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Posts posted by Eloise4Ever
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Looking forward to following along and hearing your opinion of Oceania SailorJack. You are brave to do a 32 night itinerary on a cruise line that is new to you! We have 32 nights on Riviera coming up in December but we know what to expect as we've sailed on Oceania and Riviera previously. I'm sure you will enjoy Marina, unless you're looking for late nightlife. It's not easy to find on O but can be done if you try, as we have proved on occasion!
I enjoyed your story about the complicated elevator, or "lift" as it's known in this part of the world. I always enjoy an old-fashioned lift experience 🙂. There's something romantic about it.
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Really looking forward to hearing your thoughts on Oceania, Jim. I've enjoyed your Celebrity reviews over the years. We mostly cruised on Celebrity but have done a few cruises with O since 2022 and found a lot to like. I feel the whole ship is like the Celebrity Retreat experience so will be very interested in your opinion. Have a wonderful cruise!
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18 hours ago, NJ Gal said:
Thank you all for your comments about Oceania. We are in the process of booking our first Oeania cruise on the New Allura. Like so many of you, we are elite plus refugees of Celebrity retreat class having been on over 30 Celebrity cruises with a few more booked. The cost of this cruise for two weeks is almost the same as our one week to Bermuda on Celebrity ( might be cancelling before final payment).
In June, we took our whole family on a Royal Cabribbean cruise. As we needed 4 cabins, we all had balconies. The food in the main dining room was not good with limited poor selections.
There were lots of activities for our teen-age grandchildren and the crew tried very hard, but......🤥
It is very helpful hearing about your experiences and comments about Oceania. We do have a cabin being held and are thinking about giving a deposit later this week. Any other thoughts or comments would be appreciated.
We have enjoyed Celebrity Retreat but for us, Oceania feels like we are having the Retreat experience on the whole ship. We think the food on O is fantastic and love being able to dine in the specialty restaurants. The O class ships are beautiful and a perfect size.
The only thing you may miss from Celebrity is the nightlife. We have found it hard to adjust to the lack of late night entertainment on O but we're getting there.
As other posters have mentioned, children or teens would find O boring and many other lines cater for that cohort. But if you are party of adults, I think you will love O.
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On 6/25/2024 at 2:58 PM, kahuna21 said:
We are on Marina now and for the next 21 days... We’ve been eating dinner at Terrace Cafe so we can sit outside, due to warm weather in Northern Europe. Excellent food there. I noticed that the pizza at Waves had almost no customers last evening, but Aquamar seems pretty busy breakfast and lunch.
Can you please confirm whether the aft deck at Terrace Café has been covered over? That canopy is a great addition on Vista.
FYI, if you are dining in the Terrace, you can order items at Waves pizza restaurant and they will give you a number and deliver the food to your table. We enjoyed doing this on our recent Vista cruise when we would often order wings and a beef flatbread from Waves for the table as a starter. We also ordered pizza a time or too and it was very good.
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Thanks Gary, I took your post the wrong way
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1 hour ago, Sthrngary said:
I was SO scared and really it was effecting my attitude and mental health at home. It had been at least a week, 7 long days, since I had seen a stream on the subject of "Chair Hogs". Really I was getting worried and I know each and everyone out there is with me. Then this morning, in a state of total and complete depression, finally the cloud parted, the lovely light of rays came to me from the sky's. Here was the topic I was needed like a hot cup off illy (sorry Oceania Brand Coffee they dropped illy) coffee in the morning and a tasteless dry Oceania cookie. Chair Hogs still exist, the topic will never die and the world is right again.
All brands can have all the rules they want. However, we guest know rules are made to be broken and whether it is right or wrong, some guest are more then willing to break those rules. Oh wait, this rule break was by a crew member, not the guest. That makes all the difference. NOT, Like little children throwing a tantrum because they did not get a bigger piece of cake. Entitlement is obvious to those with the "Chair Hog" affliction.
"I want a chair, if my old technique of getting up early and putting my beach bag on a chair won't work anymore, I have come up with a fail safe new idea.
I got it, Bribery. That will get the job done. Bribe a crew member."
The best part of cruise critic is learning NEW innovative skill sets to get everything I want. The hell with all those other losers. Now I have the perfect plan to get my "day bed" by the pool in the perfect location when I am on the Vista next year in October. I will start saving my extra milk money because the bribe amount might turn into a bidding process. But if I start saving today, it should not be an issue. Pool day bed, here I come.
Cruise well and enjoy every
Apologies if my post troubled you Gary. I'm just reporting what's happening onboard.
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7 hours ago, Thought2go said:
Then it is up to staff to set the them straight. A simple “I’m sorry sir but this is against “O” policy.
This type of wink wink nod behavior by both staff and guests will sour me on any “O” cruises should I witness it.Mgmt needs to stop it immediately and that comes from staff. It takes two for this game to play out. If one doesn’t play there is nocase game.
Thing is, in this case it was the pool attendant who suggested it, not the guest!
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I asked my early-rising DH to check out the situation with the "reserved" loungers this morning. Unfortunately, due to a communication breakdown (whoever heard of such a thing between spouses ), he checked the wrong side of the ship! We'll try again tomorrow to see what's there.
Some posters have expressed surprise that anybody would be taken aback by a crew member offering to reserve loungers. We've all been in places where we've tipped somebody for better service. But I was genuinely surprised to see it happen here as I assumed the ship had a strict "no reserving" policy. However, there has been no mention of such a policy in the daily Currents, nor has the CD mentioned it in her daily announcements. So I guess it's open season for chair hogs on Vista.
Suffice it to say, on this sea day with beautiful weather, all the loungers are either occupied or saved. Our friends managed to get two loungers when the ladies occupying them offered to let them borrow them for an hour while they were going to a Salsa class!
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1 hour ago, ssawjo said:
You'll have to follow up on this tomorrow and see what happened and report back!
Will see what we can do. It would be interesting to see what the pool guy puts out to "reserve" the beds! It's a sea day tomorrow so I imagine demand for beds will be high.
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I'm lying on a day bed on the Vista pool deck and a guest approaches a pool attendant and asks him "How early do I need to get here in the morning to get a sunbed?". The attendant tells him no need to worry about that, he can reserve chairs for him. The guest is surprised but delighted. The attendant asks where he'd like the chairs to be reserved and the guest picks out his preferred spot. Attendant takes guests name and says he's going off to make a note. Handshakes were exchanged but I'm not sure if money changed hands.
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Wishing you safe travels Lauren. We will be arriving in Trieste on Friday before boarding Vista on Saturday. I will look out for you onboard as I have your photo to go on!
I will be interested to read your posts during the cruise and might post myself if you don't mind me crashing your report 😊.
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I received a survey about the booking experience and when I clicked on the link I got a 404 error message.
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7 hours ago, roothy123 said:
From what I've been told, whatever money you paid (whether as part of an excursion in which you used both SM excursion credit and your own money OR an excursion which you paid for in full) would be turned into a refundable shipboard credit (to be used on anything - excursions, spa, drinks, store purchases, etc.) If you haven't used this credit by the end of the cruise, you can ask that what you paid be refunded to you. But this is from what I was told by another cruiser. I haven't yet cruised with SM shore excursion credit, so can't verify whether it's correct.
There are many reports on this forum which state that when shore excursions which were booked under the Simply More package are cancelled by O, you will receive a non-refundable credit which can only be used for excursions. If you cannot find other excursions which interest you, or if all remaining excursions are sold out, you lose the Simply More credit.
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I am open to correction but I think the cabin ceilings are always metal. We were able to attach magnetic hooks to the wall on Riviera before the refurb but not afterwards as the walls are now panelled with wood. However, the ceiling was metal both before and after. We will be sailing on Vista soon so interested to see what the situation is there.
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7 hours ago, Hlitner said:
As usual, we were among the last standing in Horizons and did not leave until about 11:45. I know I sound like a broken record but ending the live entertainment at 11:15 drives me (and many others) nutz. Last night there again was a pretty big crowd (over 100) and packed dance floor up until the minute the band stopped.
I've been enjoying reading your thoughts about your first Oceania cruise Hank. We feel the same way about the early ending of entertainment each night. It's the one thing on Oceania that we have found to be very much lacking. Have you mentioned this at all on any of your mid-cruise surveys?
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6 hours ago, Flatbush Flyer said:
... I am a first generation Sicilian-American who spent much of his childhood in the Red Hook/Carroll Gardens section of Brooklyn - the Sicilian stronghold so accurately portrayed in the Nicholas Cage/Cher movie Moonstruck with its Cammareri Bros. bakery just a few doors down from my grandmother’s “walk up.”
I am tickled to hear you are from the "Moonstruck" neighbourhood of New York Flatbush 🤩. That's one of my very favourite movies, due in no small part to the setting. Very evocative. I'm delighted to hear that you feel it was an accurate portrayal.
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Really enjoying your review Hank. I've been reading your CC contributions for years and appreciate your comments.
If, at some stage before you disembark Vista, you could find out who the CD will be for the first two weeks in June, I would be very grateful.
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Thanks to all who have reported on the offerings at the Bakery in Baristas on Vista. Sounds like a huge improvement on the baked goods available in the same venue on Riviera and I can't wait to try it in June 😃
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2 hours ago, SATaxman said:
At Toscana you can ask for a half size portion of any of the pastas.
A half size portion of the lasagne is a perfect starter ☺️
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1 hour ago, RPen63 said:
The approach they took was more than fair and is certainly not unethical.
I don't think anybody is saying O's approach in your case was unethical. I know I'm not.
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18 minutes ago, RPen63 said:
The fact that refunds are deemed to accrue first to non-SM excursions irrespective of how they were originally allocated seems fair to me, and is certainly not unethical.
Agree 100%. The issue under discussion was around the "use it or lose it" nature of SM shore excursion credits. Your post was quoted as an example of someone receiving a refund of unused SM credits so thank you for confirming that was not the case.
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10 minutes ago, ak1004 said:
As for lost SM credits - I assume that if you booked an excursion and the port was cancelled, you have to use the credit for another excursion. No refunds. But this is no different from SS, Regent or Viking. Those lines have one included excursion in each port, and if the port is cancelled, you don't get any refunds. Technically, you paid for the excursion in that port (we know that nothing in life is free), so how this practice is different from what O does?
6 minutes ago, cruisemom42 said:Yes, that is true but Oceania is by no means the only cruise line to do this.
The SM credits are an "inclusion" in your fare. It's up to you to use them or not.
HAL, for example, allows you to buy (or includes, on certain specials) their "Have It All" package, which includes $200 credits for shorex and 2 free specialty dining reservations.
If you don't manage to book the shorex or if you can't make reservations for a time that suits you, you don't get the money back.
These are all fair points. The issue was raised by folks who couldn't use their SM shore excursion credit because O cancelled or shortened time in ports. All other excursions were sold out. I think in these cases the cruise line could see that the guest had "spent" the OBC before boarding and refund them accordingly if a port was cancelled.
With the luxury lines the excursion costs don't stand out so much as everything is included in the fare. With O they are saying "pay the fare and we will give you x amount of money to spend on excursions". Which may be why folks are feeling hard done by.
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1 hour ago, ORV said:
Here is one, there are others of people onboard getting refunds or additional tours, but I’m not going to waste time digging them up for you.
Have you personally experienced losing your SM credits?
Thanks for that but honestly I don't think it's terribly clear. The poster does say they ended up with "excess SM credits" which may be understood as SM credits they couldn't spend.
I personally haven't experience losing SM credits but for me, unethical business practices are a red flag. Please note, I didn't dream this scenario up. It has been mentioned a few times on this thread that the SM excursion credit is "use it or lose it".
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1 minute ago, ORV said:
Yet there are multiple reports saying they do.
Multiple reports saying they do provide OBC to guests unable to spend their shore excursion OBC due to port cancellations?
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Live? From the Marina
in Oceania Cruises
Posted
I love those first day traditioms and the wonderful feeling that you are "home" and all is good with the world 💗.