ShopperfiendTO

On 5/23/2023 at 4:29 PM, Divi said:

For anyone not fortunate enough to have insurance through an employer, what are the best options? How much coverage is needed? What, specifically, should be covered?

Thank you.

I would be very very surprised if there is anyone in Canada who would have insurance through an employer that would cover the length of a world cruise.  😮

On 5/21/2023 at 1:12 PM, 9tee2Sea said:

LA is too congested, too sprawled out, too dirty, and not friendly.  

The only things to see/do in my opinion are:

Universal Studios ( nice way to spend a day)

Hollywood Blvd/ Kodak Theatre ( formally Chinese Theatre)

Tour of celebrity homes ( can't go in)

Olvera Street ( Origins of Los Angeles)

 

I have lived in Los Angeles all my life, and those are the place I recommend visitors to see.

The only thing that might be of interest to us on this list is Olvera Street.  😅

San Diego is for the naval museums and downtown area stuff, not the Zoo or beaches.

8 hours ago, 9tee2Sea said:

be aware that San Diego is at min a 2 hour drive, each way ( that's if traffic is good) from Los Angeles.  If you take the train, that turns into a 4 hour ride.  Maybe look into Greyhound Bus ( probably still 3 hours).    Maybe see if you can change your departure airport from LAX to depart San Diego.  Seems like awhole lot of aggravation just to see San Diego.  

Thanks for the input.  
 

I agree it is a lot of aggravation but we’re not interested in seeing LA, maybe for just a day, and we don’t have convenient flight options out of San Diego.

23 hours ago, jonthomas said:

yes BA is an option...not the others for BCN...

 

we want AC stop over in YUL, but who knows if O will give it to us, that would be ideal to BCN....

If you are flying premium economy on promotion with O Air and wanting AC flights for the transcontinental portion, then I think you might be disappointed with what you will get assigned.

It may have changed since last fall, but my TA was told by O Air that they did not have contracts with AC for premium economy promotion seats.  We could get AC flights flying economy only.

Perhaps the contracts change season-by-season and AC is now included in the premium economy promotion but I don't know how these contract cycles work.

Just wondering if Oceania serves Alaska king crab legs on its Alaska itineraries and if they do, is it in GDR or as "specials" in the specialty restaurants only?

On our Norway cruise with Azamara a few years back, they had wonderful local Norwegian lobsters (much smaller than Nova Scotia lobsters but still a unique and delicious treat) as a special-of-the-day at their Toscana equivalent.

On 3/18/2023 at 4:28 AM, JintyGirl said:

We are doing the same journey but in reverse- LAX to San Diego before our cruise, then San Diego back to LA to board ship. 

We have booked the Amtrak Pacific Surfliner to take us from LA Union Station to SD. There is construction work during the week which is due to end by April, but the trains are running fully at weekends. Check Amtrak website for updates. 

You will need to get a taxi from the cruise terminal to the train station as public transport is non-existent I believe.

 

From the airport we are planning to take the Flyaway bus from the terminal to the train station ($9.75 each)  LAX Official Website | Traffic and Ground Transportation - FlyAway Bus Union Station  For your trip, you could take the bus back to the airport, from Union Station, and book a hotel which offers a shuttle to/from the terminal. 

Hope this helps! 

 

 

Hi JintyGirl,

I'm not sure if you already sailed, but I'm doing a little bit more research and it seems that one might be able to take a bus from Union Station to somewhere close to the San Pedro cruise port.

It is a somewhat express metro bus, called the "bus rapid transit line" or "BRT", J Line (Silver).

The ride is a little longer than taking a taxi/Uber/Lyft, but I think it leaves directly from Union Station.  I believe the stop you want to get off at for the cruise port is Beacon @ 1st Street (but I don't know for certain because I don't know where the entry to the port is).

https://www.metro.net/riding/guide/J-line/

https://cdn.beta.metro.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/24114358/910-950_TT_06-26-22.pdf

Apparently the Pacific Surfliner tracks are temporarily closed near San Clemente Pier due to falling debris from a nearby slope:

https://www.pacificsurfliner.com/plan-your-trip/alerts/travel-advisories/

Does anyone have any educated guess on when regular train service should resume, by August, September, end of year?

Hopefully you'll cover it in your review, but if you aren't planning to, could you let us know if the ports and hours in port were as listed in the final cruise summary that you would have received shortly before your cruise? 

If there were changes to the itinerary during the cruise and they were *not* safety/emergency related, how many ports were affected and what were the port hour changes/differences? 

Just wondering if the trend of post-Final Payment reduced port times was present on your cruise as well.

try this: https://arcticshorex.com/tours/eskifjordur-fljotsdalur-valley/

"Here is O's official numbers. Silver status at 100 days minimum. Thus, 7 credits, which have NO membership status akin to Bronze or Silver, is 65-99 days. Bronze is 55-64 days and Silver is 100-158 days. There is NOTHING between Bronze and Silver.

Oceania Club Cruise Loyalty Program & Cruise Deals | Oceania Cruises"

To put it another way, for the examples you chose, if you booked and sailed a single cruise that was 55-64 days long, you would get 5 cruise credits for that cruise that count towards your membership category. So if you never sailed with Oceania before, sailing that single cruise gives you Bronze status.

If you booked and sailed a single cruise that was 100-158 days long, you would get 10 cruise credits for that cruise that count towards your membership category.  So if you never sailed with Oceania before, sailing that single cruise gives you Silver status.

To finish your examples, booking and sailing a single cruise that was 65-99 days long would get you 7 cruise credits.  So if you never sailed with Oceania before, sailing that single cruise gives you Bronze status and you would need fewer cruise credits to obtain Silver status than if you sailed the first cruise example above (55-64 days).

As to the original question, yes, it's not the 10th cruise but the cruise on which one obtains the 10th credit that is being asked about.  The OP has 9 credits right now and is going on a cruise where he/she will get his/her 10th credit and is wondering if he/she will have Silver status for that cruise.

If you are only interested in OS excursions, then you are most likely better off with not taking the excursion option as your OLife choice!

On the other hand, if you are saying that you have your 4 included excursions each and want 3 additional OS excursions each, then, assuming that the 7 excursions per person is more than the minimum needed for YWYW, you would save 25% on the OS excursions from their single tour pricing.

If you are doing a mock booking, it is important to have all of your excursions in the cart and to click on the YWYW toggle button for each passenger because the default is single tour pricing even if you have OLife excursions option in your package.  Clicking the YWYW toggle will then trigger the total pricing with the YWYW discount.  It’s the bottom line number that matters, compare that to your calculations on what you think the price should be.

I'm not sure if you're looking for input, but there is no afternoon tea on embarkation day.

21 minutes ago, m1k2s3 said:

Of course there weren’t any direct flights. My point was I’ve had success using Oceania booking our flights - even flights to Australia/New Zealand.

OP was asking about being assigned direct flights when direct flights were available. 

Your response sounded like you scored 3/4 and the one that you didn't get direct flights for was terrible:

"The only cruise that didn’t have direct flights was our Australia/New Zealand - those flights were brutal - Toronto to Vancouver with a tight connecting flight to Auckland to get there.  Then back was Bali to Dubai with a 4 hour layover then Dubai to Toronto."

On 3/23/2023 at 10:29 PM, m1k2s3 said:

We’ve done 6 cruises with Oceania and 4 of those cruises included Oceania doing our flights. Of those 4, three were direct flights. Our Mediterranean cruise Venice to Barcelona had direct flights, on one of  Caribbean cruises, we flew from Toronto to Miami direct and on our upcoming Alaskan cruise, Los Angeles to Vancouver, we have direct flights.

 

The only cruise that didn’t have direct flights was our Australia/New Zealand - those flights were brutal - Toronto to Vancouver with a tight connecting flight to Auckland to get there.  Then back was Bali to Dubai with a 4 hour layover then Dubai to Toronto.

 

 

Were there even direct flights able to be booked from Toronto to Austrailia/New Zealand?

If not, the ones that you were assigned were probably the closest to direct that could be booked for Canadians not from the Vancouver gateway.

I think you scored 4/4, which is lucky for you!

3 minutes ago, honmani2 said:

I've always booked my own tickets but decided to go with Oceania O'Life inclusive air since it seemed it was lower in cost.  When I got the itinerary, it shows a connection time of only 40 minutes for the flight from Munich to San Francisco.  We arrive from Hamburg to Munich at 11 am and the departing flight to

SFO is at 11:45 am.

 

Why on earth would Oceania booked such a flight with such a short connecting time?  My TA has yet to get back to me on this.  I will not be happy if Oceania charges a deviation fee to change the flights.

 

Which brings me to my question.  If I don't make the connection, do I just deal with the airlines to rebook or will Oceania help on this?

Are your two flights with the same carrier?

We had O Air and had the same carrier for the two legs.  When we missed our connection, we dealt with the airline directly.

On 3/20/2023 at 2:01 PM, AMHuntFerry said:

The advice from the O-experts (not me!) is solid. As soon as you know you may want a shorex, book it! You are not locked in to anything until the deadlines for cancelling (see your invoice for these dates..O-Life is first, then YWC just before embarkation). Until then, what was once, for example, an O-Life "freebie" can become a YWC/YWYW, and vice versa. The only drawback of booking the YWC shorex now is that it is charged to your CC unless you have OBC.
And to actually answer your question (me babble? nooooo), yes, you can book your O-Life qualifying shorex (any number of them) now, and when you add more later you'll get the YWC price on the rest. There are more complicated scenarios, so find one of FF's explanations for the whole picture.

Just as a follow-up, I locked in the included O-Life excursions that are just below the minimum needed for YWYW and then after receiving the confirmation for these, I tried adding the OS/excluded excursion and the price is the regular single tour price with no option to select the YWYW button to apply the YWYW discount.  😕

Thanks for the input mauibabes and Flatbush Flyer.

My quirk however is that I do not want to book the 4th excursion right now.  We may go the private excursion route instead.

If we later do decide on in O excursion, we want to make sure that it we will be given the YWYW discount on that single excursion added later.

Has anyone done it this way and how did it work?  Since the website would show the 3 excursions I (will) have booked, shouldn't this carry on to booking the single 4th excursion and I be able to select the YWYW toggle for that excursion?

The reason I am asking before just doing it and seeing how it goes is that I don't want to risk locking myself out of the YWYW by initially booking below the threshold YWYW requirement. 

Sorry if this has been asked and answered before but...

We are on a cruise with the OLife shore excursions package, 6 total (3 per person).  For our cruise, we need 4 excursions each to obtain the YWYW 25% discount.

We have each selected our 3 included excursions and have one in mind for our 4th excursion which is "OS" category, so the 4th excursion is not part of the included excursions in any event.

However, we want to book our included excursions now to make sure we have secured seats on those excursions and then perhaps add the 4th excursion later on, but want to make sure that we will get the YWYW pricing/discount on that 4th excursion if we add it later.

The question I have is this: How should we transact this plan on the O website? 

Do we just book the 3 included excursions each to lock them in and if so, how?  What confuses me is that if we have just the 3 included excursions each in the cart, there is no ability to book the "YWYW" package (this makes sense but I am worried that it might lock us out of "YWYW" if we add excursions later on).  So what happens if we add just the 4th excursion say a month later, will we be able to select the "YWYW" package and get the 25% discount on that excursion then even though only 1 excursion is in the cart at that time?

Thanks for any help!  

The drinks menu in post #3 seems to be for the bars. 

Is it also the same one that is used for the GDR and the R-ship specialty restaurants?

I haven't looked at them closely, but the GDR dinner (and perhaps lunch) and R-ship specialty restaurant menus include suggested wine pairings.  If by chance the suggested wine pairing is not in the drinks menu, would they be included as part of the House Select (O-Life) beverage package?

Hello,

We are on a cruise that ends in Los Angeles.

Our flight back to Canada leaves from LAX a few days later in the early afternoon but we want to visit San Diego instead of Los Angeles.

Can any one advise what is the best way to  do this (LA port to San Diego the morning of debarkation, then San Diego to a hotel near LAX the night before the flight?)?  We would prefer taking public transportation (e.g. subway/trains) to avoid the possible traffic jams if it is a viable option.  Mobility is not an issue.

We don’t have Uber/Lyft and are reluctant to sign up and use them unless they really are the best option.

Thanks for any help!

On our 11-night cruise, we found many of the HS flavours on offer to be *meh* (didn't bother to try them) but I did really like the lemon meringue or something like that. 

It wasn't the Meyer Lemon flavour (that was offered one other day), the one I liked had bits of pastry/crust in it. 

I think it is too risky.  You are also flying out in winter in Toronto and may have weather (and possibly de-icing) delays.  Too stressful way to start a cruise.  What is your first stop after Marseille, and is it the next day where you can get to easily, such as train, if you miss the connecting flight?  If the next stop is the next day and is a port that you can get to by train, then you can weigh the risk of missing the connecting LHR flight and the inconvenience of the 2-stop options.

We have never had to claim luggage transiting through Europe when on one PNR for the flight segments. 

I think immigration depends on what the connecting airport is - if both are Shengen, then I think it would only be at the stopover. 

If you have to go through security again, I think you would only have to do it at the stopover regardless of connecting airport.  When you land in Marseille, what would be the reason for another security check if you are leaving the airport then?

Edit: For security, I take to be when you have to go through the security screening of your carry-ons and metal detectors.  This is different than immigration, which I take to be when they check your passport and stamp/scan it, which is often not at the same place as the security area.

Understanding that landing at the Falklands is a crap shoot, do the odds change with the type of ship one is on (R ship vs. O ship vs. mainstream 2000+ PAX) or does it not matter because in the end it's all tender boats which are basically all the same anyway?

As OP stated in his/her initial post:

"I believe all purchases before the cruise are locked in at the rate we had in May 2022 when we booked the cruise."

This is generally consistent with our OBC on Azamara, where our USD OBC is locked in at the prevailing rate when we make our first pre-cruise purchase using the OBC.

10 minutes ago, marieps said:

Well, Lyn, I think you know pretty much everything there is to know.  Thank you for a prompt and I'm sure accurate response.

Did you look at Post #59 (the image posted) of this thread? (of course, assuming that it hasn't changed in the last two weeks which unfortunately currently seems quite possible...):