Ovation 10 Night New Zealand Questions

[Sunflower & The Scientist]

We are going to be booking Ovation of the Seas 10-night New Zealand. This ship and this destination are totally new to us so I will take any advice anyone has...including flight information.

 

1) Rooms...we prefer at least a deluxe balcony room or a suite. On Royal we've done deluxe and liked them. Any information on which decks, or advice on the difference between Jr. suites and deluxe balcony rooms?

 

2) Flights...long flights and my husband's twice broken back do not work well. For his company he always flies business on long flights. For the both of us flying business we are seeing $$$$$. Anyone with experience on the long flight to Australia?

 

3) Maybe it's just the specific reviews I'm reading, but I'm not seeing raving reviews of Ovation. We've cruised Royal before, but not this class. We've gone HAL and NCL also...both of those were fine. We aren't picky, just need a room with some square footage to it because my husband is very tall and a small room is uncomfortable.

 

Any help appreciated!

[Clarea]

For flights, check our Royal's Air2Sea: http://www.royalcaribbean.com/contentWithGallery.do?pagename=air_travel_programs

[robtulipe]

Most of the balconies on the Quantum class are large 198 sq.ft. superior D cabins which is pictured below. Also the bed area is wider than where the sofa is so that makes tor more roomy cabin than a plain rectangular layout. This is the reason why the bed placement alternates from being beside bathroom and balcony in a line of these cabins.

 

 

 

I agree it a long flight to down under, almost 14 hours for us from San Francisco to Sydney both times we cruised out of the latter. That was after 5 hours to the west coast .We went economy but like you said business would have been better but would have cost $$$$.

 

[CRUISEFAN0001]

Which date did you select?

 

There are departure-date-specific roll call threads like this one, which include all sorts of tips for this itinerary. We are sailing later this year on Ovation out of Sydney, and figured out all sorts of logistics that saved us thousands for the whole trip. It requires research, patience, and advance planning.

 

https://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2553745

[Tel1208]

Sadly, there is no way to avoid the long haul flights to us here in Australia ☹

 

I would suggest breaking up your flights - we flew from New York to Hong Kong and then onto Perth where we live, with a couple of days break in between. Certainly worked better than the 23 hours of almost continuous flying we did from Perth to Doha to Sao Paulo to Buenos Aires.

[CRUISEFAN0001]

Sadly, there is no way to avoid the long haul flights to us here in Australia ☹

 

I would suggest breaking up your flights - we flew from New York to Hong Kong and then onto Perth where we live, with a couple of days break in between. Certainly worked better than the 23 hours of almost continuous flying we did from Perth to Doha to Sao Paulo to Buenos Aires.

Indeed. We're flying from the U.S. East to West...taking a day in Los Angeles...then continuing on to Sydney.

 

Based on some good advance & creative airline reservation planning...we saved $2600 on our airfare. :)

[iahawkfan21]

We are going to be booking Ovation of the Seas 10-night New Zealand. This ship and this destination are totally new to us so I will take any advice anyone has...including flight information.

 

2) Flights...long flights and my husband's twice broken back do not work well. For his company he always flies business on long flights. For the both of us flying business we are seeing $$$$$. Anyone with experience on the long flight to Australia?

 

Any help appreciated!

 

My wife is from NZ and all her family still live either there or in Australia. I'm not sure where you're flying from, but we've always been happy with Air New Zealand, newer planes and very comfortable. Only downside may be you would probably have to transit through Auckland to get there. Qantas also does a non-stop from DFW-Sydney with the A380s which I've seen some decent pricing on (not business class though). Again, new aircraft and pretty comfortable. Enjoy NZ as we can't wait to get back and visit again it's an absolutely stunning country.

[Sunflower & The Scientist]

Thanks everyone. We made a final decision over the weekend....and I will apologize in advance to this thread because we jumped ship:confused:. We are going to go business class, it's expensive, but if we arrive there in pain and have to spend two weeks trying to get out of pain, it will be money well spent.

 

As far as the Royal cruise we had settled on...we realized that we would NOT be stopping at the three Sounds. Those are observed by cruising by...(and we have also learned that is one of the areas in the world that receives the most rainfall, so we'd be looking at pretty mountains and forest from a wet deck somewhere. So that means the first 5 days of the 10 day cruise there are no ports. We're 50's somethings and NOT taking any kids, the sound of being on a family oriented ship for 5 days, then two at the end....we'll pass. We chose another ship, that rhymes with 'hiking'. When we sat down and calculated the cost difference, it will actually be a bit cheaper to take the 'hiking' cruise and we will get to see far more of New Zealand and Australia. We'll have 15 days and 14 nights. We have enjoyed Royal....this time it just isn't for us.

 

Thanks again everyone...and when I'm onboard I'll have an extra latte for y'all. (Cause they are FREE on 'hiking':hearteyes:)

[dani negreanu]

As far as the Royal cruise we had settled on...we realized that we would NOT be stopping at the three Sounds.

 

I'm just back from a NZ cruise, and Radiance stops at the three Sounds :D:D:D

[Esilef]

New Zealand is such a beautiful place. You will love it.

 

Have you thought about premium economy on qantas? Not as expensive as business class but similar to what business class used to be on the qantas Dreamliner.

 

The A380s are an amazing aircraft huge.

 

The older aircraft are much harder to do long flights on in economy.

 

To save money be flexible with the days you fly. Sometimes it’s cheaper to fly a couple of days earlier and then stay in a hotel.

 

With long flights try and fly over what would be your sleeping night time. This way most of the flight is used up sleeping.

 

Food on aircraft is not nice. Take snacks with you but remember to dispose of these prior to landing in Sydney due to strict bio hazard laws & fines.

 

The sounds on New Zealand you slowly sail through. There is small cruise tours where a tiny boat collects you and you can get of the ship to go walking.

 

I’m on Radiance in a months time & cant wait.

[live_to_travel]

I saw you booked business class but for anyone interested in a cheaper alternative look Air New Zealand's skycouch in economy. We did in December and it allowed the 2 of us to take turns stretching out. Price reasonable since you basically buy 3 economy seats for 2 people. I have a fused spine with titanium hardware and had a reasonably comfortable long flight. Good explanation of skycouch on Air New Zealand's website.

[Esilef]

I saw you booked business class but for anyone interested in a cheaper alternative look Air New Zealand's skycouch in economy. We did in December and it allowed the 2 of us to take turns stretching out. Price reasonable since you basically buy 3 economy seats for 2 people. I have a fused spine with titanium hardware and had a reasonably comfortable long flight. Good explanation of skycouch on Air New Zealand's website.

 

 

 

I’ve read about those and what a fantastic but simple idea.

[knittinggirl]

We did the Business Class from Auckland, and for us, it was the only way to go. Still, 13.5 hours to Houston was a very long day and we won’t be doing that again. The flat bed seats stretch out. Two men didn’t use them very long. One didn’t use his flat bed at all. The other had the flight attendant revert it to a chair after only a few hours. Any future trips will be split up with a few days in between.

 

We both got sick, and were sick for a solid month after returning home. DH was getting over a cold, and it came raging back. He needed two rounds of antibiotics.

 

Those long flights are very hard on the system.

 

New Zealand was wonderful, and the three sounds were beautiful. Sydney and Melbourne had heated gangplanks.

 

We did a 38-day collector’s w/ HAL so we only had to do that dreadful flight once.

 

But, we did book B2B2Bs w/ Royal Caribbean, a couple of times, and kept changing them. We finally settled on ending in Auckland, because the flight was a few hours shorter. HAL does have a handful of short cruises taking you from Sydney nearly directly to Auckland.

 

 

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[Sunflower & The Scientist]

We will be going business class for sure. At this point it does not look like we will have a long layover. I think our only possible layover problems will be weather related. In the Midwest December can be very tricky with flights.

 

My DH travels business class to Germany and does quite well with the seats, but this will be a different airline, so I guess we will see if all business class seats are created equal!

 

We know this is adding a big cost to our trip, but we just don't see being able to do it any other way. We flew to Hawaii a few months back and by the time my husband got there it took the nearly two weeks for him to be out of pain for the flight back!