Piratical

Many thanks for your review, I am just wondering what you thought of the Sea Princess as have read a lot of mixed reviews of her, we are thinking of going on her in November to PNG

Hi Subaru94,

We sailed in Dawn Princess, RTW, for 104 days in 2010. And we sailed on Sea Princess in 2013... They are sister ships. And also Rhapsody of the Seas in 2013. I preferred the Sea and Dawn to the Rhapsody of the Seas and the RCL way of doing things. Rhapsody might have had a bit more sparkle but the Sea and Dawn feel nice and comfy to me. But this is just my opinion. The ship is older and not as swanky as it could be. Sometimes things don't go as you hoped. We have experienced breakdowns in not so safe places and we have heard other passengers complain about a variety of things. So I think sometimes it is more about your own attitude. The ship is older but the good side of that is that there will be less than 2000 passengers onboard. The service and the food are always exemplary. We love exploring our destinations and returning to the ship knowing that we will be well cared for. After all we are on an adventure and living our dream so going with the flow is all part of that. Hope you enjoy your cruise.....

Hi Bazzaw...

Thanks for the advice re our walking to the Festival. We have booked the shuttle now and will make a decision when we get there about walking back. We really love walking/exploring in our ports of call but are very aware that we need to be careful, not only with regard to our personal safety and the terrain but also to ensure we don't upset the locals....

We have just returned from the Sea Princess cruise to New Guinea. It was an identical itinerary to the cruise on 21st February, 2015. I posted this information on the Princess Cruises section because of questions about the cruise. I am also putting the information here because not everyone would read the Princess Cruises section.

 

Some comments -

 

Alotau - Princess had two tours. One was to the 'festival' and one to Milne Bay WWII historical sites. The Milne Bay tour sold out well before the cruise and it appears that the Shore Ex manager wasn't able to get extra buses/guides. A good guide would be essential and passengers who went on this tour were very happy with it. If you want to do this tour, I suggest you book as soon as the tours are available on the internet. We went on the 'festival' one. It wasn't really a festival, rather a continuous show put on by the locals with singing/dancing and with their colourful boats. It was very interesting.

 

Kitava - Unspoiled island where people enjoyed swimming/snorkelling. The natives from several islands have their wares laid out for sale. They were mainly wood carvings (lovely pieces with mother-of-pearl inlaid), baskets and shell jewellery. Passengers can walk to the village/school etc. It is a couple of kilometres - people mentioned a two-hour return walk. The track goes uphill. We went to the island too late in the day to do the walk. It was midday before we started off and it was simply too hot. We will leave the walk until next time. :)

 

Rabaul - Tours are either to WWII sites (cemetery, museum & Japanese tunnels). I heard only good reports. We went on the volcanological observatory tour which was excellent. We visited the observatory, a local village where the children danced for us, an area of hot bubbling water close to the volcano and saw the wreck of a Japanese bomber. There were tours for sale outside the port gates. Prices were around AUD$70-AUD$90. Volcanic ash gets into everything. I suggest you wear dark-coloured trousers. When I showered and washed my hair that night, there was quite a bit of volcanic grit on the shower floor. Take care of your camera if you take photos out of the window of a moving vehicle. One of our cameras got grit into the closing mechanism of the shutter. This was easily blown out when we got back to the ship, but it is something to beware of.

 

Kiriwina Is - Once again, swimming etc, but there is coral close to shore so swimming can be a bit tricky. There are a lot of carvings etc for sale. They were probably more elaborate than at Kitava, with a lot of stunning bowls - both round and free-form, all inset with mother-of-pearl and sometimes cats' eyes as well.

 

Doini Is - Probably the loveliest island. This is a great place to swim with sand underfoot. Tenders bring passengers ashore at tiny resort. Many people seemed to spend a lot of the day enjoying drinks at the bar. There were several groups of bare-breasted locals dancing. Carvings etc. were a bit similar to the previous islands, but I felt they were a little bit more expensive.

 

PNG currency (kena) was available on the dock at Alotau, but they ran out of currency. Passengers were able to purchase souvenirs using Aust dollars, but the locals can have problems trying to bank them at the smaller islands. A comment was made that the ship would have kena available on board for the Feb cruise, but I wouldn't count on that as it might have just been a rumour.

 

Overall - We had brilliant weather and the cruise was great.:)

Thanks for this great review. We are doing the same cruise in February 2015. In Alotau, we are thinking of doing the Festival but we read that it was a 10 minute bus ride. Do you know if it is possible to walk to the Festival?

Thanks for your help. Kind Regards,