pinotlover

Yeah! Could you imagine how heated it could have been with the wrong people when he talked about essentially no longer offering tenure! 🤪. I found the discussion both informative and engaging. It might have launched others into uncontrollable tantrums! If an adult is incapable of participating in a reasoned conversation, the problem isn’t the issue discussed. While I like wise avoid politics and religion, I cringe when people start unrolling the scrolls with the long lists of forbidden topics. Obviously O has other than sophisticated cruisers !

No Politics becomes too overarching. Is a discussion about global warming political? We had the Dean of A&S at one of our most prestigious universities on board one of our cruises. The topic of tenure came up, and he gave an amazing breakdown of the current issues the University was facing because of tenure. Great discussion. Was that political? How about any discussion on education at all? Political? Is the price of gasoline or the scarcity of toilet paper politics? Depends upon whom you ask. Lots of topics people are very passionate about.

Unless a particular drink is indeed special, and limited to a specific ship, all the wine and bar prices are the same across the ships. Seen one, you’ve seen them all.

Several items you didn’t mention. 1. is that segment in the early part of the ATW, or the latter (120+ days)? 2. Are you cruising for the ship or the itinerary ? 3. Are you fairly extroverted or even slightly introverted? All of these matter a lot. Just one simple typical example. You’ll talk to a fellow passenger that’s an ATW and has been on the ship 132 days. He’s eaten in the two Specialties 20-25 times each, and has no desire to eat in either the rest of the cruise. You’ll find getting extra Specialty reservations can be a daily thing. In fact, many are tired of food and eating, period. May not still be the case at Day 30. I can give multiple other examples including the noticeable huge drop in perceived energy levels and even participation in shore tours over time. Depends on the individual, but from outside the group I believe it’s far more apparent/noticeable than from within. Finding enough people to do private tours from the Roll Call is difficult at best. I’d not do it again, but for others just wanting a quiet cruise enjoying the ship it may be worthwhile.

My comments were strictly related to having a butler. Since 2017, we have either reserved a PH, or been fortunate enough to have been offered upgrades to a PH, therefore having a butler. With a combination of not remembering what occurred precisely prior to 2017 in an A2 cabin, plus believing anything that happened that long ago doesn’t necessarily matters today, I can’t speak for the processes for regular room service in a non butler cabin. Hope that helps.

We are signed up for zero (0) O shore tours on our upcoming Vista cruise. Our Roll Call offered a wide range of options, at every port, to meet most everyone’s desires at significantly lower prices than offered by the ship. We had earlier signed up for the ship’s overnight land tour in Jerusalem. Friends had recently attempted to get on that tour with us but was told it was sold out and waitlisted. A few weeks ago O cancelled the land program due to lack of participation! My friend is a hard core DIYer so we don’t know if he just got the typical uniformed clerk at 1-800 , or if, as some fear, our three (3) day Israel stop is in danger? Regardless, being resourceful, I quickly got on another private tour for the three days via our Roll Call saving a lot of money. Should never have signed up for that land program to start with. My onboard account will now not be cluttered with all the junk ship tour postings! 😂😎

Absolutely not true. When we pre order breakfast at 6:15, we get a knock on the door at 6:15ish. Same goes when we request to dine insuite in the evening. A knock on the door. Never a phone call from our butler.

I believe this is predominantly correct. Again, go in early, have all your group assembled, and O normally accommodates you. Wait around until later, when O is trying to get its tours out, you wait. Waiting until well after tendering begins is a choice. Don’t complain about the choice you make.

We show up in the Lounge to get our tendering tickets while Destination Services is getting set up. This is prior to the start of actual tendering. They will give you the entire group’s tender tickets, if you demonstrate you have them all present and ready to go. This helps keep their lines down.

Threatening bodily harm is never permissible. I do see the original incident as being a chicken and egg issue. Two possible scenarios. 1. If the group was already in the bar enjoying themselves and someone walks in and wants them to quiet down. 2. People are quietly sitting in the bar listening to music and a loud group comes in and disrupts everyone. Completely different situations and rude parties. There remains a significant portion of Oceania cruisers that mistakenly believe the ship is an assisted living facility. This issue reverberates on many occasions.

I prepaid months in advance for my O shorex, La Reserve (2), and Privee. On my credit card, paid, past history . Then it all reappears on your onboard account showing the daily charges. Of course, later in the account, there are the credits for the payments, but the individual payments never align with credits. Since YWYW discounts got applied to all tours after a couple later bookings, this made things even more complex. To me, if it a new charge, while onboard the ship, it should show on your onboard account. No reason to dredge up and clutter the statement with purchases already made and paid for pre-cruise.

No hard fast rule on this. Oceania now rarely runs full day tours anymore. This means there is little need for early tendering. What we found on both our recent O tours was that the first, and sometimes second tenders were primarily people on private excursions. Those tenders may also have a bus load of O shorex people, but they never filled the tender. Now, if you dally around and wait, and miss those early tenders, one will most certainly then wait until all the O tours go out. I never had a problem getting my entire tour group out on the early tenders. Wait and you lose. Nothing unfair at all.

Oceania does everything possible to make it unnecessarily confusing on your account. I haven’t a clue why. Good Luck with it.

I cruise for the itinerary. If the ship is going to do a “ save the world “ segment, that’s up to the line. However, tell me the ports you’re eliminating or port times you’re reducing before final payment. This crap of notifications after you board, or a week before, is totally hogwash and dishonest. We canceled our OZ circumnavigation on Regatta because of the stuff O pulled on our SA cruise. We are signed up for an O pre Vista cruise land tour in Istanbul in two weeks. We just got notified they are cancelling several of scheduled stops. Not replacing them, just eliminating them from the schedule. Price didn’t change! We’re tired of the lying and fake schedules. If this continues into our cruise, with port cuts, we’re cancelling our future cruises. Is this where a certain Cheerleader tells me the T&Cs clearly state they can sit us in a hotel and take us nowhere if they please.

You guys in early Feb on the Marina must of had the cruise people dream about! 🥂. You drank the ship dry of Knob Creek Bourbon and many of the other top brands. On our 2/27 cruise, not only were the better liquor brands gone, but so to many of the wines on the “ by the glass “ menu. Since Oceania didn’t adequately plan for your splurges, very little was restocked in B. A. 😢 On the food side, your cruise wiped the ship out of simple items like capers and arugula. The duck watermelon salad just isn’t the same without rocket!! We were so low on maple syrup, at first they thought they were out, one had to specify syrup on pancakes or French toast towards the end of the cruise or none was offered, then sparingly. If requested. Other main ingredients just weren’t there. I have no doubt that early February Marina cruise was spectacular based on the empty cupboards we saw following your cruise. Happy cruising.🍷

Depends upon who else is in town and which line has seniority of choice. At this point only Oceania can tell you. We’d be flipping a coin not knowing.

Don’t be oblivious to the cruise terminal being used. If you don’t have a boarding pass, then you don’t have an assigned boarding time. If you don’t have an assigned boarding time, terminal security may not let you into the terminal until they desire which might be the last boarding time.

This is just a continuation of earlier sales. This is a sale for all those cruises and cabins they couldn’t get rid of in all their other constant sales. May work out for some . Happy Hunting!

OK Boomer! Or maybe their gain. Labor shortages at restaurants are immense. QR codes mean no more hauling around menus. No more sanitizing menus between use. Significantly less paper usage and trash. Paper menus will soon become like branch bank tellers. You can learn to use an ATM, or drive around looking for a teller.

Depending upon the port , the bottle neck can be immigrations. Think of an airport where one may go through their individual airline checkin, but then converge with everyone else going through security. Some of the cruise terminals operate the same way. In fact, it doesn’t have to be at Embankment. I’ve seen huge lines in certain terminals to get back through port security to get back to the ship from day tours. There are no fast lanes!

I leave it with the hotel concierge. After lunch we go back to our hotel, have them flag a cab, while we collect everything. Easily done in most all locations.

Probably so. Lisbon is such a lovely town, and like so many a leisurely local lunch with local specialties and local wines takes us to 2:30 or so. Far surpasses the Terrace, which we’ll have multiple days later to explore, and completely escapes Boardamania. I have no problem with cruisers choosing Boardamania. Please spare us the handwringing with the results afterwards. Boardamania is a personal choice.

Send Ryan an email at ryan@thewine-experience.com Tell him I referred you and you want to consider duplicating our tours.

For those that desire to fully encompass Boardamania , 11:00 is a must do. For we others , a 3:00 or so boarding typically bypasses the hysteria and grants an easy peaceful non crowded Embarkment. It’s a personal thing. We’re not nearly enough enamored with lunch in the Terrace to battle Boardamania. For others no size crowd would slow them down. Enjoy what you enjoy.

For both Montevideo and Punta del Estes we used The Wine Experience. Ryan at TWE was phenomenal. First we tours of Montevideo and then out to the country side for a fabulous tasting and Uruguayian bbq lunch with paired wines. Then another tasting at a drop dead beautiful winery with delicious wines. Punta del Estes was a repeat. City your, then fabulous wines and lunch. Ryan is exceptional. Tell him Sandy sent you!