bigdavefc

We are sailing on Carnival Legend in December and will be in Port Vila on a sunday. Does anyone know if most things will be open or closed? I am hoping the duty free stores are open but it would be a shame if we missed out on seeing a lot of the other things due to them being closed.

Hi, has anyone done the oceanwalker excursion at Port Vila Vanuatu? I was looking at doing it while we are there in December and i just wondered if any one has done it and what they thought.

There isn't much in Picton. It is a beautiful small town that you need to catch a bus to from the ship (about 10mins). We were travelling in a group and half of us wanted to visit the Marlborough wineries and half opted to explore the town of Picton and the Marlborough sounds, so you have 2 options in the area.

My wife and I chose to visit the wineries (as per my post above). The wineries are mainly around Blenheim and it is about half hour from Picton. The area is famous for its Sauvignon Blanc but there is a lot more to do in Blenheim than wines. There is a nice handmade chocolate factory (the macadamia brittle is yummy), a couple of craft breweries and some nice restaurants as well.

In Dunedin we did the Hop On Hop off bus and it allowed us to jump on and off as we wanted. I can highly recommend the Discovery World Tropical Forest @ Otago Museum. It is a butterfly house and well worth the 45mins or so we spent there (and its cheap - $10NZ from memory).

Picton is great if you like wine. We organised a private tour through Bubbly Grape Wine Tours. They were amazing and catered the day to suit us. They have a website and I put a review on Trip Advisor. If you like good food and Beer then I can also highly recommend Dodson Street Beer Garden. It has fantastic pizzas and German food and a large selection of Beers and Ciders on Tap (check out my review on Trip Advisor as well).

Send the cruise line an email...the worst they can say is no.

Its a little bit pricey that cruise. 5K for inside cabin.

Thats for a single. We have been quoted about 3.5k pp for a balcony and when you consider onboard costs are in $aud and there is no gratuities, it is comparable with similar cruises with Royal Caribbean.

Check out the fine print and make sure there aren't any heavy cancellation policies.

Will do, thanks for the heads up.

One of the bigger cruise TA's has a $4 deposit promotion going on. I might go see them tomorrow and see what the catch is. If it all looks OK I think I may book the Carnival legend cruise in September next year.

Thanks everyone for their comments :)

Tahiti is absolutely wonderful - Bora Bora in particular is absolute paradise. I would try to include that in your decision making process, if you haven't been there previously.

 

Thanks for the feedback. I am strongly leaning towards the Carnival Legend cruise for exactly that reason (Bora Bora/Tahiti). Its somewhere we have never been and it looks like such a beautiful part of the world.

We did Carnival Legend Honolulu to Sydney last year and all prices on board were $AU , plus plenty of free drinks on two nights as they need to get rid of US grog before the Australian season.

Free Drinks....WOOHOO!!! :D:D:D

The world needs lots more of that. Sign me up :)

If we go with the Carnival option and sail from Hawaii to Sydney, will the cruise still be $AUD onboard and no tipping or will it be $US onboard?

The Carnival Legend cruise is Sydney, Noumea, Denauru, Tahiti, Moorea, Bora Bora & Honolulu in April 2017; the return in September 2017 is Honolulu, Bora Bora, Tahiti, Moorea, Suva, Noumea, Sydney.

The Explorer of the Seas is (April 2017) Sydney, Noumea, Lifou, Mystery Island, Suva, Lautoka, Honolulu, Maui, Seattle; the return (September 2017) is Seattle, Maui, Honolulu, Lautoka, Suva, Mystery Island, Lifou, Mare & Sydney.

So Explorer visits more ports but is an extra 6 nights and when you add the tipping & AU/US conversion is also more expensive (the cost isnt a deal breaker at this stage).

We enjoy the Sea days but must say we preferred the on-board entertainment we had on our Carnival cruise than on our Royal Caribbean Explorer of the Seas cruise so we may have to think about that.

Has anyone done a re-positioning cruise? My wife and I are contemplating doing either The Carnival Legend one to Hawaii or The Explorer of the Seas one to Seattle and we wondered if anyone has any experience with these (or similar) cruises? Are they any different to other cruises and what should we expect?

We are also wondering if it better to cruise there in April and fly home, or wait until September/October and fly there and cruise home? One advantage I can see with flying first is there is no baggage limits on the return trip after my wife goes shopping over there :)

Hi guys...I was wondering if you can help me please?. My mother in law mentioned tonight that she heard one of the TV channels (she thought it was 7) was looking for people who were on board the Explorer of the seas cruise to nz that left Sydney on 2nd December 2015 and they were looking for people to be part of a lawsuit.

Has anyone heard anything about this and is it really a thing? I haven't been able to find out any other details.

True...I only asked because I was having a debate with someone very anti automatic gratuities and his argument was he knew that by paying it himself in cash, all his money went to the staff and the company couldn't keep any. Apart from the obvious point that behind the scenes staff miss out I couldn't put up much of an argument against what he was saying.

This is just more of a curiosity question... but what transparency is there in regards to gratuities? How do we know that the cruise lines do in fact pass all the "tips" from the automatic gratuities on to staff?

We can highly recommend the Otago Museum (In particular the Tropical forest and the butterflies). Well worth a visit and excellent value

When we went earlier in the year, we found the onboard prices were cheaper than we could find in Fiji.

Hey bigdavefc!!! Missed ya at the meet and mingle. Did you get the day wrong? They did have it on a different day than what was published online prior to the cruise.

I was really disappointed we couldn't make the meet and mingle. My wife has a few health issues (hence the accessible js) and she wasn't up to it so I chose to look after her instead.

We were on this cruise and while 187 may be the official numbers, it was actually a lot more. When people started seeing and hearing how effected passengers were quarantined, many people chose not to report it. It is my understanding that decks 8 and 10 were amongst the worst hit. We were on deck 10 and there were quarantined cabins all around us.

You are lucky you got an accessible JS. There are only 2 of them on the Explorer. Your TA is right. There are no accessible cabins in the full suites.

We were lucky, we got in early.

This may help you. Toward the bottom are links to all ships and the HA cabins.

http://www.royalcaribbean.com/allaboutcruising/accessibleseas/accessibleStaterooms.do

 

My understanding of your post is that you're asking about HA cabins above JS category so you could enjoy Suite perks......not that you want more perks in a JS.

 

We've stayed in a both a GS and an OS and on the ships we were on the bathrooms have a step up. The GS has a shower/tub and the shower is deep. The OS has both a shower and a tub.

Thank you, that is exactly what I was asking. I was just wondering if there were other HA suite options available and if not, would suite perks be granted seeing that those that require HA cabins had no suite options and it was the highest cabin category they could choose from.

I would have happily paid extra and booked a HA suite above JS had it been available but on ships based in Australia that is not an option (that may change when Ovation gets here next year).

then next time pick a ship class that has them.

Unfortunately being based in Australia and unable to fly, the choices are limited. At the moment Explorer and her sister ship are pretty much the best of what we have to choose from.

Yes...that's right...however, your accessible JS is the SIZE of an GS....if that's any comfort.

 

If you don't need a "roll-in" shower, then a full suite might work...even without the HC designation. Can't you walk at all? If so, a wheelchair or scooter WILL fit thru the door of the larger suites...there is a shower AND tub...and no step up into the bathroom...

Thanks, it is too late to change now but I will definitely keep that in mind for the next cruise, we are hoping to book another one on board. We have someone in a GS in our cabin crawl so I will see if it suits our needs when I am there.