Celebrity needs to offer a World Cruise in 2022

[vulcan1971]

3 hours ago, ORV said:

I don't know about other cruise lines but with Oceania there is a set of perks that comes with booking the world cruise. Among them is free laundry, free medical care, free Visas, First class air to embarking and disembarking port, included hotel at the start, Free shipping of your luggage to ship and back home, being at the Gold Level of their Loyalty club when you step on the ship, even if you've never been on them before, which comes with it's own set of perks which are refreshed for each segment, or under most circumstance 15 times for a 180 day cruise. Unlike most cruise lines where you have to actually already have sailed the days to earn the loyalty level, with Oceania it's whatever you would earn by the end of the trip, which for a World cruise is 15 segments. 

 

No wonder it's so expensive, you could buy a small house or a really nice car for what it takes to book an inside(which I wouldn't do) for the WC. 

 

Hello @ORV - Thank you for sharing the information in your post. I've looked at Oceania for a long time and have a couple of questions to seek further clarification to the highlighted section above.

 

1. Are you indicating that a passenger (new to Oceania) booking a World Cruise would embark the ship with Gold level status?

 

2. Upon completion of a World Cruise, what status would a new cruiser retain?

 

3. Given that you only get a 10% discount on the beverage packages (through Platinum), I'm guessing that this is not a deal breaker for cruisers when considering whether to purchase of a drinks package? Or do guests generally not buy the package?

 

Feel free to elaborate further as you see fit.

[chemmo]

23 hours ago, mrsgoggins said:

All of the long-distance cruises we have looked at, the ships have had an on-board laundry room for passenger use, something which Celebrity does not have.  The laundry room on Viking ships is free to use and (environment friendly) detergent is automatically dispensed -  included in your $100,000 fare 😁. Despite having the free bag of laundry each with Celebrity, we rarely use it - I do not want anyone washing my not-so-smalls and this lack of facility would make Celebrity a no-no even if I were interested 😉.

 

The last consideration for me on looking at a word cruise would be washing my clothes! A beautiful ship and a fantastic itinerary is what I would be looking at. Happy with someone else doing my washing, a washing machine or worse case scenario every room on a ship has a sink to rinse essentials in and a shower to let them drip dry in!

[mrsgoggins]

39 minutes ago, chemmo said:

 

The last consideration for me on looking at a word cruise would be washing my clothes! A beautiful ship and a fantastic itinerary is what I would be looking at. Happy with someone else doing my washing, a washing machine or worse case scenario every room on a ship has a sink to rinse essentials in and a shower to let them drip dry in!

 

And washing clothes in a sink (you do not just 'rinse' underwear I suspect) is the last thing I would want to be doing regularly on a long cruise!  There are beautiful ships with guest laundries - just not Celebrity - but fully understand your point of view 😉

[chemmo]

52 minutes ago, mrsgoggins said:

 

And washing clothes in a sink (you do not just 'rinse' underwear I suspect) is the last thing I would want to be doing regularly on a long cruise!  There are beautiful ships with guest laundries - just not Celebrity - but fully understand your point of view 😉

 

No I wouldn’t really want to be washing my clothes in the sink but I am happy to use the free laundry bag!

 

Fabrics nowadays are so much lighter and need much less care than they used to. My cruise clothes now (including posh frock!) don’t need any pressing and my husband’s M &S soft fabric shirts are great too. Add on the fact that cruise dress is less formal than it used to be and washing is less of an issue.

 

I remember a post a year or so ago where a man had priced up individual item washing on Celebrity and decided to board with enough cheap socks and underwear for the voyage and just bin them after use! I guess for a world cruise you would need a large case for your smalls if you did this!!!

 

Edited August 4, 2020 by chemmo

[ORV]

14 hours ago, vulcan1971 said:

 

Hello @ORV - Thank you for sharing the information in your post. I've looked at Oceania for a long time and have a couple of questions to seek further clarification to the highlighted section above.

 

1. Are you indicating that a passenger (new to Oceania) booking a World Cruise would embark the ship with Gold level status?

 

2. Upon completion of a World Cruise, what status would a new cruiser retain?

 

3. Given that you only get a 10% discount on the beverage packages (through Platinum), I'm guessing that this is not a deal breaker for cruisers when considering whether to purchase of a drinks package? Or do guests generally not buy the package?

 

Feel free to elaborate further as you see fit.

Yes, with Oceania you would be Gold in their program if you booked a World Cruise. There is a considerable amount of OBC that would go with that for 15 segments as well as included gratuities. As one of the perks of the World cruise is already included grats you would get an additional $250 per segment to make up for the gratuity perk that you get once you have 10 cruises(Silver) with them. So that would be an additional $250 x 15 + $3750. Also being Gold you would get $400 per segment in OBC which would give you another $6000 for the cruise once you step on board. 

 

At the end of the World cruise you would retain the Gold Status. There are some people that have done 2 world cruises with them and in short time are pretty high in the program. We've had to work 10 years to get there. 

 

As far as the drink package goes. They have an option called Olife that gives you the choice of either their basic drink package, or a certain number of excursions(with limitations), or OBC. There is an additional charge to book with the Olife. Keep in mind the basic drink package only covers wine and beer with meals. The full prestige package is another $20 a day per person. Taking the OBC as the Olife perk is generally never a good idea because the cost of booking with Olife generally equals the amount of OBC. So you are trading real money for Non Refundable OBC. I can't figure out how that would make sense to anyone, yet some people choose that option. 

 

As far as the 10% discount I never really worry about it as I generally get the basic package and upgrade, or I take the excursions depending on the itinerary. Some people buy the package, some take it as a perk, some people show up for the 2 for 1 happy hour. Oceania is also one of those cruise line that doesn't care about people bringing on their own bottle for in room consumption. Although it's not really allowed in their guidelines they have an on ship attitude of whatever you want to bring on at embarkation or at ports is ok. 

 

Probably more information than you were seeking, but it's not a simple explanation. 

 

 

[vulcan1971]

2 minutes ago, ORV said:

Probably more information than you were seeking, but it's not a simple explanation. 

 

@ORV - This was the perfect amount of information!  🙂 Thank you so much for sharing.

[kelmac]

I don't think I would consider another World Cruise unless I could score it for less than $18,000 per person.  The added perks from the luxury lines really don't add up financially.  I know, many of you believe that free business class air, drink packages, prepaid gratuities, OBC, free laundry, and free internet are worth the extra $30,000 per person, but not me.

 

Kel😁