Oceania's TOO Confusing...

[LHT28]

1 hour ago, Ride-The-Waves said:

Looked at the website options for tours.  Just picking one country on our 14-stop trans-Atlantic, the confusion remains.  Looks like Oceania is "forcing" us to rely on non-ship tours - which is okay by us.  Just don't understand why they make something simple so difficult.

What cruise are you looking at that has 14 stops  on a TA??

 That must a long cruise

[chloemonkey]

On 4/22/2022 at 5:01 AM, Ride-The-Waves said:

Thanks.  Great suggestions all.  We have already purchased flights MIA-FCO Business on TAP.  The itinerary lists 14 stops, many we have been to and look forward to visiting again, and some we don't need to see again.  Still confusing to me why a company like Oceania, which prides itself on great service and culinary experience, would enjoy confusing its "guests" in this way.  One price for shore excursion!  Who ever designed this cumbersome and irresponsible pricing system is not doing either the company or its passengers any favors.

I agree....just hope that one day it makes sense to me as it seems to do for others....

 

[Hawaiidan]

1 hour ago, Silver Sweethearts said:

We're curious why you are so critical of those who choose to spend their money on suites and luxury cruise lines?  We earned our money the hard way - by working for it - and we see no reason to be put down for that. 

I am not critical of people who get suites.  ...   My point is when you can spend 50-75K for 2 weeks where money is no object. Getting points, perks is a non issue.       To many   they do stuff because they can...   If you feel  . you can live a life  without limits  because you can.... more power to you   It sounds like, however, you feel a bit sensitive that you can...... and people are  looking at you.    Only you are doing that. 

 

  .     

[Ride-The-Waves]

2 hours ago, LHT28 said:

What cruise are you looking at that has 14 stops  on a TA??

 That must a long cruise

Rome to Miami - 23 days leaving 11 November.   

[LHT28]

57 minutes ago, Ride-The-Waves said:

Rome to Miami - 23 days leaving 11 November.   

Nice

 Did you choose the OLife excursions? Is that what is confusing you?

If you want ships excursions I would just choose the excursions you want to  do  it will all work out

Or just  book your own private tours

You are not forced to take the ships tours now  AFAIK

Enjoy

[Silver Sweethearts]

6 hours ago, Hawaiidan said:

I am not critical of people who get suites.  ...   My point is when you can spend 50-75K for 2 weeks where money is no object. Getting points, perks is a non issue.       To many   they do stuff because they can...   If you feel  . you can live a life  without limits  because you can.... more power to you   It sounds like, however, you feel a bit sensitive that you can...... and people are  looking at you.    Only you are doing that.    

Hmmm... Let's see...

 

"Spend 50-75K for two weeks where money is no object." - Nice thought, but not so.

 

"Getting points, perks is a non-issue." - Do like the perks and would miss them, so guess , however minor, that they are an issue.

 

"If you feel you can live a life without limits because you can...more power to you."  Heck, if that were so we would have our own yacht.

 

"It sounds like, however, you feel a bit sensitive that you can...and people are looking at you."  Doubtful, very doubtful.  Gave us a chuckle though.

 

 

 

 

 

[Pizzasteve]

21 hours ago, Hawaiidan said:

All good points.....   I would add, that for me,  I found Regent  passengers very different from O passengers and not in a good way.   

We enjoyed our fellow passengers on both lines and didnt see much difference, but only one cruise each, so maybe it was different sorts who choose the repositioning transatlantic voyages.

 

The differences we felt were with the Regent hotel operations and excursions staff, who seemed to have an attitude that a first time passenger on their line was an inferior client to their preferred multi-cruise 'whale' customers (by whale I mean like poker table high spenders, not waistline size).  Passengers were very welcoming, though a very nice asian family complained of some perceived racism in how they were treated in some situations which was shared with me during hot tub talk.

 

I would gladly talk about our experience, but no one at NCL followed up on our survey comments.  Apparently another gentleman in the hot tub was having dinner with a board member, so I figure their situation (and our more minor issues) were shared with someone who could do something. Overall we loved our NCL owned cruise experiences.

 

In general I think both the lines try hard to continuously improve.  Some of the challenges seem to be that each ship has its own quirks and hierarchy of personalities in charge, so experiences can vary.  Obviously passengers change too and one bad egg can spoil a meal, so to speak. Also, pandemic related turnover seems to have impacted operations in some areas.

 

PS  Something to keep in mind is that stops can be cancelled or changed due to weather, etc.  My sister was on the Miami to Rome, 15 day, this month and several port changes occured.  So keep in mind that some excursions can end up refunded or need changes, depending on circumstances,

Edited April 25, 2022 by Pizzasteve

[Hawaiidan]

59 minutes ago, Pizzasteve said:

We enjoyed our fellow passengers on both lines and didnt see much difference, but only one cruise each, so maybe it was different sorts who choose the repositioning transatlantic voyages.

 

The differences we felt were with the Regent hotel operations and excursions staff, who seemed to have an attitude that a first time passenger on their line was an inferior client to their preferred multi-cruise 'whale' customers (by whale I mean like poker table high spenders, not waistline size).  Passengers were very welcoming, though a very nice asian family complained of some perceived racism in how they were treated in some situations which was shared with me during hot tub talk.

 

I would gladly talk about our experience, but no one at NCL followed up on our survey comments.  Apparently another gentleman in the hot tub was having dinner with a board member, so I figure their situation (and our more minor issues) were shared with someone who could do something. Overall we loved our NCL owned cruise experiences.

 

In general I think both the lines try hard to continuously improve.  Some of the challenges seem to be that each ship has its own quirks and hierarchy of personalities in charge, so experiences can vary.  Obviously passengers change too and one bad egg can spoil a meal, so to speak. Also, pandemic related turnover seems to have impacted operations in some areas.

 

PS  Something to keep in mind is that stops can be cancelled or changed due to weather, etc.  My sister was on the Miami to Rome, 15 day, this month and several port changes occured.  So keep in mind that some excursions can end up refunded or need changes, depending on circumstances,

I made my call as to regent  after  some 80 days aboard over 3 years....  I saw a distinct change in who was showing up on board.....       Just a non scientific observation from the peanut gallery....Not my cup of tea.   

[piper28]

I know the people that have done Oceania don't necessarily find it that confusing, but the OP definitely has a point - for someone that isn't used to Oceania, there are a number of places that they seem to go out of the way to make things difficult to figure out what the costs are.  They could be a lot more transparent.

 

As for the shore excursions, I know for me, it took quite a bit to figure my way through what those pricings meant.  They could make life a lot easier for people by including a link right next to those acronyms they list for the prices to what those actually mean.  Instead, you have to go hunting through the website to eventually find some explanations.

 

And I have to admit, I found the idea of there being 3 different prices to be pretty weird myself.  It made sense once I finally figured out what they meant, but that wasn't something I felt was easy to figure out.  And to add to the confusion, when you do the YWC pricing, when you get to where it summarizes the cost, the page is just plain wrong (in our case, rather than it showing discounts on each excursion, it took the total discount price off one of the excursions, then still had a wrong total per person, but then showed the proper total for what it should have cost, absolutely ridiculous that this isn't done correctly).  Then of course you have the "unlimited" option, where they've clearly been talking to cell phone companies about the concept of unlimited, because you pay a fee, then pay more if you book excursions over a certain price (um, unlimited? nope, obviously not).  

 

(Hmm, adding, ok, they do have a spot above the port listing where there's a brief description of the acronyms.  I still think it would be worth having that link out to somewhere that goes into it in more detail - especially for the unlimited where they don't mention restrictions there).

 

 

So yeah, I can definitely see why people could get confused by this.  And if your TA isn't someone that basically specializes in Oceania, they might not be in much better of a position to know anything.

Edited April 25, 2022 by piper28

[Ski Mom 2]

21 hours ago, piper28 said:

I know the people that have done Oceania don't necessarily find it that confusing, but the OP definitely has a point - for someone that isn't used to Oceania, there are a number of places that they seem to go out of the way to make things difficult to figure out what the costs are.  They could be a lot more transparent.

 

As for the shore excursions, I know for me, it took quite a bit to figure my way through what those pricings meant.  They could make life a lot easier for people by including a link right next to those acronyms they list for the prices to what those actually mean.  Instead, you have to go hunting through the website to eventually find some explanations.

 

And I have to admit, I found the idea of there being 3 different prices to be pretty weird myself.  It made sense once I finally figured out what they meant, but that wasn't something I felt was easy to figure out.  And to add to the confusion, when you do the YWC pricing, when you get to where it summarizes the cost, the page is just plain wrong (in our case, rather than it showing discounts on each excursion, it took the total discount price off one of the excursions, then still had a wrong total per person, but then showed the proper total for what it should have cost, absolutely ridiculous that this isn't done correctly).  Then of course you have the "unlimited" option, where they've clearly been talking to cell phone companies about the concept of unlimited, because you pay a fee, then pay more if you book excursions over a certain price (um, unlimited? nope, obviously not).  

 

(Hmm, adding, ok, they do have a spot above the port listing where there's a brief description of the acronyms.  I still think it would be worth having that link out to somewhere that goes into it in more detail - especially for the unlimited where they don't mention restrictions there).

 

 

So yeah, I can definitely see why people could get confused by this.  And if your TA isn't someone that basically specializes in Oceania, they might not be in much better of a position to know anything.

We are first timers to O (but not to cruising) and I am trying to sort through the shore excursion dilemma today. The numbers do not add up in the YW column and it's driving me crazy. Your thoughts that they take the discount off one is right on for me now that you pointed it out. However there is still a $66 discrepancy between the shore excursion total and the amount due. I've got a call in to my O rep but I want to be able to do this (some tours already sold out) and it frustrates me that it is so confusing. In addition, the Unlimited doesn't really make any sense either on my screen; I've got different pricing than what the tours say, nowhere where the initial fee is shown, etc. Hopefully my O rep calls soon...

[1985rz1]

14 minutes ago, Ski Mom 2 said:

We are first timers to O (but not to cruising) and I am trying to sort through the shore excursion dilemma today. The numbers do not add up in the YW column and it's driving me crazy. Your thoughts that they take the discount off one is right on for me now that you pointed it out. However there is still a $66 discrepancy between the shore excursion total and the amount due. I've got a call in to my O rep but I want to be able to do this (some tours already sold out) and it frustrates me that it is so confusing. In addition, the Unlimited doesn't really make any sense either on my screen; I've got different pricing than what the tours say, nowhere where the initial fee is shown, etc. Hopefully my O rep calls soon...

O's excursion cart has been known to be periodically screwy.  For one of our cruises, the pricing in the cart, even after one started the checkout process, was totally crazy.  We had our TA make the booking.  On another cruise, it was just fine.  We always check the cart's pricing as you did.

Edited April 26, 2022 by 1985rz1

[Flatbush Flyer]

1 minute ago, 1985rz1 said:

O's excursion cart has been known to be periodically screwy.  For one of our cruises, the pricing in the cart, even after one started the checkout process, was totally crazy.  We had our TA make the booking.  We always check the cart's pricing as you did.

The numbers in the individual prices in the Cart’s right hand column are most often the regular list prices even when you click YWYW. And there’s the occasional weird price from nowhere next to one or two tours (a glitch).

However, the bottom line of the Cart should agree with your correct math done independently. Note as well that, if you have chosen the O Life excursions perk, the Cart will automatically assign the complimentary allotment of the highest priced allowable ones (e.g., first priority) so that the bottom line in the Cart should only show the total cost of all paid tours less 25%. Note that this is one spot where it’s easy for you to make an error in which/how many O Life tours get assigned O (or you mistake a non-allowable OS/OE tour for O Life). Also, if you used the Shore Excursions PDF (you got with your O invoice) for the price info, check it against the actual excusions shopping pricing on your Obweb account for that cruise. As useful as the PDF is for choosing the tours (far better than the web), it is not always the latest version and the web prices, tour description and even availability may be different (and correct) on your web account shopping pages.

 

If the Cart bottom line doesn’t jive with correct math, call O direct and purchase the tours from the rep. 

 

I suggest that you not use your TA for this since many TAs have little (if any) knowledge of the idiosyncratic rules and practices of the mix of O Life and YWYW. Tours are one thing you can buy/cancel direct even when you have booked with a TA.

The other benefit of the direct purchase is that, if you really need to see the math, you can ask the O Rep to directly send to you the “prepurchased shore excursions” PDF which shows all the math involved in the transaction. 
(that doc is different than the “preselected shore excursions” pdf which is just a list of your tours).

Some of the O reps may say that you need to get that from your TA. But, nicely remind them that this is a purchase you’re making directly with O. If that doesn’t work, ask for them to send it to the TA and make sure that your TA always forwards to you every document sent to them regarding your booking with the exception of the TA’s copy of your O invoice. Their copy includes the commission info that is not included on your version. 

[Ski Mom 2]

I called O (my TA recommended which rep to call) and she has taken care of all our shore excursions and sent me a list with all the pricing etc. She too admitted it can be very confusing and what she sees and what I can see were not always the same. I'm just happy she was able to help me figure this process out for the best price!

 

Thanks to everyone for their help!

[1985rz1]

27 minutes ago, Flatbush Flyer said:

The numbers in the individual prices in the Cart’s right hand column are most often the regular list prices even when you click YWYW. And there’s the occasional weird price from nowhere next to one or two tours (a glitch).

However, the bottom line of the Cart should agree with your correct math done independently. Note as well that, if you have chosen the O Life excursions perk, the Cart will automatically assign the complimentary allotment of the highest priced allowable ones (e.g., first priority) so that the bottom line in the Cart should only show the total cost of all paid tours less 25%. Note that this is one spot where it’s easy for you to make an error in which/how many O Life tours get assigned O (or you mistake a non-allowable OS/OE tour for O Life). Also, if you used the Shore Excursions PDF (you got with your O invoice) for the price info, check it against the actual excusions shopping pricing on your Obweb account for that cruise. As useful as the PDF is for choosing the tours (far better than the web), it is not always the latest version and the web prices, tour description and even availability may be different (and correct) on your web account shopping pages.

 

If the Cart bottom line doesn’t jive with correct math, call O direct and purchase the tours from the rep. 

 

I suggest that you not use your TA for this since many TAs have little (if any) knowledge of the idiosyncratic rules and practices of the mix of O Life and YWYW. Tours are one thing you can buy/cancel direct even when you have booked with a TA.

The other benefit of the direct purchase is that, if you really need to see the math, you can ask the O Rep to directly send to you the “prepurchased shore excursions” PDF which shows all the math involved in the transaction. 
(that doc is different than the “preselected shore excursions” pdf which is just a list of your tours).

Some of the O reps may say that you need to get that from your TA. But, nicely remind them that this is a purchase you’re making directly with O. If that doesn’t work, ask for them to send it to the TA and make sure that your TA always forwards to you every document sent to them regarding your booking with the exception of the TA’s copy of your O invoice. Their copy includes the commission info that is not included on your version. 

The cart bottom line did not match.  I use TA who is an experienced O Connoisseur and  who knows the rules and practices OLife and YWC (your YWYW). She has demonstrated that experience previously.  Nevertheless, just so there would be no misunderstanding, I emailed her a spreadsheet with the details: excursions, excursion numbers, list price, which ones would be covered by OLife, the YWC pricing of the others, and the bottom line.  Her booking was right on.  

 

True some TAs may not get it, but I have learned the skills of ours and found I can trust her.

Edited April 26, 2022 by 1985rz1

[pinotlover]

When we’ve had issues our TA has always taken care of it.In fact, on one cruise were issues were abundantly happening, she emailed everyone asking them to have her do the tour bookings. It was less effort for her to do it upfront than to straighten out the mess afterwards.

 

We have a TA and know how to use her. Unlike for other posters here, a TA’s sole purpose is not providing kickbacks.

Edited April 26, 2022 by pinotlover

[1985rz1]

28 minutes ago, pinotlover said:

When we’ve had issues our TA has always taken care of it.In fact, on one cruise were issues were abundantly happening, she emailed everyone asking them to have her do the tour bookings. It was less effort for her to do it upfront than to straighten out the mess afterwards.

 

We have a TA and know how to use her. Unlike for other posters here, a TA’s sole purpose is not providing kickbacks.

I agree.  There's more to a good TA than simply a discount provider.

 

BTW, I believe our TA deals with a dedicated contact at O, and shore excursions are booked through that contact. I could be wrong, but in talking with her that seems to be the procedure.

[pinotlover]

1 hour ago, 1985rz1 said:

I agree.  There's more to a good TA than simply a discount provider.

 

BTW, I believe our TA deals with a dedicated contact at O, and shore excursions are booked through that contact. I could be wrong, but in talking with her that seems to be the procedure.

Absolutely. Oceania has a set of Regional reps that are assigned to , and work exclusively with, various Travel agencies and their Agents. Those reps do not deal with the passengers directly. Those reps are far more knowledgeable and experienced than the 1-800 group people get on the phone.

 

 

[piper28]

4 hours ago, Ski Mom 2 said:

We are first timers to O (but not to cruising) and I am trying to sort through the shore excursion dilemma today. The numbers do not add up in the YW column and it's driving me crazy. Your thoughts that they take the discount off one is right on for me now that you pointed it out. However there is still a $66 discrepancy between the shore excursion total and the amount due. 

 

I found that the individual sub total that they showed for each of the two people for us was higher than it should be.  The Total that was then listed further down was actually correct.  I spent a lot of time adding various combinations of numbers together trying to figure out what was going on.

 

For that matter, the summary that was emailed to me is also wrong, showing the higher number in the per-person spot that we saw when checking out (in our case, it was $806).  The amount charged to my credit card was the right amount, which is also what the correct *total* was on the checkout page, which was $1109 - which was the $1509 correct total, minus the $400 onboard credit.  (Our proper total per person was like 754.50)

[Flatbush Flyer]

3 hours ago, 1985rz1 said:

The cart bottom line did not match.  I use TA who is an experienced O Connoisseur and  who knows the rules and practices OLife and YWC (your YWYW). She has demonstrated that experience previously.  Nevertheless, just so there would be no misunderstanding, I emailed her a spreadsheet with the details: excursions, excursion numbers, list price, which ones would be covered by OLife, the YWC pricing of the others, and the bottom line.  Her booking was right on.  

 

True some TAs may not get it, but I have learned the skills of ours and found I can trust her.

That’s good news.

That prepurchased excursions pdf will confirm the math. Always good to have one.

[piper28]

3 hours ago, pinotlover said:

When we’ve had issues our TA has always taken care of it.In fact, on one cruise were issues were abundantly happening, she emailed everyone asking them to have her do the tour bookings. It was less effort for her to do it upfront than to straighten out the mess afterwards.

 

We have a TA and know how to use her. Unlike for other posters here, a TA’s sole purpose is not providing kickbacks.

 

I've got to be honest, I would never even think of talking to a TA to deal with booking shore excursions, it's just something that *should* be pretty simple.  Oceania just needs to fix things so that it shows properly.

 

(And calling a TA to work on it in this case is likely to only work out well if that TA is experienced with Oceania.  In my case, the TA I used to use for cruises retired during the pandemic, and while she worked for one of the larger places online, I suspect from what she tended to book she'd have been pretty knowledgeable.  The one that I've used for the last few cruises I've been less satisfied with, and probably will need to start looking for a new one.  That said, I haven't really decided where my cruising is going to be going forward either, so picking one that specializes in a particular cruise line might not be the best option right now. )