pinotlover

Vacations are personally funded events that reflect how people want to spend their funds. I have friends my age that just returned from a dive trip to Honduras. Friends that take golfing vacations, fishing or hunting trips, and some that cruise. I have no friends that spend their vacation hanging out at a local assisted living home. I guess one above poster believes that’s ageism. Within the cruising community there are numerous competitors to choose from according to one’s circumstances. I don’t personally believe it’s ageist to prefer cruise lines that don’t resemble assisted living facilities. The OP asked about the “ vibe” on Oceania. Posters here are merely giving their observations on how certain Oceania cruises stack up in that regard. It appears on Oceania to be a mixed bag or as one movie character says” a box of chocolates “. You’ll never know what you’ll get until you board the ship that day.

There seems to be several acts from untrained staff that I wouldn’t take as policy. Free drinks at breakfast is not policy so don’t expect it. Reference port at dinner. A port is not always on the wine by the glass menu, so not always covered by the basic package. Oceania does usually try to have one dessert wine on that menu be it port, vin Santo, Auslese, or other.

As I pointed out 14 days can go either way. Some of the very geriatric cruises can quickly drive younger new to Oceania cruisers away. If one is 55 going on 85, they may not notice or be exceedingly happy. OTH I’ve been on O cruises where the younger 10% swear never again. Cruises can vary tremendously and people have to decide their comfort level.

An age rule of thumb. If you’re on a cruise segment that is 12-14 days or shorter, the median ages may be slightly lower. If you are on a cruise segment 14 days or longer the median age jumps rapidly. I’ve been on O cruises where the median age was 80. Many of those were not a young 80 .

We booked our overland when we booked the cruise. If you look under manage my account and the land options section they show up. The only description of the land tours are on the plan your cruise page for that cruise.

That was domestic. We unfortunately used O Air to the Baltic. O booked us to Newark on United going out. But SAS on the international leg. Coming home SAS wouldn’t recognize our Explorer benefits and Chase said they had no relationship with SAS. One bag each included, but we had an extra bag we had to pay for on the return. $100! Ouch!!

Well, someone must be clamoring for it. The pool and Lounge system seems to play her regularly. The answer to your question is the multitude of O passengers far older than you, of which there are many.

Let me explain where the problem is magnified. Let’s take an example where a Star Alliance partner ( or one world) is involved. Your first leg may be on United or AA and you get your cc luggage benefits on departure. HOWEVER, your return is on a partner flight and they could care less about cc benefits. Your ticket t&c rules. That Citi AA or Explorer card buys you have means nothing on their airline. You pay baggage fees to board. It’s a mess and not OSFA.

Super true! I worked with South American tour operators on twice cancelled cruises that are no longer in business. Their vehicles taken for lack of payment. Two years of zero revenue does that to a business! One of our guides, on an upcoming European cruise this summer, wrote me that bus drivers are at an extreme shortage. The license to drive a bus is different from that of driving a van. Those with the higher level license can make far more than tour companies can afford to pay. Keep your group below either 12 or 16, and in a smaller van, and the problems are less. Oceania’s traditional line of tour bus at the dock are a problem waiting to happen. Expect cancellations.

A big issue for some. Some people are happy listening to Anne Murray, Perry Como, and Olivia Newton John sitting by the pool regardless of where the ship is. Some of us would rather have an occasional steel band, German Umpah Band, or Greek minstrels depending upon where the ship is sailing. A bit of lively entertainment would be good occasionally.

I’ll post this here instead of starting a new thread. Passengers are about 100 days from the Inaugural Cruise of Vista. Final payment is due soon. That means those in a PH and above are about 25 days from booking their Specialties. Has there been any clarity yet on which, and how many, of the restaurants will be open for early reservations? Perhaps Jancruz can provide some insider info.

I’m taking it that you were on a U.S. domestic flight on a bulk rate discount ticket without luggage. A lesson learned. Oceania air, since the 2014 merger with NCL , is actually ran by NCL. Tens of thousands of airline tickets booked monthly . They don’t pay for them individually. Actually, with those bulk tickets, the buyer sometimes pays for an allocation of tickets, then later adds the names to the roster of who is actually flying. This process can be very unlike passengers buying individual tickets from A to B.

Champagne is a sparkling WINE, from the French region of Champagne . Wines on the By the Glass menu are included in the package. A Champagne is normally included on the list. Sometimes other sparkling wines are also on the list.

Be advised that while technically true, Oceania often adds to and subtracts from that initial listing of tours found at the 365 day mark. Consider it like airline schedules at even 330 days out. The final schedule may not resemble what first appeared.

As I posted, I believe that steward was untrained and Oceania will correct the situation.

For international flights, the discounted bulk rate fare on United includes 1 free bag each. On domestic flights it doesn’t necessarily unless Oceania pays for it as part of the package. If the poster was trying to check more than one bag on an international flight then someone had to pay. Oceania does indeed make bulk payments to airlines for bookings on an itemized invoice. They don’t make individual payments for each flight. Fwiw, I do both international and domestic wine tours and do the same thing. There is a process to booking those fares and trying to individually pay for each doesn’t make sense within the system. On United, nearly all the ticket mileage credit now comes from ticket costs plus status multipliers. I believe had the poster paid a deviation fee , and paid any ticket price in advance , they may have gotten Oceania to buy the tickets on their card. If they just remained in the ticket pool, they got pool treatment.

Yes! Sorry about the confusion. Consumption of personal beverages in your cabin is obviously fine. The comment was directed to those bringing personal beverages to public venues without paying the corkage

I actually believe this issue is a case of a new grossly undertrained wine steward and that Oceania, upon ready this thread, will quickly alleviate the problem/issue. All if you cheap jerks, wanting to haul personal wine in without corkage, don’t get your hopes up.

Lyn’s advice is best. You’re ten months out from your cruise and very few book ship tours that far in advance. This is partially due to the requirement to fully pay for the tour when booking. Also, I’ve learned that two conditions apply: not all tours are posted this far in advance; and some early listed tours sometimes get cancelled about 6 months out. Also, to be thrown into the mix is the massive number of people that cancel booking at or before final payment. Not only does this open up cabin availability on almost every cruise, but it also opens up ship excursion opportunities. Long story short, if you find an acceptable cabin for the cruise, you currently will have no problem booking shore tours you want.

I rarely carry ours aboard. Send it in with and/or in the luggage.

Two points: 1. At Happy Hour, a double can be substituted for two drinks. For example , I’ll order a double Knob Creek Old Fashioned. One drink with two shots and that counts as my 2 for 1. 2. My lovely wife and I have plenty of time to sit alone together and enjoy various adult beverages. Aboard ship we would rather be in the bars meeting fellow passengers, or maybe that bartender, than just sitting in our cabin or veranda. So except for a possible nightcap cognac, we don’t haul aboard hard liquor. Each to their own.

An important part to this. We often purposely book at least one later dinner reservation on a sea day for the sole purpose of having the opportunity to enjoy Afternoon Tea. If the ship is in port, we’re ashore, so sea days are the only options we have. If I’m having all the goodies at Tea at 4ish to 5, then no way do I want dinner at 6:30-7:00. Having Tea either means that becomes our dinner ( which it is for a significant percentage) or chilling out and dining later. An advantage of dining later, for those of us that enjoy sharing, is we often to to meet, and enjoy the company of, an entirely different crowd of fellow cruisers than the early diners.

Wise move! 🥂

It’s a numbers game. Go on enough private tours and you’ll eventually end up with No Shows. Sometimes it affects the per person price of the tours, other times not. It’s a two way street. If someone is a jerk, they can be voted out ( kicked off) any future tours. Sometimes paying extra is worth the cost of not dealing with certain people. All in all, private tours still wins hands down over Oceania tours.

Good question!! Another comment he made saying they didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, and I’m sure this issue would be ten times worse on Oceania. The restaurants were shut down and the kitchen supporting room service and the staff were in survival mode. The RS menu was the only thing available. After the emergency had passed, all the complaining from people over the kitchen not being able to meet their culinary disabilities during the storm. They couldn’t eat anything on the menu! 🙄!! Complain, Complain.