Oceania Excursions

[LHT28]

1 hour ago, meg1021 said:

I just booked our excursions this morning on the phone with an Oceania Rep, using this example, and she agreed that it's the best choice, but when I gave her the specific excursions, in the end, she said that using the Your World discount, and available OBC would result in a better deal for us. 

 

Do you have SBC  from your TA or another source??

Did you choose O Life Excursions as your perk?

I am confused 

 

[meg1021]

16 minutes ago, LHT28 said:

Do you have SBC  from your TA or another source??

Did you choose O Life Excursions as your perk?

I am confused 

 

Put me in the "confused" category as well.  We chose the O Life perk of $800 OBC.  The O rep said that she would work out the best deal for us, and thought that would be taking 8 shore excursions instead, then using those as part of the required # to get the YW discount.  She ran a whole bunch of $ totals by me, and said that in the end, taking the OBC option of O Life was better.  I told her that I was confused, and asked for an itemized receipt/confirmation of her analysis.  Instead I got an email with an invoice showing how much my credit card was charged (not really useful, since I can find that out myself).  I need to call Oceania again and ask specifically for some document which breaks down the final cost of each excursion.  That doesn't seem like such an extravagant request to make.  Many other cruise lines make this so easy to do, that I would be able to book everything online myself, without an O rep doing the calculations for me.  BTW, we booked 8 excursions/pp on one segment (required # is 6/pp), and 9 excursions/pp on another segment (required # is 8/pp).  I haven't book all ports yet, because my kids want to book and excursion or two for us as a Christmas gift ( and I wanted them get the best possible price for the excursions, which would presumably be YW pricing).

 

If you have any advice to make this easier for me, please let me know.  We did book through a TA, but have been having issues with her, since our airfare was not as requested, and she's working on that, so I don't want to involve her in another issue, just to get more frustrated with another aspect of planning this cruise.

[mamaclark]

We feel more comfortable taking the excursion perk on some cruises, particularly if it is a long day. If O doesn't get us back to the ship, that's on them. If you are on a private excursion you are out of luck if  you miss the sail time. Also, I think it depends on where you are going; e.g., on a cruise from Tokyo to Singapore (since canceled), we chose the O excursion to Hiroshima because it was quite a distance from port. I think you need to trust your instincts! 

[1985rz1]

13 minutes ago, meg1021 said:

Put me in the "confused" category as well.  We chose the O Life perk of $800 OBC.  The O rep said that she would work out the best deal for us, and thought that would be taking 8 shore excursions instead, then using those as part of the required # to get the YW discount.  She ran a whole bunch of $ totals by me, and said that in the end, taking the OBC option of O Life was better.  I told her that I was confused, and asked for an itemized receipt/confirmation of her analysis.  Instead I got an email with an invoice showing how much my credit card was charged (not really useful, since I can find that out myself).  I need to call Oceania again and ask specifically for some document which breaks down the final cost of each excursion.  That doesn't seem like such an extravagant request to make.  Many other cruise lines make this so easy to do, that I would be able to book everything online myself, without an O rep doing the calculations for me.  BTW, we booked 8 excursions/pp on one segment (required # is 6/pp), and 9 excursions/pp on another segment (required # is 8/pp).  I haven't book all ports yet, because my kids want to book and excursion or two for us as a Christmas gift ( and I wanted them get the best possible price for the excursions, which would presumably be YW pricing).

 

If you have any advice to make this easier for me, please let me know.  We did book through a TA, but have been having issues with her, since our airfare was not as requested, and she's working on that, so I don't want to involve her in another issue, just to get more frustrated with another aspect of planning this cruise.

Normally taking the OLife Excursions then adding the requisite number to reach the YWC level is much better since you can almost double the value of the OLife  which is based on paying $100 per excursion. 

 

In your case your case, you are getting 4 OLife excursion at the nominal coat of $100 each.  (that's what you are paying pp for OLife). That $100 "chit" per excursion can get excursions up to about $200.  But if you're OLife qualifying trip are less than $100, the you lose the difference.

 

You should cost out the price yourself if O won't do it or you're TA can't. If you do it per person,  list all your excursions for one person  and total them up.  Take a 25% discount for meeting the YWC minimum. Subtract your $400 OBC from that amount and that's the extra you will have to pay for them all.

 

Then assign the highest 4 of the OLife qualifying excursions a cost of $0.  That's your OLife credit toward the OLife excursions.   They should amount to much more than $400 if you chose wisely.  Add up the cost rest of your excursions take a 25% discount. That's how much you will pay extra pp for all your excursions. Whichever  is lower is your best choice.

 

Hope that's not too confusing.

[LHT28]

1 hour ago, meg1021 said:

Put me in the "confused" category as well.  We chose the O Life perk of $800 OBC.  The O rep said that she would work out the best deal for us, and thought that would be taking 8 shore excursions instead, then using those as part of the required # to get the YW discount. 

 

If you are taking excursions  that are not  OS, WT, CD  etc  you should change  the perk to the Excursion perk with O life  then top up  to get to the minimum required for the YWC    discount

The O Life tours count towards the minimum 

They do make it confusing

[mauibabes]

Ditto LHT28, 

Meg, on the surface you have met all the requirements for the YWYW discount with the number of excursions booked. Is there any chance the majority of the tours you booked  exceeded the $199 level so you failed to meet the 4 Free Excursion requirement to meet the O Life amenity offer?
 I ask because we ran into that issue on our upcoming South America cruise in January. I originally selected the 4 Free Excursions PP but more of our selections ended up over $200 and we did not meet the required minimum number of Free Excursions.  At that point I switched our OLife amenity option to $400 in SBC each. I had my O Rep work it out for me to validate if SBC was our Best Bang for the Buck.  Yes you can get a detailed spreadsheet, just ask the Rep when you call again tomorrow.

Enjoy your cruise,

Mauibabes

[osandomir]

You can ask Oceania representative to email you the updated invoice. This email should include several attachments. One of the attachments will be for additional purchases and will include all the excursions that you purchased with the prices you paid for each of them.

[roberts2005]

It can become more than confusing, even after you have booked.  On our recent 24 day cruise, we had 7 included tours and needed 3 more for YWYW.  I booked an additional 4 and my wife 3.

 

The confusion started before we left, when of our tours was cancelled by O.  This brought me to 10 and my wife to 9, thereby losing YWYW for her.  After 2 hours on the phone we replaced the included tour, bringing us back to 11 and 10 respectively.

 

Once on board my wife had a tour cancelled, not an included one.  Again losing YWYW so she booked a replacement.

 

Meanwhile my invoices continued to make no sense, as tours were refunded and new ones charged.

 

Than a port was cancelled, again reducing our numbers, so new invoices and new confusing numbers.  Later, after booking a replacement tour we were told if O cancels a tour we should not lose YWYW.

 

However invoices kept changing with new charges and new credits.  
 

Bottom line, I’m not sure I would take the extra tours to make YWYW.

 

As an aside, most of the tours were good, but not all.  Biggest complaint was that there were no mask requirements on the busses.  Lots of people coughing

 

Most busses were near full, but we did have one tour bus with only 11 people.

[meg1021]

Thanks to everyone for your helpful guidance!  I did call Oceania and got an itemized list of the pre-booked excursions, along with the final cost for each one, so I can actually see what we were charged per excursion, instead of just one lump sum charged to my credit card.  The Oceania rep used the YW discount, and then took our $1600 OBC ($800/segment) off the total.  When I have the time to go through it, I can easily verify that this was the "best deal" for us.

 

Now, does anyone have any insight into what my best strategy is for dealing with a waitlisted excursion?  Should I book our second choice for that port, just to get something?  Would that booking kick us off the waitlist for  the tour that we really want?  I asked the O rep on the phone, when I called to ask for my itemized shore excursion purchases, and she didn't think that we would be removed from the waitlist, but wasn't 100% sure of it.  Anybody have a similar experience in the past?

 

 

 

[meg1021]

5 hours ago, roberts2005 said:

It can become more than confusing, even after you have booked.  On our recent 24 day cruise, we had 7 included tours and needed 3 more for YWYW.  I booked an additional 4 and my wife 3.

 

The confusion started before we left, when of our tours was cancelled by O.  This brought me to 10 and my wife to 9, thereby losing YWYW for her.  After 2 hours on the phone we replaced the included tour, bringing us back to 11 and 10 respectively.

 

Once on board my wife had a tour cancelled, not an included one.  Again losing YWYW so she booked a replacement.

 

Meanwhile my invoices continued to make no sense, as tours were refunded and new ones charged.

 

Than a port was cancelled, again reducing our numbers, so new invoices and new confusing numbers.  Later, after booking a replacement tour we were told if O cancels a tour we should not lose YWYW.

 

However invoices kept changing with new charges and new credits.  
 

Bottom line, I’m not sure I would take the extra tours to make YWYW.

 

As an aside, most of the tours were good, but not all.  Biggest complaint was that there were no mask requirements on the busses.  Lots of people coughing

 

Most busses were near full, but we did have one tour bus with only 11 people.

Thanks for posting about your experience.  It is very helpful. One question though, who told you that if O cancels a tour, and you go below the # of required excursions for the discount, that you don't lose the YW discount for the other booked excursions?  Phone rep, or someone on the ship?  Since we are doing South America, I can see weather conditions affecting some of the tours.  If they are cancelled, it would be helpful to know that O would not charge us for the lost YW discount!

[ORV]

4 minutes ago, meg1021 said:

Thanks to everyone for your helpful guidance!  I did call Oceania and got an itemized list of the pre-booked excursions, along with the final cost for each one, so I can actually see what we were charged per excursion, instead of just one lump sum charged to my credit card.  The Oceania rep used the YW discount, and then took our $1600 OBC ($800/segment) off the total.  When I have the time to go through it, I can easily verify that this was the "best deal" for us.

 

Now, does anyone have any insight into what my best strategy is for dealing with a waitlisted excursion?  Should I book our second choice for that port, just to get something?  Would that booking kick us off the waitlist for  the tour that we really want?  I asked the O rep on the phone, when I called to ask for my itemized shore excursion purchases, and she didn't think that we would be removed from the waitlist, but wasn't 100% sure of it.  Anybody have a similar experience in the past?

 

 

 

Yes, you can be booked for one excursion in a port, and be waitlisted for another at the same time. I recently did this. It was a moot point as the port was cancelled. So, I don't know what would have happened if we cleared the wait list, but I would think you would go on the waitlisted one and the other is cancelled. 

[roberts2005]

2 hours ago, meg1021 said:

Thanks for posting about your experience.  It is very helpful. One question though, who told you that if O cancels a tour, and you go below the # of required excursions for the discount, that you don't lose the YW discount for the other booked excursions?  Phone rep, or someone on the ship?  Since we are doing South America, I can see weather conditions affecting some of the tours.  If they are cancelled, it would be helpful to know that O would not charge us for the lost YW discount!

It was the shore excursion desk after our port of Split was cancelled.   Not sure if it is true or not.  We did replace the missing tour anyway.

[zalusky]

5 hours ago, meg1021 said:

Thanks for posting about your experience.  It is very helpful. One question though, who told you that if O cancels a tour, and you go below the # of required excursions for the discount, that you don't lose the YW discount for the other booked excursions?  Phone rep, or someone on the ship?  Since we are doing South America, I can see weather conditions affecting some of the tours.  If they are cancelled, it would be helpful to know that O would not charge us for the lost YW discount!

 

O cancelled an excursion and we lost our YW discount.  We had to search for something else to get the minimum.

[scili]

Tried to reserve an O excursion, but got the message that the tour is closed with no option to be waitlisted.  Then I found out that all tours in this port, Sao Tome, are closed with no waitlist option.  Any suggestions?    Tour date is late March,  is that too close and there is a time window that waitlist is no longer offered.  Is it common that all tours are closed?

[pinotlover]

7 hours ago, scili said:

Tried to reserve an O excursion, but got the message that the tour is closed with no option to be waitlisted.  Then I found out that all tours in this port, Sao Tome, are closed with no waitlist option.  Any suggestions?    Tour date is late March,  is that too close and there is a time window that waitlist is no longer offered.  Is it common that all tours are closed?

Don’t feign shock if that port call is cancelled either before or during the cruise.

[pinotlover]

With X being the local retail price of a shore excursions 2-3X - 25% > X.

 

Choosing Oceania tours is always the most expensive option. One may prefer spending additional monies to take O shorex, for any number of reasons, but saving money isn’t one of them.

[LHT28]

8 hours ago, scili said:

Tried to reserve an O excursion, but got the message that the tour is closed with no option to be waitlisted.  Then I found out that all tours in this port, Sao Tome, are closed with no waitlist option.  Any suggestions?    Tour date is late March,  is that too close and there is a time window that waitlist is no longer offered.  Is it common that all tours are closed?

1)could be  a supply issue  with only so many vendors  so once the bus is full  that is it

2) the cruise is shortening hours in port so the tour is no longer feasable

3) the port will be cancelled

 

You could try to find  a local tour  but  I would make sure  that if the ship does not port you will not be out any $$

 

[scili]

13 hours ago, LHT28 said:

1)could be  a supply issue  with only so many vendors  so once the bus is full  that is it

2) the cruise is shortening hours in port so the tour is no longer feasable

3) the port will be cancelled

 

You could try to find  a local tour  but  I would make sure  that if the ship does not port you will not be out any $$

 

Thanks for the response.  #3 did come to my mind, but so far no words from O yet.  #2 is unlikely, because  all tours on that day, be it half day or full day, have the same message "tour is closed".  Can't say about #1, but that still seems far fetched for all tours.