m1k2s3

On 4/14/2024 at 12:03 AM, coolbluegreenseas said:

I appreciate the responses! As far as budget goes, I can make either work. What I hate to do is purchase a service and never really use it. Still, the larger cabin and bathroom just might be worth it. I have time to think this over.

 

Thank you so far!

We’ve done 7 Oceania cruises, 6 of them in a Concierge cabin ( Riveria and Regatta). Our last cruise was the exception when a week before our Papeete to Papeete cruise on Nautica in January this year, we got a really good offer to upgrade to a Penthouse.

Honestly, I don’t think I could go back to a Concierge cabin. Not that there’s anything wrong with them but like you, we like spending time in our cabin. So for us, the extra space in the cabin, including the larger bathroom, was what made the difference for us. I don’t think we made good use of having a butler ( he brought canapés each night, served us dinner one night from a specialty restaurant).

I just recently had this problem. Now that Oceania includes a shore excursion credit, it’s important to book the excursions you may be interested in as soon as you can. If not, those excursions may get booked up and you’re left with a credit you can’t use on anything else.

On an upcoming cruise, I have a $600 credit available and found 2 excursions that would have used up that credit. Except when I called to book them, one of them was wait listed. The Oceania agent explained that if there was enough wait listed, they might add on to this tour. Failing that, if someone cancels that excursion, we might still get it. But of course, that could happen anytime, including right up to the day of the excursion.

That was about a month ago and now we’re 2 weeks away from our cruise and I still don’t know if we’ll get that excursion. So I’ve booked another similar tour through Viator, just so we have something and can cancel up to 48 hours ahead. The irony is, from the tour description, I think Oceania is using the same tour company.

We leave in two weeks on a French Polynesia cruise. It looks like with the inclusion of excursion credits with the Simple More package, excursions seem to book up fast. Unfortunately I guess we waited too long and we got one excursion booked but the other one we wanted is wait listed. When I called Oceania, they said it’s possible if they get enough people wait listed, they may add another tour.

i’m wondering if any of you have had an excursion wait listed, what your experience was. I’ve got another similar tour booked through Viator just in case but of course I’d prefer to be able to use the balance of our credit instead of having to pay for the other one.

Just now, MEFIowa said:

Though we're discussing O and its repeated FAILURE to publish and enforce its own rules! I don't know about you, but I taught my children that actual rules are enforced and have consequences.

 

Tell us, what is the actual ENFORCED RULE on alcohol on O ships?

As adults, we shouldn’t have to have the rules enforced in order to follow them but I get it - usually in life, you break the rules there are consequences. But again, we’re adults and we have choices. 

We spend our whole lives following the rules, we teach our kids it’s important to follow the rules. Then suddenly you get on a cruise ship and somehow now it’s ok not to follow the rules??

Even if you get them ahead of time, put them on at the port. They’re like a thick paper so if you put them on too soon, they can come off.

On 11/29/2023 at 4:36 PM, sfranklin said:

My wife and I are scheduled for this cruise.  I am so dissatisfied with Oceania.  This is our first and definitely our last cruise on Oceania.  I have called, written letters to executive staff.   The basic response is "tough luck".  Zero customer service. 

I can understand how upsetting and disappointing this must be for you but before you give up on Oceania, why not check other boards to see how other cruise lines are dealing with this issue.

22 hours ago, PhD-iva said:

Some Dissatisfied pax are having success w disputes to their credit card companies.

Go that route and report back on your results….

I’m not sure this would work - they may ask is this covered in the contract you signed and agreed to and is this covered under your travel insurance?

7 hours ago, Vallesan said:

This is Oceania’s reply to my TA…..
 

Our second O-class vessel, Marina, will undergo a full and extensive refurbishment in May 2024. 
 

• Marina will be the final ship within Oceania Cruises’ award-winning fleet to be refurbished     While it will be extensive and all encompassing, it will not be to the same level of her sister ship, Riviera:
• All of the upper suites will receive a full cosmetic refresh, the same as Riviera. 
• All of the penthouse suites will be completely redecorated
• All of the staterooms will have a fabric and upholstery refresh.
• We will not be building out entirely new bathrooms as it unfortunately cannot be accomplished within the timeframe required. 
• All public areas will be refreshed to be in-line with Riviera.

 

This is very disappointing that the bathrooms won’t be done. It’s the one thing I disliked the most about the concierge level cabins. Redecorating is nice but it sure would be nice to have a more functional bathroom too. It’s also puzzling why they managed to  schedule refurbishment of all their other ships ( including the bathrooms) and now, on the last and final one, there’s no time to do the bathrooms.

To me, this sounds more like they’re simply redecorating the ship - again, very disappointing.

18 hours ago, PplusA said:

The ship was Sirena and I have contacted Oceania customer services UK and been given a reference number so I think my email has landed in the correct place. Thank you.

I hope you get a response, although I feel it might not be to your satisfaction. If the restaurant manager couldn’t resolve it, I doubt customer service will be able to. I can’t imagine what would happen that caused you to leave without having your meal but given the limited amount of information you’ve provided, I’d sorry to say, the choice was yours to leave the restaurant. 

Thanks everyone. We’ve been looking at a cruise in September 2024 on Marina and hoping it would be refurbished by then.

I’ve searched through this site and cannot find out if/when Marina will be refurbished. I’ve seen a couple of different dates but nothing definitive.

Has the Marina been refurbished or when is it scheduled?

On 6/5/2023 at 7:29 PM, LastSBwithG said:

We are staying there for three nights before the cruise.  Glad to hear that you liked it.  I’ll contact them directly& ask. Our travel agent said Intercontinental would not offer a day rate or The Pearl even though Oceana site said both would. 
Were you on a cruise of Tahiti?

We have a late night flight out of Papeete after our cruise. We just reserved a pool and lunch pass at the Intercontinental. They don’t have a day pass that includes a room and they had several options. I should add the pass we got is from 10am to 5pm, we have use of the pool area and a lunch at one of their restaurants ( the Tiare I think).

About a month ago, I was looking at a 10 day cruise in January 2024, Papeete to Papeete, a concierge A1 cabin, for my husband and I. The price at that time was $10,549 Canadian funds, per person. That same cruise now is $11,399 Cdn., which works out to an increase of $1700 for us.  We always took the House Select Beverage package and rarely used the ship excursions. Simply More shore excursion credit for this cruise is $800 but that’s per stateroom so it looks like this cruise would cost us an additional $1100.

We are on the Regatta right now. First, a couple of reference points- we have done 6 Oceania cruises and 2 of them have been on the Regatta. However, our last cruise was 3 years ago ( thanks to the pandemic) so for us, this was us getting back to cruising with a cruise line we loved.

The some of the things we loved about Oceania are still true - exceptional service, great itineraries, clean comfortable cabins.  Food was of course important but I’ve always found opinions are somewhat objective, what I expect or like you may not. Having said that we found the food in the main dining room and the specialty restaurants was still very good, exactly as we remembered however, the food in the terrace cafe was, in some cases, just ok. Nothing really wrong ( well except my husband had issues with his over easy eggs on 2 occasions) just not what we expected.

One thing I did notice is that there seemed to be a lot of staff being trained, particularly in the Terrace Cafe. 
 

Would we go on another Oceania cruise after this? Absolutely!! In fact, we’re looking at a couple of cruises we’re hoping to book on board.

https://www.cruisecritic.com/articles.cfm?ID=3021
 

This article on Cruise Critic gives you more information on what a Thalasso therapy pool is and generally where it’s located on a ship. Regatta has one and if you go through the spa, into the change rooms, there’s a door that leads you outside at the front of the ship where the spa terrace is and thalasso therapy pool is.

The 360 video tour of the spa shows it, but you have to click on one of the arrow on the video to see it.

I just checked our account and our booking for May 2023 isn’t there too so it must be maintenance issue. I’m going to check again in the morning.

We were on the Riveria on my birthday. I don’t often splurge on spa treatments but my husband surprised me with an afternoon at the spa. It was amazing and I loved it! Then dinner at Toscana with cake and the staff singing Happy birthday. 

2 hours ago, pinotlover said:

This is SO correct. People calling 1-800 and talking to some clerk. Do you think they have a clue on any of this? One can’t get a straight answer from Destination Services aboard ship, why does one believe aDial a Clerk would know anything? 

I think it might be more helpful to others if you know or if you could suggest an alternative department or person to talk to if this situation were to happen to them.

When you go online to book your reservations, I found it handy to have a few dates and times handy just in case your first choices are all ready taken.  Also, you might be able to book additional reservations on board.

Enjoy your cruise!

12 hours ago, ShopperfiendTO said:

 

Were there even direct flights able to be booked from Toronto to Austrailia/New Zealand?

 

If not, the ones that you were assigned were probably the closest to direct that could be booked for Canadians not from the Vancouver gateway.

 

I think you scored 4/4, which is lucky for you!

Of course there weren’t any direct flights. My point was I’ve had success using Oceania booking our flights - even flights to Australia/New Zealand.

1 hour ago, WayneLaR said:

OK, post something that refutes it then.....

https://www.newswire.ca/news-releases/toronto-pearson-makes-significant-progress-on-improving-the-airport-experience-for-passengers-837829919.html

5 hours ago, WayneLaR said:

Whether you deem it unfair or not, it is a fact.  Source...https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/2056928835691

 

 

That article was from 8 months ago. 

18 hours ago, WayneLaR said:

Take it from a Canadian that has connected through YYZ too many times to count.  You are playing with fire with that tight a connection (especially in this day and age) on an intercontinental flight through YYZ.  One hiccup in DC or YYZ and you are likely done.

 

YYZ has been named the worst airport in the world for a reason.

I think that’s a little unfair. There are lots of airports experiencing delays and there are lots of reasons flights get delayed, the weather ( and any airport in Canada during the winter months have delays), mechanical issues for example that affect travel, not to mention the day and time of travel create congestion at many airports. I live in Toronto so I use YYZ and have travelled through YYZ several times in the last couple of months and never had any issues departing - but coming back has at times been challenging.

We’ve done 6 cruises with Oceania and 4 of those cruises included Oceania doing our flights. Of those 4, three were direct flights. Our Mediterranean cruise Venice to Barcelona had direct flights, on one of  Caribbean cruises, we flew from Toronto to Miami direct and on our upcoming Alaskan cruise, Los Angeles to Vancouver, we have direct flights.

The only cruise that didn’t have direct flights was our Australia/New Zealand - those flights were brutal - Toronto to Vancouver with a tight connecting flight to Auckland to get there.  Then back was Bali to Dubai with a 4 hour layover then Dubai to Toronto.

Just curious, where did you see/hear this