Roll call for Oceania (Outrageous Outback, Feb 3, 2020)

[Tansy Mews]

It seems that roll calls are quieter than they used to be. Do you think that people don't use them as much because of oLife excursions? Or is there another way of connecting that I don't know about? 
 

My roll call for Feb 3, 2020, Sydney to Auckland (Outrageous Outback) is disappointingly quiet because I am looking for fellow travellers to join in an excursion or two with me. The ship seems fairly full already. Perhaps I am being too impatient!

https://boards.cruisecritic.com/topic/2624526-february-3-2020-sydney-to-auckland-outrageous-outback/

 

Frances

[LHT28]

O think it has a lot to to do with the O Life excursions

 is your cruise part of  a GV ?

I see another Roll call same name

https://boards.cruisecritic.com/topic/2639559-january-6-2020-sydney-to-auckland-outrageous-outback/

[Tansy Mews]

Thanks. There are two cruises with the same name. One is in January and one in February 2020. Oceania does offer a Grand Voyage version of my February cruise that goes on to Papeete. There is no roll call for that one though. A good thought though that if there were, that might be attracting them. Getting excited about the cruise!

 

Frances

[LHT28]

It gets confusing  when they do B2B2B 

 

people get confused on which roll call to go with

Here is the Feb 17th  RC

https://boards.cruisecritic.com/topic/2534200-february-17-2020-quotstunning-south-pacificquot-18-days-from-auckland-to-papeete/

[Paulchili]

Frances,

I agree that roll calls are not what they used to be most of the time.

Granted, our cruise is not till May but we just started page 2 and have fewer than 10 posters (the OP cancelled the cruise) and no tours have been organized.

Maybe O Life is part of this.

[donaldsc]

19 hours ago, LHT28 said:

O think it has a lot to to do with the O Life excursions

 is your cruise part of  a GV ?

I see another Roll call same name

https://boards.cruisecritic.com/topic/2639559-january-6-2020-sydney-to-auckland-outrageous-outback/

 

You may be right although taking ship tours versus private tours are completely different experiences.  I will be taking my first Oceania cruise in a year or so and I hopefully do not have to take any ship tours.  With a ToursbyLocals private tour, I can do exactly what I want on a tour instead of what Oceania or any other cruise line thinks I want.  Also, I can keep my costs down while still keeping my group size to 8 people or less.  Can any cruise company's tours match this.

 

Hopefully when I get my tours together and post them, there will be enough action on the Roll Call to fill them up.

 

DON

Edited September 1, 2019 by donaldsc

[LHT28]

5 minutes ago, donaldsc said:

 

You may be right although taking ship tours versus private tours are completely different experiences.  I will be taking my first Oceania cruise in a year or so and I hopefully do not have to take any ship tours.  With a ToursbyLocals private tour, I can do exactly what I want on a tour instead of what Oceania or any other cruise line thinks I want.  Also, I can keep my costs down while still keeping my group size to 8 people or less.  Can any cruise company's tours match this.

 

Hopefully when I get my tours together and post them, there will be enough action on the Roll Call to fill them up.

 

DON

We do not do ships tours  but in the past we have  had good response on private tours with local guides  that said  the past couple of years it has been a struggle  to get enough people to join a private tour

I wish you luck 

 

[Paulchili]

31 minutes ago, donaldsc said:

Hopefully when I get my tours together and post them, there will be enough action on the Roll Call to fill them up.

That is the whole point of this thread - lack of participation on roll calls and interest in sharing private tours.

Most of us agree that smaller private tours are preferable to ship’s tours - generally speaking - but only if one can find enough people to share the cost as otherwise private tours can be very expensive.

I have booked 2 private tours with Spain Day tours that have a minimum of 10 people required to operate and nobody has joined me so far. If that doesn’t change - no private tour for me 😪

Good luck on your roll call.

Edited September 1, 2019 by Paulchili

[Tansy Mews]

I am finding that there is less choice now for oLife tours. For example, on my cruise, for Dunedin, there are 6 tours offered, but only half are oLife. For Akaroa, there are 7 tours, and 4 are for oLife. These range in length from 2 hours to 4 hours. A few years ago, I got great oLife tours, I think.

 

Frances

[LHT28]

maybe time to do away with O life tours  😉

 

What did people do before  O Life 😲

[Mura]

Those of us who wanted private tours booked them and didn't have much of a problem in finding others to join us ...

 

And people who preferred ship's tours took them ...

 

It's a new game in town now.  On our two most recent tours I found it harder to find people to share on tours I booked, but it wasn't impossible.  But the last tour was in May 2018 so ...

 

Mura

[deus]

CC needs to fix the roll call.  I posted our Marina - September 2020 cruise to the Baltic countries and you have to go searching for it.  I have asked CC I think twice could they put the roll call properly in to the roll call and not where everyone is making comments.  They have not done it yet.  I think it has been five months now.  This could be the problem - people can't find their roll calls!

[Rumpymuffin]

+1. Cruise Critic says they're working on fixing the Roll Call Finder tool and will us know when it's fixed. 

[donaldsc]

6 hours ago, LHT28 said:

We do not do ships tours  but in the past we have  had good response on private tours with local guides  that said  the past couple of years it has been a struggle  to get enough people to join a private tour

I wish you luck 

 

 

The Oceania cruise that I will be taking will be my first Oceania cruise so I do not know that much about the tours that they offer.  The cruise is too far out for tours to be posted yet.  I do have a couple of questions about them however. 

 

What are typical costs of the tours;

How many people are typically on the smaller group tours as Oceania does not seem to say in their tour descriptions;

How long are most of the tours.

 

I can find ToursbyLocals tours at most of the places that we are going to visit that would cost a maximum of $150 per person for a 6 hour tour for 6 people.  If the guide can handle it and I am willing to take 8 people, the costs of course drop.  Ignoring the obvious advantages of a 6 person tour, I can't imagine that Oceania can match these values and flexibility.  

 

We shall see when I post the tours.

 

DON

[Paulchili]

14 minutes ago, donaldsc said:

The Oceania cruise that I will be taking will be my first Oceania cruise so I do not know that much about the tours that they offer.  The cruise is too far out for tours to be posted yet.  I do have a couple of questions about them however

If you can find the same or similar itinerary in the near future, you can see the actual tours and prices for those ports.

There is no question that private tours with smaller groups and customized itinerary are preferred to ship's tours by most people.

Sometimes those are not easy to find in some ports or sometimes you cannot get the 6 or 8 people to join you.

I am looking for people to join me on some very common tours (Seville out of Cadiz & Santiago de Compostela out of La Coruna) and haven't found a single soul as yet 😥

Edited September 2, 2019 by Paulchili

[LHT28]

DON

 I agree with Paul look for  the same ports  for any upcoming cruises  & compare  the tours  sometimes you will see prices 

Rarely  do they vary from yr to yr

https://www.oceaniacruises.com/shore-excursions/#all

 

I have not used Tours by locals   the few I looked at were restrictive   as they had no vehicle  so you had to pay to rent one  in one case

others were walking tours 

I usually find local guides  via CC or Trip Advisor   that are recommended by others ..so far  it has worked for me

Enjoy the cruise

 

 

[Andee]

I started a Roll Call for our August, 2020 cruise; no one has responded. 

Fortunately, we are travelling with another couple and can make up our own (very) small group. We opted out of OLife. 

Generally,  I prefer booking directly with local tour operators, rather than 3rd party sellers like Viator or Tours by Locals.

Edited September 2, 2019 by Andee
Typo

[donaldsc]

3 hours ago, LHT28 said:

DON

 I agree with Paul look for  the same ports  for any upcoming cruises  & compare  the tours  sometimes you will see prices 

Rarely  do they vary from yr to yr

https://www.oceaniacruises.com/shore-excursions/#all

 

I have not used Tours by locals   the few I looked at were restrictive   as they had no vehicle  so you had to pay to rent one  in one case

others were walking tours 

I usually find local guides  via CC or Trip Advisor   that are recommended by others ..so far  it has worked for me

Enjoy the cruise

 

 

 

Didn't realize that you can do a global search for tours.  Thanks.

 

DON

[Mura]

I usually start out by googling "tour guides in (name the port)" and going from there.  We have used a few ToursbyLocals and they were good, but also tended to be more expensive.  I can depend on the port.

 

Context is excellent for walking tours.  They are expensive but the few we've taken have been wonderful.  They have recently expanded by doing more extensive tours, especially in places like Israel.  You can book per person (with a larger group that they put together) or for a small group that you arrange.  One of the best tours we've ever had was their "food tour" in Istanbul.

 

And of course, as Lyn says, Trip Advisor can make suggestions and the reviews from other passengers can be invaluable.

 

There has been a  thread in recent months asking for recommendations of Joe Bananas Tours -- we did a couple of them in Italy recently and they were excellent.

 

Mura

[susiesan]

I started roll call for Jan. 25, 2020 Sirena cruise Mayan Mosaic,one of the substitute for cancelled Cuba cruises. I know the ship isn't very much sold but no one has signed on to the roll call.

 

I have another O cruise booked for June 26, 2020 Baltic Legacies Copenhagen to Stockholm. No one has started a roll call yet. 

[ORV]

Much of the problem is the Roll Call search tool CC added a couple of years or so ago. It completely backfired, doesn't work right, confuses people. It was actually after they put it in that participation on the Roll Calls went down, not just on Oceania but the other 2 cruise lines I've been on since they added that feature. I think a lot of people use Roll Calls for more than just private tours. 

 

The Roll Call that we have coming up for our Marina cruise in a couple of weeks is actually one of the better ones I've seen lately. It has over 60 CC ids(120+ people) signed up for the Roll Call and 45 pages of conversation. The interesting thing is that less than 10 of the ID's are ones that you would recognize. 

[Paulchili]

17 minutes ago, ORV said:

The interesting thing is that less than 10 of the ID's are ones that you would recognize. 

I find that to be true (and strange) as well.

You would think that you would recognize most people on the roll call from the O forum but that is not the case for majority.

It's like O forum & roll call live in parallel universes 🙂 

[LHT28]

Some  rely  on the tool finder & do not scroll through the roll call list  looking for their sailing

Some post  under the heading of the ship name in the roll call area but not in the specific roll call

CC has not set  up a good way to avoid people posting in the roll call area  nor  setting up a roll call with the correct date format  so it ends up on the RC Listing

It very confusing for some

JMO