Wanted more direct air routing to ship

Editor’s note: ITN was emailed a copy of the following letter, sent by a subscriber to Oceania Cruises.

My husband, Stephen, and I traveled aboard the Riviera on the “Italian Escapade” cruise, July 3-13, 2013, sailing from Rome to Venice and including Florence, Sorrento/Capri, Amalfi/Positano, Taormina, Corfu, Kotor and Dubrovnik. 

We have traveled on four other cruise lines, and our experience aboard the Riviera was, by far, the best.

The atmosphere was, indeed, casual but sophisticated, the accommodation was first-rate, the staff couldn’t have been more helpful, particularly our concierge, the food was superb, especially in the specialty restaurants, the itinerary was perfect for us, complementing our many other travels, and the excursions were excellent.

Therefore, you can imagine our dismay upon experiencing the air travel arrangements made by your staff. We were routed from Philadelphia to Detroit to Rome, which made no sense to us because this routing took us west initially instead of east and also because there are more direct routes from Philadelphia, which is a gateway city to Europe. 

Our illogical routing would not have been necessary if Oceania had booked our air much earlier in the year. 

To make matters worse, our flight from Philadelphia was canceled due to mechanical problems, which meant that we missed our connection in Detroit and had to be rerouted by Delta. 

Well before our cruise, we had asked Oceania whom to call if there were a problem with flights; we were told to call Oceania. However, when we did call Oceania at the airport after the flight cancellation, we were told to contact the airline. 

In addition, your airline reservation representative told us to try to get on a nonstop that was already grossly overbooked and then told us that, in Rome, we would be too late to get the transfer from the airport to the ship, a transfer that we had paid for. If not for the intervention of our travel agent, I don’t think we would have made it on time! 

To make matters worse, we had no luggage for three days. However, we were pleased with the help we received from our concierge in tracking the luggage and with the ship’s policy of laundering our clothes at no charge until our luggage arrived. As I said, our experience on board was exceptional. 

But then we came to the return home, which involved three stops: Venice to Frankfurt to Toronto to Philadelphia, and the layover in Toronto was 4½ hours long. I calculated the amount of time we were in transit from Venice to Philadelphia and it came to 17 hours! 

On the plane from Venice, we spoke to another couple who were returning from the same cruise. They told us that they were flying from Frankfurt directly to Philadelphia, with no connection in Toronto. If they could have such reservations, why couldn’t we?

MARIANNE PHILLIPS

Allentown, PA 

ITN emailed another copy of Ms. Phillips’ letter to Oceania Cruises (8300 NW 33rd St., Ste. 308, Miami, FL 33122; custrel@delta.com) and received the reply, “… we have a standing policy to respect the privacy of our guests and to handle matters directly with our guests and/or their chosen travel agent.” 

Ms. Phillips passed along the following text from an email sent to her travel agent by Oceania Cruises.

Please be assured that our air specialists seek to secure the best available flight schedules for our guests. However, at times, the most favorable schedules within our contracted classes of service may not be available… . (The) schedule your clients received was the best available within our contracts with the airlines, based on when their cruise reservation was deposited.

Our Air Deviation Desk gladly accepts requests for specific carriers, schedules and/or routines at any times prior to ticketing, and this may involve an additional fee. 

With regard to your clients’ outbound flight cancellation, please permit me to clarify that when flights are canceled or delayed on the day of flight departure, the airlines are responsible for re-accommodating their passengers in accordance with the terms and conditions of their passage ticket, as they have control of the reservation at that time. 

However, as the airlines do not customarily communicate with the booking agent who made the air reservation at such times, in this case, Oceania Cruises, it is important that our guests contact our Emergency Hotline so that our staff can reschedule transfers as applicable and notify the ship of the guests’ revised travel details.

JAMES EGGLESTON, Administrator, Guest Relations, Oceania Cruises, Inc.