meow! Posted March 29, 2011 #1 Share Posted March 29, 2011 We have been watching the Marina's July 1 voyage to the Norwegian coast and Iceland. From an agency website (which cannot be named), we find lots of vacancies on the Marina from category PH to B. In fact, there appears to be more than 100 cabins (of the 625) empty, possibly a lot more. Now is only a few days from final payment time for that voyage. It is previously unusual to have such substantial vacancies on Oceania so close to sailing, especially on such a "hot" itinerary. So perhaps it is turning from a seller's market to a buyer's market, good for ordinary individual customers! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mura Posted March 29, 2011 #2 Share Posted March 29, 2011 You made me curious and so I checked the website -- it does show available categories and not necessarily how many cabins are available in each category ... although I agree that it's unusual to have so many available at this relatively late date. We've done a few cruises that have visited most of these ports ... and it's an itinerary I do like! But we won't go because we're already booked for this year's travel plans, including a domestic road trip in June with Danish friends and Regatta in August. Maybe it's the cost? Marina is more expensive, it seems, than the "R" ships. I noticed that the owners and oceania suites are waitlisted, as are the "C" and "G" categories. Just about everything else seems to have space. If this cruise doesn't start selling might they drop prices, the way they did for Regatta's Alaska dates? It won't help me if they do ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Benita Posted March 30, 2011 #3 Share Posted March 30, 2011 We have been watching the Marina's July 1 voyage to the Norwegian coast and Iceland. From an agency website (which cannot be named), we find lots of vacancies on the Marina from category PH to B. In fact, there appears to be more than 100 cabins (of the 625) empty, possibly a lot more. Now is only a few days from final payment time for that voyage. It is previously unusual to have such substantial vacancies on Oceania so close to sailing, especially on such a "hot" itinerary. So perhaps it is turning from a seller's market to a buyer's market, good for ordinary individual customers! I am booked on this cruise,which I chose because of its "different" itinerary, a sharp difference from the usual Mediterranian or Baltics cruises. I guess, as much as people complain about the redundant itineraries on the ships in general, when it comes time to booking, the old standbys win out. I like seeing unusual places - my last Oceania cruise was the Black Sea and the one before that was (supposed to be) Libya. We have booked Alaska, but the twist is the roundtrip from San Francisco, which you do not find too often. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mura Posted March 30, 2011 #4 Share Posted March 30, 2011 Benita, When we did the Iceland cruise in June 2006 INSIGNIA was pretty full (not sure if it was completely full but it sure wasn't empty), so I don't think it's because of the more unusual itinerary. In our case, the Iceland cruise visited the Faroe Islands, Dublin, Belfast, Lerwick, etc. We did some of the Norwegian ports last summer (although not all the ones on this itinerary), again a completely full ship. Maybe the difference is the extra capacity in Marina? It's unfortunate when an interesting itinerary sails under capacity because the line is dissuaded from repeating it in the future. By the way Benita, we were on the non-Libya cruise as well. We were on the first one ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Benita Posted March 31, 2011 #5 Share Posted March 31, 2011 Mura - It seems you and I have similar taste in cruising - just at different times. Oceania learned how difficult last minute substitutions were for your (non) Libya cruise - ours was 6 months later, so the itinerary was changed and offers of refunds made. The new itinerary swapped the three days in Libya for 4 along the coast of Italy was lovely, but certainly a change from what we had planned. Did you enjoy the Iceland, Ireland, and Norway cruise? Through members of cruise critic, we have plans for a puffin cruise in the Faroe Islands, and a partial Norway in a nutshell in Gudvangen, as well as private tours in Belfast and Dublin. I can't find anything in the Shetland Islands - the one contact I had was booked and the Isle of Man offers a 60 passenger bus trip, which I think we will skip. We were in Reykjavik for a few days last year, and can't find anything special in Kristianstad or Islafjordur. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mura Posted March 31, 2011 #6 Share Posted March 31, 2011 Hi Benita, Okay, there were two Libya cruises planned in November 2005 and it sounds like you were scheduled later than that. In OUR case, those of us online knew about the last minute change but non-internet passengers did NOT. I was rather perturbed that Oceania didn't say anything even in the check-in area. Lots of people boarded the ship thinking the original itinerary was still one. The changes for us on the non-Libya cruise were adding Valetta and a couple of Spanish ports. Dates were changed for Casablanca and Tangiers (which negatively impacted some private tours we'd booked although we weren't out money ... we just didn't have the guide we'd booked, we got a sub ... and in at least one case he was NOT satisfactory. Once he discovered i understood French, I became the unofficial translator ...) It was a great cruise, though. And we still saw Tunisia ... which might NOT be the case today! As to the iceland cruise, yes, it was great. We had an overnight in Rejk and rented a car (4 couples in 2 cars). The Faroe Islands were gorgeous -- again, we rented a car. We did not do a "puffin" trip in the Faroes but when we were in Scotland we had a private tour that took us to Puffin Land. Kristiansand is a beach town and there isn't THAT much to do there. On our first visit (the Iceland cruise) I stayed home because I had a torn meniscus and was taking it easy, so Howard did a ship's tour. When we were there last July we took the little train into town and walked around. Visited the cathedral which was having a nice chamber music recital when we entered, and then took the bus out to the botanic gardens -- well worth a visit and not hard to get to. In Lerwick we used Shetland Small Group Tours, a very nice one day tour (this was where we saw the puffins). If you will be in Lerwick, the email adress is TaxiRG@aol.com. Bear in mind that my info is five years old! In Stornoway we just took the public bus out to the Standing Stones. I haven't checked to see where this cruise will take you in the Shetlands! If you will be in Bergen, this is a lovely town. We were there in 1975 on our own and again on the Norway cruise last July. Write to me privately and I can go into more detail: mura @ speakeasy. net Mura P.S. We're on the Vancouver-SF cruise in August so maybe we can meet then! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
meow! Posted April 2, 2011 Author #7 Share Posted April 2, 2011 That site (which we previously mentioned on this thread but cannot be named) shows the vacancies on many cruise lines consistently. However, for Oceania, it is only intermittently available, and over quite a few months, seldom available for most sailings. We are GUESSING (with no evidence) that unlike many lines, Oceania may not be too keen on letting the public know the vacancies on their voyages. To be fair, Silversea was not shown on that site up to last year, and had been shown regularly for a while, but has again been removed from that site last month. Since we do not know, we should let individual readers draw conclusions on their own. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.