Oceania, I expected better! Dec 19 UAE Cruise

[frickwg]

My wife and I are booked on the 12/19/23 to 12/29/23 cruise to the UAE.

 

As booked the itinerary was:

·        Dec 19 Dubai, UAE, Embark                                                                           # of Shorex

·        Dec 20 Dubai, UAE                                                                                                10

·        Dec 21 Khasab, Oman                                                                                           3          

·        Dec 22 Fujairah, UAE                                                                                             3          

·        Dec 23 Muscat, Oman                                                                                            8          

·        Dec 24 Cruising the Gulf of Oman & Persian Gulf                                                     At Sea

·        Dec 25 Bahrain, Bahrain 8:00 AM 6:00 PM                                                               5

·        Dec 26 Doha, Qatar9:00 PM 8:00 AM 7:00 PM                                                         4

·        Dec 27 Sir Bani Yas, United Arab Emirates7:00 AM 7:00 PM 8:00 AM 6:00 PM           8

·        Dec 28 Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirate8:00 AM 6:00 PM 7:00 AM 11:59 PM              5

·        Dec 29 Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirate8:00 AM 6:00 PM,                                          Disembark

 

First of all, war, weather, political situations are all beyond the control of Oceania or any other cruise line.

 

The new schedule is:

·        Dec 19 Dubai, UAE, Embark                                                                  # of Shorex

·        Dec 20 Dubai, UAE                                                                                      17

·        Dec 21 Dubai, UAE                                                                                      0  ZERO

·        Dec 22 Doha, Qatar                                                                                     0  ZERO

·        Dec 23 Doha, Qatar                                                                                     0  ZERO

·        Dec 24 Sir Bani Yas, United Arab Emirates 8:00 AM                                       8

·        Dec 25 Sir Bani Yas, United Arab Emir                                                          0  ZERO

·        Dec 26 Cruising The Gulf Of Oman & Persian Gulf                                         At Sea

·        Dec 27 Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirate12:00 PM 8:00 AM                              0  ZERO

·        Dec 28 Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirate 8:00 AM                                            12

·        Dec 29 Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirate,                                                      Disembark

But, when such things happen well before the sailing, the cruise lines can and must adjust their schedules (and shore excursions1) as best they can.  

 

But, if the changes are extensive, Oceania should offer cancelation refund, and/or future credit.

 

I want my money back or future credit!  I have cruised with Oceania before, like the brand/ships and would be glad to travel at a later time/place.  This is not what I paid for!

[Heartfelttraveler]

When did you get the list of port changes?

Is your complaint that there are ZERO excursions in the new port days/times?

If you just got the changes, it may take a few days for Oceania to offer excursions.  They have to agree on contracts with the provider.

 

See who else is in port when you are.

Cruise Ports Schedules 2023-2024-2025 | CruiseMapper

[osandomir]

8 hours ago, frickwg said:

 

 

But, if the changes are extensive, Oceania should offer cancelation refund, and/or future credit.

 

I want my money back or future credit!  I have cruised with Oceania before, like the brand/ships and would be glad to travel at a later time/place.  This is not what I paid for!

It would be nice if Oceania offered all these but they didn’t. That’s a reality no matter how long we discuss it here. It’s up to you to decide if you want to cruise with them again.

[frickwg]

It has been about a month since the ports and shoerxs changed.  No changes by Oceania since then!

[Harry Lake]

20 hours ago, osandomir said:

It would be nice if Oceania offered all these but they didn’t. That’s a reality no matter how long we discuss it here. It’s up to you to decide if you want to cruise with them again.

Also up to the individual is they are going to dispute credit card charges, file suit, etc. I think this issue if fare from over.

[sfranklin]

My wife and I are scheduled for this cruise.  I am so dissatisfied with Oceania.  This is our first and definitely our last cruise on Oceania.  I have called, written letters to executive staff.   The basic response is "tough luck".  Zero customer service. 

[Redtravel]

5 of the original ports have been changed.  Of course, ports can get changed for many reasons.  I have had it happen.  Reasons were safety,  weather, port not accessible, construction, and the lockdown. Yes. I was on Sirena’s last cruise before the Covid lockdown. Of course itineraries change due to war.  This cruise has changed due to unrest and war. However, this is not the cruise that people bought. Refund should be automatic if guests request it.  Disappointed in Oceania.

[GeezerCouple]

I'm surprised that Oceania doesn't have (even if it had been secret in the past) some sort of insurance for problems where passengers would be in danger, or might be with a non-trivial probability.

 

They can NOT want to have even one passenger injured for a reason like this, obviously!

 

I can't imagine the lost business on the off chance that something actually does happen, even if a "small event" of some sort (and maybe it wouldn't be).

We always get CFAR (Cancel For Any Reason) insurance, which would give us 75% cash back.

 

However, even IF we did not have that, we would personally be thinking of the "sunk cost fallacy".  The cost of the cruise is gone.  Full stop.

In terms of a movie or Opera or whatever, for example, if we have spendy tickets that cannot be returned/sold/exchanged, and we no longer want to go, for whatever reason...?

Well... "They have our money.  We do NOT also have to give them our time!"

Etc.

 

Ditto with a cruise, but on a [much] larger scale!

 

If we would NOT now spend $XXX to sail on this cruise because "we just do *NOT* want to be on it!", then we... aren't going to get on it. Full stop. 

 

And "all the more so" if the reason is potential serious safety issues rather than "Oh, we've been there before; I'm now sorry we planned to go there again: and I'd really rather relax at home or do XYZ instead" or such.

 

We are probably more risk averse than many others, but that's "us", and this is how we'd react.

NOTHING I've written here negates some of my other very negative comments about how Oceania has handled this.

We are unlikely to sail with them again, which is unfortunate. Or maybe not... 😡

 

GC

[PhD-iva]

Some Dissatisfied pax are having success w disputes to their credit card companies.

Go that route and report back on your results….

[Harry Lake]

3 hours ago, PhD-iva said:

disputes to their credit card companies.

That makes just a world of sense.  You buy something to have delivered. When it arrives it's no where close to what you ordered. And not remotely in the price frame.

[JanDom]

We are on this cruise also.

We are not happy about the changes but we trust in the cruise line they had good reasons to do so.

When I checked the cruise today, there were a lot of new excursions for this cruise.

So we will have a look what kind of excursions we will do.

When we booked in August, the cruise was waitlisted. Now I can see around 120 cabins free. I think a lot of them are people who where on the cruise before and had a B2B. 

[m1k2s3]

On 11/29/2023 at 4:36 PM, sfranklin said:

My wife and I are scheduled for this cruise.  I am so dissatisfied with Oceania.  This is our first and definitely our last cruise on Oceania.  I have called, written letters to executive staff.   The basic response is "tough luck".  Zero customer service. 

I can understand how upsetting and disappointing this must be for you but before you give up on Oceania, why not check other boards to see how other cruise lines are dealing with this issue.

22 hours ago, PhD-iva said:

Some Dissatisfied pax are having success w disputes to their credit card companies.

Go that route and report back on your results….

I’m not sure this would work - they may ask is this covered in the contract you signed and agreed to and is this covered under your travel insurance?

[PhD-iva]

59 minutes ago, m1k2s3 said:

I’m not sure this would work - they may ask is this covered in the contract you signed and agreed to and is this covered under your travel insurance

Several posts here on cruisecritic have posted they successfully disputed the final payment (or perhaps more…).

I’m not saying it will work, but it’s perhaps an option to consider.

As the cruise wasn’t cancelled, US travel insurance policies most likely won’t pay out (unless CFAR).

Edited December 1, 2023 by PhD-iva
Addition

[frickwg]

Oceania has released a new list and schedule of shore excursions for this cruise. 

 

Perhaps not as many and as varied as before the port change, but it includes shore excursions for the days in the new-changed-rescheduled ports.

[sfranklin]

I am still not happy with all the changes and how Oceania has handled everything, but we have made the decision to go on the cruise.  We did book some additional excursions.  We most likely won't use Oceania in the future, but I don't really want to walk away from all the money that was spent and most likely not recoverable if we simply don't go.