Wol

Mike:

Well, today I managed to get into the page where I place my booked cruises. (It appeared that was not possible until the agent had transferred our funds to Oceania despite paying some time ago. Whatever.)

But the site's problems get worse - MUCH worse!

On entering our booked cruises - back to back Copenhagen - London (Southampton) - Rome I went to check the personal information was correct, after reading the tales of date changes etc.

The first of the back-to-backs had both my own and my wife's details correct.

On the London (Southampton) - Rome sector, my wife's were correct - but my own details were for someone entirely different except that they had the first and last name the same.

His middle name is different, he lives in Canada but was born in Australia. His passport number, DOB, address etc is in "my" records.

My wife is interested to know who she is sharing her cabin with - he's seven years older than she.

Seriously, this is a MASSIVE breach of privacy by Oceania. The new website seems to have been cobbled together with many untested bugs and as each is sorted out things get more and more weird.

Mike, you and Oceania need to do something right now - I could impersonate this other passenger and steal his identity this evening if I so wished.

:eek::eek::eek:

Whereas a few days ago she was out of range of the islands, and giving Gibraltar as destination, she is now a hundred miles or so West of Gib and giving Barcelona as her next docking on 1st March.. (0930 UTC Friday 27th.)

At 17 Kts, through the canal, seadistances.org estimates 16 days and 4 hrs to Singapore. With the time change we are probably looking at the 18th/19th in Singapore, depending on bunkering and/or picking up the staff?

Mike:

Unfortunately, I cannot put in our August and September sailings! Every time I get:

 

>>Please contact our Reservations Department for assistance with your booking. We apologize for the inconvenience and thank you for sailing with Oceania Cruises.<<

 

.... and that's it.

 

.

(Later) I have contacted the agency and they say that they will only send the deposit (and in this case the balance) to Oceania at the end of the month, so it may be that the facility isn't in the website until you receive the deposit, not when it's paid.

Wol - the state issue is now settled with an update that was implemented last night. If you go to the Booked Cruises area within My Account, you should be able to add your August sailing by entering your ship, sailing date, last name and invoice number.

Mike: Thanks for the update. I logged in for my wife just now and, sure enough, the Australian state is able to be put in, so her profile is now OK.

Unfortunately, I cannot put in our August and September sailings! Every time I get:

>>Please contact our Reservations Department for assistance with your booking. We apologize for the inconvenience and thank you for sailing with Oceania Cruises.<<

.... and that's it.

.

Mike: Further to my last post, and seeing the comments about incorrect dates (above), I tried to check our own guest registration data.

We have cruises booked in March and again in May (both portions of the now-truncated RTW cruise) - both appear intermittently in the site. I say intermittently because sometimes one will not show when you "return" to the page from another.

The cruise we have booked and paid for is in August, and that does NOT appear at all.

The dates I can access seem to be correct - I suggest that somewhere in the coding dates are stored in the US format, ie. 6/8/2015 for June 8th, whereas in most other countries this would be 6th August, and this might be the problem some others have with their incorrect dates?

Good morning all - we are looking into the address validation issue for some international countries and will advise as soon as that is rectified. Thank you for your patience!

 

Wol - you are no longer having the issue with the multiple dots in your email address, correct? For the booking that you just made that you are having an issue with - has a deposit been placed on that booking yet? If not, that is why you cannot add it to the website.

Mike - the booking was made on Monday for back to backs starting Ausgust, the deposit was paid at the time and the full payment made and confirmed paid this morning (Thursday). The agency settles all cruise companies at the end of the month so full payment should appear in Oceania's records by next week.

WRT the double dots (my email address is xxxx @ yyy. zzz. net) - yes, it was accepted in the old website, and appears in the new.

In MY profile the state NSW appears as "NS" (presumably because the US oriented site - the "old" site, remember, that I put my entries into years ago, needs a double character state) and I have not attempted to change it on the new site. It could be the reason why we sometimes do not get our information folder? (Posted to a non-existent US state?)

My problem has been with trying to set up a profile for my wife, who has a gmail account so the double dot problem doesn't arise - just the impossiblity of generating a profile because of the "State" issue.

Regards

It's nice to see that Mike Moore, representing the devlopment team, is prepared to put his head above the parapet and take the incoming!

I haven't read every page of this thread - life's too short - but, although the new look is tidier than the old, there really are too many coding errors that should have been eliminated before going live.

The coders seem to have been unaware that there is life beyond the continental shelf of the USA, because the site will not allow, for example, my wife to edit her profile. It keeps telling me that I must enter a state although I have already done so. My state is New South Wales - entering NSW (the usual acronym) is rejected, so I cannot edit anything in the page.

Looking at MY profile, created on the old site, I can see the state is down as "NS". Going back to her profile, and entering "NS" just gives the rejection message again!

We have several bookings which ARE listed on our page - but it is impossible to list the one we made last Monday! Just a message that we should contact Oceania.....

Just as with the problem of two dots in an email address being rejected (my own has two) it appears that the site is geared only to American formats of states, addresses, phone numbering etc.

Formatting problems due to various browsers are endemic on sites, but these data entry issues really should not get past the code validation point: it's not a good look for Oceania.

Windows Seven, Firefox browser.

I cannot comment on the OP's experience, but it is correct to say that the Oceania handling in Australia is not straightforward.

You have to work through a travel agent, who has to phone the Oceania (in Sydney, I believe.) They are not available at weekends and can take a couple of hours to answer the phone anyway.

They have to contact Oceania in New Zealand, who then contact Miami (presumably online.) I have to say that NZ is far more responsive than than the Australian office when we have contacted them direct.

Quite apart from the cost involved, the whole thing is anachronistic in these days of the internet. I can appreciate that many want to have an agent handle everything for them, but it would be far simpler for those who do not to be able to book directly with Miami online, and much cheaper for Oceania.

As one more data point, a couple of the hotel crew have indicated they got instructions to report on 3/17 but if it was unclear if that was in Singapore or somewhere in route - 3/17 makes sense to give them a chance to bring the hotel systems back to life. I also quoted you the wrong embark date in Singapore - it is 3/22 - my mistake on that one. Originally, they had a 3-day stay in Singapore 3/21 - 3/23 but now they show only two - 3/22 - 3/23.

 

Insignia is docked in the same spot in San Juan. No info on a departure date or destination. Obviously, the required speed increases as time passes tied up to the pier.

There are several sites that give estimates of transit times (Google Sea Distances.)

I have no idea whether they factor in canal transit speeds etc - I suspect they do - but entering 15Kts San Juan - Singapore gives 28 days plus. 17Kts brings it down to just over 25 days.

I would expect Insignia to leave San Juan at least before Saturday to be reasonably confident of passengers boarding 22/3/15, given canal transit, rebunkering and total victualling Singapore.

Suez is distinctly the quickest route by 2 - 3 days.

You won't get any argument from me! We were on the Marina over the holidays and were appalled by the manners of some passengers. We've always enjoyed our associations with the crew.

Pity this thread won't be read by the subjects.

We too were on Marina over Christmas, and the previous sector too. The difference between the passengers was chalk and cheese. Rarely have I seen so many pushers, shovers and impolite people as on the Christmas trip.

Having been "eased" to one side at the buffet by one "gentleman", who ignored the plate provided and just said "give me a big one", "four of those", "more of that", etc, I pointedly said "please" to the server. The "gentleman" gave me a withering look of pity....

Over the past eight or nine cruises with O we have found the crew almost without exception to be incredibly friendly, polite and helpful - despite what they increasingly appear to have to put up with.

I've done 9 or 10 cruises with Oceania but have to say that they are most unhelpful if you have any problems - as in visas. I'm tearing my hair out at the moment trying to get firm information on two visas - everyone has different information, and Miami is no help whatsoever.

>>Just over a week ago I got in touch with Oceania Special Services in Portsmouth, UK to ask about visas for Vietnam as we wish to spend a night ashore in Hanoi. Here is the reply:<<

Would you have a phone no. or email for the Portsmouth office? The Australian one is useless, and we hold Brit passports as well as Autralian ones.

We just got caught with the new regulations. Oceania has sent us instructions that we have to have two passport pictures and the visa application filled out before can board the ship in Singapore. They are doing the visa for us, but we have to fill out the forms ourselves and provide the pictures. Probably can tell you if there was any complications after we have been there this February.

Did they say anything about the Cambodian visa?

Thanks - would appreciate an update after you've "done" it!

@ C'est la Vie:

That's interesting - more information than I can get here in Oz! I've lost the will to live regarding these two visas - the Chinese one was bad enough. No-one had any idea whether we needed single, two days or multiple entry visas for that so eventually we took out a second mortgage and got a multiple one organised.

Since other lines seem to organise the other two onboard, and since Oceania do the same with the Vietnamese ones, (from what you say), I would expect the same to apply for Cambodia. However I have emailed them in Miami for confirmation, although from previous experience I'm not hopeful!

PS Do you have emailed copies of the application forms for both countries that I can get? I do have the downloaded ones for Vietnam, but from what you say they might not be the correct - latest procedure - ones.

wilsr ot internode.on.net

OK, let's all calm down ;)

Depending on your cabin category you may book reservations after certain times before sailing: it matters not whether you've paid in full. For example we paid in full in August for the Sydney - Miami sector of the RTW cruise cannot reserve tables until mid March.

Can anyone tell me whether Oceania arrange Cambodian and Vietnamese visas onboard?

(We are disembarking in Shanghai before picking up the cruise again in Sydney for Miami, so we have arranged Chinese visas so as to fly out.)

There are all sorts of conflicting reports and threads about the Cambodian and Vietnamese visas, usually with regard to other cruise lines and to cap it all I have had a very ambiguous email from Oceania mentioning "Transit" visas - which are airport transit visas for people getting off one flight and onto another!

Any *hard* and *recent* information would be gratefully received!

You are fortunate in the U.S. that your credit card will cover medical insurance over the age of 65. In Canada all is well with medical insurance using your credit card to book your trip - but when you turn 65 - you are declined medical insurance.

 

Linda

And here in Australia, if you can get medical insurance over 70 it costs several thousand dollars and excludes previous conditions - usually defined as ANYTHING you have ever seen any sort of medical professional about. If you are over 70 that includes just about all of your carcase!

So if you list all your complaints over the previous 60 years, yes, they will insure you - but exclude those bits. So you pay several thousand dollars for effectively no insurance.

At least in more civilised places you can pay a little extra and be fully insured.

^quoting for truth.

The # of folks who travel to "exotic" locales w/o grasping the dangers with the "exotic" locale is staggering. First rule, when in the third world your first thing to procure is a gun that you're able to use reasonably well or trustworthy/dependable security.

We're not travelling to the States until July, but I will keep your advice in mind. Thanks for the heads-up.

I asked our present CD just this but the answer was that nothing seemed to be proposed company-wide.

That's a shame because there are many of us who consider themselves "family" but who live outside the States, and cannot realistically send donations by cheque to an address.

I suppose that Oceania consider a shipwide appeal would not do the image any good to outsiders, but it would be the only real way of organising donations.

DrJW:

I will cut straight to the chase: I can see from your post that English is not your first language, so it is quite possible that some of your comments are capable of being misconstrued.

However, your criticism of the cruise director borders on the farcical. You might as well say the captain was useless because all he did was go on the P A and tell everyone where they were at noon. (Forget that he holds ultimate responsibility for hundreds of millions of dollars, 2000-odd lives, etc etc.)

FWIW the reason we chose to go on the same cruise as you was because we had enjoyed a cruise earkier this year with the cruise director, Ray Carr, so much we booked to be on the same ship as he all the way from Buenos Aires to Tahiti. In our books he edges out Dottie by a short head as the best CD out there: in fact I saw on several occasions something I'd never seen before - passengers telling Ray just that. Having watched him in his almost non-stop duties from around 5am to after midnight every day (the schedule of all CDs) all I can say politely is that you are, in the opinion of everyone I have talked to, on your own with that one.

As to the rest of your post, you do perhaps have some valid points, although with other posters referencing your comments in previous threads (which I will read later) I suspect that your attitude towards the staff may be at the root of your evident displeasure. No cruise ship is ever going to be perfect, but after multiple voyages on the likes of Silversea and Cunard we find the Oceania staff overall the most attentive, happy and professional, with barely a few, individual, exceptions. The ship maintenance is better, the food as good as, or better, and the facilities no different.

The "smart casual" ambiance is more to our liking than the formal codes you may prefer, although it is true that some passengers have problems with the first part of the phrase.

Posters have addressed your other points and I won't bore readers further, apart from saying that yes, you did have issues but so does everyone - on every cruise - but the way in which you describe them rather destroys the case you feel that you have.

As you say, never again on Oceania: I wish you all the best on whichever line you choose in future.

There a half dozen ATM's across the street from the pier. You will be able to actually see 2 or 3 easily after you leave the ship

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums mobile app

Thanks; will try them.

>>My question was titled @PSDottie because she is getting off the

PACIFIC PRINCESS on November 28th...

I am well aware of Oceania's Casual cruising! Thanks tho! <<

Apologies, but I have no idea what @PSDottie means.

>>I would love to know the exact formal nights so I can schedule my speciality restaurants for those nights.<<

No such thing on Oceania! Fortunately it's all smart casual ( UNfortunately sometimes more "casual" than "smart".)

There is a tourist info center/vendor area just beyond the start of the pier that may have had one - (I can't recall for sure), however there is a Bank of Polynesia with an ATM right across the street from the pier.

 

It's only a couple minutes walk from the gangplank of one's ship.

Many thanks. I've boarded/disembarked at the PPT pier before, but it's a few years ago and I have forgotten!