Oceania Cruises Missing More

[Flatbush Flyer]

53 minutes ago, the more ports the better said:

I have been on several O cruises where we sailed past a port where other ships were docked.  We were also supposed to dock and not tender.…

I’m betting you don’t know where those docked ships were headed on the next day and what the weather forecast and expected sea conditions were for each ship’s next ports. 

[PhD-iva]

7 hours ago, njhorseman said:

I don't see why not.  Land tour operators are mentioned and recommended by name every day on the ports of call boards. It's only cruise agencies/agents that can't be named.

Ok. If within the rules, I traveled on a Collette small group tour. Tour name was smth like “Scotland, Land of Lore and Legend”. Tour director was Janice Killmurray. She was wonderful!

[Zebra Cruiser]

20 hours ago, cruiseaholic78 said:

We do not appreciate being lied to!
On our Australian cruise last year Thursday Island was cancelled for “operational reasons” and some port times were reduced.

The worst thing of all was losing two ports because Regatta had to ‘try’ to do hull cleaning needed for the next cruise to New Zealand. It was obvious that arranging companies to do hull cleaning was not something that was possible at a days notice!

 

Posted February 14 (edited)

 

Attached  is an article dated 7th January in which an Oceania spokesperson said that the vessel would be missing two ports and was on her way to Philip Island. They KNEW at least on 7th (it might have been submitted earlier) that we would not be going so why did they not inform us until the morning on 8th and allow people to gather in the lounge awaiting non existent excursions.

 

https://cruisepassenger.com.au/news/queen-elizabeth-fourth-ship-to-fall-foul-of-new-zealands-environmental-laws/

I wrote a long response to this topic yesterday and decided not to submit as I’ve already had too many experiences stating my opinions aren’t valid.  But my post included reference to this blog so I feel the need to share.

I was also on the Regatta for this cruise (my first with Oceania).This fourth and fifth port day cancellation so the ship could continue to New Zealand after our cruise was over was the last straw. None of these port cancellations were due to weather which would be disappointing but understandable.

We first learned of these cancellations early in the morning from a private tour company we booked with.  Oceania did not inform on board passengers until hours later- a couple of hours after we were supposed to be allowed to tender out.  When I went to customer service they said they knew nothing about cancellation. Almost no communications for the remainder of the cruise.  After the cruise we learned of the announcement made publicly by Oceania the day before they informed us.  Most disturbing was the ongoing lack of concern and at times outright rude dismissal by corporate Oceania to all of us who sought answers after the cruise.  Compensation was never initially offered - some of us received a small amount of future cruise credit after repeatedly seeking a response from Oceania, but this was not consistent.  Not what I expected after hearing about the wonderful customer service on Oceania and how I would never want to travel with anyone else.  By far the most expensive cruise I’ve ever taken.  A shame as the onboard service and crew were excellent.

 

BTW, we were not informed about the Thursday Island cancellation; it simply was no longer on the itinerary when we embarked.  When I inquired, I was told it was  “weather related” - seems strange as we weren’t due there for a couple of weeks and we went right by it with no weather issues.

[emd138]

I had an interesting experience on my June cruise.  I got an e-mail from my (non-ship) tour operator a good month before my cruise saying that my itinerary had been changed due to a change in my ship's itinerary.  It was 1 hour later in start time.  Okay, whatever, the times worked out either way, but more of a rush back to the ship.  The Currents showed no change even the night before, but yet we were delayed an hour due to rough seas, according to the announcement the next day.  It was a very short travel distance, so 1 hour was pretty significant.  It did make me wonder.

[osandomir]

2 hours ago, Zebra Cruiser said:

I wrote a long response to this topic yesterday and decided not to submit as I’ve already had too many experiences stating my opinions aren’t valid.  But my post included reference to this blog so I feel the need to share.

I was also on the Regatta for this cruise (my first with Oceania).This fourth and fifth port day cancellation so the ship could continue to New Zealand after our cruise was over was the last straw. None of these port cancellations were due to weather which would be disappointing but understandable.

We first learned of these cancellations early in the morning from a private tour company we booked with.  Oceania did not inform on board passengers until hours later- a couple of hours after we were supposed to be allowed to tender out.  When I went to customer service they said they knew nothing about cancellation. Almost no communications for the remainder of the cruise.  After the cruise we learned of the announcement made publicly by Oceania the day before they informed us.  Most disturbing was the ongoing lack of concern and at times outright rude dismissal by corporate Oceania to all of us who sought answers after the cruise.  Compensation was never initially offered - some of us received a small amount of future cruise credit after repeatedly seeking a response from Oceania, but this was not consistent.  Not what I expected after hearing about the wonderful customer service on Oceania and how I would never want to travel with anyone else.  By far the most expensive cruise I’ve ever taken.  A shame as the onboard service and crew were excellent.

 

BTW, we were not informed about the Thursday Island cancellation; it simply was no longer on the itinerary when we embarked.  When I inquired, I was told it was  “weather related” - seems strange as we weren’t due there for a couple of weeks and we went right by it with no weather issues.

Sorry, you were so disappointed. This particular cruise was very far from ideal, and it has been discussed numerous times on this board. Obviously, Oceania had their own reasons recently to make all these itinerary changes, not always weather related, for many of the cruises. And their luck of proper communications makes it even worse. At the same time, they seem to have little concern about the consequences of their decisions on the business operation. I’d think that no amount of complains here will force them to reverse their strategy. There’re many other benefits of booking Oceania cruises that people find attractive to them.

 

The customers just need to keep all these in their minds when they make a decision if it’s worse for them to continue booking with the cruise line.

Edited August 24, 2023 by osandomir

[TFree]

13 hours ago, PhD-iva said:

Ok. If within the rules, I traveled on a Collette small group tour. Tour name was smth like “Scotland, Land of Lore and Legend”. Tour director was Janice Killmurray. She was wonderful!

Robin:

 

Since I have no way to contact you directly, I will just say "thank you" here. We also take Collette land tours (through their partnership with Marriott Vacation Club), and we increasingly have gravitated toward the small group tours. So it is good to hear of one as to which you had a positive reaction.

 

Tom & Judy

[PhD-iva]

16 minutes ago, TFree said:

Robin:

 

Since I have no way to contact you directly, I will just say "thank you" here. We also take Collette land tours (through their partnership with Marriott Vacation Club), and we increasingly have gravitated toward the small group tours. So it is good to hear of one as to which you had a positive reaction.

 

Tom & Judy

Thx! BTW, my email can be found in my signature. Best wishes!

[the more ports the better]

15 hours ago, Flatbush Flyer said:

I’m betting you don’t know where those docked ships were headed on the next day and what the weather forecast and expected sea conditions were for each ship’s next ports. 

Actually, I do, once we were on a last minute Western Caribbean sailing on Riveria.  (Perk of living in FL) We passed by Costa Maya and sailed in circles while the another similar sized ship ship docked.  Reason was rough seas but it was pretty calm the entire sailing.  The next day, the same ship was with us tendered in Belize City.  We all managed to tender there.  Made no sense.

[susiesan]

If you have noticed, none of the cruises in the catalogs/brochures sent in the mail have times in port listed at all for any ports. This will make it easier for O to change times since no one knows what they are. I use these catalogs to evaluate potential cruises. I compare time in port between cruise lines doing similar itineraries and go for the one with the most time in port which is important to me. O does show the times online but I'm not always online looking at their web site when evaluating cruises.

[basor]

3 minutes ago, susiesan said:

If you have noticed, none of the cruises in the catalogs/brochures sent in the mail have times in port listed at all for any ports. This will make it easier for O to change times since no one knows what they are. I use these catalogs to evaluate potential cruises. I compare time in port between cruise lines doing similar itineraries and go for the one with the most time in port which is important to me. O does show the times online but I'm not always online looking at their web site when evaluating cruises.

Several other cruise lines do the same....check out Viking

[LHT28]

6 minutes ago, susiesan said:

If you have noticed, none of the cruises in the catalogs/brochures sent in the mail have times in port listed at all for any ports. This will make it easier for O to change times since no one knows what they are. I use these catalogs to evaluate potential cruises. I compare time in port between cruise lines doing similar itineraries and go for the one with the most time in port which is important to me. O does show the times online but I'm not always online looking at their web site when evaluating cruises.

They also do not list every cabin Category  just PH/ Concierge/ Veranda   even though there are price differences in each Category 

if you find the cruise on the website all info is there🙄

[susiesan]

33 minutes ago, basor said:

Several other cruise lines do the same....check out Viking

I have no plans to ever cruise on Viking Ocean, too pricey for me. I have taken 3 Viking river cruises in the past and might consider another one of those.

[Russz]

Oceania has missed 4 ports on the 9 cruises we have taken on them.  It’s usually for “high winds”.  I think they have a  credibility problem and I don’t trust them for making ports, if that is important to you—-It is to me.

[ORV]

14 minutes ago, Russz said:

Oceania has missed 4 ports on the 9 cruises we have taken on them.  It’s usually for “high winds”.  I think they have a  credibility problem and I don’t trust them for making ports, if that is important to you—-It is to me.

Not really enough information. How many days were those cruises? How many ports out of 4 missed are we talking about? What were the circumstances?  As always I'm sure the devil is in the details.

 

I'm sure other lines miss a certain number of ports also, I don't monitor all the boards here to know, and some of them have many ships. As FF said, we really don't have all the data concerning missed ports in the cruise industry to determine if Oceania has one of the largest percentages of missed ports. At this point it's all conjecture and anecdotal information. 

 

One thing I do know, there seems to be no end to people that cruise on Oceania that seem to know more than the Captains. 

[Tranquility Base]

2 hours ago, ORV said:

 

One thing I do know, there seems to be no end to people that cruise on Oceania that seem to know more than the Captains. 

In my experience, a part of that can be due to a lack of meaningful and effective communications from a Captain.

 

We recently had a weather miss at Lerwick ( another cruise line ).

Our Captain was a great communicator.

 

He explained why  he couldn’t use the inner anchorage due to windage, turning circle, and position holding.

Even explaining why he couldn’t reverse into the harbour.

He mentioned the Pilot’s input a couple a times.

Meanwhile, at the outer anchorage it was obvious to most that tendering was not possible.

 

He did make up for it however with an unscheduled transit through Prince Christian Sound  a few days later.

Much kudos all around.

 

Keeping your passengers informed with honest and relevant communications does go a long way in stopping speculation.

 

Edited August 24, 2023 by Tranquility Base

[Russz]

2 hours ago, ORV said:

Not really enough information. How many days were those cruises? How many ports out of 4 missed are we talking about? What were the circumstances?  As always I'm sure the devil is in the details.

 

I'm sure other lines miss a certain number of ports also, I don't monitor all the boards here to know, and some of them have many ships. As FF said, we really don't have all the data concerning missed ports in the cruise industry to determine if Oceania has one of the largest percentages of missed ports. At this point it's all conjecture and anecdotal information. 

 

One thing I do know, there seems to be no end to people that cruise on Oceania that seem to know more than the Captains. 

Obviously you love Oceania and don’t like to hear anything critical about your favorite, but we have never missed a port on Princess in over a dozen cruises that we have taken with them nor with Celebrity.  I predict you will miss a port or two on your next two cruises on Oceania because of “high winds”. Good Luck!

 

[basor]

5 minutes ago, Russz said:

Obviously you love Oceania and don’t like to hear anything critical about your favorite, but we have never missed a port on Princess in over a dozen cruises that we have taken with them nor with Celebrity.  I predict you will miss a port or two on your next two cruises on Oceania because of “high winds”. Good Luck!

 

We just missed a port on Princess 3 weeks ago so never say never that other lines do not miss a port...

[ORV]

6 minutes ago, Russz said:

Obviously you love Oceania and don’t like to hear anything critical about your favorite, but we have never missed a port on Princess in over a dozen cruises that we have taken with them nor with Celebrity.  I predict you will miss a port or two on your next two cruises on Oceania because of “high winds”. Good Luck!

 

No not really a cheerleader, I just call it like I see it. Speaking of that I did try Princess a few years ago. Without a doubt the worst cruise line I’ve ever been on, and that includes Carnival & Costa. But they didn’t miss any ports. Enjoy your cruises. 

Edited August 24, 2023 by ORV

[njhorseman]

3 minutes ago, Russz said:

Obviously you love Oceania and don’t like to hear anything critical about your favorite, but we have never missed a port on Princess in over a dozen cruises that we have taken with them nor with Celebrity.  I predict you will miss a port or two on your next two cruises on Oceania because of “high winds”. Good Luck!

 

Your generalization based on a  relatively small number of cruises you've personally taken is meaningless. We missed multiple ports on Celebrity cruises during the years we cruised on that line.

 

We've never missed a port on an Oceania cruise, but it would be foolish for me to offer that fact as some sort of evidence of Oceania not missing ports on its cruises.

[lj77346]

6 minutes ago, Russz said:

we have never missed a port on Princess in over a dozen cruises that we have taken with them

You have been fortunate as on our last Princess cruise we missed 2 of the 3 scheduled ports due to 'wind'. However, the captain did explain why we were unable to stop at the port and Princess did provide a nice refundable onboard credit to each passenger.

[osandomir]

4 minutes ago, Russz said:

Obviously you love Oceania and don’t like to hear anything critical about your favorite, but we have never missed a port on Princess in over a dozen cruises that we have taken with them nor with Celebrity.  I predict you will miss a port or two on your next two cruises on Oceania because of “high winds”. Good Luck!

 

We also like Oceania but have to admit that they aren’t perfect as well as any other cruise line that I know. Personally we won’t choose to cruise with Princess or Celebrity no matter how many ports they make. Their ships are completely opposite to what we like about Oceania. Also, their itineraries mostly are much less of an interest to us to begin with. The other people should feel free to sail with whatever line that suits them best.

[EJL2023]

3 hours ago, Russz said:

Oceania has missed 4 ports on the 9 cruises we have taken on them.  It’s usually for “high winds”.  I think they have a  credibility problem and I don’t trust them for making ports, if that is important to you—-It is to me.

So let’s see….9 cruises…..we will go on average 7 ports per cruise for a total of 63 ports.  4 ports missed so that equates to around 6% of ports missed. And even you stated they were all for high winds! So quite legitimate. 😉. In reality that does not sound too bad. 6 out of every 100 missed. 

[ak1004]

22 minutes ago, Russz said:

Obviously you love Oceania and don’t like to hear anything critical about your favorite, but we have never missed a port on Princess in over a dozen cruises that we have taken with them nor with Celebrity.  I predict you will miss a port or two on your next two cruises on Oceania because of “high winds”. Good Luck!

 

 

I don't think it's a matter of loving Oceania, but you have to agree that "missed 4 ports on the 9 cruises" is really not enough information. Were 9 cruises 10 night each? 20 nights? 30 nights? I'm sure you would agree that it makes a big difference in terms of percentage of missed ports.

 

As a side note, missed ports is a big concern to us, but I would still prefer to miss ports on O than sail Celebrity or Princess and not miss a single port. A different galaxy.

[ORV]

oops

Edited August 24, 2023 by ORV

[Jayne E]

4 missed ports on Riviera last May on 21 day cruise. 
2 due to weather and 2 due to “possible” dock worker strike that didn’t occur.
Replaced with 2 sea days, an additional day in present port and Salerno. 
No additional activities, movies, open bar, pool deck entertainment, etc. 

Caribbean cruise in December missed Puerta Plata….low water level…replaced with sea day. It was the 3rd time in a row port was missed for same reason….time to eliminate this port? 

 

Our first 18 O cruises, averaging 15 days each, we missed 2 ports.