Iluvcruising2

Just got back from the Voyager. Our first 14 nighter ever (on any ship) and our first sailing out of Australia and my first time in New Zealand... so many firsts!

Time to start the review!

But first, some pictures of the beautiful Voyager docked at Circular Quay (Overseas Passenger Terminal). These were taken from the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

Stay tuned.

Per Royal's email to me the Mariner gets the new menu 2/17/13 sailing, week before mine. :D

 

BonVoyage

Dawna

So the Mariner gets the new menu in Feb 2013? That's great!!

Waiting patiently still..............

They are the real thing.

You can find good deals on board.

Still in double digits....

Looking forward to your 8 December review! We were initially booked on the same cruise as you but had to cancel so we have now booked an almost identical cruise for 23 November 2013......almost 1 year away. Please take photos of the food to post here.....we are foodies :-) Thanks.

Will do!!

SAT 22 DEC SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA D

This is our itinerary – looks like a good one to me. Lots of days at sea! Hope we like it. Is this like yours?

 

Day 1 Sydney, Australia

Day 2 At Sea

Day 3 At Sea

Day 4 At Sea

Day 5 Auckland, New Zealand

Day 6 Tauranga, New Zealand

Day 7 Napier, New Zealand

Day 8 At Sea

Day 9 Port Chalmers, New Zealand

Day 10 Dusky Sound, New Zealand

Day 10 Doubtful Inlet, New Zealand

Day 10 Milford Sound, New Zealand

Day 11 At Sea

Day 12 At Sea

Day 13 Hobart, Tasmania

Day 14 At Sea

Day 15 Adelaide, Australia

Day 16 At Sea

Day 17 At Sea

Day 18 At Sea

Day 19 Fremantle, Australia

19 days! Wow.

Yeah, we are covering quite a few ports that are the same. Let me dig out our itinerary.

iluvcruising2, thanks so much for this great review and all the pics of the VOS. We are taking our first cruise in 11 years on the VOS from Sydney to Freemantle in Feb-Mar and can't wait. There are not that many pics of the VOS so I was so thrilled to see them. I'm really looking forward to your review of your Dec trip - probably we'll be seeing a lot of the same ports. Thanks again!

Thanks for your encouragement.

What are your ports of call for the Sydney - Freemantle cruise?

My parents-in-law are sailing on the Voyager in February, out of Sydney, around NZ and ending in Perth (hope I've got that itinerary correct), and so I will pass on to them a link to your fantastic reviews. Again, thank you and I wish you a wonderful December cruise.:)

That's cool!

I plan to do a similar review for our upcoming Dec cruise. Watch out for that!

Yep, sure is....I have registered for the Meet and Greet, thinking they may need numbers, but the confirming email said I was #54....will see what happens...

 

We are older travellers...I was born in the 1st half of the last century!:eek:

Old in age, but surely young at heart!

Welcome aboard!

This is by far the best review I have ever read on CC!

 

We are still contemplating doing Singapore to Shanghai B2B after our Fremantle to Singapore cruise on Voyager.

 

Would love to see some pics of Shanghai :D

 

Den

Cool!

Well, one tip I received from a friend was NOT to sail on cruises ex-Shanghai.

Reason is that you may not like to be in the company of 3,000 PRCs. They tend to be a bit more rowdy and also, perhaps, less cultured, relative to the Westerners.

Just IMHO.

Good stuff! Keep it coming!!

Thanks for putting together the best reveiw...good with bad, that I have ever had the pleasure of reading. The pictures were a fantastic natural scenario....thanks again for taking the time to post.

 

We were getting a bit anxious about the size and population of VOTS. Your reveiw has allayed any fears we were having about our 8th Dec. cruise to NZ....now we are just getting so excited...only 3weeks to go! Thanks again.

Are you on the 8th Dec cruise out of Sydney?

We'll be on the same cruise!

Do join the roll call, if you have haven't already done so.

The good thing about the Dec 8 cruise is that all ports are docked. Much easier that way. Tender ports can get a bit challenging for such a large ship.

Your pictures are incredible!

Thanks for sharing.

Looking forward to the rest of your wonderful review.

Keep it coming!!

Thank you very much for a fantastic review. Are you out of Sydney on 8 December? My wife and two children will be joining me to New Zealand. I think we are in your cabin 7694.

Indeed we will be! 8 Dec out of Sydney. Maybe we'll bump into one another! :)

For a first time visit to Vietnam, do you think the five hour transfer to HCMC is offset by what you're able to see there? Did you experience any anxiety about returning to the ship in time? Which Tour Operator did you use? Thanks so much for your advice and review!

For the Tour Operator, please refer to post #345 of this thread.

To clarify, the transfer didn't take 5 hours. It was about 1.5 hours each way, for a total of 3 hours.

If you take the ship organized tour, you would be on a 44 seater coach and the transfer would probably take at least 2 hours each way. We were on the Mercedes Van and the driver was going quite fast on the open road.

You would have seen the pictures in my thread on Ho Chih Minh city. Definitely worth a visit even though the transfers took a while.

We didn't have much anxiety about returning to the ship on time. This is partly because we chose to skip lunch and do all the sight-seeing and then head back to the ship for a mid-afternoon meal.

As I have young children, I didn't want to risk eating any local food. We ate a heavy breakfast and then just brought along some bananas and croissants (my kids like simple stuff) and munched on those when we got a bit hungry.

I recall we got back to the ship quite early, definitely before 4pm. Windjammer was open and there was plenty of food available.

I'll advertise Singapore too :D

We spent three days there two years ago and I'd love to go back someday :)

 

Thanks for the review, it's always really refreshing to read about different locations!

Thank you for the endorsement!

Coincidentally, I have had the pleasure of making a short trip to Finland a couple of years back on business. It was a beautiful place. I hope to bring my wife there some day!!

Wow, I just read this whole thread in one shot. We were originally booked on this cruise but ended up having to cancel due to a calendar conflict. What a pleasant surprise to be able to experience it vicariously!

 

As many have praised already, a super review -- both in its visual and written content. You have a wonderful way with words, Iluvcruising2!

 

I'm curious, were there any issues with queueing? We had heard from some of the crew on other ships that the Asian itineraries had some trouble with people not used to forming lines.

 

Can't wait to read your next review!

I thought the queues were orderly albeit long.

However I must clarify that Asia is a big and diverse place.

So far, our Asian cruises have been out of Singapore. On such sailings, most of the Asians would be from Singapore. Other passengers would be from countries like Australia, UK, USA. Singaporeans are very used to queuing.

I can't speak for cruises out of China. It has been said that some Chinese are more aggressive and less orderly.

Thanks for the clarification. I sometimes forget that there are different booking rules around the world.

 

Bob

No problems.

In my culture, we are not used to paying tips. So Pre paid works just fine for me. I take it as upfront cost for the cruise, since the gratuities go to the crew anyway.

They work really hard.

I often use their example to teach my young kids just how fortunate we are.

Awesome review. Thank you for taking time to write one. Love the pictures as well.

Thanks for the feedback.

We are so excited to be going on our first ever 14 nighter this Dec, sailing out of beautiful Sydney on the Voyager again.

Yes, I shall try to do a similar picture review.

Royal does not automatically take tips from your account. You can choose to tip whatever you want.

We always do prepaid gratuities though.

Actually it is compulsory where we come from. We can't book without prepaying the gratuities.

Thank you very much for the link. Have now booked & counting down till our holiday. Booking with Mrs Ha went very smoothly & without a problem :)

We found her responsive and pleasant, though we didn't get a chance to meet her.

About halfway through our private tour, she called our guide via his mobile and asked to speak to my wife. In short, she was calling to find out if we were ok and whether we had any issues with the tour so far.

Do make sure you give her your ship name and the time your ship is due to arrive at whichever container port. The guide told us that there were a number of container ports that cruise ships call at and sometimes it may change at the last minute. So they will be on the lookout for changes and they will pick you up from the correct container port, once you disembark from the ship.

Have a great cruise!!

Not sure when the new menu will be rolled out on the Voyager. Not scheduled yet, apparently.

Don't know for sure why Legend would be in Vladivostok for a week, but her major refurbishment is scheduled for Feb 2013. Based on her schedule, the refurbishment appears to be in Singapore.

Yups, the refurbishment is in Singapore.