rabbit1971

Hi 

My family were booked in 2025 on Ovation of the seas April 12th, 18 day  transpacific crossing to Hawaii, We have just received notification that this cruise has been cancelled, and we are now on Quantum of the seas, departing 4 days earlier and taking 21 days, and we would be moved into similar cabins.

Has anyone else had this happen to them? My concern is we are in an accessible cabin, as is my inlaws who were originally next door..

Has there been any news on quantum being deployed to australia for the 24/25 season, and have others had their cruises changed?

 Cheers maree

Thankyou Micanberra for this information, it certainly helps when planning which chair to take.

Hi,

 My family are travelling on the Ovation of the seas for a transpacific crossing in april next year. This is the first time we have travelled with Royal carribean, having previously cruised with carnival and princess. My question is, what is access to the tender like? My youngest is in a wheel chair, and we have found varying degress of difficulty on different ships. If anyone is cruising on ovation soon, if they could post photos of where the tenders sit next to the ship, and where you disembark from at the island jetty, that would be amazing.I have found it can vary greatly, some ships you walk on to the tender and disembark the tender, from the same location. On others you walk off the ship onto the top of the tender, then to disembark you walk downstairs on the tender, to get to the jetty on a lower level.

 We are trying to decide if trying to get him off on the tendered ports is worth it with a manual chair, or to remain on the ship and have his powered chair.

 I hope this post is not too confusing.

 I have also posted this on the Royal carribean page, but I know what a helpful bunch the Aussie cruisers are, so I thought I'd post it here also

 cheers maree

Hi,

 My family are travelling on the Ovation of the seas for a transpacific crossing in april next year. This is the first time we have travelled with Royal carribean, having previously cruised with carnival and princess. My question is, what is access to the tender like? My youngest is in a wheel chair, and we have found varying degress of difficulty on different ships. If anyone is cruising on ovation soon, if they could post photos of where the tenders sit next to the ship, and where you disembark from at the island jetty, that would be amazing.I have found it can vary greatly, some ships you walk on to the tender and disembark the tender, from the same location. On others you walk off the ship onto the top of the tender, then to disemabark you walk downstairs on the tender, to get to the jetty on a lower level.

 We are trying to decide if trying to get him off on the tendered ports is worth it with a manual chair, or to remain on the ship and have his powered chair.

 I hope this post is not too confusing.

 cheers maree

Thanks everyone for your input.

 sounds like my 19yo trivia bug will be kept happy

Thank you all.

 I was after a general indication as to how people found the trip.

 My other question is the entertainment on board with princess. My 19yo gets bored easily, he loves his trivia, are there plenty of activities during sea days to keep you involved ( for us that would be trivia)

Cheers maree

Just now, rabbit1971 said:

 

That would be the time of year we are interested in

How did you find the entertainment on the sea days?

1 hour ago, RosieCanberra said:

We sailed in October a few years ago, via Tahiti, Bora Bora, Moorea, and NZ ports. Smooth seas for all except for some rocking and rolling after Auckland. A great cruise. 

The relocation cruise we are interested in runs late September or early October 

My extended family are considering a relocation cruise on Prinecss cruises Royal Princess from Honolulu to Sydney. I would love to join them , but get horridly motion sick , I can usually manage with medication, but if the swell is over 4m, I spend the day in bed with a woozy head

I have done 3 south pacific cruises and new Zealand, and on each cruise had one off day

Can anyone who has done this crossing tell me what the sea conditions are usually like,  as there are many sea days , and I would like to know if I'm going to end up sea sick

Thanks maree

Hi,

 In the past when touring in noumea and port Vila I have booked indepenent tours with Gateway shore tours Noumea, mainly due to my son being in a wheelchair. I have found Alfred and Genieveve to be excellent hosts offering well price tours if you want to check them out on FB

cheers maree

Hi ,

 A query as to whether you can use OBC to purchase art on a carnival cruise. I know its cannot be used in the casino, but not sure about art works.

 Thanks

Mystery Island?

I am being quite optimistic, having booked a pacific islands cruise out of sydney for april school holidays next year. I figured by the time I have to pay full fare in Janauary we should have a fairly good idea if it will be ( relatively) safe to go , and it gives me something to look forward too. if it looks dicey then i can cancel the booking before full fare is required. As we needed an accessible cabin we took advantage of some of the special about. So i will live in hope that it goes ahead.

Isle of pines?

On 8/4/2020 at 3:18 PM, Blackduck59 said:

Is there any state in Australia with no confirmed cases? If not then news flash the virus is already all across the continent. Not just NSW or Victoria. Don't make the mistake of thinking someone from somewhere else is going to bring it in...it's already there. So many people everywhere doing the right thing for themselves, their families and their community being derailed by the arrogant few in most cases; and unfortunately some people in some states seem to think it's all coming from some other state.

Hi Lyle,

 currently Tassie, which is an island state is covid free, we have  not had a community transmission case for 102 days, the last two cases were interstate travellers that were quarantined in hotels and tested positive.

Like New zealand, Tassie has been very quick on tracing, but we are a smaller state of 500 000. if people isolate and follow instructions we could get ahead of this awful virus, unfortunately there are a lot of folk who feel that they are entitled to do their own thing. we have had a handful of cases of people leaving their hotel quarantine, resulting in hefty fines, but thankfully no transmission.

I work in one of the larger hospitals in the state, and I can say this virus is damn scary, and for one don't wish to be on the recieving end, hopefully some common sense will prevail,  past the, not me, attitudes.

 cheers

Thank you to everyone who is taking part in this thread, your photos are stunning, the one of glacier bay should be enlarged and hung in a gallery, its magnificent. this thread is helping with my severe case of No Travelitis,

living in Tassie I am fortunate to have a wide range of nature escapes to visit, but that picture of jacobs Ladder is enough to make me feel ill 😬

Please keep them coming, i am loving this thread.

Cheers maree

Hello,

 I thought as much, apparently Princess are threatening to sue the agency if they honor the price, so a case of too good to be true.

Hi all,

 A very interesting price debacle  has recently occurred locally . The local RACT magazine advertised a 35 day syney-hawaii return on sea princess for $3500,

 my MIL went to book, only to be told that Princess had supplied the wrong price to the agency and were not going to honor it, and the price was actually $6000.

 Has anyone else had this happen and what were the outcomes. In my limited understanding, if something is at an advertised price, the consumer is entitled to it at that price.

 Thoughts?

cheers maree

I have to agree with S&D with most of what was said. we had an extended family group  aged 75-16 . The older ones quite liked the ship, its certainly fitted out well, and is relatively easy to navigate ( one of our party is wheelchair bound). and we found the service wonderful with the staff very helpful, although some night in the main dining room drinks service was a bit slow. we booked traditional dining so our party of 10 could be seated together, and this worked well for us.But as with previous comments, seating was hard to find particularly in the piazza,. The younger ones in our group said that they would have to think twice about sailing on a princess cruise, as there were not a great deal of evening entertainments for their age group ( they really liked the comedy clubs on carnival), although this could have been a reflection on the itinerary ( new zealand) with an older demographic, when compared to our previous sailings in the south pacific.

 Any way just my 2 cents worth

1 hour ago, Holiday Junkie said:

I am not sure if I am in the correct posts here, but I was wondering if Majestic offers Wifi. We will be going on Jan. 21 from Sydney to Fiji and I can't find any package deals for either Wifi or Drinks. On our previous cruises with Princess, we had an option to prepay these packages.

Hi Holiday junkie,

 we were on majestic in feb this year, and found could only purchase internet packages on board, no pre pay available.

 Hope that helps

Hi,

 whilst i have not been to amdee island ,I have been to escapade island and resort on a private tour and found it to be one of the best days of my life. The resort is gorgeous and you gt full run of the pools and the lunch was really lovely, then a group of us with our guide went snorkelling to see the turtles in the sea grass, and they were everywhere. Not being much of a snorkeller, I thoroughly enjoyed this, and seeing the turtles that close was truely memorable. We were collected from the ship by coach and taken to the ferry and after about 20min were at the resort. It was a very enjoyable day, one i would gladly repeat if we get back to noumea. On their website it is now around $140 AUD. (gateway tours noumea)

 Hope that might help. Maree

even tassie has been exceptionally warm with constant days in the 30's, normally might get one or two days and then it would drop but its been pretty consistent.

There are quite a few pet friendly options in tassie, depending on whether your air b n b, or motor-homing,/camping.

 my parents are grey nomads and travel everywhere with their maltese cross, and they find the only drawback is you cannot enter the national parks with a dog, so freycinet would be out, as would the cradle mountain overland track, but still plenty to see in my gorgeous state.

 cheers maree

For me its traffic flow is important, as we have a son with mobility issues, also are certain areas congested. like public spaces, bars, do you have traffic  through resturants when your having a meal. what are the layouts of the rooms, what type of power points do they have and how many. Options for dining, do they have fixed time or anytime, what are the gym facilities like, is there an outdoor walking track, ratio of staff to guests.

 i agree that things like food and service can be very subjective , but getting an overall impression of whats available doesn't hurt either, especially in areas that are likely to be used by the majority, like the MDR and buffett, as in the range of options available.

 Just my two cents worth.