3 strikes and your out

Best wishes in the future, Hawaiidan.I am so sorry such a nasty thing has happened to you. I thank you for the head's up. Now that I know about this possibity, I will not book independent airfare. That way, we will not lose there. We are booked on the March 6th Riviera's 10 day Caribbean cruise, and yesterday someone at Customer Service told me the ship was half full. It's around six months till sailing, so I won't be surprised if we are bumped for a charter. This charter business I think is an act of desperation. Management sees loyalty passengers aging. Wine charter passengers are probably younger enthusiasts and are seen as potential customers. O won't have to give them as many perks, either, for quite a while. Since we live 25 minutes from Port of Miami, and no airfare is part of this voyage, if bumped, we will be sorry but not devastated.

Hawaiidan, over the years I have enjoyed your posts. Thanks for sharing.

Mary

Dan, I have enjoyed your posts over the years and cruising with you on Marina from Papeete to New York. Your cancelled cruises are a cautionary tale for all Oceania passengers. As we are Australian, we do not have the option to take the “free air” and as we book flights nearly a year ahead, we also would suffer financial loss. We are still happy with the on board Oceania experience but we have encountered a number of problems on the administrative side.

Best wishes in the future, Hawaiidan.I am so sorry such a nasty thing has happened to you. I thank you for the head's up. Now that I know about this possibity, I will not book independent airfare. That way, we will not lose there. We are booked on the March 6th Riviera's 10 day Caribbean cruise, and yesterday someone at Customer Service told me the ship was half full. It's around six months till sailing, so I won't be surprised if we are bumped for a charter.

Mary

I would be surprised if you were

Caribbean cruises do not sell well until after final payment when the prices may drop

Most people have been there, done that so maybe not in a hurry to go again

Then again those that live in Florida may get a special residents discount if they wait

A lot of cruises have wine groups on & Alumni groups but the ships are not chartered

Time will tell

YMMV

Over the longer term, the charter issue may be self resolving. Here is why I feel this may be the case.

To me it appears that most of the new ships launched recently, and scheduled to be built, appear to be the very large types. This, I describe as over 2,000 passengers. With this the ratio of new staterooms on new ships will shift even more toward large ships.

As the aging of America continues, I feel the demand for smaller, quieter and small port usable with a dock could increase faster than available staterooms. Viking Ocean appears to be placing a very large bet on this assumption.

Another note on charters - In the last 6 months to two yeas ago, there was a discussion on CC about a charter booking of a cruise on Crystal. The rumor was the a large, and possibly prestige, car manufacturer was rewarding excellent dealers/salesmen. Crystal possibly took the opportunity to "sell" their cruise line to a ship full of high income individuals and couples.

A related side discussion, concerned a lady who was said to have all ready booked one particular stateroom on that ship for the entire year. The conjecture was what was to happen to her for that charter cruise. I never heard the resolution and what was true or was not true.

So much for my 2 to 5 cents worth.

Regent (then Radisson) sold the Diamond out from under us after we had booked business class air independently.

We had to find the same basic itinerary on another cruise line, and ended up on Silversea...twice. Lucky for Regent we returned to the ultimately based on itineraries, and then Oceania too. Looking for a another cruiseline with a sufficiently similar cruise is an option,

Regent (then Radisson) sold the Diamond out from under us after we had booked business class air independently.

We had to find the same basic itinerary on another cruise line, and ended up on Silversea...twice. Lucky for Regent we returned to the ultimately based on itineraries, and then Oceania too. Looking for a another cruiseline with a sufficiently similar cruise is an option,

Another alternative, if one is concerned about charters, is to book the Air Arrangements thru the cruise line.

Then, if they cancel, they eat everything.

This has saved our bacon multiple times.

Another alternative, if one is concerned about charters, is to book the Air Arrangements thru the cruise line.

Then, if they cancel, they eat everything.

This has saved our bacon multiple times.

And if they don't cancel, then you eat everything -- on the menu, that is. (However, you're not allowed to bring your own bacon aboard ship, AFAIK.)

Another alternative, if one is concerned about charters, is to book the Air Arrangements thru the cruise line.

Then, if they cancel, they eat everything.

This has saved our bacon multiple times.

This is quite literally an extra insurance policy--and an expensive one besides.

I'm not saying it doesn't work, it does, but the extra cost of booking air through O takes the shine off it.

When you say it's helped you multiple times, how many times is that, when O has cancelled on you?

This is quite literally an extra insurance policy--and an expensive one besides.

I'm not saying it doesn't work, it does, but the extra cost of booking air through O takes the shine off it.

When you say it's helped you multiple times, how many times is that, when O has cancelled on you?

Four times total, twice when the shipyard delayed the Maiden Voyage of the Riviera, and twice more when Egyptian troubles caused multiple changes to a Southeastern Mediterranean itinerary.

No business makes these changes lightly, the repercussions are just too much of a hassle, not to mention time consuming. I believe that I spent 20 hours on the phone for the Egyptian Cruise alone, even though the Air Dept did all of the gruntwork.

On this same topic, particularly when the route will be open jaw, it is a mistake to assume that booking through Oceania will always be more expensive. I've priced trips both ways often enough to KNOW that airline pricing is far too Quixotic to predict anything.

One easy solution is to close up the windows. Oceania used to never, outside of rtw, release cruises so far out in advance. Delay releasing cruises to 14-15 months out, then stop selling charters at 11 months out. This gives the sales team longer to sell charters without affecting anyone.

Outside of rtw again, what tiny percentage of O cruisers has to plan a cruise more than 15 months out? The rest of 2020 can release next May or June and no one will miss a beat. Meanwhile, there’s a lot of selling to do to fill 2019 while selling 2020 charters before the public even realize time periods are vacant!

The ship had internal WiFi that always worked beautiifully. You could use an app on your phone to see what the daily progran was, all the menus in each resturant, the excursions etc. We could also text each other over WiFi. For instance, I usually got up later than my husband and he might be out of the cabin so I"d text him and he's soon be back with fresh coffee for me while i got ready to go to breakfast. (like it better than the coffee posd in the cabin)

 

 

The external internet was what was usually lousy from our perspective. It connected through a server in Spain so your home page came up in Spanish - once you were able to connect. (my husband did a work around for this) We did meet a couple who was happy with it, as they lived in a rural area and had dial up at home! Perhaps part of it was our location in Norway. Hoping that's the case as our next cruise with them is quite long. But it's not detering us from sailing with them again.

Got it. Thanks for the clarification ;)

Sorry to see you go, HawaiiDan. You did us all a favor highlighting O's approach on "firm" reservations. We for one are now gravitating to O life to protect against what happened to you.

O's behavior is no different from what is happening in other lines.

We also see another benefit - protection against inflation. Cruiselines, hotels, airlines and, today Disney are ramping up to raise prices. Since we tend to book long into the future, we're locking in now.

Sorry to see you go, HawaiiDan. You did us all a favor highlighting O's approach on "firm" reservations. We for one are now gravitating to O life to protect against what happened to you.

Getting O Life does not protect you for anything other than the Perk you choose Drinks, OBC or Excursions

You can get the included air if that is what you are referring to with or without O Life

Getting O Life does not protect you for anything other than the Perk you choose Drinks, OBC or Excursions

 

You can get the included air if that is what you are referring to with or without O Life

Locking in as much as we can.