The more you lose, the more you want

Is it just me? Or, have you ever noticed that once something is taken from you, the more you want it. That seems to be my response to the 180-day Around the World cruise cancellation. Not that I wanted that exact same thing again. Maybe because I've already circumnavigated the world. But, I was really upset about losing those new countries! I was really upset about Clay losing a BIG trip to celebrate his (now semi-) retirement. I was really upset about losing a big trip for our 30th Anniversary. So, if you read the previous post then you know we already booked 7 cruises to replace the world cruise. Well, we weren't done. The madness continues. Next up, I found the Amras Cruises catalog that I thought had been thrown in the recycling bin when we were cleaning the house for our 7-month departure in December. Clay did not throw it out, he just stuck everything he moved into a drawer. Handy.

So, now we have added 4 river cruises with Amras Cruises (the American marketing arm of Amadeus River Cruises and a 2-week land tour with Celtic Tours. If you look at the map displayed through the link when you click Amras Cruises you will see a little dotted line pre-cruise option through Slovenia and Croatia. When I called to book, they told me they weren't offering that anymore. Clay thought we could do better (or at least longer) independently and we found the 14-day Celtic Tours offering that also netted us more new countries. So, a win for everyone.

We still haven't completed planning for a single one of these trips! So, we need to stop adding new trips and buckle down. I'll keep you posted!

Yes, we have a new subtitle! Cruise-a-palooza!

I've decided to keep this blog active for 2015. I can't change the title, but I can change the subtitle and there you have it.  This continues in the vein of trying to recover our World Cruise investment from Oceania as fully as it was possible. Other than our Oceania invoiced amount, all Oceania was willing to give cancelled world cruisers for their trouble was a 25% future cruise credit. This was 25% of Miami through Singapore, or the first approximately 40% of the 180-day cruise. The email I got about this says:

This is how the 25% FCC was calculated:  Was calculated off of the 71-day part that was cancelled, not the whole 180-day World Cruise.  So Oceania took their cruise fare of $56,999 per person, divided it by 180 days, multiplied that by 71 days, and then multiplied that by 25%.

What this meant to us was $5,620.73 pp, or $11,241.46, off a future cruise with a lot of caveats, or else nothing. Here's the other thing, our single biggest non-refundable expenditure, or loss, on this cancelled cruise would be our trip insurance unless we booked another trip to be completed within 770 days of policy purchase. Now we had 2 big reasons breathing down our necks to book a new Oceania cruise. So, we booked some new cruises. A whole lot of new cruises! We won't be gone anything close to 180 days now, but right now we're feeling more whole.

 

Cruise 1 through cruise 3, we booked as one block through Oceania. It was sold as 3 segments. NY to Montreal, Montreal to London and London to Stockholm. I would have lived with just this, but Clay didn't want to fly back from Stockholm (honestly, I wasn't looking forward to that either but I'd have done it!). This cruise is on one of O's new build ships and not an R-class like the ill-fated Insignia, so we felt more positive about that too.
 

Transatlantic Treasures

New York to Stockholm
41 Days aboard Marina
Departs on May 07, 2015

Cruise Ports:
New York, United States; Newport, United States; Boston, United States; Portland, United States; Saint John, Canada; Halifax, Canada; Sydney, Canada; Cruising the St. Lawrence River; Saguenay, Canada; Quebec City, Canada; Montreal, Canada; Trois-Rivires, Canada; Corner Brook, Canada; Saint-Pierre, France; St. John's, Canada; Cruising the Atlantic Ocean; Belfast, United Kingdom; Dublin, Ireland; Holyhead, United Kingdom; St. Peter Port, United Kingdom; London, United Kingdom; Bruges, Belgium; Amsterdam, Netherlands; Hamburg, Germany; Cruising the Skagerrak; Oslo, Norway; Copenhagen, Denmark; Berlin, Germany; Cruising the Baltic Sea; Tallinn, Estonia; St. Petersburg, Russia; Helsinki, Finland; Stockholm, Sweden

 

Cruise 4 we booked through Kensington Tours. It is a modified version of Experience Norway Fjords by Cruise (Northbound). We are disembarking the Hurtigruten line's Nordkapp early in Tromso and spending a couple of nights before flying to Longyearbyen. (Hopefully! It seems there is a big chess tournament that weekend, so we'll see.) Now technically, this is not a cruise because Hurtigruten runs ferries. Tomato, tomato....  Which leads us to cruise 5.

Cruise 5 we booked directly with Hurtigruten.  It is Spitsbergen and Polar Bears. Yeah! We already have all our SAS flights to and from Stockholm where we originally left Oceania. So, fingers crossed that Tromso trouble works itself out.













Cruise 6 we rejoin Oceania's Marina in Stockholm.

Treasures of the North

Stockholm to London
14 Days aboard Marina
Departs on July 07, 2015

Cruise Ports:
Stockholm, Sweden; Helsinki, Finland; St. Petersburg, Russia; Tallinn, Estonia; Riga, Latvia; Klaipeda, Lithuania; Gdansk, Poland; Berlin, Germany; Copenhagen, Denmark; Cruising the Skagerrak; Amsterdam, Netherlands; Bruges, Belgium; London, United Kingdom

 

 

 

 

We'll fly home direct from London. We'll be home for about 2 weeks and then leave again for Cruise 7. This is a Great Lakes cruise that we learned about through Tulane Alumni Travel. It is with Haimark Lines.

 

 

So, that's our 2015 Cruise-a-Palooza. Over 3 months, 7 cruises. It's not epic, like 180-days around the world. But, it checks a lot of things off my bucket list and it helps us recover from the loss of that epic world cruise. So, stay tuned.

Clay has, I guess, decided not to share his forensic accounting with spreadsheets, but he has shared it with me. So I will tell you that as far as he is concerned, Oceania cost us about $3,000 out of pocket loss when they cancelled the world cruise. I see that but I argue that the $11,241.46 is real money and wipes out his loss. We'll agree to see this differently.

 

Closure mostly and moving on

It looks like from the credit card accounts that Oceania refunded all our invoice amounts for the cancelled world cruise starting on January 2. That is good news. On January 8 they got invoices to our TA's office for the 2 replacement cruises we tried to book on December 29. The only special concession we received is that Oceania did not cancel the booking after 24 hours without final payment. They held the cabins our TA had chosen until they could do the math on our 25% FCC. It wound up being $5620.73 per person. I won't try to explain how they arrived at that number. We accepted it since it was the only thing Oceania was offering for our trouble. That and the thought of losing our trip insurance premium by not booking another trip. Clay wants to write a post about his spreadsheets and math involved in the costs of having a cruise line cancel your long and well planned cruise. If he does, you'll learn all about our experience. We are still awaiting a few refunds from cancellations we had to make for independently booked excursions, etc. I still have one suitcase left to unpack and put away. It turns out that we are putting this behind us the same way we prepared for it, in baby steps. Now the planning begins for the replacement trip.

The longest cruise that never was

Happy New Year!

We are still down here in South Florida celebrating the holidays with my family.

Our 180-day around the world cruise was cancelled. We have had a couple of long cruises cancelled on us in the past. 28 days in 2003. 32 days in 2001. You'd think we'd get used to it. It no longer really shocks us, but this one has certainly knocked the wind from our sails. So, even though it was not completely unexpected given the crippling fire, it still was a big setback. This should hold our record of longest cruise ever cancelled on us. It will most assuredly also hold the record at 18 months booked as the longest anticipated cruise that never happened for us. Remember that Downsides post I published months ago, that was just borrowed trouble. Pasted below is the cancellation notification we received on December 23, 2014.

Important Update for Insignia

 

Dear Insignia Guests,

We finished our initial repair assessment for Insignia and expect the ship will remain in San Juan for an estimated nine weeks to complete the required work.  Because the time needed is longer than we anticipated, we regrettably must modify our Around the World cruise and cancel the first three segments of the voyage. 

 Three Grand Voyages aboard Insignia, the 126-day Miami to Sydney cruise on January 10, along with the 90-day Cape Town to Sydney and 128-day Cape Town to Los Angeles sailings on February 15, have also been altered.  The modified Grand Voyages and Around the World cruise will now start in Singapore on March 22, 2015, with the ship scheduled to sail the remainder of the original itinerary.

 We understand how disappointing this news must be and sincerely apologize for this unfortunate situation.  We appreciate your understanding, and as our valued guests we would like to provide you with the following options for your consideration.

• Continue with your booking and join the ship in Singapore.  A pro-rata refund will be provided for the cancelled cruise days, along with an additional 25% of the refunded amount in the form of a future cruise credit.  To assist with your travel to the ship, Oceania Cruises will provide complimentary business class airfare to Singapore and a one-night pre-cruise hotel stay. 
• Cancel your booking and receive a full refund and a 25% future cruise credit associated with the pro-rata cruise fare on the three canceled segments. 

 Please contact us with your selection by Friday, January 16, 2015.  After this date, standard cancellation penalties will apply.  The future cruise credit is valid for bookings made before June 30, 2015 with a sail date prior to December 31, 2016.   

You may use a portion of your refund or future cruise credit towards a selection of Oceania Cruises voyages departing in January, February and March.  We have special pricing on select cruises, many of which are timed so you could enjoy an Oceania Cruises vacation before the revised March 22, 2015 start date for the Around the World cruise and three Grand Voyages. 

To discuss available options, we kindly ask that you to call the Insignia Guest Assistance Hotline at 1-866-765-3622 or 786-322-7990. 

Once again, our deepest apologies and we hope to welcome you aboard an Oceania Cruises ship soon.

 Sincerely,

Crane Gladding
Senior Vice President, Passenger Services

 

So, we cancelled the remaining back half of the around the world cruise on December 23, 2014 and we are still waiting to see a cancellation invoice. We expect to be refunded the entire amount of our final invoice but that remains to be seen at this point since Oceania seems to be unable to produce invoices or do the math required are the excuses we've had to date. We have each spent about one full day cancelling side trips, day trips, overnight trips, overland trips, safaris, rental cars, etc. I can report that it takes a lot less time to book these things than it does to cancel them, even with Christmas in the mix. We have been able to recover quite a bit of our financial outlay for these extras we booked for our time circling the globe but we will lose thousands that cannot be recovered. Our largest affiliated outlay that remains up in the air is the trip insurance policy we bought last July. At about $8800 it was the riskiest expense we had. If the cruise line cancels you have insured nothing, yet the insurance company scores a win because you have now insured nothing. You cannot cancel the policy and get your premium refunded. Clay did call because although the fine print did not say so, I believed that you could transfer the policy to another trip within certain rules. Allianz did confirm that they have a 770 rule that allows a transfer within 770 days of the policy's purchase. Given the 25% promised future cruise credit and the potential complete loss of the insurance premium we both spent some time looking for another trip of some kind at some time next year. On Christmas Day, I found a 41-day cruise from New York to Stockholm via Montreal on Oceania's Marina. (This is not an R-class ship like Insignia, so I felt a little more secure about it.) By the day after Christmas I woke up feeling happier than I had felt in a couple of days. Mom noticed and asked what was up. I told her and Clay about the trip I had found. Clay quickly pointed out the downside of flying home from Stockholm. I agreed and he found another Marina cruise about 3 weeks later that sails from Stockholm to London that had a few new ports. I can tolerate the direct Heathrow to RDU AA flight, and we figured we could find lots to do and see during that interval between Oceania cruises, so we decided to get a quote. And there all our plans came to another screeching halt. There were lost emails, miscommunications and misunderstandings, an Oceania inability to produce invoices or perform math. Don't ask me to explain because I am overwhelmed and baffled. I hate to accuse of Oceania of acting in bad faith after holding our money for the past year and a half but that is really all I am left with. They are either incompetent or bad dealing and neither is a happy situation with our sizeable financial commitment to them right now. So, we are being told to wait. We are being told that for some reason that final payment on the NY-Stockholm cruise is this week. We have already missed an important for us AA deadline on booking flights since we have no information from Oceania. Now even though they can't produce a cancellation invoice or a final and accurate new invoice (only brochure prices) we are being told that if we don't make final payment this week we will lose our booking. OK. We absolutely will not pay Oceania any new money until we have our old money back since evidently the math required to just deduct the new money from the owed refund is beyond expectations. So, our bookings for our replacement cruises will expire and we'll have to take our chances later. We cannot book any time sensitive airline tickets or affiliated excursions or a Norweigian fjords cruise during the interval between. Time will tell whether we'll be able to put this trip together as to when Oceania completes the math and produces invoices.

 

I expect I'll post further news as it breaks, but for all intents and purposes this is now a dead blog. Sorry for the disappointment. I may delete the entire blog at some point, but for now I'll leave it up as a object lesson to anyone searching the Internet about world cruises on how wrong things can go.

 

Our bags are packed and we leave this evening for FL.

There are 5 large bags, 4 carry-ons, 2 shoulder bags and 2 backpacks.

Departure day is in sight now

We got our cruise documents and luggage tags this week. I took that as a sign and gave up on my house cleaning and started hauling suitcases downstairs. Clay had already co-opted the dining room and begun his camera and electronics staging there, so it is now packing central. I got 2 suitcases packed. Sounds like all systems are go, right? Not so fast.

Tragedy strikes. Make no mistake, this isn't just about us, but a true tragedy. Our ship around the world for 180 days, Insignia, suffered a fatal engine room fire in St. Lucia yesterday. Today the ship has been sealed for death investigations and the next cruise has been canceled. That next canceled cruise would have run from December 17 to January 10. That is our sailing date. That gives Oceania about 25 days to get Insignia ready to run the 3 back to back 180-day cruises they have on the schedule.

I know this is unhappy news. We feel terrible.

Downsides

Not everything is roses and rainbows. Don't get me wrong, we're excited about this epic trip, but it is not without its downsides. Numbers one and two are pretty near a tie. They are living in a 216 square foot cabin and traveling eastward and doing both for 6 months! Now, clearly the cabin size was a choice we made. Actually, it was more like a compromise. Neither of us was willing to cough up an additional $21,000 for the next size cabin at 322 square feet. Even adding that 106 sq. ft. would have made this one of the smallest cabins we've had for a long cruise! So, we decided to stay with the smaller cabin and that $21K could be much better used elsewhere. Traveling eastward was a choice Oceania made (twice!) for reasons that will always be a mystery to us. Having circumnavigated twice before, we can admit making a rookie mistake and going eastbound in 2001. We learned from that and made sure to travel westward in 2006. Now you may be thinking, well it can't make that much difference. Trust me, it does. Traveling eastward, you lose an hour crossing time zones every couple of days. So, in essence at the end of the trip it seems like you had all 23 hour days and that is exhausting. Forget the argument about getting it back at the International Date Line. Nothing happens there! It feels like just another time zone change. Traveling westward on the other hand, it feels like all 25 hour days. You get an extra hour every day or so to sleep! Or do whatever you want with your extra hours. But, the point is that you have EXTRA hours, which is not exhausting the way LOST hours are. It makes a bigger difference than you can imagine sitting at home. We can't imagine what the cruise itinerary planners at Oceania were thinking when they laid out not one, but two world cruises traveling east. Number three is on Oceania too. When we booked and got our first invoice it said Passenger 1 and Passenger 2 Free Unlimited Internet. After final payment, we got another invoice and it said Passenger 1 2 Free Unlimited Internet. Did this mean anything? Yes, in fact, it did. What did it mean? Well, it did not mean Free Unlimited Internet anymore, I can tell you that. What is the distinction then? Now it means there is One Free Internet account per cabin, not per passenger. So, we'll work it out and only ever have one of us at one time logged on one device. But, for unmarried singles sharing cabins, I imagine it gets a little thornier. Plus, there is the issue of Oceania changing the terms ever so subtly between taking initial deposits and final payments. That change of terms is cutting in half a benefit previously agreed to and is badly done Oceania. The last thing that is bothering me is the fact that Insignia has one small laundry room for just over 600 passengers. I may be strange, but I prefer to launder our own garments. That won't be possible. Further downside is that Oceania is providing laundry service. That doesn't sound right, does it? But, I have read far too many negative reports on hot water washing and overheated drying and items not just rendered unwearable, but worse never returned at all from Oceania's laundry service. So, we'll have a limited wardrobe for 6 months and it sounds like it will be ever continuing to shrink, both in size and in quantity. I hope this is not true, but it is so universally and reliably reported that I fear it will happen.

Am I missing anything to fret about? Probably. But that will do for now. ;)