colourbird

We have a Japan cruise coming up in 699 days (but who is counting?) and have a balcony as we only do balcony cabins and haven't had any bad experiences with them (except on Celebrity Edge where the infinite balcony window was locked a couple of times.

We haven't worked out tours yet, but for a previous cancelled cruise we had purchased non-ship tours for each city.

I hadn't thought about walking around, but if we are dropped off at stations, a 10km walk is only 2 hours each way so probably worth doing as we'd experience a lot of Japan along the way.

12 minutes ago, Chiliburn said:

@springaussie
A local big  cruise specialist has just overhauled its website and now lists Enchantment of the seas in its search engine for Australia.

Its got all of Anthems and Voyager but when you select Enchantment ?

 

Enchantment is doing almost exclusively Western Caribbean cruises from now till the end of April 2026, so not sure how they can sell Aussie cruises on her. 

6 hours ago, arxcards said:

In comparison, we are not so different either. You mention Icon. Over the next two years, it visits only 11 ports and every cruise is a 7-nighter and only one cruise skips Coco Cay. It is a defined offering, and designed to generate maximum profit.

Must be boring for the captain. When we were on Edge on her first trip around New Zealand, the crew were really excited to be going somewhere new from them. 

Oceania tries to never repeat an itinerary which is good. So not every cruise line is scared to do something different. Maybe when they get more ships, they will homeport from Sydney.

On 4/9/2024 at 11:27 AM, arxcards said:

That is 2 separate cruises being sold together as a 7 night Bris-Bris Qld Coastal and a 4 night slow relocation back to Sydney via Newcastle. As a standalone Brisbane to Sydney 11 nighter, it would be a hard sell for Princess. The longer the cruise, the less passengers that can do them.

 

The above is only practical as part of an end of season relocation. A Sydney to PNG cruise with stops in QLD on the way up and back starts to look like a 16 or 17 night cruise. Awesome cruise, but they wouldn't fill it.

When we did the 17 night Northern explorer on Coral Princess last year, there were only a handful of non-retired passengers on board so there is a market for longer cruises.

1 hour ago, arxcards said:

That is 2 separate cruises being sold together as a 7 night Bris-Bris Qld Coastal and a 4 night slow relocation back to Sydney via Newcastle. As a standalone Brisbane to Sydney 11 nighter, it would be a hard sell for Princess. The longer the cruise, the less passengers that can do them.

 

The above is only practical as part of an end of season relocation. A Sydney to PNG cruise with stops in QLD on the way up and back starts to look like a 16 or 17 night cruise. Awesome cruise, but they wouldn't fill it.

I'm on that 11 night Diamond Princess cruise from Brisbane to Sydney. A friend has also booked on this cruise. We haven't been allocated cabins yet. Hope they are near each other. He's been on Diamond before and really liked her. This will be my first time aboard.

1 hour ago, arxcards said:

They have tried them. They didn't sell very well. There is something about 4 sea days up and 4 sea days back that deters the majority of cruisers.

 

The best ones started in Cairns. The last two of these departs next month, of which one also includes Honiara.

 

PS: P&O is still doing short seasons from Cairns in late 2024 + 2025

I don't mind sea days, but there's nothing stopping them adding ports up the Aussie coast. We're stopping in Brisbane and Newcastle on the way back down the coast next year.

1 hour ago, arxcards said:

Nice itinerary, as it has 2 stops at Conflict Islands

https://www.carnival.com.au/itinerary/11-day-papua-new-guinea-cruise/brisbane/luminosa/11-days/jg2/?itinportcode=bne

I wouldn't mind this one, but i'm not back in time from my Icon of the Seas cruises. I need a cruise for the 2nd half of 2026 so this is a possibility if it repeated.

2 minutes ago, MicCanberra said:

P&O always have their newest ships here.

Yes we went on Adventure when she was pretty much brand new in 2022! 

15 hours ago, rkmw said:

Princess is having one cruise to PNG in 2 years time but p&o go there quite a bit Brisbane and it would be nice if Royal can mix up the cruises a bit and go different ports instead of the same ones, South Pacific or Cairns 

Why can't we have cruises to PNG from Sydney for something a bit different? Not sure why they always start in Brisbane.

They could have sent a Quantum ultra class ship to Sydney instead of an older ship. Virgin sent their newest ship to Australia. Other lines don't seem to be able to do that.

This is such big news, it must be quite rare for passengers to miss their ship.

13 hours ago, ceeceeDee said:

Frankly I wouldn't risk a private tour overseas. At least if you book through the cruise line, they have to wait for you.

 

Actually, if the ship has to leave they will, even if their tours haven't returned. Weather or tides may require a ship to leave before all the passengers return.

If you are on a ship tour, they will assist you to get back to the ship. If you are on a private tour, you are on your own.

16 minutes ago, shireboi said:

 

You might be counting for a while 😞

 

Yep - missing that ship - it's been 3 weeks since leaving it.......

We got to explore the ship and have a meal on her in Sydney one night back in December. I can understand why you had a great time.

We have enough cruises booked till the next Virgin ship arrives in Australia.

Unfortunately Valiant Lady is in Sydney overnight 4-5 December 2025 and we arrive on Discovery Princess the next day so will miss out if Virgin repeats the open day on her.

3 hours ago, Wanderers2 said:

The Crown, Diamond & Royal appear to be doing the 2024/2025 Australian season. Not sure why we only have 3 ships next summer. 
 

The Crown, Grand & Discovery appear to be the ships for the 2025/2026 summer

I booked Discovery's repositioning cruise to Sydney. We had a great time doing a similar cruise on Majestic several years ago.

It's good when they swap ships like this (unlike RCI sending us Ovation each year) as I like to try out different ships rather than ones i've been on before.

She's a beautiful ship. I'm looking forward to sailing on her sometime or maybe Valiant Lady who is due here for the 2025 to 2026 season.

17 minutes ago, arxcards said:

In a workplace of 4000 people? 

 

 

 

 

 

Not that many, but you can do anything with statistics.

3 hours ago, arxcards said:

Play the numbers. In November 2022, there were 22% of the passengers/crew infected on a single cruise. That has happened nowhere on land, not even close. It is what it is, but outbreaks like that were newsworthy.

 

BTW, covid /gastro outbreaks on cruises have hardly been newsworthy anywhere in the world over the past year either.

At one stage our single workplace had over 50% of staff infected with covid!

10 minutes ago, MicCanberra said:

Yep, quite a few gastro outbreaks reported lately for clubs, restaurants and food courts around Australia.

There's more gastro / covid etc... on land than on ships, but it isn't newsworthy.

9 minutes ago, cruiser3775 said:

I haven't tried a really big ship yet, but my instinct says I wouldn't like it as much as smaller ships, for a couple of reasons. One is the distance needed to get between places on the ship. I have limited mobility and can't use the stairs. I can walk around on ships without  walking aids, but I do need to factor in the distance between say, my cabin, the lifts and the dining rooms or the theatre.

The other is the sheer size problem of shore visits. Getting several thousand people ashore in a limited time must be more difficult on big ships. It may also be a factor in whether some smaller cities decide they do not want visits from cruise ships because of the large numbers of people all arriving at once?

For me, distance between things is good. I wake up every day at 4am and start walking around the ship from 4.20am till 7am for breakfast and do lots of walking all day long and never use lifts. I'm looking forward to Icon with more places to walk around and explore. When I was on Vista as it was so small, I managed to work out a 10 minute lap of the upper decks / jogging track, up and down stairs at the front and rear which made it a really good walk with lots of different views (once the sun came up) (although I had Venus keeping me company for most of the cruise). 

52 minutes ago, Chiliburn said:

I was waiting for the backlash LOL

I like the big ships and the small ones,they all have something going for them.

The secret with the big ships is to find a nice little place to hang out.

...and there are a lot of places to choose from!

When we were on Oceania Vista recently, that was a smaller ship with the least number of passengers of any cruise we have been on and that was only time everything seemed crowded. The small restaurants were often crowded, the buffet was too. I gave up on the theatre or finding a seat on deck.

The small ships may have fewer passengers, but they are scaled.

Ovation is the largest ship i've been on so far and although it was at capacity, people could spread out and there was always space available (except in the theatre when seat hogs would claim whole rows for family and friends who were yet to arrive).

14 minutes ago, Ozwoody said:

 

Sorry colourbird, did not mean to offend you, I'm ok with people who like big ships, as indicated the last part of my post. just don't understand theme parks on ships, seemed to me to miss the point of going cruising.🤷‍♂️

 

I was replying to your post were you said "The best thing would be to get rid of the smaller ships and just build and run the larger ones that can fit substantially more passengers on them".

I was pointing out one size does not fit all, and I would like to keep some smaller ships.🙂

No worries!

I love cruise ships and I love water parks, I'd never been on one of the mega sized ships, but when Icon was announced, I had to make a booking (which I did immediately), we always book at least two years ahead so Icon will be the destination for our two November 2024 cruises, although we have also booked the thrill water park in CocoCay twice (so we will be getting off the ship)!

If it's economical, some of the older small ships should be replaced by newer, more environmentally friendly ones. We were on Coral Princess last year and the captain was saying they were likely to withdraw her within the next five years, but there were no plans to build a replacement. 

37 minutes ago, Ozwoody said:

 

Ahm, I for one would not enjoy being on the latest mega ship, the shear thought of being on a ship that has 8000 pax, all there for a water park/amusement park, does not interest me.

Why would you go on a cruise, if all you want is a water world/dream world, is beyond me.

 

I'm not saying that people should not, just saying one size does not fit all.

Viva the old Sun Class!!! and yes small ships = more ports.

Just because you don't like it, it doesn't mean it's bad or there is anything wrong with it.

Massive sized ships are obviously popular as they keep building more of them, which they wouldn't if they couldn't get people to sail on them.

We are looking forward to our trip on Icon and so too are thousands of others.

The best thing would be to get rid of the smaller ships and just build and run the larger ones that can fit substantially more passengers on them. That's more efficient. It's a win for everyone, the environment and the passengers who end up with more to do on the ship. Having fewer ships would also please the residents of the countries who complain they are swamped with ships.

1 hour ago, arxcards said:

If 200 new buses are used to replace 200 old buses, then it is parity. If Brisbane City is increasing their fleet by 200 buses, they will need to find 200 more bus drivers to move them around between bus stops.

 

If they were to have an hourly scheduled public bus run from the terminal to the city, how many hours do you think you will be waiting at the terminal in a queue for the next bus? It doesn't fit, and that is why they run private shuttles that match the number of buses to suit passenger demand via pre-purchased tickets.

They are extra buses, not replacement buses.

36 minutes ago, SinbadThePorter said:

 

The Brisbane bus and ferry network is owned and run by Brisbane City Council, not the rail service which is state owned.

Good, then they can run the service.