jspqld

The themed nights are more for the music and production staff, some passengers get dressed but most just have fun. 70s. 80s and sometimes swinging 60s.

yea what he said !

Nice, I have had a premium balcony on the legend and it was huge

What are your thoughts on the Carnival Legend?

 

Does carnival have soda packs?

 

Has anyone had an inside room with the French doors?

 

Is a balcony worth the extra$$$ on this ship?

 

I'm looking at the islands for mid January 2019 departure Sydney & disembark Melbourne

-Been on the Legend twice along with a few other Carnival ships and would happily sail on the Legend again. It's a typical Carnival looking ship designed by Joe farcus who is a crazy designer who created the décor for many of the Carnival ships as well as sister Costa ships. I like the décor and dark tones a bit more than that of the spirit which I find too bright. It all kind of blends in and works well after a few days on board. And I think I also like it because of a lot of the famous artworks and photos of past Hollywood legends and the like that are featured throughout the ship. Also, the Legend seems to have a great overall crew that just really click well as a team, rather than standout staff on other ships. The legend is no Ovation lol, but still a great ship to be out at sea on.

- yes they have a bubbles package

- yes have sailed in a 4k cabin (but on sister ship Miracle) and they are the best value cabin on the ship. Even if you don't have a view it can still be nice to get fresh air, hear outside noises, smell the ocean, etc

-Yes I think a balcony is worth it on any ship, but of course it does depend how much extra it is. I don't regard a cabin as just somewhere to sleep and shower. I think a ship cabin should be comfortable and that includes a balcony ( or fresh air as in a 4K). I have mobility and health issues and spend a lot of time chilling in my room.

I would say somewhere in the 270 lounge would be nice. Music hall would be good too. Vintages might work.

I can't say I have exp with any day tours in Sydney myself and I imagine there are heaps on google which you may have already seen. However I have travelled to Sydney many times. I would just wait until you get to Sydney to decide. Once there if you make your way down to Circular Quay or darling harbour you will see many vendors selling all sorts of sightseeing and harbour cruise packages. My tips of things to see in a day would be circular quay -opera house, a harbour cruise, The rocks, Old Queen Vic building, anything extra would be a bonus.

Great price for 3 people. I have sailed on the legend twice and I actually quite like it. I don't find it garish, and I actually prefer the décor on the legend over the more popular spirit. I think the décor on legend is a little more elegant and not as bright as the spirit. I also like a lot of the artwork in particular the large photos of old Hollywood legends. having said all of this I have cruised on other carnival ships prior so I am already used to the bold, crazy colours and décor of carnival ships. I would also say that the legend has one of the best overall crew I have come across of some 15 different ships I have sailed on. The legend wouldn't be my fav ship, but I would certainly happily cruise on her again for the right price and itinerary.

oh my goodness! it's so expensive! is that a good area to be? i'd like something less than $700 usd a night, if possible!

Wow it must have gone up a lot. We stayed there a couple of years ago for 5 nights and a standard room was only about $200NZ per night. We liked the area as it was in a good part of the city, only a few minutes walk to the harbour and places to eat and closeby to public transport as well.

Consider the Stamford Hotel in Auckland. Just up the road from the cruise terminal. And while there some good half day trips would be to the museum/war memorial and the Zoo.

https://www.cruiseindustrynews.com/cruise-news/17855-golden-princess-to-transfer-to-p-o-australia-splendor-staying-with-carnival.html

Cool, thanks for the link. I knew the splendour was staying with carnival but didn't know about the Golden princess going to P&O. That will be a good ship for P&O

hmmm heard a rumour last week, maybe it's old news, but was new to me...

Carnival Splendor unlikely to be passed onto P&O Australia afterall.. Not sure if P&O will even get any other hand me down at all anytime soon.

Instead, Carnival Splendor will most likely stay as the Carnival Splendor or maybe Splendour and join Carnival Australia to continue to grow the brand locally. Carnival Australia are pushing ahead on their part with trying to get the planned new Brisbane Terminal built by 2019/20. Then one of the three Carnival Australia ships will be based in Brisbane preferably year round but that is still yet to be determined.

I for one would be happy to see this as it would be another great ship to be based in Oz. I have always enjoyed Carnival cruises including one on the Splendor a few years back. It's bigger and has a few more nice bells and whistles than the spirit/legend.

If you're looking at cruising to mexico from L.A, Carnival is probably one of the better options. If you liked Carnival Australia, you'll be at home on Carnival USA as this is where the Oz based ships and crew have previously sailed in. Everything is pretty much the same. You will find some of the guests are a lot more patriotic about their country/team sports, etc, but not in a bad way. You will see lots of team caps/flags etc. I have been on the miracle and splendor for mex riviera cruises. I think the Splendor may be sailing back out of LA by early next year. I liked the Miracle but prefer the Splendor more, bigger ship and a few more options on board. Carnival sails from Long Beach which is about a half hour out of LA.

My top 5

Allure of the Seas

Qauntum/Ovation of the seas equal 2nd

Celebrity Equinox

MSC Splendida

Explorer of the Seas

Just out of the top 5 would be Carnival Freedom

Definitely keep away from those Deck 6 "Oceanview" cabins, they are quite horrible on Aria. I assume the same for Eden.

 

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Funny how we all see things differently. I have cruised on a deck 6 cabin on Aria and didn't mind it. If I was to book on one of these ships again, a balcony would be my first choice, but if that wasn't available a deck 6 inside or outside would be my next choice. I liked that I could quickly walk outside onto the promenade deck and go for a stroll, enjoy the view, get some fresh air, etc, without having to worry about several stairs or lifts.

Just another little rant about MSC up to their silly antics/rules again. Yesterday I was helping a friend with little cruise exp research a British Isles cruise for 2018.

We were using U.S based cruise sites for their quick and efficient search engines. She saw one on the MSC Magnifica she liked. I had sailed MSC once before and told her I was happy with the cruise and MSC would be an ok choice. We then looked into this cruise further and looked at the oceanview cat availability. So right there and then we could see a number of cabins available and the total US price which would have converted to $3400 AUD total for the cabin. I thought it was bit much for a 10 day ish cruise but she was happy with it, so all good.

Anyway, we already knew being Australian that we couldn’t book MSC using an overseas agent, but we rang one anyway just in case, They did say sorry, cant help you. So we then looked up the same cruise and cabin choice on MSC Australia’s website as well as another oz agent. Surprise, surprise, Exact same cabin on offer for $5450.00 AUD total. A whole $2000 more! That’s more than the cost of a return flight to Europe. We then rang MSC OZ to see if they could somewhat discuss a better deal. And they just were not interested at all. Didn’t even ask for the cruise details or look up the price, etc. Just ‘No, we have nothing to do with the USA pricing, nor are we interested in matching them bla, bla, bla.” I also told her that we checked MSC Uk for their pricing and they were also about as cheap as USA but were even throwing in a drinks package, still No. And started talking to me like I was a cruise newbie and didn’t know how the whole cruising system worked. lol.

So we just said thank you very much, we’ll look at other Lines instead!

In fairness to the girl at MSC, I realise she was just doing her job, but MSC Australia really needs to look at issues like this if they want to entice even more aussie cruisers. $2000 is a massive difference. They are building more mega ships than any other line and are starting to place more ships across the world, and will have many, many berths to fill. This isn’t the first time I have come across silly pricing at MSC and now today they just lost two separate customers. It would take a pretty good deal to entice us back in the future.

Guess we are really looking for a tour that would include a couple of days in the area of the Great Barrier Reef and another couple of days in the Ayers Rock area, before returning to Sydney before the cruise. Princess Cruises has these types of cruise tours, but we are trying to do the Royal Caribbean cruise and need the land portion.

 

Thank you.

The two places you are wanting to see are not possible within 4 -5 days by land tour. They are thousands of klms apart. You would have to organise your own flights and hotels and then do small tours of Uluru and GBR. I think you can get direct flights from cairns to Alice springs (still a fair way from Uluru) but not sure about direct to a smaller airport near ayers rock itself. From Sydney you can fly to/from any of these airports.

Unless you really want to see ayers rock/Uluru, I wouldn't be too disappointed as most of us Australians have never seen it either for the simple fact it is hard and expensive to get to. Sure we all want to see it, but there are plenty of other special places to see too.

Australia is a very big and spread out country so there isn't a lot of all over tour companies like you would find in say Europe. They do exist, but many are quite expensive and with many hours in a bus too. You could do a search for bus tours or multi day tours. It's probably easier though if you buy individual flights between the major cities and do shorter day trips from there. For eg if you stuck with the east coast, you could say fly into Melbourne (great cosmopolitan city), spend a couple of nights there, then jump on a flight up to cairns (great barrier reef), then down to Brisbane (Great river city and an hour from the Gold and Sunshine coasts for great beaches, Australia zoo and theme parks, etc) and then into Sydney. You could also start in Brisbane and do this in reverse still finishing in syd prior to the cruise. Gold and sunshine coasts also have their own airports linking to syd and melb, and many more from the Gold coast.

Charging for deck chairs would be good, may stop those chair hogs.

Lol.

Reading past the few posts, I don't really have a problem with many for fee added things in Cruising these days. I did my first cruise on the old 26,000tn Fair Princess back in 1999, had a ball at the time and didn't know any different. These days I'd choose a qantum or oasis class ship any day. I like that the new ships still offer many things for free but I also like that there are other options too. We are all so different and like different things. Eg, All inclusive style cruising isn't really for me. Due to illness I also tend to spend a lot of time in my stateroom. For me it's not just a cabin to sleep in. If price allows I much prefer a modern balcony room, with Large format TV's and nice modern décor and amenities. I can't drink much so prefer to pay for drinks as I go. On ships with great buffets, eg Celebrity solstice class I often prefer the range of food in the buffet over the mdr. I don't mind paying for a specialty restaurant here and there. I like watching the main free shows, but I would consider paying for something a little extra different to the norm. I don't care for trivia or bingo, would rather be out on deck enjoying the view and fresh air and chatting to others.

I think cruising is heading in a way that it is trying to appeal to a greater audience, people who are prepared to spend a lot of money as well as still cater to those who don't.

 

Sinbad instead of being the typical anti progress negative greenie keyboard warrior why don't you educate yourself on the facts rather than what you think is the case.

 

It does not have to be a rock wall it can be on piers, as long as where the ships are have barriers that stop rough waves, the jetty out does not have to be rocks so your wrong on first count.

 

Second of all Glen who I have previously indicated runs the prob GC port Facebook group has consulted with engineers and cruise companies for years and all agree with the right design it's very feasible. What exactly your qualifications to comment??

 

A well constructed jetty can be rebuilt if a once in a 100 year cyclone came. My goodness let's not build anything a cyclone may demolish it!! That's how stupid that argument is. In any case with hundreds of milllions generated in tourism the costs of any repairs is minuscule.

 

If we listened to people like you in the past there would be no opera house, no harbour bridge and no snowy hydro electric scheme, they all had naysayers

 

Rencruisr it's quite obvious you're very passionate about getting a cruise terminal/dock/jetty/whatever built off the spit there at the Gold coast. You seem to have a rebuttal ready for most replies against it. Heaps of experienced cruisers on here are saying it's a hell of a lot of money and infrastructure needed to be spent at great risk that it just might not work. I don't know what amount of cruise ships you have sailed on or what oceans you have traversed. Personally, I'm no Engineer, but I have been lucky to have been on a few cruises across many oceans, and I have had quite a few ports cancelled at the last minute due to rough weather, and it sucks when you have a port on your bucket list. On a transatlantic cruise we missed Ireland ports all together due to storms. One of my first cruises in the Med we missed Monaco due to heavy swells, and we got 17ft waves and a huge storm leaving Barcelona once that caused a lot of damage to the lido deck of the 110,000tn new ship I was on at the time. My point is this was in the Med, a relatively calm ocean in comparison to the East coast of Aus.

Mooloolaba on the Sunshine coast has similar huge swells and surf as the Gold coast, although it is slightly more protected by a small bay and headland. It has had about a dozen or more cruise ships scheduled to drop anchor in this bay over the last couple of years. About half so far have not even been able to get close due to huge swells and have had to cancel and look for other ports at the last minute. This is not only a disappointment to those on board but is a huge blow for the local economy who prepare for each visit through hiring extra staff, buying in extra food, etc, on ship days. So these types of similar rough waters circumstances would mean that probably half of all scheduled stops at the proposed Gold coast jetty would also be cancelled. Cruise Lines are not going to risk damage to their ships, especially big new fancy ones or the safety of their passengers if they look like they will be surfing a wave right onto the beach in heavy seas and taking out half the jetty and or ship in the process. Nor would port authorities want this if they have just spent millions building such a jetty. I think if the Businesses and people of the Gold Coast really want such a long jetty out at sea, well then they should be the ones putting up all the money at their own risk, not the money of governments or Cruise Lines who could better spend their money elsewhere, eg Brisbane.

I'm not against a cruise dock being built at the Gold Coast. In fact I think it would be great for tourism & I would like to also see docks built right along the Qld coast, including other places like Moreton Island, Sunshine Coast, Fraser Coast, etc, But, I just think a very long jetty straight out to sea off an unprotected surf beach is not the answer. Maybe the experts need to see if there is a safer, more viable option south near the Tweed river mouth, I don't know. Maybe go back to original plans and see if a compromise can be done with the greenies over a smaller, revised Broadwater plan, although I don't like the chances of that happening either.

Wow, just wondering if the Majestic Princess will have any cheaper cruises at all or if we have to wait for last minute (if any)..

A friend has been sailing on it the past week in the med, he has liked the ship overall, his son loves the kids club, says food has been ok, but feels the entertainment has been lacking and nothing compared to what he has seen on RCI or MSC.

thanks for that , never even thought about a ship transfer but would probably be the easiest option,

 

we are thinking of a 2_30 pm flight out of shanghai do you think this is doable?

Unless you are booking flights through the cruise line I wouldn't risk it. I would imagine that a best case scenario of time from port to pudong would be about 90 minutes. could be a lot more. I think other airport could be similarish. Problem is Shanghai ports often get closed due to extreme fog. And this indeed did happen when we arrived and were delayed several hours. maybe just spend a night or two exploring shanghai

I have sailed into baoshan port shanghai on the quantum. It is a long way from the city. I believe in no traffic it is meant to be about 45 mins. But on our trip we had bumper to bumper traffic and it took about 2hrs in a taxi to get to our city hotel not far from the Bund. There is no convenient train station by the port. The main Pudong airport is south of the city in the other direction. Depending where you are staying you could use a fast train, or taxi which travels along a freeway for most of the way from the city. If you want easy convenience with either it might be best to look at ship transfers or taxi.

No from me to the recent off shore proposal. I think it will be way too expensive and suffer way too much damage every time there is a major storm. And I can only imagine how often ships wouldn't be able to get safely close to it due to bad weather.

Brisbane should be the number 1 port for sth east qld.

I think the gold coast region could do with a pier somewhere where ships could pull in for a day visit, just not an off shore one. Ideally this would have been inside the broadwater based on the original concept. Bridges would have allowed for easy traffic access but authorities ruled this would be to dangerous to the environment and scrapped it. The other idea is for the goldy to link up with the tweed gov and maybe look at creating a pier off/within the tweed river. This could be a lot cheaper and safer and be very close to the airport.

I'm not a fan of tenders, but I suppose that is always an option at some of these NQ stops, as long as they are organised well and utilise local ferries wherever possible too. I'd love to see magnetic island be a cruise stop, so scenic and so close to Townsville.

Yea for sure more top end cruises would be great and small to medium size ships are well suited to that. Interesting though, I had a conversation one day with one a senior officer from RCI about such cruises. He was telling me that they really want to do more cruises to the region and they hate dealing with eg yorkeys knob as they have had such bad passenger feedback with tendering, buses, etc. They have spent a lot of money and time the past couple of years doing all sorts of modelling for docking at cairns and with all the modern technology and capabilities of their ships, he was saying they are certain they can safely dock even their larger ships at cairns and without any harm being done to the enviroment. Yet the greenies opposed it, so they are just going to wait and see and negotiate again in the future.

I agree re Brisbane. However, I think Brisbane will be an additional facility not a replacement for Sydney. It will have a lot going for it, for Aussies, as well as Kiwis and Asians, who can fly direct in to Brisbane, being closer to South Pacific Islands, PNG and cruises to NQ. Maybe forward thinking cruise lines will do an occasional cruise to Darwin. However most overseas people will still want to cruise from Sydney.

Agree Sydney will always be the Miami of Oz and people are always going to want to cruise out of there, but yes Brisbane has the opportunity to be a huge additional facility. And yes there will always be international visitors who want to cruise from Syd, but I also think many international visitors just want to visit Sydney, before the idea of doing a cruise from there as well. A lot of Int. visitors to Sydney also visit places like the Gold Coast while in Australia and with the Sunshine Coast also building a new international airport with the hopes of luring more Asian tourists, cruising out of Brisbane will be an easy option for many overseas tourists visiting Australia. Definitely be a great idea to see more cruises going to Darwin. Maybe they could look at doing 7 day one way cruises to/from Bris and Dar stopping at a few alternate ports in between and even include overnighters in cairns.