jondfk

Susan, Mary. I’m Jon we will be onboard as well, hope to meet you there. As to these very adventurous tours, really not for us, still I appreciate watching you work out your plans. DW was crushed when the stop for Flan railway was cancelled, something she really looked forward to.

I’ll add another factor that turns out to be important, the length of your sailing. Shorter sailings put a lot of pressure on available times as most folks want to try everything. We sailed thrice last year on Regatta, two 8 days and one 18 day, on the 8 day sailings early times and tables for two were challenging, on the 18 day, space was available same day, the vast majority of the time. ultimately being a bit flexible we got into Toscana and Polo at least once each on the 8 days and a total of 4 nights on the 18 day.

We will be on there with you, see you onboard.

DW wears basically the outfit you describe as her evening "uniform". Capri's, a nice blouse, she has a pair of white evening sandals that she wears 9 days out of 10. Never a question or raised eyebrow in the GDR or any specialty on Regatta on our 3 sailings last year. I think they are trying to keep beach shoes e.g. flip flops out of the GDR. Anything more than that is perfectly okay in our experience. One further comment. The GDR in particular, but the interior of the ship in general tended towards cool in the evenings. DW always had a scarf available and moved up to a "heavy" scarf after a few evenings when she couldn't fight off the chill. For the gents my "uniform" consists of taupe color twill "golf" pants, a long sleeved dress shirt, my "cruise loafers" (a nice pair that have never set foot on anything other than teak or carpet), never a tie or jacket - I'm done with all that. A polo would be fine, but it's just not my preference in the evenings. Again never a raised eyebrow or comment. Enjoy

I'll reply too, a long time Princess loyalist, Elite for a few years. Most recently booking nothing less that CC and when possible full suites. We gave Oceania a try for the first time just about a year ago. What motivated us was the sale of the Pacific Princess on which we had two bookings. While we've loved Princess and undoubtedly will sail again given their heavy presence on the west coast we've seen service decline and ship size increase. The final straw was our unfortunate luck sailing on the February 2020 cruise to Hawaii that landed us in quarantine for a totally of 22 days (8 on the ship, 14 at Travis). We sailed in a PH2 on Regatta in last April, the same cabin on Pacific Princess would have been a CC mini. It was clear from the first moments that we had wandered into an upgraded environment. A butler to look after our small needs and serve breakfast most days in the room, nothing like this exists on Princess. A request for "special" soft drinks in the mini-bar, no big deal (mostly) and refreshed as often as needed, sometimes more than once in a day, again, nothing like this exists on Princess. The list goes on and on. Food and dining. Quality of food was good everywhere on the ship. We were less impressed with service in the specialties, but this was because service in the MDR was quite excellent, the specialties could not hope to greatly surpass. We never failed to secure a table for 2 in the MDR when we asked for one. Terrace cafe had excellent food but we found a good deal of jostling and pushing in the very small space - this we solved by going in just a bit later - by 30 minutes after opening the starving hoards had been sated and the experience greatly improved, in this regard, the large buffets on the Royal class ships of Princess were clearly ahead (in terms of access, not food quality). Being such a small ship crew members very quickly remembered your preferences, especially bar staff who were quick to deliver excellent service. Our boarding experience in Papeete was probably one of the worst in memory. No organization whatsoever many steps duplicated again and again (6 passport checks, 3 credit card scans, 4 covid doc checks). Sailing with Princess around the same time was a breeze by comparison. The onboard experience following boarding was little better way too many people for the limited capacity of Terrace cafe and rooms made available far too late to get folk out of the hot humid air. We've sailed twice more with Oceania since, both times on Regatta. We're hooked and could be called converted if only O would plan more west coast sailings (unfortunately they seem to be moving the opposite direction dropping down of 0-1 west coast sailings before and after the Alaska season when in the past they've typically done 2). We most recently sailed with Princess to burn down the last of our credits and FCC's, while I'm sure we'll sail again, we have no bookings and purchased no FCC's onboard - for the first time in over a decade. On the other hand we have two future bookings on O and have 2 FCC's in our account. We do have future sailings on Seabourn and Viking and likely will choose a favorite once having done so, Oceania though have made a great first, second and third impression which will be hard to top.

What can I say, this being our first with Seabourn, and not having a TA that specializes with them, we booked direct. Probably paid more as a result, but one small advantage seems to be that we see our onboard account prior to boarding.

Okay, happy to help. I log on to the Seabourn website. I select a booking (I have two, I'm sure some have many more than that). When the booking opens I click "Make a Payment" near the upper right. The next screen shows my balance, or $0 if I'm fully paid. Scroll down the page and I see my cabin number and my onboard credit. What it exactly says is: "Vista Suite: Veranda Suite (V4) Midship 8 (cabin number) + $400 Onboard Credit" Before I sent my shareholder form in it said ". . . + $150 Onboard Credit" it's a two week cruise so $250 for shareholder benefit gets me to $400. Hope this helps.

With all due respect, just logged on to finish our shore excursions and sure enough the onboard credit has increased to include the shareholder benefit. Go to payments, next to the cabins number, on board credit is displayed. There's no detail listed, but I know what credit was offered at booking and the figure increased by the shareholder benefit since I last looked.

I sent my request to that email last Monday. Got and automated response within 5 minutes and, on Thursday a short response confirming the amount and booking numbers. Haven’t logged on to confirm my account, but the second email was quite clear. Send again me thinks.

A few comments for OP, truly, I know what you mean emotionally. Maybe our story will help (or not?). We're looking forward to our very first Seabourn cruise in June (Ovation to Norway). We're not new to cruising moving sailed dozens of times on mainstream lines, mainly Princess. Included was the ill fated voyage of Grand Princes in February 2020, the one that was sent to quarantine. We ended up quarantined on the ship for 8 days, then sent to Travis for an additional 14 days. We wondered if we'd ever sail again. We have. We returned to Princess last February with a "starter" 10 day cruise to Mexico. Followed by 3 sailings on Oceania in April and September. With a second Princess sailing to Alaska sandwiched in between (lots of cruise credits to burn in our case). I'm quite certain we're changed forever by our Grand experience. For example, I know I'll never leave a prescription bottle at home again. What good are meds that you can't get to, "take enough for the trip and a small cushion" eh, no, we'll bring everything, every time, forever I think. Book non-refundable hotel rooms prior or post cruise, nope, never again, pay a bit more and avoid a fight over force major. We still anticipate upcoming cruises, including our upcoming first on SB. But the excitement hasn't returned to what it was previously, and perhaps it never will. A small example, I'm the sort who loved getting bags out early and starting to prepack all those little things that I only use when we sail. But I just can't do it any more, I've become a last weekend before sort of packer, and that's fine. The small satisfactions received from packing my swim suit early has to be weighed against the possibly every trip could be cancelled right up until departure. Sigh. Still we sail, we enjoy, we anticipate, but never again with the same "it'll be fine, don't worry about what could go wrong" attitude. I assure you though, once you start up the gangway, you'll find your spirits lifted and heart light.

I’ll kick in as a Princess veteran with 25 sailed voyages. Sailed thrice with O in 2022, and one with Princess to burn down our Travis quarantine credit. I’m sure we will sail Princess again, they just have too much coverage on the west coast. That said, if O chooses to do more on this coast we would be fully converted. Loved, loved loved our first 3 experiences. More already booked in ‘24 and ‘25.

My O experience is limited, 3 sailings, all in 2022. All in PH2. All on Regatta. That said, I've never seen anything other than the message you mention. I regard this as "normal" for O though I don't know why it happens. On our April sailing, I called my O personal booking person (yes, I know, I know, don't book direct . . . but it was our first O experience and the fares and add ons are so confusing I wanted expert counsel) anyway, he was able to add the drink package within 60 seconds.

We sailed twice on O in 2022 (our first O experiences btw). Both sailings on Regatta, both in PH2 category, actually two doors apart from each other). Our butler experiences. First sailing in April. Papeete to Los Angeles, 18 day sailing. We had doubts as to how useful a butler would be to us, but we found small things to ask which were generally delivered. We had a failure in the shower of our cabin and the butler insisted that he be allowed to "handle" it, okay I thought, but unfortunately the initial repair was entirely unsatisfactory. His second attempt was fully okay though "great" service would have had him check the first repair before I discovered it, so, not perfect. On the other hand, all breakfasts ordered were perfect and delivered within 5 minutes of requested time. I ask for club soda in the minibar (I drink 3 each day), this he couldn't accommodate which was odd as there were cans readily available in all bars. I developed a routine of grabbing 1 every time I passed by a bar which was sort of silly. Butler's solution was to offer sparkly Varo water which would have been fine except that the bottles don't actually seal leading to most of the bubbles being gone upon delivery. We asked for help with specialty reservations, which he provided, honestly though on such a long sailing additional times were't challenging and we found stopping by the deck 5 desk more productive as one received immediate feedback and alternatives. These were the only shortcomings and believe me we left with a vary favorable opinion even considering these few faults. Second sailing in September. Los Angelas coastals (2 back to back) 16 total days. Understanding the routine we made better use of our butler this time and wow was he fabulous. He proved useful within minutes of boarding when I realized I had forgot my USB-C charge cable for my iPad. I was considering scrambling to a local target for a replacement but butler insisted I "trust him" to find something. I suspected he would tap the lost and found, he returned within 10 minutes with a cable, his own, from his stateroom. I asked whether he could spare it and he insisted that he could - for the entire cruise. Wow. I made the same club soda request which was answered with a smile. He monitored my usage and quickly enough made certain there were 4 in the fridge at all times. Breakfast services was similarly prompt and perfect. We thought well of the first guy, but the second one redefined good. Hope my long feedback is of some help.

I thought I was alone, clearly not. All of mine on both booked voyages are gone. Hopefully they will return soon. It does give me second thoughts booking shorex worrying they could similarly disappear … along with my money. The whole problem doesn’t scream “luxury” by any means.

I'll go a step further and say that online checkin appeared to me to be totally meaningless for our three O cruises this year. Every step was repeated at boarding, many multiple terms, for example, our passports were checked 5x when boarding in Papeete. Our credit card twice both in PPT and LAX. Likewise, don't bother doing the advance muster video 3 days ahead. You'll be asked to do it again 1 day ahead. Neither will make any difference you'll have to endure it a 3rd time to enable your cabin video system. Don't bother getting a boarding group either. Boarding is a mass process, no one will ever ask what your group or time is, strictly first come first served. In short, while we found we love O, we also found that none of the advance planning software stuff works as described. The best tip I can provide is arrive late, as late as you dare, that first day lunch in the Terrace is bedlam, enjoy a leisurely shoreside lunch somewhere and head towards the gangway no earlier than 3pm. You'll have the embarkation staff all to yourself and will sail straight through from curbside to cabin.

We've spent time this year in 8042 and 8046 both of which are under the restroom / patio areas. Never heard anything from above. The furniture in the patio is more or less fixed, very heavy metal stuff. It could be moved, but probably would take 2 or 3 crew members to do so. On the other hand, the chairs in Waves are dragged around both for set up / clean up and by guests getting themselves seated. To be avoided.

We're new to O, first sailing just in April, then again in September for a total of 35 days all on Regatta. Both sailings in a PH2 cabin. Some observations from our fresh eyes. - There can be no doubt cabin category plays some role in seating. This was quite obvious to me even as a first time O passenger. We frequently dined on the early end, and always got a 2-top if we wanted it, though we occasionally arrived with new friends and shared a table. - We did see a small handful of folks waiting in the bar area to be seated when we exited on a couple of evenings. The hostess commented that "everyone came at once" on one occasion but the staff worked hard to turn vacant tables quickly. My guess is the only time you might actually face a wait was sort of 1 hour after the GDR opened, before the earliest two tops started to clear. - I did note that even on evenings where a wait occurred there were many (many, many) large tables vacant. There comes a point in the evening when it might be logical for O to seat a twosome at a table for 4 or 6 recognizing it's unlikely that dozens of folks are about to descent with "we prefer to dine with others" requests. As logical as this sounds to me, I never saw such a modification put into action. - On the question of pacing, for the most part staff were attuned to the differences in number of courses ordered and how engaged the table was with activities other than consuming their meals. When dining alone, and ordering our typical 3 courses, every service team but one allowed us to follow our own pace, one team did anchor us to a nearby table for 8 which stretched our usual 1 hour 15 minute meal to more than 2 hours but that was a (notable) aberration. A word with the Maitre'd avoided a repeat. Overall, we found the GDR experience quite good, in fact in our live from I commented that service and meal quality in the GDR was equal to many specialty restaurants on other lines, and indeed far superior to Toscana on our April sailing (for the September sailing Toscana won an award for most improved in our minds).

I have no fundamental objection to the large bottles (I'd never bother taking bottles large or small home). What I do object to is non-functional large bottles. While refillable, the pump mechanisms certainly don't have an infinite life and I've yet to encounter a hotel or cruise line that has any sort of system in place to confirm the dispensers actually work properly. Moreover, most of the time (in my experience), complaints that the pump doesn't work simply can't be corrected because there is no plan for replacing them . . . ever.

I'll be honest, I sort of screwed up, I never imagined that particular itinerary would go on day one. Our previous transpacific from Papeete to Los Angeles had wide open availability for months, but that was then and this is a whole new world. Not a mistake I'll make again I promise.

Wow, those tropics releases went quick. . . . I couldn't get through to my consultant on the day of release, reached him on Thursday the 3rd only to find a single PH1, 2 PH2 and 2 PH3 cabins left for the sailing of interest. The sailing is a repositioning from Papeete to Honolulu. One wonders where the ship will go after Honolulu? Perhaps a couple of 12 days around the islands with a jaunt down to Fanning to meet the PSV requirements, NCL still has an obligation to sail to Fanning so maybe . . . it's a really neat port nearly undeveloped but quite beautiful. We went there twice on NCL Star back in the day.

Yes, and the assistant steward too. Our first O cruise we were a bit uncertain whether / how best to use the butler. Fairly quickly however we found small asks that he could provide quickly and efficiently. Butlers do vary however, we thought our first one was quite good. However, on our second (and third back -to-back) sailings we had a butler which was on a whole other level. A small example, I asked for lime slices for the mini fridge (I drink about 5 club soda per day with lime in each) after a single request my fridge was never without, it's a tiny detail, but a good example of how attentive a good butler can be. Having said all that, in addition to the O defined gratuity, we tip a few dollars cash the last day for excellent service from the butler, steward or assistant. Our first O sailing the latter two did nothing to earn extra consideration, our more recent sailing saw all 3 rewarded with a bit extra. There is endless debate whether such extra consideration actually benefits the crew member you hand it to, regardless, we like to acknowledge exemplary service both at sea and when dining out at home.

Welcome. As a recent newby myself I’ll take a swing at some. Vista suite, I have no knowledge. As for internet, everyone gets access included in their fare. Dinners in the main (Grand) dining room don’t require reservations, just go when you’d like to eat, with anyone you’d like to dine with. Generally no wait, but I’ve seen a small queue on busy nights. Specialty dining reservations are required, you’ll have first crack with you’re vista suite. Your butler can get additional reservations once you board. As for the liquor package I assume you are referring to the OLife beverage package. Realize that this includes beer and wine only, and only at meal times in dining venues. The wines are middle of the road, I’ve found a favorite red and white but admit I’m not hard to please. You can upgrade to the premier beverage package for $20 per day, this opens the bar for mixed drinks and hard liquor with the usual favorites represented, if you drink a bit, the upgrade can quickly pay for itself. Personal call.

If you have the OLIFE package and drink only a couple outside of meal times you'll quickly break even. However, it's important to consider when you actually drink. For example, if you, like me, are a cocktail or two before dinner sort of person, the upgrade might not make sense. Why? O has a 2 for 1 cocktail hour every night from 5:00 - 6:00. Pay for one, get two (or get a double) which is generally enough for me. Also, every sailing there is a captain's cocktail party before dinner too one night when most drinks are on the house. On the other hand, if you're the sort who likes a bloody mary in the morning, a couple beers by the pool mid day, a drink or two before dinner and a nightcap before bed - the $20 uncharge is a great value. I've done both within the past year, for sailings with a lot of sea days, I definitely found value in the upgraded package. For sailings with lots of port days, not so much.

Everything FlyerTalker has said is correct. Frustratingly, international arrivals into the U.S. require the passenger to be fully cleared, luggage included. You'll go through U.S. immigrations, claim your luggage, go through customs and then hand your luggage off again to your onward carrier (in this case Air France). Some airlines make the luggage hand off easier by stationing baggage handlers just beyond the customs clearance area, not sure if this is the case with AF. TBIT = Tom Bradly International Terminal. Most (though not United Airlines) international arrivals and departures go through this terminal - including Virgin Atlantic and Air France. United Airlines have their own immigrations and customs facilities in Terminal 7. Something that doesn't seem to apply to OP, but may be useful information for others. Hope this helps a bit, and many thanks to FlyerTalker for getting the process so very right.

Thanks all for your comments and especially to those who are posting current experiences. We are booked on two Seaborne sailings in 2023, Ovation in June and Odyssey in August, our first. We sailed Oceania thrice this year, at a per diem about 1/3 less than Seaborne, even still, the main dining room was open daily for breakfast and sea days for lunch. DW does not under any circumstances do the buffet, when this is the only option, I become her waiter, which is fine on calm port days but undesirable on busy sea days. We are certainly hoping the dining room will be an option at least on sea days. We are eagerly looking forward to sailing Seaborne but will say honestly that daily buffets for 2 out of 3 meals, at the prices charged will not make us loyal customers.