I've Been Considering Oceania, but Their Aggressive Sales Tactics Turn Me Off

[FeelingCruisy]

It happen on most cruise lines.  I've gotten calls from Celebrity and Princess.  Oceania too.  Not a big deal.  

[osandomir]

I think Oceania figured it out that mailing all these brochures generates more revenue than they actually spend on printing and postage. In this case no amount of complains will stop them from doing it. The cost of the publications is included in the price, therefore no discount on the cruise fare is expected. 

[AMHuntFerry]

16 hours ago, Vineyard View said:

Oceania has our information. When I am researching, looking at a ‘pretend booking’ to see cabin availability, I always ‘continue as a guest” at the bottom. It doesn’t trigger a call or email. 
I made the mistake of saving one last week. Sure enough, the same agent, whom I spoken with in the past, and knows we have an agent, reached out to us. Since I saved it as a guest, he only had my email apparently as I didn’t get a call. 
I think screenshots work better moving forward. 
And yes, Oceania, Viking, HAL top the list of mailings, followed by SB, SS, Atlas…….etc 

Use one of the websites that Hlitner did not mention and you will be able to see cabin availability for entire decks as opposed to O's 5 or six random cabins at a time (and without giving identifying info other than state/country...just skip the email entry since it's not required on the sites I use). Some sites have the new upgrade that has little glowing dots over available cabins so I don't even need to make my own chart now...so easy!

[Vineyard View]

4 hours ago, AMHuntFerry said:

Use one of the websites that Hlitner did not mention and you will be able to see cabin availability for entire decks as opposed to O's 5 or six random cabins at a time (and without giving identifying info other than state/country...just skip the email entry since it's not required on the sites I use). Some sites have the new upgrade that has little glowing dots over available cabins so I don't even need to make my own chart now...so easy!

I had no idea. This is a fantastic tip….just need to unlock the puzzle piece!  I am pretty sure TA’s can also see this, but picking in advance of the email to the TA would be helpful and time saving. 
‘thank you

[taiwan_girl]

21 hours ago, osandomir said:

I think Oceania figured it out that mailing all these brochures generates more revenue than they actually spend on printing and postage.

I have to admit that we are one of the people that booked a cruise with Oceania due to a mailing.  I had not really heard of them before, and dont know why, but received a mailing from them.  After doing some research on them, we ended up booking a cruise.  Party of 8, so 4 cabins.

 

And yes, I naively made an account when I first went on their website, and not more than a couple of hours after doing research (I believe I must have 'saved' a cruise), got a call from a rep.  LOL

 

We want to do another one, so the mailing did pay off for them. 😛

[Redtravel]

I often try booking as a guest to see what it would cost or what type of cabins are available. I do it in private mode.  I don’t enter my guest number or save anything. Don’t get phone calls.  
I get lots of cruise mail, snail and emails from travel companies.  Just delete or discard it.  Sometimes the mail contains a limited offering that may be attractive. My last Viking cruise in April, I saved $11000 with a code that I got in the mail.  
If you really don’t want any cruise mail, contact the company to remove your name. Or if the cruise company calls, tell them not to call again. 

[mauibabes]

@taiwan_girl

We did the same thing in 2007, had been a Princess cruiser with friends. Took the Oceania cruise and have Never been back on Princess or Celebrity.  I would just classify it as a Stroke of Luck 😇👍🙏. With any added luck you are booked on either O or A Class ships where you will have the benefits of the larger ships with more restaurants and amenities, DW loves the Artists Loft and Culinary Center. By the way, if on Marina or Riviera and there are 8 of you, book an evening in Privee for a Private dinner for your group, you will absolutely LOVE it. It’s $300 for the night but it does make for a wonderful evening, especially if there is a special occasion to be celebrated. Request a cake to add to the celebration. 🤪
Enjoy,

Mauibabes

[Hlitner]

On May 1, we disembarked the Vista, in Trieste, after a good 35 day cruise.  We did a Live blog here on CC, and most of our reviews/observations were quite positive.  However, we did not purchase any future cruise credits, because we were not pleased with the O future cruise program and also had some negative thoughts about the SM program.  Today we received an unsolicted phone call from an O rep, seeking our business and offering his services.  Since our O cruise was booked through a cruise agency (it is unlikely we would ever book directly with any cruise line since we get better deals through agencies) we found the marketing call, from O, a bit annoying.  On the other hand, you cannot "blame a guy for trying" and O is simply trying to get our future business.  

 

Today, DW and I spent a few hours looking at some cruise options for the 2nd half of 2025 (which is about the first opportunity for us to book another cruise).  We already have multiple cruises for the next year (with Seabourn and Silversea).  When looking at 2025 we quickly saw an interesting cruise on the Allura, but all categories are waitlisted (and we will not pay the O waitlist game).  On the other hand, we spotted an interesting cruise on a new Virgin ship and its hard to resist cruising on what would be our 20th cruise line :).  One attraction of Virgin is they do not have any of that SM baloney, no forced drink packages. etc.   The entire SM situation with shore excursion credits is, to me, a complete turn off!  

 

Unlike many here, we are not wedded to any one cruise line.  Yes, we did enjoy O, but not sure we enjoyed them enough to again play the Shore Excursion Credit game.  The reality is that O must feel it necessary to force/nudge folks into booking their overpriced excursions.  I have no issue with them marketing but forcing me to pay for excursions we do not want, and would never even consider, is a way to push me to other cruise lines.  In August we have a Seabourn cruise and today we did book two excursions because they were good deals and do things we cannot reasonably do on our own.  The pricing on those SB excursions did seem to be significantly lower than the prices charged by O on similar excursions.  What a shock :). 

 

Seabourn does not play excursion games and offers no excursion credits.  They are just listed (with the prices) and folks can make their own decison without having to find a way to use a shore excursion credit.  I noticed that the kind of simple walking tours, for which O might charge $100, are only about $60 on Seabourn.  Giving folks a shore excursion credit, and then marking-up excursions is somewhat of a con since it simply reduces the true value of the credit.  .  Offering a 25% discount if you book lots of excursions is also another marketing con.  Each to their own....I guess.

 

Hank

[ronrick1943]

I have to admit we do look at the brochures we get from "O".  Sometimes we see something we like and checkmate out on the website.  However in all the years we've cruise we have never received a call from "O".  We do use a TA for all cruises.  Like a few we aren't a one line cruiser, we cruise the line that has what we want at that time.  Have to say we do like the suites on the larger ship and the dinner choice's.  One think that does bug me and it's a small thing, what's with the 3 bags of laundry - "O" shouldn't just bite the bullet and give included laundry at least to the named suites as a perk.

[piper28]

On 5/17/2024 at 12:22 PM, zalusky said:

I wonder how much they spend on mail flyers.  I get at least 2 a week.

2 a week, you're barely scratching the surface.  Heck, I've gotten multiple brochures in a single day from Oceania.  If I didn't get Oceania marketing stuff, I'm not sure I'd actually get mail every day.  Too lazy to go in and find the spot to turn it off, and not sure I believe it would stop even if I did.  

 

I'm sure somewhere some bean counter at least has some stats to justify the number of brochures they mail out, although I have to wonder if those numbers are like a lot of statistics, and open to interpretation in favor of the way you want them to be.  

[Jim_Iain]

26 minutes ago, piper28 said:

2 a week, you're barely scratching the surface.  Heck, I've gotten multiple brochures in a single day from Oceania.  If I didn't get Oceania marketing stuff, I'm not sure I'd actually get mail every day.  Too lazy to go in and find the spot to turn it off, and not sure I believe it would stop even if I did.  

 

I'm sure somewhere some bean counter at least has some stats to justify the number of brochures they mail out, although I have to wonder if those numbers are like a lot of statistics, and open to interpretation in favor of the way you want them to be.  

 

I am similar and receive many brochures.   I pick up the mail coming through the garage and they usually end in the Paper Recycle Bin before even making it into the house - let alone even opened. 

[nuevowavo]

Interestingly, NCL (Oceania's parent) had its earnings call with Wall St. analysts yesterday. In response to a question about cost cutting, the CFO said,

"But apart from that, yes, it's across marketing, it's across the things on the vessel that the customers really don't value. But more importantly, we're not just cutting to cut, we're really looking at what is -- what do customers care about, let's improve on those experiences, while reducing items that the customer really doesn't care about. So, there's no silver bullets here. It's just a lot of little things across the board."

 

So perhaps there'll be a little less advertising overkill in the future.

[ORV]

18 minutes ago, nuevowavo said:

"But apart from that, yes, it's across marketing, it's across the things on the vessel that the customers really don't value.

So are you assuming that they will cut the mailings as it's marketing? I wouldn't bet on that. There are a lot of things under the marketing umbrella. As much as many people don't care for the mailings they are proven to work. 

 

I've actually started to notice more TV ads for Oceania than in the past. 

 

I'm more concerned about what they might perceive as things we don't value on the vessel. I'd like to see that list. 

[Bob from Florida]

As to the unsolicited phone calls, you should check your tracking cookies for anything related to O.  If you are unsure on how to do that, ask a teenager.  

 

[clo]

19 minutes ago, ORV said:

I've actually started to notice more TV ads for Oceania than in the past. 

 

You see TV ads??? LOL. Just kidding but we rarely do.

[njhorseman]

47 minutes ago, nuevowavo said:

Interestingly, NCL (Oceania's parent) had its earnings call with Wall St. analysts yesterday

NCLH is Oceania's parent. NCL is one of Oceania's two corporate sibling cruise lines, the second being Regent Seven Seas.

NCLH's first quarter earnings call for Wall St. was nearly three weeks ago on May 1. Yesterday was a slick dog and pony show presentation called "Investor Day" that's a lead-in to the upcoming annual stockholder's meeting.

[nuevowavo]

23 hours ago, njhorseman said:

NCLH is Oceania's parent. NCL is one of Oceania's two corporate sibling cruise lines, the second being Regent Seven Seas.

NCLH's first quarter earnings call for Wall St. was nearly three weeks ago on May 1. Yesterday was a slick dog and pony show presentation called "Investor Day" that's a lead-in to the upcoming annual stockholder's meeting.

You're right. That quote was actually from the NCL (ticker symbol NCLH) earnings call, May 1.

https://www.fool.com/earnings/call-transcripts/2024/05/01/norwegian-cruise-line-nclh-q1-2024-earnings-call-t/

Edited May 22 by nuevowavo

[njhorseman]

2 hours ago, nuevowavo said:

NCL (ticker symbol NCLH)

To be accurate, no, NCL is not a publicly traded company so it has no ticker symbol. NCLH is the ticker symbol for Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings Ltd, the parent company of cruise lines NCL , Oceania and Regent Seven Seas.

[nuevowavo]

14 minutes ago, njhorseman said:

To be accurate, no, NCL is not a publicly traded company so it has no ticker symbol. NCLH is the ticker symbol for Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings Ltd, the parent company of cruise lines NCL , Oceania and Regent Seven Seas.