Tel1208

Voyager returned to Asia earlier in the year and will not be returning to Aus until 19/20 season.

RC has an office in Singapore and I would guess the group booking was handled there.

The photos of the ship at berth in the tv show were taken in Sydney but the cruise with the problems occurred Singapore to Penang, 3 nighter.

The guests that complained and are to be refunded were Australians. But I have no idea if anyone else will be refunded.

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Was Vogyager even in Sydney in September?

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Finally managed to catch up on all the posts. It's been absolutely wonderful reading about your days and seeing all the beautiful photos (I always forgot to take photos on my travels).

Enjoy the rest of your holiday!

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We are doing the Hawaii to Sydney leg on Ovation in September '19. Was hoping to do Seattle to Sydney but obviously that no longer exists.

Might look at doing the 2 cruises prior to the Sydney leg: Seattle to Vancouver then Vancouver to Hawaii but all up that equates to 36 nights sailing rather than 21 nights doing the current TP cruise route.

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I was attacked in this forum back in 2014 for telling people that I used my passport to take a cruise with less than six months remaining on my passport. Unlike the people who attacked me, I went to the countries of destination (Germany, Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia, Hungary and Austria) after getting boilerplate information from Avalon Waterways that I had to have 6 months on my passport about 3 weeks before leaving. Each country required 3 months. I was told unequivacably here that I would be denied the cruise. I knew I wouldn’t and yet member after member told me to pay the expedite fee or I would be denied. I knew I would be allowed to fly, and I knew if I was walking the streets of Romania that the cruise ship would put me aboard.

 

 

JC

Perhaps cruising on an almost expired passport is different to flying? I certainly didn't get as lucky as you when travelling with a passport that was nearing it's end.

My British passport had 8 months "life" left when we travelled from Australia to Brasil via Argentina for the World Cup in 2014. I flew out on my Australian passport into Argentina but when I tried to leave Argentina on my British passport (no need for a Visa as they all share reciprocal entry) I was denied entry into Brasil as my passport would hit the magic 6 month mark the day after we were due to leave Brasil.

Luckily, the Brasilian Govt had offered all those who had WC tickets 'complimentary' visas into the country for the period of the WC. And as a "oh wouldn't that we a cool to thing to have in our Australian passports" we got one. Even though we didn't technically need it.

I got lucky, they definitely weren't going to let me out of Argentina on that British passport..

Back to the OP - I wouldn't leave here without getting all the vaccinations recommend by my countries travel advice bureau, just as I wouldn't leave without getting travel insurance (because taking a risk on either of those things is pure stupidity IMO). Added to that, I will now make sure I have a valid passport that has more than 6 months life on it when I return home from my trip - if I can afford to take a holiday, I can afford to make sure I have all the necessary documents and vaccinations up to date.

Unless something has changed in the last 13 years, you do not need the yellow fever shot unless you are going to the Amazon region. We flew into Rio via São Paulo and visited Iquazu and we were not required to get the yellow fever shot.

 

Even back then we took our around the horn cruise on another cruise line, HAL.

 

JC

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Beachammo can you see the function to cancel a cruise?

Just had a look through my reservation. I can pay now (which I couldn't yesterday) but can't see the option to cancel anywhere.

ING have no International transaction fees, as long as you deposit a certain amount each month (here in Australia it's $1000AUD)

And definitely tell whichever bank you are with you are travelling overseas. I was told I didn't need to for mine, then halfway through our trip, when trying to pay for a hotel in Brasil, my card had been locked. A 3 minute phone call would have saved me hours of calls from Rio to Australia trying to get it sorted.

Oh come on, people. This is exactly what I was talking about earlier.

Why would you go to a site that you KNOW is having problems, just to see if you can have problems too?

And then get upset when you have the same problems as everybody else?

And then take the time to post your ridiculous experiment here?

Really, unless you have a really good reason to go to the site (print docs, fill out docs for a cruise in a couple of weeks, etc), why not let the IT guys try and fix their screw ups in peace?

I was going to say that if people keep trying to login for no apparent reason, they will shut it down until they can get it fixed, but it looks like they have already tried that.

 

If you DO HAVE to go in, clear yiur cache and cookies shut down your browser and go back in

Experience has shown that trying to be logged in from two systems at the same time just screws it up. Even the RCCL or C&A desk can't get into your reservation if you are logged in (one of the things I hope they fix in this "upgrade").

 

Incidentally, I had to change to an email address about 3 years ago. But I'm in Canada, and that confuses them too.

And I follow security suggestions and change my password more than once every 2 years.

 

 

 

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To be fair, it was the one and only time I have logged in.

After reading everyone else's problems, realised it wasn't worth the drama of trying anything else and I'll just wait till everything is sorted.

I feel for those who sail soon and can't access any of their information. Creates a pretty stressful time for them.

Definitely look into the train, it's about $16AU per person, and as mentioned before, it's right on the doorstep at both locations.

Sydney transport is pretty efficient, and the trip time is 20-odd minutes, so super quick too. Especially when it comes to traffic times in Sydney - a zillion cars and roadworks all over the shop.

Lets just hope reservations stay in tact and we do not loose our Cruise Planner Bookings and MTD reservations.

I've managed to get into my calendar (through the already booked drop down). All my dining reservations, shore excursions and on ship activities are missing...

Did a dummy book of one of the activities and no dates come up, so there is some kind of glitch going on there.

Thankfully we don't sail till November and have confirmation emails of everything we booked.

Ah, I think I saw on the Carnival thread about their brawl that Carnival doesn't do drink packages in Oz. My bad.

I don't think Carnival or P&O offer them, but RCI definitely does.

Thank you for all the fabulous information! Looking forward to your review 😊

We cruise on her around NZ in Nov/Dec. Wonderful video - can't wait to get on her 😊

I have 2 rather large screws holding my right leg together - most times the metal detectors don't pick them up, but sometimes they do. I have no documentation for them, I just explain I have the screws, they zip a wand over me and off I go.

If you only have little screws, you should be fine, they probably won't even get picked up 😊

Sadly, there is no way to avoid the long haul flights to us here in Australia ☹

I would suggest breaking up your flights - we flew from New York to Hong Kong and then onto Perth where we live, with a couple of days break in between. Certainly worked better than the 23 hours of almost continuous flying we did from Perth to Doha to Sao Paulo to Buenos Aires.

Funny, since the water on the ship is NOT recycled.

Guess you never learnt about water tables and the natural filtration of water in science class then...

Great info - we are booked on the Ovation for the 14 day cruise around NZ in Nov/Dec this year, sadly just in a normal cabin. ☺

Try and get something containing doxylamine succinate, should knock you out.

Another recommendation is trying to adjust to Australian time while you are on the plane - we had a long haul flight from Perth to Buenos Aires, so the second we got on the planes we switched over to South American time. It's hard but didn't have as bad jetlag as we otherwise would have when we eventually got off the plane at the other end.

Ah the age old (well since e-readers have been around) debate - physical v electronic books.

I am 34 and devour books like they are going out of fashion. I love physical books (who doesnt) and have bookcases overflowing with books, I visit my library a couple of times a month and order in books from other libraries too. I listen to audio books when I'm cleaning, playing on my computer or driving in the car and have hundreds of books on my devices from amazon, borrowbox and overdrive.

But when it comes to travelling, physical books just aren't practical. On my kindle, I have hundreds of books at my fingertips and can swap books easily according to my mood, all compacted into this tiny lightweight device.

Reading a physical book doesn't make you a better person than someone who chooses to read via e-reader or listen to an audio book.

Surely the issue isn't HOW people read, but that people ARE reading.

I do wonder what that would do for broth certificate- what country would it be born in?

 

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I work for a local educational college in Australia and I've seen 2 students have 'at sea' listed as their place of birth.

Though I think they fall under the country of birth of their parents for their nationality.

I've had a quick Google, only things I could see road closures for were Mardi Gras (start of March) and Anzac Day (end April).

There was something on the one of the sites saying closures along George Street but when I looked at their map, none were actually showing.

On a side note, there is a lovely little tea shop called the Tea Cosy right near your hotel, that I've heard great things about. It's on my list for my next visit to Sydney. So if tea (or knitting) is your thing - check them out 😊

I appreciate the concern, but it takes 30 seconds to buy water from a street vendor, which saves the hassle of lugging it around (which people apparently do to make themselves feel better about their beverage package purchase).

 

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Settle dude. No-one forces you to buy a drinks package or 'lug around water'.

We worked out buying individual drinks to going with a drinks package - it will probably cost us about $50 (Australian) more each over the course of our cruise to have the drinks package.

We are more than happy to wear this extra cost because we won't have to worry about going over our budget for each day, worry about paying for it at the end of the trip, or even have to worry about finding cheap water onshore.