fishr

It said San Basilio. But as I said I wanted to make sure so I called Oceania the day before embarkation and the told me...San Bailio.

Let me clarify a few things: First although my wife and I are seasoned travellers we haven't done much cruising so we don't know all the "tricks" others might know such as calling the port agent instead of the cruise line etc. I should point out that one of the six of us caught up in this fiasco is an experienced cruiser, especially with Oceania. I don't think getting to San Basilio by land taxi was an option (I could be wrong). In retrospect I should have just told our hotel concierge we neede to get to the Nautica and he would have found out it was at Maritima.

Some of your comments imply that the bunch of us are idiots and shouldn't have gotten ourselves into this situation. That is both untrue and unhelpful.

The bottom line is that when a passenger calls Oceania for information, the information should be accurate. They also should have been available to us by phone while we were stuck at San Basilio. If we had been able to reach them, they could have sent water taxis to pick us up (at their expense). As I previously pointed out our taxis disappeared as soon as we paid them. They could see that there was no ship there but took off anyway.

Unfortunately they were long gone by the time we realized we were in the wrong place! And we called Oceania repeatedly and couldn’t reach anyone.

It was docked at Maritima-which we could have reached quickly, easily and cheaply. Unfortunately they told me that it was at St. Basilio which required a very expensive (and ultimately unneccesary) water taxi ride, followed by an hour and fifteen minute walk with our luggage.

We recently cruised on the Nautica out of Venice. I checked (and double checked) with Oceania about our ship's location and they sent us to the wrong place, requiring us to walk over an hour with our luggage to find the ship. They also gave me wrong information about the availability of port shuttles. Considering how excellent the service is on board, you would think that people providing information at their head office would do a better job.

I've heard that in Dubrovnik they only accept the local currency (and credit cards in some places). We need to get from the port to the Old Town and our cruise line is not supplying a shuttle so we need to take a taxi or the bus. I don't feel comfortable paying for the taxi with my credit card so I'll need to get money from an ATM at the port. I've also heard that there is "an" ATM at the port. If so I'm worried that I'm going to be standing in line for a very long time (three ships in port). Is this information correct? Should I try to buy some Croatian money before I leave home?

My ship will be docked overnight in Livorno in November. On the first day we're going to Florence. Any suggestions for the second day? Our ship departs at 6:00.

On 2/15/2019 at 10:01 PM, Paulchili said:

Obviously O Life tours are not free but most of the time they are good deals.

By choosing excursions option for O Life you pay $100/ excursion but often get excursions costing up to $199 (averaging about $150). It’s a good option for those that drink little or not at all - certainly a better value than taking the OBC.

Are private tours with smaller group size and flexible itinerary a better value? 99% of the time the answer is yes but not everyone can or wants to go that route for any number of reasons.

I spend tremendous amount of time and effort to accumulate FF miles and hotel points to fly long distances in business/first for free and stay in hotels for free. I do that because I know how, I like to do it, I am good at it and the end result is fantastic. That is obviously a better deal than getting O air in economy with several connections or paying cash for business flights but not everyone can or wants to do what I do to get there (thankfully, as otherwise getting these awards would be much more difficult than it already is 🙂)

To each their own.

I’m trying to decide if OLife is a good deal but Oceania hasn’t released the prices for shore excursions on my cruise (November 2019) yet. How far ahead do they release them?

10 minutes ago, LHT28 said:

The roll call is   a forum where you will meet others on the same sailing

You can share tours or just get to know your fellow shipmates before the cruise

https://boards.cruisecritic.com/forum/321-oceania-roll-calls/

look for the ship you are on  then scroll down the list of sailings  until you find your date 

then post there

If you have trouble  finding your sailing post the name of the ship & date & someone will point you to it

 

Thanks. Will do.

On 1/30/2019 at 4:25 PM, pinotlover said:

If you don’t have Pre Paid Gratuities, then the OBC can go towards paying those. Oceania shore tours are horrendously overpriced. Check your Roll Call or do a little search to evaluate tour options. 

 

Non drinkers , without PPG, can be better off taking the OBC so to pay those gratuities, and then booking the ship tours of choice with the remaining dollars. The remaining group tours wound be out of pocket. Oceania ship tours are normally priced about 2X what one will pay for an identical tour arranged privately or via their Roll Call.

I'm a bit new to the forum. What do you mean by Roll Call?

39 minutes ago, chuckcarole said:

We always take the SBC and use it to help with gratuties.

Our gratuities are being paid by the travel agency.

I realize that the "free" airfare isn't "free". My TA told me that O is charging us $1300 cdn each for airfare. The question is whether or not he can do it cheaper for us. We want Premium Economy and O won't give him a price on that until the end of Feb. so we'll see then.

Were going on an Oceania cruise out of Venice in November. We haven't decide yet whether or not to let them arrange our air or let our travel agent do it (for no fee). We're not in a gateway city so no matter what it's going to be a complicated and exhausting flight. I assume that if O books our flights we have no choice as to schedule etc.We want to arrive a couple of days early so if Oceania books our flight they will charge us a couple of hundred bucks extra. I don't get that since it costs them nothing extra to book a different flight for us! However they'll waive this fee if we stay in their designated pre-cruise hotel-at ten times the cost of booking the hotel ourselves! We also haven't decided on OLife or not. The drink packages would be a waste for us since drink very little. I'm getting the impression that taking the shore ex's or using the OBC to buy shore ex's isn't such a good deal either. We have PPG through our travel agent.

I'm booked on an Oceania cruise out of Venice in Nov. We want to spend a couple of days in Venice pre cruise. Oceania would charge us $2275 (Canadian) for two nights hotel. My travel agent can book the same hotel for $250/night.

We're planning on booking a Concierge Level Veranda Stateroom A1 on Natica. Most are on Deck 7 but there are two midship on Deck 8. What are the pros and cons of each?

We're planning to book an A1 Concierge Veranda Stateroom on Nautica. Most are on Deck 7 but there are two midship on Deck 8. Are there any pros or cons regarding the Deck 8 staterooms?

Which cruise line and/or itinerary would you recommend for an active healthy 60 year old couple looking for a high end cruise?

I keep seeing on various websites that you can buy a $50 (non-alcohol) beverage card for $45 but when I called HAL to enquire they said it's not true. Does anyone know the real story behind this?

I'm looking for shore excursion recommendations for me and my wife. Our ports are Haines, Juneau and Ketchikan. We're in good shape and would like to do active (but not extreme) things