 25% off of those tours that left a total of $424.50 So the next out of pocket code = $424.50 / 8 = $53.50/tour on average Now to be fair I should add in the $400 Olife Excursion price to the out of pocket cost So $424.50 + $400 = $824.50 / 8 = $103.06/tour on average You can see how far ahead in my case. The question is what would the equivalent price of these tours be if they were private? It also obviously depends on what you pick as the numbers could be completely different. Booking 1 less excursion would change the game a lot as you lose the 25% discount which happened when they cancelled an excursion on us so we had to find something.

World cruises would not surprise me. They’re pretty much at the top and I don’t think they want to annoy that customer base. I wonder what their parameter are?

During the height of Covid, Viking added a Risk Free Guarantee where you would get a voucher for the cost of money paid that you gave you up to 2 years before you had to apply it. There were two iterations of this guarantee. The first iteration allowed you to cancel up to the day before and the subsequent iteration you had to cancel up to 2 weeks before. You could do this for any reason because obviously bookings were falling through the floor. This Risk Free Guarantee version 1 and version 2 only applied to booking made between certain dates. The version 2 did not apply for bookings made after June 30 2022. So even though we are now after those dates if you have one of those bookings it still applies. The other problem with the Risk Free Guarantee Voucher was it was not splittable. You could not apply part of it to 1 cruise and the remainder to another. So you had to basically apply to an equal or more expensive cruise. You also could not apply (I think) it to the down payment of the replacement cruise. The problem with the Risk Free Guarantee Voucher is it was not insurable so if you booked a replacement cruise using the voucher and purchased Tripmate they would not pay for the voucher if you had to cancel. Other insurance programs may have but not Tripmate. Tripmate which is insurance offered by Viking has a CFAR option which gives you a voucher but has the rule that you have to use the voucher within 12 months. Now that Viking now longer offers the Risk Free Guarantee on new bookings you only have the Tripmate CFAR option (unless you purchase other insurance) but Viking themselves does not offer anything other than their standard cancellation penalty schedule.

Just to reiterate.I don’t like vouchers and will avoid if at all possible. Money is always better in my hand. I have no idea what my situation will be like and being tied to a use or lose it window is not acceptable. We may have other events that pop up whether they are medical or family/friend related that can make things dicey. Also vouchers are not splittable so if you want to go on something smaller you lose the excess. Lastly itineraries and friends can drive choices of the next cruise meaning they might be with a different cruise line. So money always wins where possible.

We were in the 100% penalty period. So You have three choices: Accept a risk free voucher Good for two years but is not insurance if you insure with with Tripmate Cancel for a non covered reason and accept a voucher Good for 12 months which we did not want to deal with. Cancel for a covered Tripmate reason which Covid is one of and get your money back.

How about itineraries as well. O seems to have more unusual itineraries. For example O will circumnavigate Australia where say Regent and Seabourn will just do the usual Northern routes.

We had to cancel a Midnight Sun cruise this summer due to catching Covid right before. We made a point of going the insurance route vs the voucher route. We eventually got the money after 60 days or so and wound up using it on an itinerary on a competitor line that happen to open up for later this year. We could not have done that with vouchers. Viking did not offer this itinerary.

Doesn’t bother me. Probably better than seeing what under the robe. Some people might not pack a lot and this gives the chance at washing all their underwear.

I have switched my packages after booking and after final payment. As a newbe I learned and I went went from ship credit to the excursion Olife package. I booked a cruise that leaves in December and paid the whole thing up front. I later realized what the excursion Olife package allows you to effectively double the credit and with the YWC on top of that I was got my average price down further. Nobody complained about the change request.

Technically it should be called a perk if you don't have to pay for it. With Olife you are paying for it so I would suggest people call out the full amount they are paying for day not just the so called upgrade price. Now if Oceania or the TA gave it out as a special for a particular sailing then its a bit of a different story. Also if one person does not drink its effectively twice as expensive.

We had Tripmate and a Viking cruise to the Midnight Sun this last July. Unfortunately we both got Covid a week before the cruise and had to cancel. We had plenty of documentation from my wife’s doctors. Tripmate took about 2 months to come through with the cash. There were a number of steps we had to do starting with uploading documents showing the cancelled cruise and cancellation fees followed by doctors documentation saying you cannot cruise due to a positive diagnosis. After that it took about 5 weeks to even get looked at and then finally at some point it was approved. Then it had to go to accounting to verify the amount relative to what you paid, and were penalized. Finally it got sent to payments.

Add to the fact that both people in the cabin have to play. My wife is diabetic and only drinks a taste of what I get. There is no way I would come out ahead. I also prefer spirits to wine anyways so the basic package gives me nothing.