gmmdhoward

Oceania pulled the bait and switch with our cabin choice. We booked the cruise seven months in advance. Oceania did not inform us before we left for Rome that they had overbooked the cruise. After we had traveled to Europe from Texas, we found out that Oceania was not going to honor our cabin assignment, and was downgrading us to a cabin almost half the size. Once we arrived in the port city it was time to start negotiating for the cabin we had paid for by credit card months in advance. The fact that Oceania charges your credit card months in advance does not mean your cabin assignment is a guarantee. This is their policy and they do not apologize for the inconvenience. We threatened and negotiated to keep the cabin we had already paid for. It was too stressful to fight and negotiate for a cabin assignment to ever consider booking another cruise with Oceania. Gregory L Howard,MD Michelle Howard,MD Houston, Texas

Sassafrass

That is so wrong and I never heard of any cruise line doing it before. Isn't Oceana quite an upscale line?
On other lines you can buy a specific cabin, a guarantee type of cabin with no specific location, or a ship assigned cabin in a specific price range. We have done all three. I would think a line like Oceana would have sold you a Specific cabin. I am trying to think under what arrangement, they could justify doing that to you? Any more info?

jacketwatch

Did you book a suite and get bumped down to a balcony?

Did they compensate the cost immediately?

Very sorry to hear of this mess.

Larry.

Sassafrass

Couldn't believe it. Read several threads on cruisecritic and it seems to be a common occurrence. They usually start making offers of compensation a few days to a few weeks before the cruise though.

jacketwatch

If thats so then I my money goes elsewhere. I will not consider them.

Sassafrass

It happened with other lines too, according to some of the complaints on cc. Jacket, you have cruised a lot. Had you heard of it before? I wonder if there isn't some missing info here.

jacketwatch

I never heard of this before. We have been on 15 cruises and its never happened to us thank God but also I've never heard of this from any of the many cruisers we've met.

We have been offered upgrades before after booking and took one once. Another time we refused and no issues at all about it.

jacketwatch

Hi Sass. I went thru like 5 pages on cc on the Oceania board and I could not find those threads. Can you please tell me where you found them ? Thanks!

jacketwatch

I have no idea what that means??

Eschew

Larry, I just googled Oceania overbook and it came up with all kinds of threads, some from 2013, some 2014.

I can understand overbooking to fill up a plane as there are no shows, and there are people willing to take a "bonus" and take the next flight.

In the case of a cruise, it is totally different,and overbooking is inexcusable.

Just imagine you save up for years to go on a cruise and then you are told they are overbooked and sorry, your holidays are cancelled. Here is your money back and bye!

Oh, I guess you are screwed on your airfare and everything else too.

Totally NOT acceptable. I will not book with any cruise line if that is their common practice.

jacketwatch

Ok E. I'll google that too and see what I can find.

I agree it's not acceptable. Have you seen or heard of this before?

jacketwatch

I did Google this and found that in many cases overbooking was done but somehow offers to bump with significant compensation were accepted. Also saw where 65 passengers were bumped from a P & O cruise. Horrid!

I don't know what happened that resulted in the Howard's getting downgraded and not learning of this until embarkation but it's an outrage. As a retired RN we were in the business of caring for people so doing something like this is just something we could never imagine. Probably the same for them too.

Eschew

Larry, how would you like it if you get bumped? I don't care about compensation, you can double my money back and it is still not enough. Until now, I have not come across or heard about overbooked for a cruise. I guess if you don't know, you don't look. Now that we knew and looked, it is happening quite often.

We are leaving for Barcelona this weekend so we maybe off grid for a bit. They better not "bumped" us ... or else ...

jacketwatch

I would not like it but it seems some were ok with it.

Enjoy your time away. Is it a cruise?

jacketwatch

I suppose if the compensation was acceptable then yes but it depends on the person and the situation. If say you could drive to the embarkation port and had the time to be flexible then yes it's ok assuming you got a good deal like say significant OBC or the like, sort of like an airline bump under similar circumstances.

OTOH if you already had a lot of $ spent on airfare and had limited time then of course I would be outraged. You would lose $ and the intangibles of a great time away.

If we got to the port and were told then that our usual balcony cabin was changed to an inside one for me the only compensation that would assuage me would be at least 75% refund. Yes I would be that mad and my wife would want 10% ownership of the company. .

Trust me E I'm with you on this. Three yrs. ago we went to India for a wedding in Oct. We booked the hotel the previous Jan. Four days into our five day stay the manager told us "we have some problem. We have to move you to a new room " and the kicker was the reason, "to accommodate a group who all wants to be in the same wing." Huh? Sue said no! I said hey we booked this room like 10 mos.ago so when did you figure this one out? Then I said only if the room is acceptable and if our stay is free. Well he walked away w/o saying another word and he never spoke to us again. You can see this places reviews on Trip Advisor. They generally suck. It's Merwara Estates in Ajmer, India.

Eschew

Larry ... Sue only wanted 10%? LOL.
It will be a combo of land, cruise, land. We are back to Princess again this time, on the still sort of new Royal Princess. The itinerary is port intensive with only 1 sea day. I think I'll need a holiday to rest up after the holiday ...

jacketwatch

Wow! That does sound pretty packed in.

I do find that Princess has shown us consistent standards of customer service and I am sure you will have a great time.

Look f/w to a TR if you please.

Take care.

Eschew

Thank Larry, we originally wanted to book the 14 days Grand Med but it was full. Upon further investigation, the first 7 days (Wed Med portion) is available with limited availability and the second 7 days (East Med portion) is wait list only. Since we've cruise West Med a few times, so it would be ports that we have been to so just booking the 7 days East Med is fine with us. The cruise is from Barcelona to Rome with stops in Cartagena, Gibraltar, Marseille, Genoa, Florence/Pisa. 5 stops, 1 sea day, add in Barcelona and Rome would be 7 ports in 7 days.

I guess I should hijack this thread and should start a
new one ...

jacketwatch

This thread is over anyway. . The OP will very likely never be back..

I luv that itinerary. Any day at sea beats a day at the office.

We have nothing planned so far as RCI cancelled our planned cruise in Nov. out of China. The ship, the Ovation was chartered. Bummer.

We will do something but when and where is up in the air. For now we have planned a quick trip in late Oct. to Rochester, NY to see my best man who came into town last month for our sons wedding. Haven't seen him in like 20 yrs.at least. It was so cool we have to meet up again soon!

Eschew

Ovation is the third of the series? Princess has new ship for the Asian market as well. Majestic Princess?

Getting to the age where I want to take as many trips as possible. We are trying hard to get minimum 2 and maybe 3 or 4 a year. It's getting harder with the workload and personal commitments.

This one was booked about 2 months ago, not last minute but was rushed to get things organized. My sister and BIL out at Ithaca is joining us in Barcelona and is on the same flight out. She has a friend joining us for the cruise and one day in Rome. So we will have some company for dinner and won't meet too many new people.