ak1004

Both reservations were made not on board. We booked in May 2022, our friends a week ago. This is a screenshot of the reservation.

Are you sure? This is not what our reservation says - booked in May 2022. Also friends booked the same cruise a week ago, same thing. Maybe it's different in Canada?

We are facing a very similar dilemma, and it's really a personal choice and what's important to you. After doing a few cruises on Oceania and Celebrity (and few others), we decided to try Silversea. To me, Oceania represents a huge step up with only a slight price increase compared to Celebrity/Princess, while SS is a slight step up with a huge price increase compared to Oceania. And Regent is even more expensive than SS all factors considered.

This might not be the case for all regions and destinations. For example, I checked a few random sailings to Europe from Canada, and air credit varies from $3,400 CAD to $4,150, average is around $3,800. Typical business class with Air Canada to Europe is currently around $5k, so below $4k might be considered a bargain. But even if you take the air credit, a typical 10 nights cruise to Europe is around $13-14k, or just below $10k CAD after the air credit. To me this still too high compared to O where I can get the same cruise for $4-5k for entry level veranda. Yes, I know the cabin will be smaller, but on the newer ships it's still a very respectful 240 sqft.

We are in the same boat, using the loyalty program to book flights, it is usually much better value than booking with the cruise company. I see that you are from Toronto, if you want to share some experience, you are welcome to email me (the email is in my signature).

I don't really understand why people like to exaggerate and be so dramatic. A disaster cruise? Really? Because the ship ran out of butter for one day? We had no issues to get reservations for all restaurants except Silver Note where we got confirmed on the same day - the rest, no issues at all. And we were a group of 10. The food was between very good and excellent most of the time, with very few exceptions.

Every time I checked the prices on Regent, it was SIGNIFICANLY more expensive than Oceania even when you account for all inclusions. When I say SIGNIFICANLY, I mean at least 30-50%. I would be happy to be proven wrong, as we really want to try Regent, but their typical 10 European cruise is around $13-14k CAD. We do fly business, but even when adding the flight cost to Oceania, the price is still below $10k CAD.

We just returned from our first Silversea cruise after doing 3 Oceania cruises. To be honest, the only thing that makes SS more luxury is that it's all inclusive. This might be advantage for some and disadvantage to others (for example, if you don't drink and like to take to your own excursions, you would be paying on SS for something that you don't use). Otherwise, we found the food slightly better on O, service level similar, entertainment and enrichment mediocre on both. Yes, you get a butler in every cabin on SS, but it depends how much you are using it. Based on this single experience on SS, I'm not convinced that it's worth for us to pay the significant premium for SS, but obviously everyone is different. If the all inclusiveness is important, then SS, Seaborn or Regent are a better choice. For people who like to pay as you go, I didn't see many things on SS that makes it more luxurious than Oceania, but of course more samples are needed.

For the lower cabins where only 1 reservation is allowed: If we travel with another couple, can each of us book table for 4 in each restaurant, so each couple basically will have two dinners in each restaurant?

Thank you. I tried to be as objective as possible, based on my experience with other lines. While we definitely had some minor issues, I definitely wouldn't describe the cruise as a disaster as some other people did.. As for Mumbai, we arrive at Dec.19 1pm and took a private tour, which was a bit problematic because we had a terrible driver. So we didn't see as much as we hoped. On the last day we took a tour with airport transfer from the ship that lasted around 5 hours and visited some of the key attractions in Mumbai. If you are in Mumbai for more than 1-2 days, then I'm probably not the right person to advise..

We just returned from the Silver Spirit sailing Dubai-Mumbai and I posted a review - https://www.cruisecritic.com/memberreviews/memberreview.cfm?EntryID=693859 Thank you everyone in this great community for the great information, it helped us a lot! If you have any questions, feel free to ask.

That's really nice of them, and I don't think other lines would do it. Shows that they care.

Was it after final payment?

I realize that many (probably most) cruise lines are using highly questionable marketing practices, and no line is perfect. We just paid in full for Uniworld cruise a few months ago to get a 10% discount, they mentioned the promotion is valid till April 30, and.. you guessed, the date just kept moving. But at least the payment is fully refundable, so I'm just giving them an interest free loan. But to raise the price by 10% and immediately offer a 10% discount with 100% non refundable payment makes me think that they believe their customers are morons.. And yes, I'm price sensitive, but I'm willing to pay a premium for a premium product if I believe is better than another premium product.

On related note, we spoke with future cruises consultant on board and asked if he can apply the on board discount and Venetian discount to the cruise that we already booked, but he refused. When we mentioned that we can simply cancel and re book (the price of D2D is actually slightly lower now), he said that we should cancel first with our TA and then rebook, but he cannot do it. Sounded very strange, and doesn't give us a lot of motivation and incentive to book more cruises with SS or keep the current one.

Every line is different, and every line has it's specifics, but I don't think they are that different. Both provide excellent service, SS is obviously much more formal, which might be important to some people and less important to to others. Personally I believe you cannot with both of them, and to us, it comes to price and itinerary. But I suspect that the whole P2P thing will be very confusing to many people.

We booked a cruise on the Moon D2D for $10,600 CAD. We intended to switch to P2P which was $6,550 because there is no way flight and transfers are more than $4,000. We were okay with 15% non refundable deposit. However, the same cruise is now $7,150 P2P with "extra 10% non refundable discount". So they raised the price by 10% and added the 10% discount, which brings it back to the previous previous price, but now this price is 100% non refundable. Not a good practice, and we will be cancelling. Similar cruise on Oceania is around $4-4.5k, and after completing our first cruise on SS, I just cannot justify that kind of premium.

Thank you everyone for replying. This makes perfect sense. I now remember that this was the case on one of our cruises, maybe Crystal? But we sailed on Oceania in Sep.2022 and Dec.2021 and nobody took our passports. maybe it depends on the area you sail (ours were Caribbean and the US)?

Thank you. We did almost 20 cruises, I don't recall this ever happened on any other line. Yes, I'm sure they will return it if we need it, I'm just curious what's the purpose and why no other line does it as far as I remember.

Our e-tickets has the following information: YOUR PRE-CRUISE INFORMATION The ship will be located at Port Rashid pier. Guests will be permitted to embark the vessel from approximately 2:00-4:00PM. Please be sure to have your cruise ticket, valid passport and any necessary visas ready upon embarkation. Immigration Officers may begin processing all guests’ passports at this time. Passports will then be collected by ship’s staff and returned to you after completion of disembarkation procedures at cruise end. Is this normal for SS? Never had our passports collected and held for the whole cruise. What if we need them on shore?

SB wants to attract Crystal cruisers, why would it bother you?

1) SB 2) We got all our deposits back, but not from Crystal. One from CC, one from CC insurance and one from TICO.

Maybe they start processing applications only 30 days before arrival, and we actually applied too early, who knows. But the biggest issue is a complete lack of communication. Website still claims 72 hours processing time, while our whole group was waiting for over 3 weeks. Hope you got your visa.

it is still a mystery to us why our applications took so long for all five couples. It is possible that we applied too early and they were processing applications for earlier arrival. It is also possible that 30 days visas get priority. They also requested that we send them the cruise booking. But it seems very inconsistent. We heard about a couple where one of them got it after 5 days and the spouse waited for 15 days. So it was very stressful for us, especially when you cannot get any answers. Glad that you got it quickly and without any issues.

Well, on their website they say "Government of India makes no provision of charging of any emergency fees or additional fees for grant of any emergency / express e-visa." Some agencies say they can expedite it, but I doubt it. I would suggest contacting your TA and/or SS and explain the situation. If you mention on your application that your cruise is on Dec.8 and you won't be allowed boarding if you don't have your visa, they might issue it faster. I know that some people got it in 4-7 days, others took almost a month. You might get lucky and get it fast, but 72 hours mentioned on their website means nothing.