MOssyLedge

I have had my wife go to her Facebook page and read several of the postings which are a bit more detailed than on this thread. i just won't do Facebook for many reasons. We'll see if this just disappears again or I have screwed up my settings.

I'm on The Vantage Ports of Timeless Wonder cruise- 7/15 to 7/30. Because they cancelled my last trip, I did a DIY tour for 4 days in Oslo- a great city. Here is a travelogue that I do for each day to send to my cohort of friends. I hope this can be opened. If you are going to do something on your own and only have several hours- do part of this itinerary. Nordic Capitals - RFS PDF Travelogue #4.pdf

You have to stay on Allianz, several times per day, otherwise you will never see the money.

Several people mentioned on this thread as well as on the regular Cruise Critic thread, that there are NO 110V outlets in the room. I checked with customer service and thsi is what they said: There are USB outlets in your cabin and 220 V plugs. The adapter to bring would be 2 round prongs. In the picture below, the round two prong adapter is on the left. This is standard throughout Europe. If you extend your stay in London, there is a different voltage adapter needed.

I sincerely thank all of you, especially sfm629 for your very detailed answer to my questions. There is no excuse for not having 5* service as advertised, especially for those of us that this is as first time with Vantage. Vantage could have advertised "specials" at a lower cost because they were trying to get their new cruise ship staff some experience. I guess with 330 million Americans coming out of the pandemic and wanting to travel again, they don't care. I recall that each traveller on Windstar had 1 chance to have a special dinner of Kobe steak while onboard. That was a memorable culinary experience that I still vividly recall. My wife and I have traveled far and wide but as I approach my 78th birthday, in the past year or so, I've developed some mobility issues which is one of the reasons why I was really pissed off at Vantage for cancelling my 2022 cruise (originally 2021) to June 2024 (yes- that's correct). Nevertheless, we will forge ahead and enjoy ourselves no matter how much I will grouse. One thing is for sure, I will maintain our policy of only traveling with one small suitcase (like fits in the overhead bin of the airplane) and a small backpack. So, I hope that everyone will appreciate my very scaled down wardrobe and non beauty style clothing. It's also nice to see that so many of you are early risers.

You are correct- it is on Know before You Go section - well hidden. Gratuities We know that you’ll want to reward great service, so we’ve included the following guidelines for gratuities: Now including gratuities for local guides and drivers Porterage: Gratuities are included, except in Customs areas; porterage is included at hotels Outside Dining: Varies according to local customs; your Expedition Team will advise Vantage Expedition Team, Concierge, Ship Staff & Crew: A gratuity of $20 per traveler, per day, will be pre-charged to your credit card and can be adjusted at the end of the cruise or modified to cash gratuities Shipboard gratuities are shared among the whole crew, including the Expedition Team I'd love to see if the dude on board can find it to show me.

sfm629, I just spent some time on the Vantage website looking for where they may say that gratuities are $20pp/per day, but I could find nothing. I'm sure that it must be hidden somewhere in one fo their fine print docs. Interestingly, I got a advert from Atlas Ocean Voyages that all gratuities are included in their fares. It is a Portuguese owned company with 196 passenger ships (I believe). Anyway, I do have a number of questions that you may be able to answer if your time permits. Some questions that I would like to ask you: 1. How were the temperature controls- whether it be heating or cooling? We’re going in the middle of July, so I’d really like to know if the air-conditioning system worked. 2. How good were the housekeeping services? Things like cleaning the room daily, making the bed and cleaning the bathroom. 3. How comfortable did you find the bed and pillows? How hard were the pillows? Did they have a pillow menu like many 5* boats? 4. How informative and accurate were the port talks that are supposed to occur daily? 5. Was the Odyssey able to dock alongside piers or how often, if ever, did you have to take a zodiac or other smaller boat to shore? 6. What was the quality of the group tours in town? 7. What was the quality of the guides and their overall knowledge and personality? 8. Now that you’ve completed your cruise, how would you rate the overall food selection and preparation- especially compared to your past experiences. For curiosity, how many passengers were actually onboard? Thanks for all your help and input.

Goatee350' It's so long ago that I booked my trip at full fare, that i've forgotten what is included and what is not. I'll have to look it up. I certainly will tip those that deserve it and not those that don't. i will figure out a way to not give Vantage a CC with more than $100 credit available. I trust Vantage- not at all and wouldn't mind if things went horribly wrong for them after my trip is over. I know- not fair to others. I truly hate being taken advantage of and as a vengeful person, I will figure it out.

As I may have said before, this is my first, and undoubtedly my very very last trip with Vantage. What attracted me to them was the size of the new boats (small) as well as the technological and ecological systems that are employed. I actually spent a lot of time online looking at the designer of the ship and the reasons why they did things. Having a design in Norway was a real plus for me. Another thing was the reviews that I saw online going back to 2020 or 2021. Obviously as many people above have said, they were a fabulous cruise and land-based tour company. Businesses go under for many reasons and we'll never know what has occurred to get Vantages to this point. Of course, Henry Lewis is the owner and his lack of honesty and integrity, maybe greed as well, could be the reasons that they are here. We paid our deposit with a credit card and were told that we could pay the balance with a CC as well. When it was time to pay, Vantage would only take a bank draft directly from our bank. At that point, in 2021, I would bet that they knew they were in trouble and we couldn't claw back our money from a direct bank withdrawal. They were smart, but have taught me a lesson. If I can't pay by CC, I don't need your product or service. They also had good lawyers to make sure that all trips were just postponed, not cancelled so that their bogus trip insurance wouldn't pay us anything. Once again they were thinking (planning) ahead. As bad as we might be affected, if our Ocean Odyssey doesn't sail, I feel worse for those folks that said that they had paid for 2 or 3 or more trips this season with Vantage. I don't want to take out my anger on the crew, but as I recall, all tips are included and for me to pony up any more money, the service and itinerary will have to be exceptional. I've only been on two other ocean cruises - one each with Windstar (before they enlarged their ships) and the other on Star Clipper ship-a real 4 masted sailboat. Both were exceptional for the itineraries and the service and the friends that we made onboard. If whatever happens on the Ocean Odyssey is half as good as these trips were, I'd be elated, considering what I now expect. Sorry for the rant, but.....

What ship were you on and what was your destination? I also have booked my is own business class R/T airfare on Virgin Atlantic-JFK to Copenhagen London to JFK.

My wife keeps telling me that I have to be flexible. Being flexible is going to a different attraction or venue because they are closed, not because Vantage has used our hard earned money for other purposes and not paid their bills. I too am happy that I still get to experience the boat and the crew and our fellow travelers. I am also glad that we have made our own tours in Copenhagen, Oslo, Amsterdam and London. When went there last August because we had our airfare (credit-left over from the pandemic) to those cities for 4 days each. Pour cruise to the Baltic region was "postponed" to August 2024. That's right- 2024. So we thought it best to expand our horizons with our own tours. At least I know that they will happen. Maybe by mid-July Vantage will get to pay their bills. Thank you so much for being a sleuth and figuring that out.

I always use ToursbyLocals and Context Tours (TBL). Both have cancel for any reason options and so I've never lost money with them- even in 2020 when we had so many trips planned- more than I'll ever do in one year again. www.contexttravel.com www.toursbylocals.com When we stop in Oslo, my TBL guide is meeting us at the dock.

In many of the ports, we do our own itinerary, rather than go with Vantage. As an example, when we stop in Amsterdam, one day we do this tour. This is only 1 page of the itinerary. We get into greater depth than any of the cruise ship experiences.

I was in business for myself for about 40 years and the one thing that I know for sure is that customer service that Vantage has displayed over the last couple of years will take them forever to live down if they survive in business. Of course, this is a big country with 335 million people and you don't need too many people to not know of your history and pattens to continue in business. I certainly hope to be able to change my tune. I know that we will meet lots of other like minded folks on the trip who we will enjoy as wella s the cities that we stop at. We were supposed to be in suite #434 as Mikie F just finished her cruise. For unknown reasons, Vantage cancelled our reservation and we started over and now are in room #414 - potentially cooer to noise centers. We're going on the:

You are certainly braver than I am. I booked my one and only Vantage trip with them some time at the end of 2021which they of course "postponed" on me. I tried to get money back from Allianz Insurance and you all know that doesn't work. So since I could get no money back from Vantage or Allianz, I was forced to book some other trip that I didn't really want but I didn't want to lose all my money. I agreed to lose about $2000+ so I could move forward, The next time I didn't take Vantage travel insurance for obvious reasons, nor their airfare. Then they managed to cancel that trip on me for no reason. Hard to remember their excuse. To rebook, I had to spend some more money because fares went up. So far my current trip seems to be "holding." I would say that based on the regular moving of the Ocean Odyssey, my current trip will probably "stick." From the moment I booked with them, my experience was as bad as any I've ever experienced. I feel bad for you and everyone else that has to go through bad service for year after year. It is at least good to know that the ship is good and the onboard staff is mostly exemplary. At least, I didn't get conned into using their travel insurance or airfare. We're excited to go on this technologically advanced ship. I've only taken two other ocean cruises- one with a max of 170 people and one with 212 people. That's sorta my limit. I certainly hope to report that the ship is great, the food is great, the wine is great the excursions are great, etc. Otherwise, who knows what happens afterward......

One would certainly hope that the tour director-or whatever they might call it, would know what's open and what's not. Each of the ports, even small ones have lots of interesting things to do and see. For $1500 (at least) per day for two, there is NO excuse for poor travel knowledge. For most of my, now old life, I have planned detailed itineraries for each day with Google research and I have never missed. I seriously wonder how unhappy, I'll be if these things continue to happen. My wife will have to calm me down.

sfm629 Thanks so very much for that encouraging news. Most of the rooms are the same square footage except for the 12 larger units spread out over various decks. For the standard size room they are all 270 sq ft as I recall. I had been bumped several times and at one point while traveling, I got a call that there was only one room left for any cruise so that i didn't have to pay more money, so i took it. My room (414) is called a Deluxe Veranda Suite (with balcony and a couch). In going to My Portfolio just now, I discover that for a completely sold out cruise, like all of them supposedly are, there are 10 available upgrade rooms, ranging in price from $3500 additional per person to $708 per person. As long as the ship gets to the various ports like it is supposed to, I'll have a good time. Because of a cancelled Odyssey trip last summer, I've been to Copenhagen and Oslo for 4 days each. I made all of my own 2 person guided tours in Copenhagen, Oslo and Amsterdam with guides or companies that I know well. This is the cruise that we're on.

BillyBob, Thank you so much for your food and wine review. If it compares favorably to Oceania and Regent Seven Seas, my wife an dI will be happy. We are actually on the Ocean Odyssey going from Copenhagen to London. The best real hot rocks experience that we had was in Peru with the Quecha people cooking in the ground- called Pachamama. I also like the idea of finding a nice wine or two and requesting the same thing each night. We enjoy sharing table san d meeting new people and learning fom their experiences as well. it will take some really GREAT food and service for everyone to forgive the the corporate folks for all their misinformation, lack of customer service, trip cancellation attitude, etc.

I'd love to know what you think of the room size (depending on what room you're in) and what you think of the breakfast and lunch buffet selection, quality and process for getting food. How is dinner and "free" wine selection? Only 76 days to go for us.

The post by Geezer Couple (2 posts back) has an important link to a consumer affairs a writer. Lots of great info to maintain in your files. I have to count myself as SO lucky for having booked my own airfare and bought may own travel insurance. I'm sure my airfare is good. Travel insurance will only be known if it's good if I have to make a claim. The insanity of Vantage administering the Allianz policy insurance is such a conflict of interest that a child can see this isn't moral, albeit probably legal. I think Vantage has spent a fortune on legal advice to know what games that they can play. A couple pf posts back, someone said that there are only 121 people on board the Ocean Odyssey. So strange that Vantage says that they are sold out until 2024. Maybe they'll only be that few people on my trip (that's only 75% of capacity) and the crew won't be harried. Maybe we'll get extra chocolate cake. Ha! Ha! My trip starts in 77 days and hopefully Vantage will still be in business.

From the Boston Globe:

As Cool Cruiser said: At check in, we all had to swipe credit cards as a “security” but we allegedly won’t be charged (we’ll see how that goes). I'm not sure how that creates security. What if we refused? At all hotels, you always have to give them CC for incidental expenses. I believe, without reading the marketing stuff again, all hotel costs and tipping is included in our costs. If we use a CC that is our "main" card, any untoward charges can be easily challenged as Not Authorized and it becomes a Disputed Charge and doesn't have to paid until it is resolved.

You are 100% right. That's my problem for doing that and trusting Vantage in what they told me. Thanks for the input.

Rare asked me to provide name of travel Insurance company. I did tell them everything that I knew about Vantage "postponing" a trip which the Vantage policy (Allianz) will not cover. I said that I need a policy that will cover us in the event they "postpone" and not cancel. They claim that this policy will do that. With any corporate situation, we will only know for sure if that happens and I get paid. If not, then I know it is not true. As I recall the Vantage travel insurance policy is $999 per person and this is considerably less for two people- $1544. I hope this helps.

Unfortunately, any travel insurance that you buy through Vantage will not pay you five cents for anything that you could not do as a result of Vantage's problems. I know that because I had that and I tried it. When I got this current trip going with them, I bought my own airfare and I booked my own travel insurance. My airfare is paid for and my travel insurance is better than theirs. Anybody's is better than theirs. All their fine print says that you are screwed.