What Happens When Oceania Cruises Skips a Port Due to Weather?

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What Happens When Oceania Cruises Skips a Port Due to Weather?

The Pros and Cons of Sailing on Oceania’s Smallest R-Class Ships

Size Matters, Why We Prefer Oceania Cruises Larger Ships

Introduction

To be blunt, the cruise that we took was not the cruise that we booked.  The appeal of the cruise that we booked was that it was going to start in Cartagena, Colombia and stop in some less popular ports in the southern and eastern Caribbean.  Well, things change as covered in this post that we published shortly after receiving the notice of the changed itinerary.  Ultimately we stuck with the cruise because there were still a few new ports for us to explore.  This included Codrington, Barbuda an island that receives very few visits from mid-size or larger ships.  This is one of the perks of sailing on Oceania Cruises’ R-Class ships as they can reach these smaller ports.  Well that leads us to the question, What Happens When Oceania Cruises Skips a Port Due to Weather?

The Announcement

Let me note that other than itinerary changes before a cruise that are well communicated we’ve been fairly lucky to have had very few ports cancelled.  In all cases where we have had cancellations it’s been done on the day of, typically when we’re fairly close to that day’s port.  The reasons for the cancellations have all been weather, specifically wind, and the resulting waves.

In this specific case we arrived at Barbuda around 7 am.  We saw the crew lower one of the life boats that serves also serves as a tender to make the first trip to the island to gauge conditions and logistics.

Sidebar: For those not familiar with cruising, there are essentially two types of ports.  The majority of ports are just that, ports.  These have permanent piers, jetties, and docks where a ship is able to to pull alongside, tie-up, and utilize some sort of ramp or gangway for disembarking/embarking activities.  The second types of ports are tender ports.  These are typically smaller ports with less infrastructure.  In these cases, in order to reach the port, passengers go to a lower level of the ship and board a tender vessel.  These are often life boats but can also be various boats provided by the ports.  Holding anywhere from 20 to 200+ passengers these boats ferry passengers back and forth.

Back to Barbuda…for anyone watching closely, this first lifeboat was being tossed around by rough seas.  The boat headed towards the island but after 10 or so minutes it turned around and came back without ever reaching the shore.  Well, after the boat came back and the crew spoke with the officers in charge of tender operations and the captain.  For the safety of the passengers and crew the port visit was cancelled.  This message was communicated via a brief announcement over the ship’s communication system by the captain followed by the cruise director.

Here’s where the onboard entertainment team needs to step up quickly.  The cruise director announced that there would be a number of activities added to the Daily Currents and that revised programs for the day’s activities would be printed and made available within the next two hours.

What Oceania Cruises Does When a Port Visit is Cancelled

On a port day, activities on Oceania Cruises are fairly limited as most passengers are in port exploring via organized tours or on their own.  Only a small number of passengers are on the ship for the majority of the time in port.  For this reason, only basic activities are hosted, generally catering to the least mobile passengers as they tend to be the ones choosing to stay on board.  So activities like trivia, bingo, basic crafts and demonstrations are about the extent of the offerings.

Cancelled ports essentially become unscheduled sea days.  This means a lot more activities need to be planned and hosted by the entertainment team.  These generally include port talks by the onboard lecturer, wine and spirit tastings, games on deck (weather permitting), additional musical performances, cooking demonstrations, and more.

The culinary team also has to step-up the number of staff working the venues but also by opening the Grand Dining Room.  This venue, the largest on the ship, is the main dining room (MDR) aboard all Oceania Cruises ships.  It is open every evening for walk-in dining.  It is also open on most days for breakfast (excluding early morning port days).  The Grand Dining Room is only open for lunch on sea days and generally on cancelled port days.  This offers the opposite experience of the Terrace Cafe (onboard buffet) and Waves Grill (pool grill) where service is largely self-service, fast paced, and less refined.

The Grand Dining Room lunch offers a three to four course menu with appetizers, salads, soups, entrees, and desserts on offer.  These are served in the white tablecloth environment on fine chine with no concern for speed.  This is experience is about dining and not eating.

We’ve covered what happens when Oceania cruises skips a port due to weather.  Let’s now focus on what doesn’t happen.

What Oceania Cruises Does Not Do When a Port Visit is Cancelled

Oceania Cruises, as with all cruise lines, does NOT offer compensation when a port is cancelled.  This is controversial with a lot of cruisers, particularly when featured ports are cancelled.  At the start of the Israel/Hamas conflict Oceania Cruises had several Holy Land itineraries that had to cancel all of their stops in Israel for safety concerns.   These largely became sea days and a lot of passengers were upset.

Oceania Cruises doesn’t typically add another stop.  Cruise schedules are typically set a year or more in advance.  Port space is limited in many parts of the world and some ports are many hours away from the next closest port.  For this reason, port visits that are cancelled on the day or within a few days of a scheduled stop, are almost never replaced.  When ports are cancelled further ahead they can sometimes be replaced.  We’ve had a number of these including a memorable one when local officials cancelled a stop in Monaco during the pandemic due to health concerns.  Because this happened more than a month ahead of the scheduled stop and because cruising was just starting back Oceania Cruises was able to substitute a stop in Villefranche-sur-Mer, France instead.

Final Approach

I’ve read many online posts over the years where upset passengers have suggested that cruise lines cancel ports to save money, to drive more onboard revenue, to save on fuel, etc.  I cannot weigh-in on the motivation for cancellations on other cruise lines as my sample size is simply too small.  What I can say is that in my experience, I do not think that Oceania Cruises cancels ports for reasons other than safety.  Oceania Cruises and their loyal passengers prioritize time in port and are generally not big spenders on board.  The financial model for these cruises is focused on higher prices and less onboard revenue generation.  For this reason I don’t think that there’s a financial incentive for them to cancel ports as these ports are a primary reason for why passengers pay a premium to sail with Oceania Cruises.

Those were our thoughts on what happens when Oceania Cruises skips a port due to weather.  We hope this was helpful.  Please let us know if your experiences are the same or different both on Oceania Cruises and on other lines.  – Michael