Ondine

13 hours ago, arxcards said:

Melbourne doesn't miss out after all. 😉

 

Updated bookings show that much of the rebranding for both ships during March 2025 will be accommodated at Station Pier. They are both in Melbourne for 9 to 10 days, departing for a day here and there to make room for other ships that are scheduled in port.

Very strange.

Adventure is here at Outer East arriving 16th departing 17th and again arriving 19th departing 27th allowing Viking Orion to have the berth on 18th March.  Encounter arrives on 19th at Outer West departing 22nd and arriving again on 24th departing 27th allowing Crown Princess to pick up passengers on 23rd for her circumnavigation cruise.

Both are listed as Transit rather than Turnaround (but this doesn't necessarily mean much).

Maybe they will invite the Victorian government onboard to try to win them over as they will be Carnival ships by then but I won't hold my breath.  Don't think they will be taking passengers.

As someone, I think in Alice in Wonderland once said - curious and curiouser.  Vic Ports site was updated last Wednesday.

On my last P&O (Explorer- 13 nights end of January) we were given chocolates 4 times.  They were Australian ones made somewhere in NSW.  We were very surprised.  Sorry don't remember the brand.

This was a funny trip.  In order for the stewards to get toilet paper they had to use up what they had in storage.  It was not unusual to find 4 rolls in your bathroom one day and the next none.  Thought I was going mad. I queried my steward and he explained it was their way of hiding what they had in order to get more.

13 hours ago, Mycruiseobsession said:

@arxcards I was thinking it was just an over nighter between the one way legs - had some spare rooms and are offering them? 

 

Time will tell!

Norwegian are strange.  I have a b2b (Melb/Auck/Melb) booked with them for this Christmas/New Year.  On the return cruise we get in Melbourne at 11.00am Saturday.  Then overnight Melbourne and disembarkation is sometime after 7.00am Sunday.

So I will be able to stand on the deck and almost see my house but not get off till immigration clearance is done presumably on Sunday.  Why not spend the day at sea and save on mooring fees?  First time Norwegian and I am learning as I go.

P&O Au used to use Australian food on board, like milk and cereal etc.  Now that they will be USA ships then I would expect to see more long life food from America like we see on Carnival and Princess ships.  Some packaging looks the same until you look at the place of origin bit, even yoghurt, milk and cereal.  So sorry for our suppliers but another saving for Carnival.

19 hours ago, CDaze71 said:

Those bloody Yanks can stop rubbing their hands together and get their dirty mitts off our ships. They have enough choice over there, sooooo many ships. 

Up until yesterday most of them didn't even have a clue that P&O Australia even existed.  Watched one (who usually knows what she is talking about) saying that P&O have 5 ships and what a good thing it was for us.  

I guess Carnival Adventure will stay in Sydney because she can fit under the bridge but not if they put a whale tail on her.

By rolling P&O into Carnival I guess they will be able to advertise in USA and get more overseas passengers to sail on "OUR" ships.

Also not sure about the "Sunset" bit.  What, was P&O dying?  What a strange way to describe "shutting down".

I do think that they will be able to save lots of money by amalgamating the companies with back office stuff and probable won't have many tax obligations in Aus now, payroll tax etc.

When Carnival spat the dummy last year and withdrew from Melbourne (they weren't actually here) but took Cunard away from the end of last season and Princess from Dec this year there was no mention of P&O Au which also sailed under the Carnival umbrella.  That tells me that this was well on the way to be implemented then.  Another reason why Grand Princess got itineraries for Alaska when she was expected to replace Explorer.  Been in the works for a long time and the spat with the Vic Government was a red herring.

23 hours ago, arxcards said:

Online, you have to book the cabin, and the 72hr hold is a period to finalise payment before it lapses. It has been that way for a while.

 

I just did a mock booking and it has changed since I last booked some time ago.

After I selected a room it then asked for transfers from airport.  Then it asked for travel insurance before going through to payment.

I could only select Use a FCD, Risk Free deposit of several hundred $ or pay in full.  Only 3 options and no 3 day grace.

9 hours ago, ekka49 said:

After 7 sea days I got confined to the cabin with the C. Should be out for Grand Canaria 😲

Oh no.  How long do you have to be confined?  Hope your symptoms are mild.  All the best.

Even if they could dock in Noumea (which they can't) there is no way people could travel ashore from the pictures of the devastation that has been wrought to infrastructure so why go.  It is just too dangerous.  

Just another reason not to send ships to Australia - problems with Melb and I think NZ (hull cleaning), Red Sea attacks and more importantly they can get better returns elsewhere. Now we are running out of places to sail to.

However I think that cruise companies will cut their own throats by sending too many ships to lucrative ports.  I have been reading that there are problems in Alaska with some ports limiting cruise numbers, Barcelona is limiting ships, Bar Harbour also in US trying to stop anything over 1000 passengers per day.  Santorini is another one which is causing problems with too many visitors.  And we all know that Venice is angry.

Reconsider your need to travel to New Caledonia due to ongoing civil unrest and travel disruptions.

This is the travel advice from the Australian Government so I guess there is not much the cruise companies can do.  This warning will probable impact or void people's travel insurance also.  The Australian Consulate is closed and while the govt is evacuating Australians from Noumea I don't imagine they want any new ones to go.

Cruises from Melb  seldom get to Luganville because of the extra distance.  It's right at the top of Vanuatu.  The only time I managed was when the world was shutting down as covid hit and ended up with a magical mystery tour of who would let us in on Carnival Spirit.  Personally I liked Santo.  If ever I get there again I intend to check out the medical centre which does such good work.  I did the interesting military tour last time.  Terrible the way the USA destroyed all the equipment when they left after WW2 instead of giving it to the inhabitants.

5 hours ago, arxcards said:

The first two I looked at for Sydney were sold out, so I didn't look further. I wasn't all that keen anyway, and the flash sale usually means they take away the OBC from the previous promo and take that much off the cruise fare.

 

I can see one departure for Melbourne though - Aussie Day weekend. 

P&O Cruises 3-Day Sale* on now! | P&O Cruises Australia (pocruises.com.au)

 

Had a look using your link and the price is $180 pp/pn for an inside or $263 pp/pn for balcony.  Not exactly a sale.  That equates to $7364 for 14 nights for 2 in balcony cabin.  I have a 14 night booked with Princess mini suite for $6,200 with OBC on Diamond Princess.

P&O in Melbourne or Adelaide charge like wounded bulls.

17 minutes ago, LincolnLegend said:

@Ondine the same for Adelaide, only 2 cruises available, one finishes in Melbourne and the other in Auckland!

I think with cruise lines abandoning Melbourne it will also affect Adelaide.  Feel sorry for you.

2 hours ago, Belmont Babe said:

Hope that food tasted as good as it looks! Its lunchtime and my mouth is watering.

It's lovely to see British food that looks like what I eat instead of watermelon soup etc which gets served on Princess.

If I go there and put in Melbourne dep then I get a message saying "Looks like you're adrift at sea".  Guess it is only for certain voyages and if there is no competition in Melbourne then why reduce the price.

Some years ago I had a lot of refundable credit from a move over offer.  They gave us a new cruise with an upgrade and the same benefits and the price of the old cruise back as refundable credit.  About a month after I got home I received a cheque for the refundable (it was pre this bank account stuff).  It was Princess.

I remember about 2 years ago the statement from the machines onboard Grand Princess told us we had $80 of refundable credit still available so we did not bother to spend it.  Our OBC had been a mixture of refundable and non refundable at around $900 including military/shareholder/refunded port fees etc.  When we got back the statement emailed from Princess claimed the remaining OBC was non refundable.  I complained but they said they calculated it differently and there was nothing I could do.  Unfortunately I did not keep the printout of the onboard statement so couldn't argue.  Lesson learned so I always take a printout from the onboard machines.

I got bitten by bed bugs on the old Pacific Jewel.  As I have done around 30 cruises and it was the only time, consider myself lucky to have avoided them on other cruises.  After that I used to travel with a can of Mortein and spray the whole bed before I would get in it.  Didn't improve the smell and the sheets would be damp.   

With people travelling from all over the world and staying in various hotels in various countries they are to be expected.  A bit of sympathy (and truth) from the cruise line wouldn't go astray.

On the other hand I have caught influenza twice and covid 4 times while cruising so I just accept if I want to cruise then these are the risks.  Must admit I tend to do longer cruises so catching viruses is one of the disadvantages.

A few years back one of our tour guides explained the voting system to us and who is eligible to vote.  Can't quite remember how it went but it was very heavily skewed to newcomers (French).  Not simply land owners.  There was a lot of unhappiness about it - this was around 6 years ago.

The nickel mine accounts for 10% of world nickel production and is the 4th largest in the world so it is important to the French.

Since I live in Melbourne and lots of other passengers will also live in Victoria or nearby it seems odd to be in port and not getting off to go home.  Kind of an anticlimax.  I just put it down to Norwegian not having home-ported Melbourne before.  I think they are learning as they go along.

The following Auckland to Melb cruise comes in at 11.00pm so I can understand the reasoning for a 7.00am the following morning disembarkation then although 11.00pm is not a normal arrival time for Melbourne ports.

22 hours ago, arxcards said:

Many of the around Australia cruises visit a port in Indonesia, but it looks like this one is totally domestic. Great news - no departure or arrival cards to complete, and if customs are present it should only be a walkthrough.

 

This cruise goes around Willis Island so there will be immigration/custom cards to fill in.  We went around Willis on the Grand in March and the ship forgot to give out these cards with the disembarkation info and was chasing everyone on disembarkation morning to get them filled in.  I have done this itinerary before so was prepared for it.  Yes it is part of Australia but the ship will be selling alcohol and smokes duty free (not cheap).

I have this on my cruise in January.  Not sure why we arrive at 11.00am and yet the disembarkation is 7.00am the next day.  Never struck this before.  Weird - why not just stay at sea instead of paying the extra wharf fees.  Melbourne is the end of the 15 night cruise and ships usually come in at 7.00am and disembark from 7.30am.

I have booked Norwegian out of Melbourne for Dec/Jan total of 29 nights.  Happy to give them a go although prices are all inclusive at the moment.  Not sure why we cannot take the drinks package off like they can in USA.

Will just have to see what comes along in future years and if the only ones from Melb are the expensive cruises then I will just have cut down on the number of cruises I take.

18 hours ago, arxcards said:

 

As for 24/25 in Brisbane, that is a little over 6 months away and Diamond isn't selling as well as they hoped. In addition, there are two other Carnival Corp ships in Brisbane that aren't filling-up either. Brand loyalty aside, they are all doing similar itineraries to generate revenue to the same shareholders.

Well that serves them right.  Diamond's NZ cruises from Melb prior to moving to Brisbane are pretty well sold out, have been for awhile, with only Interior and Ocean view available on Oct 5th, some balcony (plus int and ov) avail on 16th Nov and Interior, ocean view and mini (no balcony) on 2nd Dec.  Prices are none too cheap either.

Spitting the dummy with the Vic Government and thinking they could just swan into Brisbane where there is much more competition has backfired on Princess.  I don't think the office planners in US realise how big Australia is for getting to ports, home ports are not interchangeable.  People from Melb will not just hop on a plane to get to Brisbane.

I see that Disney has now got provisional bookings for Dec 2026/27 listed in Vic Ports.  Not sure if I would be a Disney person but it is good to see that someone apart from P&O are interested in Melb.

Don't get me wrong, I feel for people who have booked on the Princess cruises which have been cancelled but think how we feel down here in poor old Melb.  And Auckland cruisers - we were refused entry to Wellington on two cruises last summer at the pilots request.  I feel there is more than dirty hulls at play there.  I feel devastated for you.  It took so long to come out of covid and I guess this is part of the price to pay when the cruise lines went elsewhere in the year we were procrastinating about opening - thank you Mr Morrison.

End of rant for now.

I've found that hitting the escape button it disappears straight away but I have to do it for every screen change.  Not happy Jan