Anyone had change of Black Sea itinerary.

[moviefan2010]

Constania is a hellhole but a Hristia tour is a decent but not great thing to do. Constantia does have a great cathedral but not much else.

 

If the ship you got to docks at that new port near Nessebar instead of at Nessebar be sure to go to Nessebar. Don't take a ship tour since Nessebar is a one hour cheap bus trip from that port. You have to walk over a mile from the bus to old town Nessebar but cabs might be easy to find.

 

 

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[iancal]

We wanted to do a Black Sea cruise this fall, combined with a land trip.

 

We have been watching the various itineraries. Most have changed to the point that we won't bother. Will leave it for another time and make alternate plans. Not willing to spend money on the cruise and not go to the places that we really want to see. The various substitution ports are much less attractive to us.

[lagrandevoyageuse]

We sailed from Athens to Istanbul on OCEANIA's May 29 th trip on the Black Sea.

OCEANIA had cancelled all 3 Ukraine ports (Sebastopol, Yalta and Odessa) but replaced none!! They added a SEA DAY, then overnight in Constanta, allowing to sell ridiculously pricy tours to Bucarest and Transsylvania, and then taking us back to Istanbul one day early!

In fact, our 12 days/10 ports of call cruise became an 11 days/7 ports of call cruise! All this with no acknowledgement that this could be upsetting to passangers and no compensation wathsoever.

Passangers were so upset, that's all we talked about for the first few days onboard, ruining the cruise atmosphere!

After over 20% of passengers complained to the concierge and General Manager, the Captain finally acknowledged the problem. But from OCEANIA's Head Office? NOTHING!

We were all upset about not getting what we paid for, ie. 12 days and 10 ports of call and felt we should have been compensated in another way if they were too lazy to find alternative ports (which they did on their July sailing!!).

What do you think and what did your cruise line do for you?

Edited July 10, 2014 by lagrandevoyageuse

[boogs]

We sailed from Athens to Istanbul on OCEANIA's May 29 th trip on the Black Sea.

OCEANIA had cancelled all 3 Ukraine ports (Sebastopol, Yalta and Odessa) but replaced none!! They added a SEA DAY, then overnight in Constanta, allowing to sell ridiculously pricy tours to Bucarest and Transsylvania, and then taking us back to Istanbul one day early!

In fact, our 12 days/10 ports of call cruise became an 11 days/7 ports of call cruise! All this with no acknowledgement that this could be upsetting to passangers and no compensation wathsoever.

Passangers were so upset, that's all we talked about for the first few days onboard, ruining the cruise atmosphere!

After over 20% of passengers complained to the concierge and General Manager, the Captain finally acknowledged the problem. But from OCEANIA's Head Office? NOTHING!

We were all upset about not getting what we paid for, ie. 12 days and 10 ports of call and felt we should have been compensated in another way if they were too lazy to find alternative ports (which they did on their July sailing!!).

What do you think and what did your cruise line do for you?

 

So, you would have preferred that the enter a port and put their passengers in danger just so you won't miss visiting a port? If they docked as planned and something had happened to some of the passengers, those 20% complainers would then be complaining about the cruise line putting them at risk.

 

Deciding to dock a cruise ship in a port isn't like going the downtown to do a little shopping. It's not like they leave it to the last minute to decide which ports they will visit. Most ports require advance reservations, especially considering the logistics of handling hundreds of passengers suddenly swooping down on port facilities. Some ports may be more adaptable to last minute arrangements, but many are not, especially if the ports don't see cruise ships very often and don't have dedicated facilities to serve them.

 

I understand your disappointment, but instead of complaining about missed ports, be grateful that the company put your safety above revenue.

[dmacp]

I understand your disappointment, but instead of complaining about missed ports, be grateful that the company put your safety above revenue.

 

Way to miss the point.

 

No one blames them for cancelling the ports, just their lack of imagination in dealing with the situation, and their lack of any offsetting compensation that we heard of from other lines. And it didn't hurt their revenue one bit. They got their money from us and we got much less than we signed on for.

 

Plus they cancelled these ports only days after the cancellation period despite cancelling these exact ports for later cruises.

[kazu]

We sailed from Athens to Istanbul on OCEANIA's May 29 th trip on the Black Sea.

OCEANIA had cancelled all 3 Ukraine ports (Sebastopol, Yalta and Odessa) but replaced none!! They added a SEA DAY, then overnight in Constanta, allowing to sell ridiculously pricy tours to Bucarest and Transsylvania, and then taking us back to Istanbul one day early!

In fact, our 12 days/10 ports of call cruise became an 11 days/7 ports of call cruise! All this with no acknowledgement that this could be upsetting to passangers and no compensation wathsoever.

Passangers were so upset, that's all we talked about for the first few days onboard, ruining the cruise atmosphere!

After over 20% of passengers complained to the concierge and General Manager, the Captain finally acknowledged the problem. But from OCEANIA's Head Office? NOTHING!

We were all upset about not getting what we paid for, ie. 12 days and 10 ports of call and felt we should have been compensated in another way if they were too lazy to find alternative ports (which they did on their July sailing!!).

What do you think and what did your cruise line do for you?

 

We are sailing in a couple of months on the PRinsendam (HAL). They also cancelled our Ukraine ports. They replaced them with Batumi, Trabzon and Cesme and gave us an obc of $150.

 

They have no control over danger, so we thought it was fair.