What Airlines Does Oceania Prefer PHL to Med

[rbsb]

Hi All,

I am booked 7/23 cruise Venice to Barcelona. Does anyone have any idea which airline Oceania tends to use flying out of Philadelphia as a gateway.

[CruisinJuju]

Hello!

 

Oceania tends to use Lufthansa or Delta. I don't think they still have a contract with US Air anymore but I may be mistaken....

 

Good luck!

[lilybug]

We are flying PHL to Athens in July ... US Air direct from Philly; British Air on the return from Istanbul. We took air deviation through O.

[bigal22]

We are flying from JFK to Barcelona via O. I assume there will be a number of O passengers that will go directly via bus in a group to the boat. Can we expect to be "class"separated as so many of these posts discribe or will the group get boarded directly from the bus?

[JimandStan]

Can we expect to be "class"separated as so many of these posts discribe or will the group get boarded directly from the bus?

 

Bigal-

 

It all depends on how early you get to the ship. As has been described in other posts, Oceania considers "early boarding" to be a perq, and charges a premium for it, through the higher cost of Suite, and then, concierge level, cabins. So, they will be boarded first.

 

Judging from the reaction, early boarding seems to be a highly sought after commodity, so, I suppose O has hit on something there.

 

Further, many of the other Suite/concierge perqs, such as "priority" dining and cabana reservations are initially possible because those passengers are the first onboard.

 

Suite, and Concierge passengers, therefore, get first crack at the reservations books.

 

A certain percentage of Specialty Restaurant tables are held out of the reservation pool, in order to accomodate our Suite/concierge bretheren. In addition, early boarding insures them getting their preferred time, table size and/or location in the restaurant.

 

Hopefully, if you do have to wait to board, knowing that you are not being delayed for no good reason will make it easier to handle.

 

You're going to love Barcelona.......it is AMAZING!

[Bruin Steve]

I just went back and checked the file from my prior Oceania cruise and they sent us to the Med (Istanbul) on Delta via JFK and home on Lufthansa via Frankfurt...

 

Before I booked my upcoming Oceania cruise for 2009, I called Oceania directly and posed the "class boarding system" question to them directly...The employee I spoke with assured me they are no longer making the "lower class" passengers wait at the terminal for any extended period of time...that they will board the suite and concierge passengers first but, as soon as they're through, they will process and board everyone else...

 

Of course, their website still shows boarding time as 3:00 pm...which is a difficult time...Most flights from the US tend to arrive in Barcelona in the morning...and if you are in Barcelona the night before, you no doubt have to check out of your hotel before noon...So, most passengers, whether they fly in that day or stay the night before, will tend to arrive at the ship by noon...Most cruise lines tend to start boarding people, whatever the literature says, by about noon...and, from our experience, Oceania is no different...When we left out of Istanbul, they DID start boarding the suite and concierge passengers at around noon...they just held everyone else back ...originally they kept sticking to that 3:00 pm time, but they relented and only held us until 2:00...it sounds as though that policy was short-lived...and for good reason...it created a lot of ill will...