DieselkW

First post on Oceania - our first cruise is next year in September, and we booked it when Oceania was heavily promoting Simply More. We had been happy cruising with Celebrity but after 33 days on an Edge Class ship recently we felt nickel and dimed to death so we searched for an alternative. We're not wealthy. We try to take a cruise once a year and it costs us quite a bit of our discretionary funds to do so. Oceania was an extravagance... but as it turns out... not really all that much more expensive once we did a fair comparison of what is an extra cost on Celebrity that we get as part of the fare on Oceania. It comes to $50/night more to cruise Oceania. Part of this mathematical gymnastics was how much we paid for ship sponsored excursions, beverage packages, WiFi, and specialty dining that are included on Oceania all divided up into cost per day. I gave all that detail because too many people compare booking cost side by side, but don't add in all the associated costs of the experience. Which brings me to the topic at hand. We have $1600 in excursion credit for our cruise next year. If the cost of those (hopefully plural) excursions goes up, it just means we get fewer (prepaid) excursions. We have no way of knowing what Oceania pays the tour company, hopefully they're not marking it up too much and passing along the volume discount I'm sure they are offered by the tour operators. The beauty of this marketing ploy is simple: We were "given" $1600 to spend on a product we either use of lose. Perhaps we will enjoy $800 worth of touring and the other $800 is profit for Oceania. I don't know yet because we won't be diving into the details until September. Bottom Line, Oceania controls the price as a middle man, but we are hostage to those prices in the use it or lose it scheme. So, if Oceania charges (for instance) $200pp for a tour we could similarly book direct for $100pp I will consider that if/when booking again under the S.M. "benefit".

I have to disagree. Booking multiple excursions planning to cancel all but one, seems to me to have very little benefit for the upfront cost. I mean, imagine losing track and missing the window, whether it be 24 or 48 hours. That could cost thousands. Excursions are either too expensive to play that game, or you have so much extra cash you don’t mind throwing money away because you overslept.

Think it through. 24 hours before excursion vs. 48 hours before arriving in port. Day 2 6am arrival with a noon excursion means 54 hours before excursion is now policy on 1/1/24. Anyone got plans for 6am on embarkation day? Traveling? Waking up in a hotel? Don’t yet know it’s going to rain somewhere you’re going to be in two days? We will simply cancel now, and find a better tour provider to share a chunk of our vacation dollars.

I was recently sickened from a bad shrimp in the Oceanview Cafe and missed a ship sponsored $450 excursion. To get reimbursed, I had to go to medical and endure isolation in my cabin, causing me to miss a $150 Viator excursion. Viator cheerfully canceled and refunded. This change in policy means once you are onboard, Celebrity will keep your money if something changes. This should result in a drastic reduction of ship sponsored excursions.

We're showing menus on the Silhouette February '24, but nothing for the Apex October/November '23. I assume they're changing menus to see if they can further reduce cost and increase complaints as those two seem to be inversely proportional. Or maybe they're looking to decrease complaints with the smallest possible increase in cost. Either way - we don't cruise for food, we cruise for itinerary. The ship (hopefully) takes us where we want to go. Unless we want to go to Israel, where they're shying away while the 2000 year old "neighbor dispute" war is heating up again.