kiawahdon

Interline transfer of bags are a thing of the past unless the flights are on one ticket. See the discussions on the Flyer Talk web site for AA.

WE were on the same cruise and this just sounds like nit picking. WE had a wonderful time and none of these things even crossed our minds. A few things that we found that could be improved will be posted when I get some time, but even these things are pretty minor. LOVE OCEANIA :)

Sorry if you think I am nit picking- I don't. These were offered as legitimate suggestions. Yes, some were minor, but it would say others are not. Putting an emergency number on World Cards protects both O and it's passengers. It is also something that a number of cruise lines have done for over a decade- I have the key cards to prove this!

i hope you did enjoy the "usury" on board ocenania as well :(

outrageous wine prices , stupid service charges and bitter pre packed orange juice :eek:

Actually several of us commented that it was the best OJ we have had on ships!

Seems you should vote with your feet and choose another line for your cruise euros.

We just finished a fabulous 28 days on the Marina. Ignoring the inclusive beverages of Seabourn and Crystal, these 2 luxury lines can’t hold a candle to Oceania in terms of food and service. Marina’s PH staterooms are superior to these two lines’ comparable cabins in both space and furnishings. I could go on, but hopefully you get the point- exceptional cruise experience.

With my glowing comments out of the way, I would like to offer management 7 suggestions to make Oceania an even better product and passenger experience:

1. World Card holder- The visqueen(?) plastic adheres to the World Card like glue- especially if it is warm. Trying to get it out on exit or entry from/to the ship can be a real exercise. Clear plastic makes sense, but there are other plastics that don’t cause this issue.

2. Use smaller bread baskets for 2 tops and reduce substantial waste.

3. Get some super glue and put a small knob on the safes. When you enter your combination and “open” the safe, the door often doesn’t move- even though it’s unlocked. Now, it is a choice of banging the door to get it to open enough to grab it; or using your nails to find something to grab and open the door.

4. For passenger peace of mind if a shore emergency arises, put the ships direct dial telephone number on the back of the World Cards. Seabourn, Azamara and Paul Gauguin are just three examples of lines that do this. Putting the port agent’s telephone number in Currents just doesn’t cut it in my opinion.

5. Now a “biggie” for me. Why aren’t large cold (or at least not warm!) plates available in the Terrace Café? Particularly at lunch, I like to enjoy the great salads and mini sandwiches offered in the center buffet area. With only small plates, I am juggling 2 plates vs. one large plate. If I get a large plate, it is routinely very warm (courtesy of the heat lamps on the hot buffet line) or hot having just come from the dishwasher. A hot/warm plate for chilled food is both unappetizing and unhealthy.

6. The stateroom TV capabilities need to be upgraded and more interactive. Why I can’t see my shipboard account on my television really mystifies me. You can even do this with several low-cost lines! Without this feature, I have to march to either a concierge or Reception and request a print out. By this action I have needlessly taken someone’s time and killed more trees.

7. Finally, the curtain tracks in the staterooms. Not only do they not work very well, they clearly encourage ripped curtains because they don’t slide easily. People get aggravated and just pull hard. These tracks are what my grandmother’s bedroom had. For the Marina to have these boggles my mind. The Hampton Inn has it right- why did the designers miss this?

Got off Marina 11days ago. Here is what I experienced. Can get cash/chips from casino and charge to your shipboard A/C. However there is a 5% fee. Also, if the OBC originates from an outside source ie your TA or your own Bon voyage gift to yourself, you can get the cash without the 5% fee.

One industry standard to measure "spaciousness" of a cruise ship is to divide tonnage by passengers. The new build will be 66 while the 3 newer ships are 71. The slight decrease to 66 is still at the top-end of the cruise industry.

Here is a question:

Can I get a 30% discount on the Unlimited Internet Package as a Bronze or above member staying in a PH ?

There is nothing (including fine print) that says the discounts can't be combined, nor that the Unlimited Package is not eligible for discount.

Oceania Club Benefit:

NEW - 20% discount on any single internet package

Internet package language on O site:

Unlimited Internet Package

$27.99 Per Guest Per Day for cruises 12 days or less

$21.99 Per Guest Per Day for cruises of 13 days or longer

200-Minute Package

$160.00 + $3.95 Activation Fee

À La Carte Minutes

$0.99 per minute + $3.95 Activation Fee

*Guests staying in concierge-level staterooms and above

are eligible for a 10% discount on internet packages.

Just completed a "grand Cruise" (b2b), and on each cruise these was a wine extravaganza where orphan bottles of wine were offered at a discount. These were 6 bottles of this and 4 of that, etc. All with a 20-30% discount. Some of the wines were very good at a decent-not great though- price.

We bought 6 bottles twice and put most in the cellar for use at dinner; but a couple bottles went back to our stateroom.

I thought this was a great approach to offering volume discounts off the wine list pricing.

Most other cruise lines rely almost entirely on the internet to tout soft selling sailings and new released itineraries. This seems a hell of a lot cheaper than O's approach. Plus it saves forests, lots of money, and doesn't alienate consumers with a flood of brochures that are destined for the trash. Management needs to reassess their current approach IMHO.

Currently on Marina and have withdrawn $500 twice from my self funded Bon voyage gift.

Used cash in casino and on shore. No 5% haircut.

Kiawahdon - how did you purchase the OBC? Did you do it via the Oceania website or through a phone call? I really like your idea. It saves having the issue of a lot of extra cash on hand and /or trying to deal with travelers checks. If we can put money on the account in advance and then draw cash as needed, that would be perfect. We would never need more than $500 per day, in fact half that would be more than enough.

Used the web site-at the bottom of the home page is a button for Bon Voyage gifts this takes you to where you can "order" your Gift of OBC for yourself. O will send you an email confirmation.

A couple of computer/iPad app recommendations:

The first is KVS tool. This gem has saved me thousands of dollars and hours of frustration in

trying to plan our airline details. KVS tool will tell you the flight schedules for every airline serving virtually any city in the world. Want to know who flies between Atlanta and Pago Pago? It will give you a complete listing of flights, equipment and schedules. Plus it will tell you the availability of frequent flier awards or upgrades for the flight including number available for each class of service-for each of the 3 major alliances. Can't beat it for snagging those FF awards and finding a routing with available awards. It also has allowed me to tell an airline agent to "look again", because there is availability on a flight.

A couple others are Flight Track Pro and Flight Board. The first one will provide real time information on airline flights in progress or on the ground. For example, tomorrow we are catching a flight from CLT to LAX. This flight/aircraft originates in New York City. Will it be on time into CLT? Flight Track Pro will tell me.

Flight Board has real time arrival and departure boards for all but the world's smallest airports. It is another way to find out who flies into an airport and their destinations.

For me a good pair of travel pants by Travel Smith or Magellan's etc is well worth the $60-75 bucks. With zippered pockets with a button in the back and 1 or 2 zippered pockets in front, I really don't worry about an unintended loss. Money and passports have a safe home. Have worn these to and from the ship for 20 years and am a believer.

An approach I am using is to use my frequent flier credit card to buy myself a significant on board credit as a bon voyage gift to myself. Oceania has confirmed via email and the cash will be waiting for me when I board. Only limitation may be that I can only "withdraw" no more than $500/day. Not really an issue for me.

azamara's issues are clearly, as someone else mentioned, a matter of resource allocation as determined by RCI. No real dollars are spent on communication as all available dollars allocated go to keep the aging sisters presentable. It costs little to handle shore-side communications/bookings as these folks handle other RCI bookings- hence the complete lack of knowledge about the AZ product. Bottom line is that RCI is keeping the investment in communication at the absolute minimum level-only so many dollars available.

Now think about the ships. They are clearly in need of major renovations to keep up with the competition. A major competitor is about to spend 50 mil on their 3 ships. Yet AZ has lock- jaw when asked about their plans to upgrade. Yes, their crew is phenomenal, but that will only keep you afloat for so long. Eventually, major dollars must be spent on the ships and AZ's relationship with new and existing clients. If it is not spent in this year, start writing the obits in my opinion. Why do I get at least 1 mailing every week from AZ's competitors, but only 1 every 6 months from AZ?

It's all about the investment RCI is willing to make in AZ. And, to date it seems not very much.

Once again the infrastructure of the port, coupled with impossible logistics have killed an AZamazing evening. I wonder how long it will take AZ to rethink the impossible dream: moving 600+ people, dealing with people in the ports who clearly can't deliver, but promise, a great passenger experience.

Yes, some ports have the facilities to make it work, but many do not- and never will. I predict in spite of Larry's stubbornness, AZamazing evenings will slowly morph into an onboard experience, or quietly disappear completely. The corporate over-hype and PR just make failures like this even worse for AZ's image.

Air France flies at least 2 times a week to PPE. It is a triple 7 that originates in Paris and arrives at LAX around 9 :30pm and continues on to Papeete at 11:55pm arriving around 6:30am. We are booked on this flight next month.

it is possible I missed it, but in Larry's twitter chat there was zero mention of dry docks and ship upgrading. A missed opportunity or no definite plans?

Unless I missed something, the twitter session was pure pabulum- no incite full questions or answers. Worse than a pr add. Why don't we all get in a circle and sing chum-bye-ah?

Paying in U.S. Dollars does not matter. Issue is whether charges are posted as hapening outside of the u.s.

I beg to differ. Location of the posting is irrelevant- it's what bank O CHOOSES to use to clear the credit cards-foreign or domestic. Why have I never had these charges on numerous European cruises with other lines? More specifically, neither Azaamara (RCCL family) and Seabourn (Carnival family) do not have these charges. Again, location or ship's registry are irrelevant.

This may be a shock, but did you notice that Oceania ships are not registered in the US?

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Ship registration is not the issue. The issue is O converting my Dollars into a foreign currency when they clear the credit charges through a foreign bank. They do this to incur a lower merchant fee than utilizing a US bank to clear the cards. O says in their materials that none of the foreign transaction fees accrue to their benefit. A half-truth due to the lower merchant fees.

Notice that they clear your cruise booking through a US bank as people would go ballistic if foreign exchange fees were imposed. My guess is that, with ship board charges, they figure you are less likely to complain. Plus, they now have all your cruise fare in hand- who cares if you bitch?

Just to carry this discussion one step further, the contract of carriage says all charges are to be paid in US dollars:"Any and all payments made by you to us shall be made in the currency of the United States of America or other currency acceptable to us ."

Maybe someone smarter than me can explain if I am paying US dollars, how I incur a foreign transaction fee. Seems to me the ACTIONS of O create the fee, not me if I pay dollars.

For a cruise line whose only offices are in the USA to charge a foreign transaction fee on ANY purchases, is almost fraudulent. Name one other cruise line with US offices that does this? Name one other similarly situated company that does this? Wonder how long Amazon would exist doing this? It is a hidden fee that is not in keeping with Oceania's reputation. Is the consumer angst worth it, FDR?

Will this work as an alternative to carrying cash on board for the casino:

Call O and tell them you want x dollars available in the casino and then give them a CC number to charge to make this happen?. I know several lines will do this, but don't know if O is as accommodating.

Staying at the IC for 3 nights pre-cruise and looking for some restaurant recommendations other than the rouloutes. Looked at trip advisor, but looking for some first hand recommendations that are not over the top in price.