Cruisetours - Australia & New Zealand

[coops14]

Hi

 

We are looking to visit Australia for the first time, we usually visit the Caribbean and going to Alaska for the first time in September, can’t wait. 

My question is, are the cruisetours are good? We have been looking at the cruisetours, 6 day tours around Australia and 12 day cruise around New Zealand.  This works out about £5000 each without our flights from the UK.  This will be our one and only trip to Oz.  We have always booked our trans Atlantic flights ourselves separately from Princess, as we like to be independent. This time we are undecided whether to book our flights with Princess, as we would like to fly in Business Class as the flights are so long, or would we be better booking the flights ourselves. 

Has anyone had any experience with Cruisetours and or booking business class flights through Princess verses buying the flights independently.

Many thanks as always for any help 😎

 

Linda and Simon 

[zalusky]

We haven’t done the larger cruisetour stuff but we did do the overnight from Milford Sound to Dunedin with the overnight being in Queenstown.  Highly recommended.  We flew business class from SFO to Sydney via Auckland on Air New Zealand.   Really nice to have more privacy and all seats effectively being an aisle.  A number of the other business class setup are just larger traditional seats.  I would definitely check the aircraft no matter how you book.  We are using princess air for our New England cruisetour and have booked business class.  We got a pretty good deal and I continue to check prices.

 

i would like to do another down under trip in a couple but the budget is consumed for now.

[Geoffa30]

We were booked on a Princess cruise-tour in March of this year. Having thought about it and read various comments, we decided against it in the end and are doing something independently instead. The Princess cruise-tour seems to pack too much into the six days with extremely early starts and lots of travel. Seemingly it is well organised but pretty full on. We also reconsidered based on cost. There is some information on the Australia New Zealand CC board if I remember. I also started a thread on the Princess board.

 

With regards flights, we booked these independently. We are flying Premium Economy with Cathay Pacific at £2,080 per person. Try as we might, we couldn’t stretch to around double that for Business. Having looked at Princess, the prices were significantly higher. The advantage of booking through Princess of course is not having to pay until nearer the time whereas we paid when we booked so almost a year in advance.

 

We fly to Sydney five weeks today. Cannot wait. Holiday of a lifetime. A very expensive holiday of a lifetime!

[coops14]

Thank you for your reply.

I agree the cruisetour does look extremely full on, but covers all the places we wanted to visit. We thought if we did the tour first, then have chance to relax a little on the cruise.  

We have tried putting this trip together ourselves and the price works out about the same. Normally we always book our holidays independently, but as you say, this will be a very expensive holiday of a lifetime. 

The premium economy price looks good, will have a look at that. 

Have a great time, safe travels 

[coops14]

Thanks for your reply.

We will check with Princess and their airfares.  We do like to book the flights independently, but if they are cheaper with Princess, we would book with them. 

A few years ago we were upgraded by the airline to business class, free of charge, they are not daft, we now always try and book business.

Enjoy Your New England cruisetour.

Safe travels

[Ombud]

11/2019 NS SFO to Melbourne then Aukland to SFO = $960 USD (EZAir) which definitely enables me to spend extra pre cruise days down under & United let me pick seats already so I'm a happy camper 

Edited January 27, 2019 by Ombud

[Geoffa30]

It would appear Princess air prices in the US are different / more competitive than those in th U.K.

[coops14]

Wow, that is a great deal 

[cherylandtk]

 I cannot speak to the pricing differences between the US and the UK, but I do want to add that we thought our six day jam packed land tour was well worth the cost. We hit several of our bucket list items and felt it hit all the high points. 

[indyrocks]

We did a Sydney to Auckland cruise in February last year. We thought it would be our one and only time, but we're already looking at going back. Our biggest expense was the airfare since I'm 6'5" and can't squeeze into an economy seat, so we need to upgrade to business class. We used frequent flyer miles for IND to SYD via LAX, and paid cash for the AKL-LAX-IND return. The 15-hour LAX-SYD flight in a lay-flat seat on AA is heaven; I slept at least 10 hours. And sitting in First Class for the 4-hour connection to/from Indy was a nice little bonus.

 

We did 4 days on our own in Sydney before the cruise and 3 days in Auckland after it. I thought I would prefer New Zealand but Australia really blew us away. We stayed near the waterfront with views of the Opera House, Sydney Harbour Bridge, and the cruise ship pier at Circular Quay from our hotel room. Auckland was a let-down in comparison, although the rest of NZ was absolutely as beautiful as I thought it would be. As a movie fan, my favorite shore excursion was the Hobbiton Movie Set which we did during the Tauranga stop, although it can also be done from Auckland.

 

One oddity that we encountered was the fact that all prices in the Princess brochure and for shore excursions were quoted in Australian dollars (1 AUD is approx. 0.72 USD.) I don't know of anywhere else in the world where they do that.

 

I hope you get to see the world Down Under and have a great time there!

[coops14]

On 1/27/2019 at 8:06 AM, Geoffa30 said:

We were booked on a Princess cruise-tour in March of this year. Having thought about it and read various comments, we decided against it in the end and are doing something independently instead. The Princess cruise-tour seems to pack too much into the six days with extremely early starts and lots of travel. Seemingly it is well organised but pretty full on. We also reconsidered based on cost. There is some information on the Australia New Zealand CC board if I remember. I also started a thread on the Princess board.

 

With regards flights, we booked these independently. We are flying Premium Economy with Cathay Pacific at £2,080 per person. Try as we might, we couldn’t stretch to around double that for Business. Having looked at Princess, the prices were significantly higher. The advantage of booking through Princess of course is not having to pay until nearer the time whereas we paid when we booked so almost a year in advance.

 

We fly to Sydney five weeks today. Cannot wait. Holiday of a lifetime. A very expensive holiday of a lifetime!

 

On 1/27/2019 at 3:39 AM, zalusky said:

We haven’t done the larger cruisetour stuff but we did do the overnight from Milford Sound to Dunedin with the overnight being in Queenstown.  Highly recommended.  We flew business class from SFO to Sydney via Auckland on Air New Zealand.   Really nice to have more privacy and all seats effectively being an aisle.  A number of the other business class setup are just larger traditional seats.  I would definitely check the aircraft no matter how you book.  We are using princess air for our New England cruisetour and have booked business class.  We got a pretty good deal and I continue to check prices.

 

i would like to do another down under trip in a couple but the budget is consumed for now.

 

[coops14]

Thank you for all your replies, we are still looking at the cruisetours. They seem to be sold out very quickly.

We are thinking of going to Australia and New Zealand in the Autumn 2020, so looking out for the cruisetours to be released for that time.

in the meantime, lots of research.

safe travels everyone

[Ombud]

4 hours ago, indyrocks said:

We did a Sydney to Auckland cruise in February last year. We thought it would be our one and only time, but we're already looking at going back. 

 

I was there last March (4 days in Sydney then Tasmania cruise) and back in 11/19 

 

Quote

Auckland was a let-down in comparison, 

I can only do 2 weeks so would love your opinion. Cruise is 10 days. Would you spend 4 days in Australia (Melbourne) pre-cruise or split the time between Melbourne & Aukland? Currently booked for Melbourne pre-cruise. 

Edited January 28, 2019 by Ombud

[GloriaF]

I am reading these posts with special interest, as we have booked Ruby for the April, 2020 TransPacific repo cruise, Sydney to US.  We are planning on spending about a week in Sydney prior to the cruise sight-seeing, just to get a small taste of Australia.  I haven't started to do research yet, but any tips you experienced Oz visitors have would be appreciated.

 

 

  

Edited January 28, 2019 by GloriaF

[cherylandtk]

1 hour ago, GloriaF said:

I am reading these posts with special interest, as we have booked Ruby for the April, 2020 TransPacific repo cruise, Sydney to US.  We are planning on spending about a week in Sydney prior to the cruise sight-seeing, just to get a small taste of Australia.  I haven't started to do research yet, but any tips you experienced Oz visitors have would be appreciated.

 

 

  

This may not help much, but visiting just Sydney to get a taste will be similar to visiting just New York to get a taste of the US.  There’s so much more to see and experience. With that much time I would suggest taking at least four days to get outside Sydney and see more.  There are many tour companies with short packages that will accommodate you.  Even the Princess packages of 6 days can be recreated privately without much effort.  Hope that helps you plan.

[Ombud]

Australia is HUGE. I think it would take me a month to see it all.

 

Looking for 2 must-see-spots in Victoria (in addition to Melbourne)

[GloriaF]

Thanks, cherylandtk.  As Ombud states, Australia is huge and I have no mistaken idea of seeing the majority of it.  I will look into a tour company to help us see a better portion.  I wish we could join the 6 day Princess land tour, but without being on the cruise portion....  Lots of research to be done yet!!

[Aus Traveller]

5 hours ago, Ombud said:

Australia is HUGE. I think it would take me a month to see it all.

 

Looking for 2 must-see-spots in Victoria (in addition to Melbourne)

Australia is roughly the same size as the continental US.

 

Great Ocean Road - a full day driving trip. For the second one - maybe Phillip Island in the evening to see the Little Penguins come ashore after being at sea to feed.

[Aus Traveller]

5 hours ago, GloriaF said:

Thanks, cherylandtk.  As Ombud states, Australia is huge and I have no mistaken idea of seeing the majority of it.  I will look into a tour company to help us see a better portion.  I wish we could join the 6 day Princess land tour, but without being on the cruise portion....  Lots of research to be done yet!!

To see some of Australia in a very limited time you could base your itinerary what the Japanese tours used to do 20 or so years ago - and maybe extend the time at each location. Their one-week trip used to fly them into Sydney, then to Uluru (Ayers Rock) then to Cairns for the Great Barrier Reef. In each of those locations there are many things to see. Minimum would be 3 or 4 days in each.

[GloriaF]

Thank you, Australia Traveler.  I've made a note of what you suggested.

[Ombud]

18 hours ago, Aus Traveller said:

Australia is roughly the same size as the continental US.

 

Great Ocean Road - a full day driving trip. For the second one - maybe Phillip Island in the evening to see the Little Penguins come ashore after being at sea to feed.

Copied suggestions into my phone 'notes' app. 🙂 Thanks! 

 

For anyone flying NS SFO - OZ: 5% price drop on UAL this morning. I rebook online so it's easy to get same seats. Once we get closer (w/i 2 months) I only rebook for 10% drops as I might lose my seat & I NEED a premium economy aisle or emergency exit row. 3" makes a difference 

Edited January 29, 2019 by Ombud
Upgraded on UAL site so that might make a difference.