What's the downside to Simply More?

[ak1004]

13 minutes ago, clo said:

And that's us and maybe a smidge more so. We will be enjoying that second glass of wine at lunch or dinner that we might not have - outside our cabin. And we've tended to DIY ports so it will be a fun thing to do. Hopefully 🙂 So it's a plus for us.

 

So it's really not "just a price increase". For some people SM is a real value. And the prices increased by less than the combined value of those two benefits (plus the second Wi-Fi).

[pinotlover]

1 hour ago, ak1004 said:

 

So it's really not "just a price increase". For some people SM is a real value. And the prices increased by less than the combined value of those two benefits (plus the second Wi-Fi).

No. It’s a price increase overall for Oceania. Whether any individual feels they got a deal, in the long run the prices went up.

 

If X= the retail cost of any shore excursion. I have found it mostly impossible to convince most Oceania passengers that mathematically paying 2X less a 25% discount is more than X. For many that simple math is unfathomable. Sometimes the math is even worse. Or, money just doesn’t matter to most of them. 
 

Laughing our buttocks off is defined when taking a private tour for $85 each and having people on the same van, doing the exact same tour, paying $365 each to Oceania. 😂😂😂 Maybe they booked enough overpriced tours they got $25% off! Because only old rich Oceania cruisers believe that $365 - 25%< $85. Happens regularly. Happened twice this past summer on Vista. Never pay retail says some! 😂😂 They booked enough to get 25% off! 😂👍👍!

 

Absolutely, SM tour credits are a wonderful deal. Just book more ship tours and get a better deal. 🙄

[daydreamer62]

32 minutes ago, pinotlover said:

No. It’s a price increase overall for Oceania. Whether any individual feels they got a deal, in the long run the prices went up.

 

If X= the retail cost of any shore excursion. I have found it mostly impossible to convince most Oceania passengers that mathematically paying 2X less a 25% discount is more than X. For many that simple math is unfathomable. Sometimes the math is even worse. Or, money just doesn’t matter to most of them. 
 

Laughing our buttocks off is defined when taking a private tour for $85 each and having people on the same van, doing the exact same tour, paying $365 each to Oceania. 😂😂😂 Maybe they booked enough overpriced tours they got $25% off! Because only old rich Oceania cruisers believe that $365 - 25%< $85. Happens regularly. Happened twice this past summer on Vista. Never pay retail says some! 😂😂 They booked enough to get 25% off! 😂👍👍!

 

Absolutely, SM tour credits are a wonderful deal. Just book more ship tours and get a better deal. 🙄

It's great you got great deals on your private excursions however it's not always the case . For our upcoming cruise for instance  I looked at a private tour in Gibraltar for6- 8 people 

The tour seems to have the identical itinerary to one of the ship excursions

The quote came back

Total price for 4 passengers 540 euros 

Total price for 6 passengers 660 euros

Total price for 8 passengers 720 euros

In$NZD 660 Euros is $1178 or $196 pp

The retail price for the ship excursion was $NZ 191.00 less 25% =$143 25. That's also simple maths .  

This is just one example of several. Certainly some were cheaper to do privately and we still are able to take those ones of course. The SM option doesn't preclude us from doing so . Like a previous poster I also will be drinking a wine or 2 during the meal . The cost of my cruise of $NZ 6950  including gratuities valued at NZ$415 including the drinks with meals at a value of$69.90 US a day according to the website  which totals $NZ1615  and including NZ$835 works out to a pretty reasonable deal  of under $NZ300

A similar length cruise with viking would cost me $NZ1000 per day with no choice of included wine except the colour w and no choice in the included excursion . 

I suggest the marketing plan for Oceania are on fact onto a winner if they want to attract the likes of me. Because I booked with Oceania not viking (or any of the other large ship lines)

Edited January 30 by daydreamer62

[ak1004]

19 minutes ago, pinotlover said:

No. It’s a price increase overall for Oceania. Whether any individual feels they got a deal, in the long run the prices went up.

 

If X= the retail cost of any shore excursion. I have found it mostly impossible to convince most Oceania passengers that mathematically paying 2X less a 25% discount is more than X. For many that simple math is unfathomable. Sometimes the math is even worse. Or, money just doesn’t matter to most of them. 
 

Laughing our buttocks off is defined when taking a private tour for $85 each and having people on the same van, doing the exact same tour, paying $365 each to Oceania. 😂😂😂 Maybe they booked enough overpriced tours they got $25% off! Because only old rich Oceania cruisers believe that $365 - 25%< $85. Happens regularly. Happened twice this past summer on Vista. Never pay retail says some! 😂😂 They booked enough to get 25% off! 😂👍👍!

 

Absolutely, SM tour credits are a wonderful deal. Just book more ship tours and get a better deal. 🙄

 

I don't disagree with you regarding O tours (or any cruise company tours). But as you mentioned, for many cruisers it doesn't matter. They were booking O tours before SM and they will continue doing it with SM. For them it's real savings.

 

That said, we prefer booking private tours too, but sometimes it's not possible, or we don't feel comfortable due to different reasons etc. For example, someone who is Jewish might feel uncomfortable booking private tours in Muslim/Arab countries. Sometimes private tours are fully booked because it's a small port and many ships on that day. There are dozens of reasons. So even people who prefer private tours might book 2-3 tours from the ship.

 

Also, for people who drink, and having 1-2 glasses of wine at meals is enough, it's a real benefit. before SM they were buying drinks package, now they don't.

 

Personally, SM doesn't work well for us, but it does work for some people. They fact is that dozens of people reported on CC that they switched the same cruise from OL to SM and it was cheaper for them.

[Tranquility Base]

32 minutes ago, ak1004 said:

There are dozens of reasons. So even people who prefer private tours might book 2-3 tours from the ship.

Correct.

 

Also, if  someone is doing a lot of cruising over a period of several months then the number of ports to research can be large.

The time and energy resources one needs to put into such research can be huge.

 

Picking a number of strategic ship's tours at critical or difficult ports is one strategy people use in order to ease the workload pre cruise.

 

A mix of ship's tours, private tours, DIY, and simply just wandering ashore for a few hours of eating, drinking and people watching, is a mix that works well for many cruisers who are away for long periods.

 

Sometimes; simply less is simply more.

 

[MEFIowa]

9 hours ago, ak1004 said:

... Also, for people who drink, and having 1-2 glasses of wine at meals is enough, it's a real benefit. before SM they were buying drinks package, now they don't....

We bring our own beer, hard liquor and wine on board. And we try to spend as much time off ship in ports and doing excursions that we can. So a glass of wine or a beer at lunch, when we're ashore, has very limited value. But then in Italy last November off Riviera I found a nice bottle of Italian red in a grocery store for E1.49. And I could buy 3 bottles of decent Italian red or white wine in Naples for E5.00 total. We have not and will not buy a "drinks package" whether a cruise is SM or not. We've had 4 cruises (40) nights on O since 12/2021, none SM and two more cruises in 2024, 1 SM and the other not.

[ak1004]

29 minutes ago, MEFIowa said:

We bring our own beer, hard liquor and wine on board. And we try to spend as much time off ship in ports and doing excursions that we can. So a glass of wine or a beer at lunch, when we're ashore, has very limited value. But then in Italy last November off Riviera I found a nice bottle of Italian red in a grocery store for E1.49. And I could buy 3 bottles of decent Italian red or white wine in Naples for E5.00 total. We have not and will not buy a "drinks package" whether a cruise is SM or not. We've had 4 cruises (40) nights on O since 12/2021, none SM and two more cruises in 2024, 1 SM and the other not.

 

Again, everyone is different. SM is not beneficial for you and me, but it is beneficial for many others. I believe O is just trying to be more comparable to some other premium lines. To say that it's just a price increase is a bit of over simplification.

 

And as I mentioned many times, what matters is the overall value. We booked SS 3 times despite the fact that they include alcohol and excursions because the value was there. 

 

 

[Harters]

10 hours ago, ak1004 said:

They were booking O tours before SM and they will continue doing it with SM.

Under the previous offer, we took the included excursions, in preference to the other offers, in line with the very consistent recommendations on this forum to do that. Under the new SM arrangements, we now have "excursion credit" to spend on any ships excursion, instead of the very limited "bottom end" excursions that were the only ones previously available. In itself, that's an improvement for us - for our upcoming cruise, we've been able to book fewer but more interesting excursions. 

[MEFIowa]

11 minutes ago, ak1004 said:

Again, everyone is different. SM is not beneficial for you and me, but it is beneficial for many others. I believe O is just trying to be more comparable to some other premium lines. To say that it's just a price increase is a bit of over simplification.

 

And as I mentioned many times, what matters is the overall value. We booked SS 3 times despite the fact that they include alcohol and excursions because the value was there. 

Though you're being vague and overly generalized. I WATCHED cruises I had booked pre-SM suddenly go up in price $800 PP. So, any "value" for SM starts with an analysis of: "This cruise was $xxxx.xx. Now it is $xxx.xx PLUS $800." The SM program "adds" a SMALL amount of beer and wine at lunch & dinner in the restaurants. Not even worth $20 PD. So that leaves a lot of money you've paid....

 

... for their overpriced excursion credits. Yes, it all but FORCES you to use some of their excursions, but we're still doing OUR OWN for major excursions. We paid for private excursions to Ephesus and Rome off Riviera last year (Nov). The ship docked, the gangplank lowered, the door opened, and we were the very first people off the ship seeing our driver and car waiting for us to get to Rome. I'd bet we were half-way to Rome before the first O bus departed! Same for Ephesus.

 

Our upcoming 22-night B2B is a 12-night SM cruise off the Summer Sale 2023 and a 10-night cruise book in 2022 well before SM. Upgraded our original G to a large C1 from a sale in Oct 2022. It is fascinating how the 12-night cruise is all essentially available and the 10-night cruise all essentially waitlisted. So far, cruisers haven't seen "value" in the SM program compared to pre-SM sales.

[ak1004]

14 minutes ago, MEFIowa said:

Though you're being vague and overly generalized. I WATCHED cruises I had booked pre-SM suddenly go up in price $800 PP. So, any "value" for SM starts with an analysis of: "This cruise was $xxxx.xx. Now it is $xxx.xx PLUS $800." The SM program "adds" a SMALL amount of beer and wine at lunch & dinner in the restaurants. Not even worth $20 PD. So that leaves a lot of money you've paid....

 

... for their overpriced excursion credits. Yes, it all but FORCES you to use some of their excursions, but we're still doing OUR OWN for major excursions. We paid for private excursions to Ephesus and Rome off Riviera last year (Nov). The ship docked, the gangplank lowered, the door opened, and we were the very first people off the ship seeing our driver and car waiting for us to get to Rome. I'd bet we were half-way to Rome before the first O bus departed! Same for Ephesus.

 

Our upcoming 22-night B2B is a 12-night SM cruise off the Summer Sale 2023 and a 10-night cruise book in 2022 well before SM. Upgraded our original G to a large C1 from a sale in Oct 2022. It is fascinating how the 12-night cruise is all essentially available and the 10-night cruise all essentially waitlisted. So far, cruisers haven't seen "value" in the SM program compared to pre-SM sales.

 

Again, you are still ignoring all posters here who mentioned that SM does add value to them.

 

Saying that a cruise went up in price by $800 is meaningless without mentioning the category and the number of days. I watched few 10 night cruises on Vista and all of them went up by $550 CAD which is $400 USD - this is exactly the amount of the excursion credit. And as a previous poster mentioned, this amount can be used to book few more interesting excursions without being limited to basic ones.

 

[MEFIowa]

12 minutes ago, ak1004 said:

Again, you are still ignoring all posters here who mentioned that SM does add value to them....

Again, VALUE is in reference to ACTUAL prices paid for actual goods and services. We can compare PRE- and POST-SM prices on cruises in 2023 and 2024. I've given you my data. But those other posters never give their data. Hard numbers by cruise.

[MEFIowa]

14 minutes ago, ak1004 said:

... Saying that a cruise went up in price by $800 is meaningless without mentioning the category and the number of days....

Whether the cabin is a G or a C or an A1 or PH2 doesn't matter. The price increased. And they each received the same thing. Pennies on the dollar beer and wine at lunch & dinner in the restaurants and excursion specific credit. But feel free to determine the price PD for the increases based on cruise length.

 

NOW, we see O reduce the excursion credits and people complaining about availability of getting O excursions they want. O forced people to try to book O excursions but then apparently forget to increase supply in line with increased demand.

 

AND any "value" in the O excursion can only truly be determined by comparing to non-O excursions that one could do. An apples-to-apples comparison. I was so unimpressed with O's excursions off Riviera 12/2021 and Sirena 11/2022 that we did NONE. Had so much OBC for Riviera 10-11/2023 that we did some to burn up the credits. Nothing special about them and over priced for what you got.

[ak1004]

6 minutes ago, MEFIowa said:

Whether the cabin is a G or a C or an A1 or PH2 doesn't matter. The price increased. And they each received the same thing. Pennies on the dollar beer and wine at lunch & dinner in the restaurants and excursion specific credit. But feel free to determine the price PD for the increases based on cruise length.

 

NOW, we see O reduce the excursion credits and people complaining about availability of getting O excursions they want. O forced people to try to book O excursions but then apparently forget to increase supply in line with increased demand.

 

AND any "value" in the O excursion can only truly be determined by comparing to non-O excursions that one could do. An apples-to-apples comparison. I was so unimpressed with O's excursions off Riviera 12/2021 and Sirena 11/2022 that we did NONE. Had so much OBC for Riviera 10-11/2023 that we did some to burn up the credits. Nothing special about them and over priced for what you got.

 

Again, I don't disagree with you about O excursions. We booked private tours that were double in time and half in group size for about the same money as O excursions (sometimes even less). And I don't disagree about the drinks because we don't drink. But that's us. Please remember that some people just prefer convenience over money. This is why some people book flights and hotels with the cruise lines, while clearly paying more than doing it independently. 

 

And if you believe O doesn't provide value after SM, you need to find an alternative. What is your alternative line where you will pay only for what you use?

[MEFIowa]

1 minute ago, ak1004 said:

... Please remember that some people just prefer convenience over money. This is why some people book flights and hotels with the cruise lines, while clearly paying more than doing it independently....

And VALUE and CONVENIENCE are two different concepts. We're discussing the former, not the latter. So they are paying someone else more for that "convenience". That isn't value, esp. if the product they receive is inferior or more expensive.

 

So the downside is value.

[MEFIowa]

4 minutes ago, ak1004 said:

... And if you believe O doesn't provide value after SM, you need to find an alternative. What is your alternative line where you will pay only for what you use?

Since we did "cruise only" and brought our own alcohol on board for Riviera (12/2021), Sirena (11/2022) and Riviera (10-11/2023), that is a real concern. We only did the 12-night SM as the B2B to maximize our airfare "value" since the two cruises mostly didn't duplicate the ports and we doubt we'll ever be back to the Baltic. Same reason we did 20-night B2B in the Med on Riviera, cruising from Izmir (Ephesus) and Istanbul (Constantinople) all the way west to Marseilles and Barcelona with about 12 other ports in between (including Athens, Bari, Heraklion, Kavala, Kotor, La Spezia, Messina (Taormina), Naples, Rome, Split, and Venice).

 

We may be done with O. I'm interested in Madagascar. O won't cut up some long cruises that go to Madagascar & E. Africa. And Guyana & Surinam, which O doesn't do. BUT I did Paraguay for 14 days all by myself in 2022, so not a problem. I travel to see interesting places and meet interesting people, not to be on a ship.

[Vallesan]

13 minutes ago, MEFIowa said:

Again, VALUE is in reference to ACTUAL prices paid for actual goods and services. We can compare PRE- and POST-SM prices on cruises in 2023 and 2024. I've given you my data. But those other posters never give their data. Hard numbers by cruise.

 

OK, and I have said this elsewhere, when SM was introduced we swapped a cruise over from OLife with a drinks package to SimplyMore with drinks and the addition of the trip allowance and saved £1700, which at todays rate is $2140 approximately. So that is the ACTUAL saving I made in hard cash in my pocket.

 

What prices are now, for 2024 or 2025, is what they are. You can’t possible know what the prices would have been under the old system, as they probably would have increased anyway,  so you have no real comparison. The only real point of reference is what you have actually paid for your cruises.

 

I have just paid the final payment for a cruise in May and today’s price is £1570 per person ( $1980) more than I paid. 
 

I think you are being rather pedantic because at the end of the day a cruise, or anything else for that matter, is only worth, to a person, what they are prepared to pay.

 

Sounds to me that Oceania no longer offers you value so it might  be time to  look at other alternatives. 

[ak1004]

11 minutes ago, MEFIowa said:

Since we did "cruise only" and brought our own alcohol on board for Riviera (12/2021), Sirena (11/2022) and Riviera (10-11/2023), that is a real concern. We only did the 12-night SM as the B2B to maximize our airfare "value" since the two cruises mostly didn't duplicate the ports and we doubt we'll ever be back to the Baltic. Same reason we did 20-night B2B in the Med on Riviera, cruising from Izmir (Ephesus) and Istanbul (Constantinople) all the way west to Marseilles and Barcelona with about 12 other ports in between (including Athens, Bari, Heraklion, Kavala, Kotor, La Spezia, Messina (Taormina), Naples, Rome, Split, and Venice).

 

We may be done with O. I'm interested in Madagascar. O won't cut up some long cruises that go to Madagascar & E. Africa. And Guyana & Surinam, which O doesn't do. BUT I did Paraguay for 14 days all by myself in 2022, so not a problem. I travel to see interesting places and meet interesting people, not to be on a ship.

 

We cancelled a Vista cruise in May and replaced it with SS cruise despite the fact that SS includes drinks and excursions. Why? Because the itinerary on SS was slightly better and the price was only $30/day more, and it included everything. But we looked at 2025 sailings and it's no longer possible to get any SS cruise for such small difference. Same with SB.

 

So I'm asking again, what's the alternative if you want to have a small ship experience and have a cruise that includes only what you use, but also provides great ship experience? The only one I can think of is Windstar, but their prices in many cases are even higher than O, without drinks, Wi-Fi and excursions credit.

[Harters]

29 minutes ago, MEFIowa said:

And VALUE and CONVENIENCE are two different concepts. We're discussing the former, not the latter.

We booked our forthcoming cruise with SM. I know what we'll be getting and I know how much it is costing. It's acceptable. That's obvious, otherwise we wouldnt have booked it. I have no interest in knowing what it might have cost me before SM, because I wasnt booking it then.

 

This discussion is going round and round in circles, with many contributors talking two different languages, neither of which seem to be understood by the other group. History is another time and place. Get over it folks. If O's current offer no longer suits you, please go away and find a cruise line that better suits you. 

[shepherd really]

23 minutes ago, MEFIowa said:

And VALUE and CONVENIENCE are two different concepts. We're discussing the former, not the latter. So they are paying someone else more for that "convenience". That isn't value, esp. if the product they receive is inferior or more expensive.

 

So the downside is value.

You can say value and convenience are two different things, but it completely misses the point that many people find value in convenience.  If you want to drink your .65 cent beer and $2.00 wine and that makes you happy, go for it, but many of us go on a vacation to relax and enjoy, not to squeeze every penny.

 

And you can claim all you want about SM, but it saved me a significant amount of real money, in fact enough to buy thousands of .65 cent beers and $2.00 bottles of wine without wasting my shore time in convenience stores. 

 

We all have different priorities, value different aspects of travel and have different budgets, you may have the right answer for you, but at least acknowledge it isn't for everyone.

[MEFIowa]

43 minutes ago, Vallesan said:

OK, and I have said this elsewhere, when SM was introduced we swapped a cruise over from OLife with a drinks package to SimplyMore with drinks and the addition of the trip allowance and saved £1700, which at todays rate is $2140 approximately. So that is the ACTUAL saving I made in hard cash in my pocket....

Did you actually BOOK that cruise under the 2023 SUMMER SALE at the start of "SM"? The SUMMER SALE, not SM, got you savings. I booked our ONE SM cruise off the SS. I booked it 13 July 2023. And I'm holding two SS brochures in my hand (received one on July 12th and the other on July 15th):

 

"SUMMER SALE up to 40% SAVINGS Limited Time Offer. Book Now! Offer Expires August 31, 2023"

[MEFIowa]

24 minutes ago, shepherd really said:

... And you can claim all you want about SM, but it saved me a significant amount of real money, in fact enough to buy thousands of .65 cent beers and $2.00 bottles of wine without wasting my shore time in convenience stores....

So, when did you book that SM cruise? And was it actually booked under a SALE? For example, when SM was introduced it was in conjunction with the Summer Sale:

 

"SUMMER SALE up to 40% SAVINGS Limited Time Offer. Book Now! Offer Expires August 31, 2023"

[MEFIowa]

27 minutes ago, Harters said:

We booked our forthcoming cruise with SM....

Did you book it under a SALE? Here is what July-August 2023 were O sales wise when SM was introduced:

 

"SUMMER SALE up to 40% SAVINGS Limited Time Offer. Book Now! Offer Expires August 31, 2023"

[Tranquility Base]

33 minutes ago, shepherd really said:

We all have different priorities, value different aspects of travel and have different budgets, you may have the right answer for you, but at least acknowledge it isn't for everyone.

Veranda Cabin ......$10,000

Corkage fee.......$25.

Happy Hour drinks in Horizons whilst listening to a singer singing her solo set.........$15.

Not having to listen to someone talk about how much money they're saving.......priceless.

Edited January 30 by Tranquility Base

[Vallesan]

7 minutes ago, MEFIowa said:

Did you book it under a SALE? Here is what July-August 2023 were O sales wise when SM was introduced:

 

"SUMMER SALE up to 40% SAVINGS Limited Time Offer. Book Now! Offer Expires August 31, 2023"

It’s painfully obvious you don’t  like Oceania their pricing or their policies. That’s fine but WE DO ENJOY OCEANIA! 
 

WE ARE PREPARED TO PAY THEIR PRICES!  If you aren’t …fine!  Go elsewhere. 
 

ENJOY!

[MEFIowa]

5 minutes ago, Vallesan said:

It’s painfully obvious you don’t like Oceania their pricing or their policies. That’s fine but WE DO ENJOY OCEANIA!....

Really, essentially a false claim as a response to the value or worth of SM? Since I just came back from 20 nights on Riviera (10/11-2023) and have 22 more nights booked in 2024, 12 from the Summer Sale of 2023 with SM and 10 nights from a 2022 sale, you make no sense.

 

I've got 40 nights on O since 12/2021 With 22 more booked in 2024. How about you?

 

O had at least 6, if not 8, major SALES in 2023, starting in Jan with the 20th Anniversary Sale. So O has SALE after SALE after SALE. Right now the Holiday Sale. This is O's "pricing". I watch every sale!