Oceana Cruise Affected by the Weather

[Aim1]

Well, indirectly I suppose.

 

My parents should have taken off from Bournemouth aiport enroute to Barbados at about 7am yesterday morning.

 

Mum called me at work and said because of the weather in the UK, the plane coming accross from Barbados had been delayed and they would now not be leaving Bournemouth until 9pm Friday night.

 

This then got changed to 11:30pm, however they were told they would still need to check in at 6pm - nice wait in the airport there!

 

They were given £10 food voucher each which isn't too bad I guess.

 

I asked what happens to the ship, as that should have left Barbados at about 6pm local time, which is before my parents flight would have reached them. According to what my Mum had been told, 6 out of the 8 flights going accross to meet the ship had been delayed, and therefore Oceana would be waiting for the passengers rather than them getting on at the next port, which I believe to be Grenada.

 

Just looked at the webcam this morning and sure enough, she's still sat in Barbados. I guess they may now only make a very short stop in Grenada or maybe miss it entirely, which to be honest is not a BIG deal as my parents have been there quite a few times before.

 

There's going to be some very tired people on that ship over the next couple of days, but hopefully the rest of the cruise will pass without incident! :D (oh, and they bring their lovely daughter back lots of Caribbean goodies!! )

[Tizzy]

I feel desperately sorry for anyone who is delayed.

Our son is working on Oceana as one of the Photographers and is having a particularly difficult time having to take photographs of extremely weary passengers who have had twelve hour delays. Please do not take your frustrations out on these young kids !

They have to do as they are told and a Polite 'no' is all you have to say if you do not want your photograph taken at any time on the ship. They earn next to nothing ! The only pay they get is the commission made on the photographs they sell. Yes they have chosen to do the job but they don't deserve to be sworn at or worse 'Pushed out of the way.'

I have had my eyes well and truly opened and can't believe the language used by some of the passengers. Give these kids a break. They don't get any tips and very little sleep.

Our son would die for a bar of chocolate once in a while !!! Go on treat them.

[Johnthed0g]

Tizzy, I do see what you mean, but it does get wearing with people snapping away in your face, especially at dinner. Also nothing to do with the staff. but the pics are far too expensive, they would definately sell more if they were reasonable.

[Lovemychoos]

Tizzy

 

I can understand how you feel if your son is being sworn at, and pushed around, there is no excuse for that type of behaviour. However, I also agree with John, and it really winds me up when these poor folk are told to go round the dining room at dinner time..........no-one wants to know when they are trying to eat a meal!

 

We are on Oceana in 10 weeks time, if he's still on then, let me know who he is, and I'll take him a bar of chocolate :)

 

Louise

[Tizzy]

I do sympathise about the cost of the photographs and as we cruise a lot ourselves I have asked why they need to be the price they are. The simple answer is the costs the Photographers face to run a Photographic Studio etc on the ship are VERY high. They rent the space and a huge sum gets paid to P& O. and the equipment is very expensive and in constant need of updating.

The team of photographers have to sell photographs to survive ! It is very tough and I know they all hate disturbing meals etc but they have to take turns in these areas.

Recently on a number of Cruise ships people have begun to 'steal' photographs or even in some cases tried to photograph the actual photographs on the display. Please don't be tempted to do this. It is not woth being thrown off the ship as it is theft. On one recent cruise our son earned the grand total of £6.50 after slogging away hour after hour. Times are tough and people just aren't buying as many photographs as they used to. However, the professional photographs make great momentos of your trip so please buy as many as you can afford. I know I am going to do my bit when our son starts his next contract on Azura.

[LibraLass41]

But people who cruise often and have already got 'that photo' - hubbie in tux you in long dress....why would you want a photo of you both in the same outfit on another cruise? :rolleyes:

[Tizzy]

I tend to buy the more informal photographs. The photographers will always take the kind of shot you want. I prefer photographs with a nice view and you cannot for instance compare the views on a Cruise to the Greek Islands with the views in the Caribbean.

As I said earlier you are never obliged to buy any of the Photographs but you always have a great choice of photographs to choose from. Some people buy just one of the Formal Evening other people buy ALL of them. We are all very different and all have different budgets.

[The Welsh Man]

But people who cruise often and have already got 'that photo' - hubbie in tux you in long dress....why would you want a photo of you both in the same outfit on another cruise? :rolleyes:

 

I wish my wife had your attitude to photos, my wife buys new dresses for each cruise and insists on new photos each cruise.

 

When we get home these are added to all the others taken and are rotated on a regular basis in the picture frame!

 

Never mind I suppose its a small price to pay to keep cruising!

 

Only another 5 weeks and 5 days until we're on Oceana again, not that I'm counting the days.

 

Carl

[davedex]

The team of photographers have to sell photographs to survive ! .

 

During our recent cruise on Oceana in 2009 we would have bought some photos if they had been worthy of the price. some of the problems we encountered were: flash/ fill flash on the camera was FAR too powerful resulting in virtually washed out pictures and non real skin tones. I appreciate that they dont have time to change in post production with the amount that they are doing so would be better to get camera set up correctly in the 1st place. Also, there were things behind us which looked as though it was sticking out out of heads - just a few seconds thought composing a perfect picture and maybe more people might buy photos at the 'perfect' prices. Also looking along the walls at the other photos there were a lot of closed eyes which (with instant review on Nikon cameras) is a bit lazy on the photographers part. I am sure the job gives little rewards but if their heart is in the job the results may improve the sales. All of these will come from experience but maybe this might help - just a thought.

[jeanlyon]

I agree with John. Nothing worse than somebody trying to take your photograph. How many boarding, eating, formal photos do you need? I bought one photo of us on our first cruise on Athena, since then, not one. Much prefer the ones we take ourselves.

[capasamari]

We bought three over Christmas on Ventura: a Christmas Day (formal wear) shot of the two of us at dinner, a New Year's Day (formal wear) group shot of the ten of us (all with our eyes open, quite an achievement!) in the restaurant and a 3/4 length Black and White night shot of the two of us (I had a new dress and wanted one of me wearing it, but would have preferred a full-length shot. I hadn't realised it wouldn't be full-length and wasn't given the choice so a bit disappointed with it).

 

After several cruises the novelty does wear off, we no longer want gangway or dockside photos. Can you have an album of all the photos taken of you on the cruise? Maybe smaller prints would be better, there's only a limited amount of space at home to display them!

 

Two of ours cost £5.95 and the larger one was £14.95. We find you're not always given time to "compose" yourself, which sometimes results in a less than satisfactory picture which we are no longer prepared to pay for. Could we view pictures on a screen and choose which ones and what size to print? There must be a huge amount of wasted paper and ink preparing finished photos.

 

Carol x

[Elsea]

We waited in a long line to have a group family photograph taken on Ventura on one of the formal nights. Despite us all facing the right way and looking good, the colours and the quality of the photograph was very poor and not worth the money. We were very disapointed as the photograph was capturing a precious moment in time that could not be repeated. We won't be having any more formal photogrpahs taken on future cruises.:mad:

[Johnthed0g]

Had some nice one's done on Arcadia.

[elaine61]

I feel desperately sorry for anyone who is delayed.

Our son is working on Oceana as one of the Photographers and is having a particularly difficult time having to take photographs of extremely weary passengers who have had twelve hour delays. Please do not take your frustrations out on these young kids !

They have to do as they are told and a Polite 'no' is all you have to say if you do not want your photograph taken at any time on the ship. They earn next to nothing ! The only pay they get is the commission made on the photographs they sell. Yes they have chosen to do the job but they don't deserve to be sworn at or worse 'Pushed out of the way.'

I have had my eyes well and truly opened and can't believe the language used by some of the passengers. Give these kids a break. They don't get any tips and very little sleep.

Our son would die for a bar of chocolate once in a while !!! Go on treat them.

 

I wonder how these passengers would like it if we (as parents of staff working onboard) were to talk to their loved ones how they talk to our's? :mad: I've heard plenty of things, none of which I would ever repeat! But I do know that they get verbally and sometimes physically abused by passengers. Totally unacceptable and always makes me wonder why they think it's acceptable to do it in the first place. I don't care how much you've paid for your cruise - does not give you the right to talk to the staff like they are piece of dog dirt on the bottom of your shoe. In many incidences they are probably better well educated than the person talking to them like that!

[elaine61]

I like to get a nice formal portrait done each year. To be honest we didn't have any taken this year except for our ROV's photos which we brought quite a lot of!

 

I actually hate having to trawl through the photo's to find our's. OH suggested to them on Arcadia at Xmas that they get face recognition software and you use your cruise card (as you have your photo taken when you come onboard) to find your photos on a machine! I might be more likely to buy more if I could find them this way!

[kittywitty]

I used to always buy photographs on my cruises as I found them a fair price for a professional quality photo. I found on my last cruise that the professionalism of the staff and the quality of the photos had really gone downhill so did not find the cost worth it. I did try out a few of the photographers, only one of which consistantly took good shots that were worth the price.

[CASPALL]

On our last Oriana cruise we thought the young group of friendly, polite photographers worked extremely hard. They were dressing up as pirates or whatever the theme was and acting the part as well. We felt very sorry for them as there were some very rude unkind people with bad attitude on that cruise (a Portunis cruise).

We bought 4 or 5 photographs (as they were quite good!) and were surprised to get an invite to the bridge from the photographic team. We got to visit the bridge for half an hour one afternoon along with maybe a dozen other passengers.

I agree the photos are too expensive and it would be good if it was all on a big screen and they only printed what was requested. Wouldn't be the same though, would it!

Caryl

[capasamari]

I took my Christmas photos to show to some friends, they all thought they were lovely and didn't they make me look young! Money well spent obviously!

 

Carol x