Bon Voyage Pacific Dawn maiden Papua New Guinea Cruise!

[rkmw]

[quote name='thied']There was shore tours offered by P&O and by the inland, not much of a tour by the way, the tending was so slow, with only two tenders out and it till 2.30 pm to get to open tendering ( eg some people did not get to the inland till 2.30pm and had to wait till there card number was called) they blamed the age group for the hold up, and it not have been the dock and its nice new concret one, and tendering is not new to the ship mmm Cutting costs I think[/quote]

why did they only use 2 tenders and what do you mean they blamed the age group for the hold up

[bazzaw]

The Captain did announce on one night in the main theatre that they had received many complaints about the tender service -- and that they were going to consider how the operation may be improved. I believe that probably the problem lies more with the actions of the passengers than with the ship. The ship would call for people with ticket number Blue 1,2,3, etc to come to the embarkation point, but - looking over the side of the ship and watching the tender boarding process, it was painfully obvious that passengers were "missing in action". A tender would be only half full and the flow of passengers to it would literally run dry -- so the tender would not leave until it was full.. Considering that everybody was complaining about the slowness of the tendering process-- why was the passenger flow drying up and causing delays?? Elderly and infirm passengers?? -- possibly, but probably more to the point, passengers not being ready when their ticket numbers were being called. People queue up to get early numbered tender tickets -- and then go "missing in action" when it is time for them to actually board a tender.

The last time we went on Radiance - they tried something new which appeared to work. One day they announced that anybody who wanted to get off the ship early between 8-9AM didn't need to get a tender ticket - just front up to the tender boarding point and go onto the tender as they were available. Then they announced that anybody who wanted to go ashore later after 9 AM, should get their tender tickets at 8AM. It worked well - with the ones who wanted to get off early quickly disposed of in the first hour and the older slower ones did not have to compete with these later.

Barry Edited November 9, 2013 by bazzaw

[bazzaw]

Don't know the reason for the change in venue for the Captains reception - however there were an exceedingly LARGE number of repeat P&O passengers onboard for this cruise -- I believe many more than usual, and I suspect this may have been the reason for the change -- but of course, I don't know for sure.

Barry

[bazzaw]

P&O really do need to revisit their boarding procedures in Brisbane . Haven't cruised with them for 4 years -- but they used to have it nicely organised. This time it was a shambles. The only reason I could fathom was firstly, an unexpected new PNG Immigration form which we all had to fill out and bring with us on embarkation ( which a large number of passengers did not!!!:( ) -- but moreso, I believe that it is because P&O no longer appear to allocate different boarding times -- everybody had a boarding time of 11 AM --so no staggered boarding at all -- just a big SHAMBLES. The ship left two hours late -- and I note on our return today, the next cruise was to have departed at 2PM but didn't get away until 4 PM either.

P&O -- allocate staggered boarding times -- and STRICTLY ENFORCE THEM!!!!!!

Barry Edited November 9, 2013 by bazzaw

[thied]

tendering started at about 8.30am about 1500 plus people got off

tender hold 94 people at tendering 16 full tenders and they were doing nearly 3 tenders an hr which took they nearly 6 hrs to get 1500 people off the ship using two tenders mind you there was 1900 passengers on the ship. 8.30 am till 2.30 pm to get the first time cruisers off the ship.

PS very nice to meet you and your wife Barry it was a great day

[bazzaw]

Thied

Do you know what happened when the Captain brought the ship VERY VERY close to the jetty at Kiriwina Island.??

He originally anchored it quite close to the island beach and jetty -- I was surprised as I had never seen a ship anchored so close to a beach before. Then, when we were ashore, and many hours later, we were waiting for the cricket to start and we could see the ship getting closer and closer to the island - we started to get interested in this and then somewhat alarmed - there was much noise of anchor chain being dropped, we RAN across the cricket field, leaving our stuff with some natives , ran to the beach and I was expecting to see that the ship had collided with the jetty -- but it was about 50 feet away from it. Somebody said that they thought that the ship had struck/scraped the reef ( the water in that area was very shallow close-in and then dropped to very deep) . Some slow manouvreings and much chain work finally saw the ship returned to it's original anchor position.

Barry

[thied]

[quote name='bazzaw']Thied

Do you know what happened when the Captain brought the ship VERY VERY close to the jetty at Kiriwina Island.??

He originally anchored it quite close to the island beach and jetty -- I was surprised as I had never seen a ship anchored so close to a beach before. Then, when we were ashore, and many hours later, we were waiting for the cricket to start and we could see the ship getting closer and closer to the island - we started to get interested in this and then somewhat alarmed - there was much noise of anchor chain being dropped, we RAN across the cricket field, leaving our stuff with some natives , ran to the beach and I was expecting to see that the ship had collided with the jetty -- but it was about 50 feet away from it. Somebody said that they thought that the ship had struck/scraped the reef ( the water in that area was very shallow close-in and then dropped to very deep) . Some slow manouvreings and much chain work finally saw the ship returned to it's original anchor position.

Barry[/quote] yes Barry they moved the ship a couple of times that, I do not now why they did that, but yes they got the anchor stuck on the edge of the reef, and we still in deep water at least 50 to 60 feet at the front of the ship, and no the ship did not hit the reef at all we were in the third suit from the front port side and could see how close we were.

the snorkelling was not bad there, there had a huge drop off which very nice with lots of fish and one with nice was the fresh water gorges in the reef.

[thied]

Doni inland was the better place to snorkel way better and nice reef and sand skull cave was ok it you were lucky enough to get the tracker ride after 2 hr wait or you could the 1-1.5 hr walk,

or as we got lucky and got the first tracker ride

[bazzaw]

[url]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FiLo9-FEaC0[/url]

a poor video of snippets of the cricket match on Kiriwina Island. Should give you some idea of it. It's just a little bit different from what we think of as cricket -- but essentially they have a bat and ball, bowler and batsman -- but just a few more fieldsman.

Barry

[MMDown Under]

[quote name='bazzaw']Thied

Do you know what happened when the Captain brought the ship VERY VERY close to the jetty at Kiriwina Island.??

He originally anchored it quite close to the island beach and jetty -- I was surprised as I had never seen a ship anchored so close to a beach before. Then, when we were ashore, and many hours later, we were waiting for the cricket to start and we could see the ship getting closer and closer to the island - we started to get interested in this and then somewhat alarmed - there was much noise of anchor chain being dropped, we RAN across the cricket field, leaving our stuff with some natives , ran to the beach and I was expecting to see that the ship had collided with the jetty -- but it was about 50 feet away from it. Somebody said that they thought that the ship had struck/scraped the reef ( the water in that area was very shallow close-in and then dropped to very deep) . Some slow manouvreings and much chain work finally saw the ship returned to it's original anchor position.

Barry[/QUOTE]

Barry, You must have been alarmed to run across the cricket field, leaving your stuff. You must have had an experienced Captain.

When we were at Moorea, our ship dragged the anchor and shifted. At the open Officers' Session, one officer praised the skill of our captain saying only a captain of our captain's calibre could manage to maintain control of the ship, under the circumstances at that time.

[thied]

On Kiriwina Island when they all having there big announcements with the priminester they did refur to our Captain and had him receive some gift, the funny thing was it was not the captain, it was the staff captain Nicolas, the Captain was on the ship.

[MMDown Under]

[quote name='thied']On Kiriwina Island when they all having there big announcements with the priminester they did refur to our Captain and had him receive some gift, the funny thing was it was not the captain, it was the staff captain Nicolas, the Captain was on the ship.[/QUOTE]

Sounds like he needed to be on the ship!

[thied]

[quote name='MMDown Under']Sounds like he needed to be on the ship![/QUOTE]

I do not know, but the it was great weather very little wind and because it was very nice day and very little and very hot was probley why they brought the ship in closer and less distance for the two tenders to travel so they would try to anchor as close as they can to the inland.
as the waters all around PNG are very deep, around all the inlands and main land PNG you do not have to go into the water very far little you get to the drop offs

E.G there may been 50- 60 feet at the bow of the ship and at the stern it could have been 500 to 1000 ft.


was cruise list down to only 5 members and families? we did start off with way more then that going. Edited November 9, 2013 by thied

[Sandielle]

[quote name='bazzaw']P&O really do need to revisit their boarding procedures in Brisbane . Haven't cruised with them for 4 years -- but they used to have it nicely organised. This time it was a shambles. The only reason I could fathom was firstly, an unexpected new PNG Immigration form which we all had to fill out and bring with us on embarkation ( which a large number of passengers did not!!!

Barry[/QUOTE]

Barry, all the times we've boarded at Portside it has run like clockwork. I think you could be right about the immigration form making the difference. Ours are already completed. One of the reasons we didn't want to go on the first cruise - we hope any little problems will have been sorted out. DH phoned P&O yesterday and they said they WILL have kina on board next week, however we will get some to make sure. :)

[Sandielle]

[quote name='bazzaw'][url]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FiLo9-FEaC0[/url]

a poor video of snippets of the cricket match on Kiriwina Island. Should give you some idea of it. It's just a little bit different from what we think of as cricket -- but essentially they have a bat and ball, bowler and batsman -- but just a few more fieldsman.

Barry[/QUOTE]

Haha, love it! Looks like some passengers enjoyed batting, too. Thanks so much for the info you have posted - adds to our excitement! :)

[NSWP]

Good to see Barry Bazzaw and thied are enjoying their PNG cruise, cruising buddies?

[Raison]

Thanks for the info on the PNG cruise, I am enjoying reading the bits and pieces. Hubby is certainly interested in the cricket match, looks like fun!

[thied]

[quote name='NSWP']Good to see Barry Bazzaw and thied are enjoying their PNG cruise, cruising buddies?[/QUOTE]

you could say we cruising buddies at the very least he wont get called my clone:D lol

and we my get two different cruise stories on the same cruise in saying that I would we all/ both enjoyed the cruise and both are saying the truth in the way each of us see saw it. I do not know barry as been to png before but have lived there at alotuo is a very different place on a none cruise ship day and can be a very dangerous place with out all the security that is about on cruise ship days, the outer inland are different and more friendly but did not the ways we were fenced off from the inlanders for long time walk , sort of we were a little bit on display to them. Kiriwina Island Edited November 10, 2013 by thied

[thied]

[quote name='Raison']Thanks for the info on the PNG cruise, I am enjoying reading the bits and pieces. Hubby is certainly interested in the cricket match, looks like fun![/QUOTE]

They don't play much cricket because they dance the whole time lol or there were a lot of pickles on the friend Edited November 10, 2013 by thied

[NSWP]

[quote name='thied']They don't play much cricket because they dance the whole time lol or there were a lot of pickles on the friend[/QUOTE]
Pickles on the friend? Uh ? Is that pidgin thied? Edited November 10, 2013 by NSWP

[Izabelle]

Well we could all guess what Thied meant.

I am going for Prickles on the field

Sounds like you had a great cruise

[Australian family]

[quote name='thied']nop one would not be that rude to do that. but did chat to her at the captain and the senior officers cock tail party in the Captains private lounge.


speaking of cock tail parties the one they for two cruises passengers that they have in the dome is no more, they have it in the show lounge, so you sit in the show lounge have a couple of drinks and Captain and zoltina come on stage the captain gives a two min speech and hands the mic to zoltins who gives away the first and sec prize for the most cruises, then you are told to please leave.

he still does the meet on the starboard side deck 7 on the way in like they go in the dome. must be cost cutting as they use to have more prizes lol


Have to say I liked it in the dome, yes the captain did his bit but after that he and the officers would go around and talk to the people and have pics taken[/QUOTE]

I wouldn't say that it is rude to get your photo with her. She would enjoy that.

Look forward to seeing your photos.

[bazzaw]

I've put up a quick report of the cruise here [url]http://pacificdawntopng.blogspot.com.au/[/url]

Barry

[Sandielle]

That's fantastic Barry. Thanks so much for posting it for us to share. :)

[suexxx]

Hi Barry. Thanks so much for your review. Will look at the videos & photos when I get time. Roll on next April. Suexxx