Free Unlimited Shore Excursions?

[Lane412000]

Currently booked for a Northern Europe cruise which is now offering free unlimited excursions in SPB. When I review my booking on the Oceania website, the SPB excursions still have prices listed and the prices are not $0.00 :D

 

The cruise also has special offers of

$300 shipboard credit

FREE unlimited internet packages

 

which when I inquired with a Oceania rep I was told that my cruise booking does not qualify for these two special offers. So, unsure if I really believe the free SPB excursions :D

 

Forrest Gump: I’m not a smart man

[pacheco18]

Currently booked for a Northern Europe cruise which is now offering free unlimited excursions in SPB. When I review my booking on the Oceania website, the SPB excursions still have prices listed and the prices are not $0.00 :D

 

The cruise also has special offers of

$300 shipboard credit

FREE unlimited internet packages

 

which when I inquired with a Oceania rep I was told that my cruise booking does not qualify for these two special offers. So, unsure if I really believe the free SPB excursions :D

 

Forrest Gump: I’m not a smart man

 

I know I sound like a broken record -- but if you booked through a good TA your TA might be able to get you "qualified" for these additional perks. An individual cruiser gets a standard NO answer. A high volume Oceania TA has a different relationship with the cruise line and might get a YES.

[LHT28]

Currently booked for a Northern Europe cruise which is now offering free unlimited excursions in SPB. When I review my booking on the Oceania website, the SPB excursions still have prices listed and the prices are not $0.00 :D

 

 

I checked out the cruise excursions it is only the 12 listed in the email that are free

[wripro]

What makes the whole concept of ship's tours in St. Petersburg unworkable, free or not, unlimited or not, is that in order to take more than one per day you have to keep returning to the ship to get to the next tour, This can take over an hour round trip to get to and from city center. Twice a day and you have used up a good part of your time in a bus seeing nothing. That is just one of the reasons private tours are far superior. There are many. many others.

[ohmark]

Currently booked for a Northern Europe cruise which is now offering free unlimited excursions in SPB. The cruise also has special offers of

$300 shipboard credit

FREE unlimited internet packages

 

which when I inquired with a Oceania rep I was told that my cruise booking does not qualify for these two special offers.

My TA inquired and was told "Yes."

[ohmark]

I checked out the cruise excursions it is only the 12 listed in the email that are free

 

Marina spends two days in SP. So, even limiting oneself to the list of 12, practically speaking one could take a maximum of 4 free excursions and even that would be pushing it.

Edited March 21, 2014 by ohmark

[LHT28]

Marina spends two days in SP. So, even limiting oneself to the list of 12, practically speaking one could take a maximum of 4 free excursions and even that would be pushing it.

 

I just wondered from your post #14

 

it just depends on the timing of the tours I guess if you could do that many or not

 

I could easily find 4+ tours from the list if I were doing the cruise :( just if they were timed right

Edited March 21, 2014 by LHT28

[ohmark]

I just wondered from your post #14

 

it just depends on the timing of the tours I guess if you could do that many or not

 

I could easily find 4+ tours from the list if I were doing the cruise :( just if they were timed right

I haven't double checked the 12 against the 4 we have already booked, but our TA told me that O says only one of our 4 qualifies for the offer and that if I use the offer for the 1, we would lose "Your World" pricing so that we would lose more than we would save (unless we added an excursion somewhere else.) Have no idea why 3 of our 4 excursions would not be in the free group of 12.

[LHT28]

I haven't double checked the 12 against the 4 we have already booked, but our TA told me that O says only one of our 4 qualifies for the offer and that if I use the offer for the 1, we would lose "Your World" pricing so that we would lose more than we would save (unless we added an excursion somewhere else.) Have no idea why 3 of our 4 excursions would not be in the free group of 12.

 

Sounds complicated

I looked at those on the email list against the excursion list for one of the cruises they showed $0 for the unlimited passport collection ..not sure how Oceania is working the free tours

Is Your World pricing another tour package? ..we very seldom do the shorex from the ship

 

The other ? is are they allowing the free tours for new booking only ?

[ohmark]

The other ? is are they allowing the free tours for new booking only ?

No.

[CintiPam]

We're booked with a private (2 person) tour for our 3 days in St. Petersburg. When I saw this morning's email, I thought I may sign up for the free evening folklore show since we haven't made any evening plans yet. Good idea or not?

 

It really depends on your stamina. I had visited St. Petersburg on a land trip with my sister a few years before my cruise visit with my husband. When returning on a ship, I arranged for a four-person private tour (with the excellent SPB Tours) that was my attempt to stuff three days worth of sightseeing into two cruise port days. I was so exhausted after those days that I never would have wanted to continue on for an evening on the town.

 

If you do go ahead, the folklore show is a much better bet than the ballet. The major ballet companies all tour elsewhere in the summer so the ballet offered then is what I call "tourist" ballet and not worth the effort.

Edited March 22, 2014 by CintiPam

[Lane412000]

I checked out the cruise excursions it is only the 12 listed in the email that are free

 

Lyn, thanks for the answer. I checked it out and now see the $0.00 for some of the excursions.

[Lane412000]

My TA inquired and was told "Yes."

 

Rub it in, rub it in laughing here

 

I checked with my TA and was told that Oceania indicated I have received all of the additional credits and offers that my booking had qualified for.

[no fuss travel]

QUOTE

 

If you do go ahead, the folklore show is a much better bet than the ballet. The major ballet companies all tour elsewhere in the summer so the ballet offered then is what I call "tourist" ballet and not worth the effort.

 

If you are there when the White Nights Festival is on, all of the principal dancers come back to SP to perform. We were lucky when we were there and saw an incredible production of Swan Lake with all of the company's principal dancers.

 

The folklore show though is excellent. If you have two nights, do both. You will not regret going to either.

[qldtraveller]

Hi

Find this discussion interesting as we are looking at the Northern Europe cruise incl. St Petersburg.

It is interesting as we watched a show on Australian TV and read in a local Travel Magazine that if you do a private tour then you are responsible for obtains the visas. Interestingly, when looking at tour operators for this area they all indicate we had to arrange the visa and they would provide the letter to you. It is quite a process for us. Also in some instances if you have a single tour organised for the time in St Petersburg then you cannot leave the dock area once you have done tour.

If you do tours with cruise line they get the visa automatically for you as long as vessel is not there more than 72 hours and you do their tours.

I was also informed that it is not possible to tour around on your own.

A lot of this appears on the visa application site we have viewed.

As such we want to see St. Petersburg from the streets, canals, do a concert and see the o/s and inside of the buildings and ride the metro. Whatever is the easiest we will do.

I guess in reading all the comments there seems to be different views on how best to see St. Petersburg and we seem to have a different process for visas here to many of you others.

Can't wait to visit and appreciate what there is to see and the culture etc.

Thank you for your patience in reading this.

[Queen of DaNile]

Echoing what others have said, our TA was able to get us the extra SBC and unlimited internet for one passenger for the cruise we booked last year.:) Waiting to hear from O if we can do any of their evening " free unlimited shore excursions". If not, no worries as we will keep our 8 person private group for the day tours. Sure would hate to be the execs trying to figure out how to fill the ships and/or change ports:eek: