Bone1

Just came off the Vista and she is a beauty. Beautiful cabins, bathrooms, showers, etc. I believe you will enjoy your trip on it next year. The shows were good, but not spectacular. The comedian was very good. They also had a speaker before some of the ports. (We sailed on the Holylands cruise). I would not hesitate to sail on the Vista again! Enjoy your cruise!

I would just like to say - absolutely no one knows anything positively, 100% accurately, for sure what SimplyMORE covers/doesn’t cover except those that came up with the program at Oceania. I can almost guarantee you that even employees of Oceania can’t answer 100% of the questions here. I have seen a lot of different answers with: I believe, I did this or that, etc. but one needs to realize that it all depends on the cruise that these people are referring to. Just because someone can get a better price by changing a booked cruise to SM, doesn’t mean everyone will because not all cruises are affected by it the same way. Oceania hasn’t even upgraded their website yet on so many things; for example, FAQ, and some Terms and Conditions are not up to date. I believe this should have all been looked into before any major changes (i.e., SM) were rolled out. Hopefully, we can all be a little more adult and keep our comments and patience with others’ questions/comments to ourselves. As they say, if you have nothing nice to say, don’t say it at all. Just a thought.

I was always told the OBC could be used for the Spa or Gratuities. Not sure about purchases made in the shops. I have used it for gratuities in the past as well as tours. That was, however, before the pandemic. These are the types of things that will have to be ironed out and specifically detailed when it gets down to the nitty gritty of the new simply MORE program. We have a cruise booked for April, 2024 and I’m curious as to how that trip will be affected.

So I redid the mock booking and the pricing made sense. The actual cost was for a category C2 but the booking was upgraded to a B2 category (which was a 2 category upgrade). Thank you for clarifying that for me.

I must say that I have been cruising for many years and have tried different lines as my family grew up. I finally settled on Oceania, however, since the pandemic, I am so frustrated because it has caused so many changes. I am positive that I am not the only one that feels this way and now it is just a game we all have to play to choose which line is best for what we want. I have not been a member of CC for a long time, but I have learned a lot and am very grateful to those who have taken the time to respond to my questions and I plan to keep learning and reading all the information on Cruise Critic. I love looking at all of the info that is out there for us to take advantage of and use if we choose to do so.

Let me clarify something, when I did my mock booking, I chose a veranda stateroom and when I finished the invoice showed the veranda stateroom at the price shown without the 4 category upgrade. Does something like this have to be done via a phone call to Oceania and not on line?

Was all of this done by a TA or did you book this directly with Oceania?

Our TA insists that if you book early you always get the best price and the prices never, ever go down. We will be traveling soon and will be discussing this with the rep on the ship to get some clarification about their sales. When I did a mock booking for the 4 cabin upgrade sale, I chose a veranda category and I was never told I’d get the 4 cabin upgrade when, in fact, I knew there was availability at that level. Extremely frustrating.

Twice with the paid air through Oceania we got such awful air that we asked our TA to get better flights and she was kind enough to do so and we did get better flights. We are on a cruise in 4 weeks and we had a flight with a 9 hour layover and got us in late at night on a day that we paid for a pre-cruise extra offer. We, once again, found that unacceptable. Our TA talked with the Oceania air Dept and we got a direct flight to our destination. We also are arriving at 6:00 a.m. so we have the whole day to sightsee instead of losing the whole day. So don’t be surprised if you get a flight with1 or more stops. And it also doesn’t make a difference what type of level you are flying at. (Econ, Premium, Bus, etc.). Also, it was just accepted for us by our TA and was never offered to us for our acceptance.

Off the grid a bit, but for the life of me, I cannot find the size of any of their cabins on any of their ships anywhere. Not even on the Azamara site!! I wonder why. I have heard they are a bit smaller than other cruise lines compared to them. Can anyone explain why or tell me where I can find the size of the cabins? Thanks!

That is what I was lead to believe as well and not only on Oceania.

It’s got to make one wonder if Oceania is in financial trouble. All of the cruise lines are cutting back in some way(s). And as the saying goes, you can’t please everyone, all of the time.”

You are absolutely right LHT28. Seriously considering that option, unfortunately.

We have tried calling Oceania with a request to change our air which we got about 75 days before our cruise as well. We were told by an Oceania rep they will absolutely not talk to us since we are working through a travel agent. Our TA would have to call them. At this point we are so confused because we are hearing so many different things from so many different people, it’s very frustrating. I do have to say though, because we are traveling in ab economy seat we were able to get a non stop flight.