Shore Excursions, O website has issues.

[pmatawan]

I guess spending 40 minutes on hold to speak with a representative did not help my thoughts about O customer service. And them being unable to fix their problem irritates me even more. I'm booked on an extended O cruise, trying to book shore excursions on the O website. I put 41 excursions in my cart and only 39 show up. 2 calls to O customer Service, and they cannot fix the issue. Their IT dept. suggests a work around that is not acceptable. Seems something is screwed up on their website for a particular day, of my cruise and they can't fix it or bother to try. They put the 2 excursions into my booking, not my cart. When they did that the website no longer showed Your World pricing for the other 39 excursions. When I called the 2nd time, I had them undo the changes to bring back the correct pricing on the other 39 excursions. They said they could add all (41) the excursions to my booking, not cart and that would fix the pricing.  The cruise being almost a year away, I did not find that as an acceptable solution as I would not be able to edit my selections, if I join private excursions. So for now there are 2 excursions that I would like to book but can't because they won't go into my cart.

[LHT28]

So I am confused

If they are in your cart  have you made payment on them?

 The rep offer to put them to your booking    why not take them up on that offer

If the cruise is  a year out you can always make changes 

If they  are in your cart but not paid for  you still have none booked

 Even with O Life I believe you have to complete the  transaction  for them to be confirmed

JMO

[pmatawan]

The 2 excursions are not in my cart. They are offering to put all 41 excursions to bring back the your world pricing, but I'm not ready to pay. I understand that they are not confirmed bookings till paid. I want to be able to easily drop wxcursions from my cart, without having to call customer service as I join private excursions. 

Am I asking too much to expect website reservations to work correctly?

[Flatbush Flyer]

1 hour ago, pmatawan said:

I guess spending 40 minutes on hold to speak with a representative did not help my thoughts about O customer service. And them being unable to fix their problem irritates me even more. I'm booked on an extended O cruise, trying to book shore excursions on the O website. I put 41 excursions in my cart and only 39 show up. 2 calls to O customer Service, and they cannot fix the issue. Their IT dept. suggests a work around that is not acceptable. Seems something is screwed up on their website for a particular day, of my cruise and they can't fix it or bother to try. They put the 2 excursions into my booking, not my cart. When they did that the website no longer showed Your World pricing for the other 39 excursions. When I called the 2nd time, I had them undo the changes to bring back the correct pricing on the other 39 excursions. They said they could add all (41) the excursions to my booking, not cart and that would fix the pricing.  The cruise being almost a year away, I did not find that as an acceptable solution as I would not be able to edit my selections, if I join private excursions. So for now there are 2 excursions that I would like to book but can't because they won't go into my cart.

NEVER use the O web cart. Always find a knowledgeable/useful O phone rep (it may take several calls and then get their phone extension). We use the constantly updated shore excursions PDF as well as the website to select our tours. But, realize that the PDF, the web and the phone reps system almost never jive completely on what’s available. And, if you want to cancel, you always have to call to do that. In addition, the website Cart is quite glitchy AND buying that way will not auto generate for you the very important “prepurchased shore excursions” PDF that shows all the math for O Life and YWYW tour transactions- very important doc once onboard if there ends up being itinerary and/or other changes/cancels that affect your tours. YYou can have the O rep send you this if you purchase your tours from him/her.

Some folks have their TA do the tour purchases and get the PDF for them. However, O Life and YWYW idiosyncrasies can get quite complicated. So, you need a TA that knows O “inside out.”

[Evolus]

20 minutes ago, Flatbush Flyer said:

NEVER use the O web cart. Always find a knowledgeable/useful O phone rep (it may take several calls and then get their phone extension). We use the constantly updated shore excursions PDF as well as the website to select our tours. But, realize that the PDF, the web and the phone reps system almost never jive completely on what’s available. And, if you want to cancel, you always have to call to do that. In addition, the website Cart is quite glitchy AND buying that way will not auto generate for you the very important “prepurchased shore excursions” PDF that shows all the math for O Life and YWYW tour transactions- very important doc once onboard if there ends up being itinerary and/or other changes/cancels that affect your tours. YYou can have the O rep send you this if you purchase your tours from him/her.

Some folks have their TA do the tour purchases and get the PDF for them. However, O Life and YWYW idiosyncrasies can get quite complicated. So, you need a TA that knows O “inside out.”

I so agree with everything FF said above.  We have our TA book our excursions and we get the correct supporting documentation and discounts.  Only once did I try to book online and it was never right. Never again. 

[cruisingisfun]

There are more than just website issues.  Almost half of our excursions were cancelled (for a cruise this spring) we learned this week (don’t show up on shore excursion online brochure now either).  I only learned this by looking over our reservation page - a few hundred dollars worth, not refunded to us, also we dropped under the 5 excursion discount threshold. The rep said it was surprising and they would look into refunding.  Almost all other excursions are full.   We are going to look into independent Shore excursions, but as first time Oceania cruisers, we and our friends are especially disappointed at this first look. 

Edited March 1, 2023 by cruisingisfun
Clarification

[WAshgirl]

Oceania also cancelled one of our excursions without any sort of notification. In my opinion this is very unprofessional. They should at least give passengers the courtesy of a cancellation email. Fingers crossed no more surprises with our current excursions. 

[OhState1]

3 hours ago, WAshgirl said:

Oceania also cancelled one of our excursions without any sort of notification. In my opinion this is very unprofessional. They should at least give passengers the courtesy of a cancellation email. Fingers crossed no more surprises with our current excursions. 

This happened to us as well.  I noticed that I had an excursion missing. If they notified the TA, she didn’t pass it along.  I pulled up the list of excursions, and there were a two new ones that had not been on the list before, and the one we had booked was gone (no San Sebastián).  Glad we caught it.  
 

[mexicobob]

Couple months ago noticed that the price for one of our Oceania excursions had dropped by $50 per person. Called O and the problem was corrected and my account was credited immediately. No problem. However..........if I had not caught the price reduction do not think I would have received credit. 

[osandomir]

45 minutes ago, mexicobob said:

Couple months ago noticed that the price for one of our Oceania excursions had dropped by $50 per person. Called O and the problem was corrected and my account was credited immediately. No problem. However..........if I had not caught the price reduction do not think I would have received credit. 

It actually never occurred to me that I need to re-check prices for the excursions that we have booked. We normally take longer cruises, so sometimes have multiple ship excursions booked, even more ship tours now than we used to book before. It would be terrible if I have to monitor not just the cruise prices but the shorex prices as well. My feeling was that the price for particular tour stay the same no matter when we booked it. However it happened to you, so even it’s rare I can’t assume that it never happens now. Still can’t imagine checking shorex prices all the time.

 

Hopefully, while onboard the system will catch the price change like that and it’ll be reflected on the onboard account.

[DownByTheSea]

Yeah. Similar story. Has anyone found some other contact within Oceania who can actually fix pre-paid excursion problems? We have two problems for a sailing in August (one tour silently got charged at a higher price than the "shopping" list of tours says it costs, and in trying to fix that they messed up a different tour, so my wife got switched to a different tour than I'm on, and the tour is now closed). Between calls, voicemails, and emails, I've contact O over a dozen times over the course of the last six weeks. Each rep I speak with voice (five of those so far) says they'll contact the shore excursions team to fix the problems, and promises they'll personally get back to me in a day or two.

 

They never get back to me, of course, and the problems are never fixed. I've tried multiple times asking for a supervisor, and they refuse.

 

They don't reply to emails or voicemails. (Two of them gave me their email address so I could email them a screenshot showing the price on the page that lists the tours while we were on the phone. [The shopping screen says the tour is $219pp regular price, $164.25pp Your World pricing. Even today that's the price it shows. It charged as $359pp according to the View Purchases screen. Seems pretty cut & dried to fix!]  They said they received my emails while on the phone so I know they're the right email addresses; and other reps told me to email them and again gave me their same emails... but they never reply. Not in spam folder, no. No reply to voicemails from the three reps who gave me their extension.)

 

In the course of their fiddling to try to fix the pricing issue, they messed up a different port and got my wife put on a totally different tour than I'm (still) on, and now all the tours for the date are closed. The reps can't fix that either.

 

All they ever say is they'll send an "urgent" email ticket to the shore.ex. team. Some reps claim they've tried to call shore.ex. while I'm on hold, but report that nobody answers. They have no explanation for why the problems aren't getting fixed. They say it'll take a couple days, but I point out it's been six weeks now, of repeated requests... They just promise they are the ones who will get it fixed. Not.

 

At this point I don't believe anything they say. They're simply lying. And the on-hold wait times are so long, this is wasting hours and hours of my time.

 

So -- has anyone had success getting problems resolved by some means within O other than the front-line customer service reps? Has anyone found a direct number to the shore.ex. dept., or someone in corporate who they've had help from?

[cruisemom42]

On 2/28/2023 at 12:07 PM, Flatbush Flyer said:

NEVER use the O web cart. Always find a knowledgeable/useful O phone rep (it may take several calls and then get their phone extension).

 

Currently dealing with the Shore Excursion "cart" runaround. I'm not doubting you, but it is ridiculous to have to advise customers to keep calling back until they get someone knowledgeable. A wait can take up to an hour, then if you get someone who is not knowledgeable (and not helpful in a very supercilious way), you have to try again. My time is worth something and I shouldn't have to go through this just because their "cart" function has apparently not been working for quite some time.

 

My final payment is due in several days. Unless I can get this resolved with one more attempt, I may well cancel. 

 

Oceania makes passengers work far too hard to figure out their ins and outs.

[LHT28]

If you have a TA they can usually  get it sorted for you

[osandomir]

43 minutes ago, cruisemom42 said:

 

Currently dealing with the Shore Excursion "cart" runaround. I'm not doubting you, but it is ridiculous to have to advise customers to keep calling back until they get someone knowledgeable. A wait can take up to an hour, then if you get someone who is not knowledgeable (and not helpful in a very supercilious way), you have to try again. My time is worth something and I shouldn't have to go through this just because their "cart" function has apparently not been working for quite some time.

 

My final payment is due in several days. Unless I can get this resolved with one more attempt, I may well cancel. 

 

Oceania makes passengers work far too hard to figure out their ins and outs.

You don’t have to call just a general line. If you didn’t book with a TA you probably booked your cruise with Oceania travel consultant over the phone. Do you have their extension number? They received some credits for your booking and maybe able to help you with your shorex reservations as well.

 

Also, if you cancel just prior to your FP the nonreturnable administration fee will be applied to your cancellation invoice.

 

 I hope you’ll have it all sorted out and will be able to enjoy your cruise.

[Flatbush Flyer]

1 hour ago, cruisemom42 said:

 

Currently dealing with the Shore Excursion "cart" runaround. I'm not doubting you, but it is ridiculous to have to advise customers to keep calling back until they get someone knowledgeable. A wait can take up to an hour, then if you get someone who is not knowledgeable (and not helpful in a very supercilious way), you have to try again. My time is worth something and I shouldn't have to go through this just because their "cart" function has apparently not been working for quite some time.

 

My final payment is due in several days. Unless I can get this resolved with one more attempt, I may well cancel. 

 

Oceania makes passengers work far too hard to figure out their ins and outs.

I understand your frustration. But, in all honesty, I’ve never had to wait more than a few minutes for someone to answer the O phone. Nonetheless, over the years, I have ended up talking with some clueless folks and also a couple of handfuls of reps that know O inside/out.

For tours, I use one guy 95% of the time (only using someone else when he is on vacation or otherwise unavailable). I have his direct line and email and, when there’s conflicts between what you see on the tours web listings and what’s in the shore excursions PDF and/or on his O computer system, he can get the straight scoop quickly. (BTW: if you want to cancel a pre-purchased tour, you’ve got to call O. So having a specific extension (or two/three) is worth the initial effort to to identify a short list of contacts. 
Of course, if you have an O savvy TA, s/he can do the purchase work. But, tour booking and how to best use the savings that are possible is complicated at first.

[Wasasalad]

3 hours ago, osandomir said:

You don’t have to call just a general line. If you didn’t book with a TA you probably booked your cruise with Oceania travel consultant over the phone. Do you have their extension number? They received some credits for your booking and maybe able to help you with your shorex reservations as well.

 

Also, if you cancel just prior to your FP the nonreturnable administration fee will be applied to your cancellation invoice.

 

 I hope you’ll have it all sorted out and will be able to enjoy your cruise.

What is this cancellation fee? I did not know about it. I too am thinking about canceling due to problems 

Thank you

[osandomir]

9 minutes ago, Wasasalad said:

What is this cancellation fee? I did not know about it. I too am thinking about canceling due to problems 

Thank you

To avoid any cancellation fees you would need to cancel the full month prior to the FP day. Otherwise, there’s non refundable administrative fee that will be deducted from your deposit. I believe it’s $250 and should be listed on your invoice. 

[Flatbush Flyer]

5 hours ago, Wasasalad said:

What is this cancellation fee? I did not know about it. I too am thinking about canceling due to problems 

Thank you

Read your O invoice.

[basor]

9 hours ago, osandomir said:

To avoid any cancellation fees you would need to cancel the full month prior to the FP day. Otherwise, there’s non refundable administrative fee that will be deducted from your deposit. I believe it’s $250 and should be listed on your invoice. 

The $250.00 administrative fee is put in your account as a Future Cruise Credit and will be applied to your next cruise booked on O.  So it is only lost if you do not book another Oceania cruise within the next year

Edited March 14, 2023 by basor

[LHT28]

7 minutes ago, basor said:

The $250.00 administrative fee is put in your account as a Future Cruise Credit and will be applied to your next cruise booked on O.  So it is only lost if you do not book another Oceania cruise within the next year

Not  any longer

https://oceaniacruises.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360005306234-What-is-your-cancellation-and-refund-policy-

[basor]

22 minutes ago, LHT28 said:

Not  any longer

https://oceaniacruises.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360005306234-What-is-your-cancellation-and-refund-policy-

I just canceled a cruise and booked another one 2 weeks ago and the administrative fee was applied to the new cruise...the same as has happened over the last several years.  

Edited March 14, 2023 by basor

[LHT28]

8 minutes ago, basor said:

I just canceled a cruise and booked another one 2 weeks ago and the administrative fee was applied to the new cruise...the same as has happened over the last several years.  

Did you cancel in the  cancellation window  ?

Interesting  this was discussed a while ago about them not transferring the fee 

My invoice shows at 180 days they keep the fee (15 day cruise) it gives the dates  that it will be effective🤔

[RPen63]

We recently cancelled a cruise and triggered the penalty, missing the cutoff by only a few days.  We were initially told that we would incur the penalty but our TA was able to get it converted to a future cruise credit.  Like many other Oceania policies, this one is another that can be waived in the right circumstances.

[basor]

29 minutes ago, LHT28 said:

Did you cancel in the  cancellation window  ?

Interesting  this was discussed a while ago about them not transferring the fee 

My invoice shows at 180 days they keep the fee (15 day cruise) it gives the dates  that it will be effective🤔

Yes - we canceled at 110 days out so in cancellation window for the $250.00 administrative fee.    We had not made final payment nor in the cancelation window of 90 days or less,  One cruise was canceled incurring the administrative fee and then booked a new cruise and was told (and appears on my invoice) that the $250.00 was credited to that cruise,  Did not specifically ask for it (since did not know there was any question about it because of past experience).  O rep just said here is the price for the new cruise and then the $250.00FCC from canceled cruise will be applied.  I have always noticed the different wording for the $250.00 calling it an administrative fee while the rest are strict cancelation.  Perhaps the confusion is that someone canceled less than 90 days out and thought they would still have the $250.00 fee portion of their cancelation cost as a FCC.

 

 

Edited March 14, 2023 by basor

[basor]

28 minutes ago, RPen63 said:

We recently cancelled a cruise and triggered the penalty, missing the cutoff by only a few days.  We were initially told that we would incur the penalty but our TA was able to get it converted to a future cruise credit.  Like many other Oceania policies, this one is another that can be waived in the right circumstances.

@Jancruz perhaps you can shed some light on the actual O policy concerning the $250.00 administrative fee.  If you cancel a cruise between 180 - 91 days and incur the fee, is it a FCC in your account?  Not talking about canceling less than 91 days.  TIA