RISKS OF CRUIZING NOW TO NEW ZEALAND

[YOSIT]

Good Day

I Am arriving at 29/01/2020 to Auckland

The Norwegian cruise  is from 04/02/2020 Auckland to 14/02/2020 to Sydney

Because of the Fires and Smoke in Australia

Is it not danger to continue the Cruises

Can people breath in Sedney

What is the situation in Tasmania?

 

Thanks Yosef

 

 

[Aus Traveller]

I can imagine that someone seeing news reports with the fires might think that most of Australia has been directly affected by the fires. Not so. Although there were some fires in Queensland a while ago, the recent serious fires affected only parts of south-eastern Australia and the situation is improving. I hope that continues. Some days it has been smokey in Sydney, but the fires are quite a long way from the city.

 

It isn't a danger to continue with the cruises. Although many of them start in Sydney, most head to NZ, the Pacific Islands or to North Queensland. There are no fires in any of those locations.

[Suzi66]

As an example for someone today who asked the same question, this is a screen shot of a webcam of Sydney Harbour today.  This is cloud cover and not smoke, although there was smoke yesterday because of fog as well not letting it rise.

As someone on the media said today, while we aren't used to the pollution, many other cities in the world has worse air than we have had every day of the week.

[Janet987]

There are no fires in NZ at this time, but there has been smoke in Auckland. And other cities. A friend in Dunedin said they have had hazy smokey days and then It clears....situation changes with the wind. Photo on this thread. There are also articles and photos about the glaciers turning brown with ash, dust, easily found with a google search. 

    

[The_Big_M]

2 hours ago, Suzi66 said:

As an example for someone today who asked the same question, this is a screen shot of a webcam of Sydney Harbour today.  This is cloud cover and not smoke, although there was smoke yesterday because of fog as well not letting it rise.

As someone on the media said today, while we aren't used to the pollution, many other cities in the world has worse air than we have had every day of the week.

 

That's some dramatic licence, or just over optimism.

 

We've had the worst, or close to the worst air quality for over the past month. While its certain true that there are a limited number of cities which regularly have bad/comparable air quality, it's not the case that there are many cities which regularly have worse pollution.

[SunnyinDubai]

We are currently on a cruise to NZ and the skies are clear here. We have been told that on some days there is smoke in some cities and the weather has been a lot cooler than usual. We also had a rough ride over which the captain said was due to the weather systems being impacted by the fires. Overall though, there has been minimal impact on our cruise. 
 

I have a friend in Tas at the moment on a camping trip and the pics he has been posting show beautiful blue skies there too.

[Thecat123]

The weather seems perfect at Milford Sounds today so if anybody is on a cruise ship they are very lucky  A time lapse video

https://www.takeabreak.co.nz/webcams/197/milford_webcam

Edited January 9, 2020 by Thecat123

[SunnyinDubai]

We had great weather there a few days ago too. 
 

Apparently the weather changes pretty quickly too as two ships which were due into Akaroa the day before yesterday did not make it in due to a sudden change in the weather. 

[lyndarra]

"The answer my friend is blowin' in the wind" - Bob Dylan

 

Seems very apt.

[GUT2407]

6 hours ago, Thecat123 said:

The weather seems perfect at Milford Sounds today so if anybody is on a cruise ship they are very lucky  A time lapse video

https://www.takeabreak.co.nz/webcams/197/milford_webcam

It has been beautiful today, just a tad cool.

[lyndarra]

Should be perfect by the time I get there 26th this month.😁

[MicCanberra]

20 hours ago, YOSIT said:

Good Day

I Am arriving at 29/01/2020 to Auckland

The Norwegian cruise  is from 04/02/2020 Auckland to 14/02/2020 to Sydney

Because of the Fires and Smoke in Australia

Is it not danger to continue the Cruises

Can people breath in Sedney

What is the situation in Tasmania?

 

Thanks Yosef

 

 

Welcome to cruise critic, there is risk in anything.

There are fires all over the place but generally not at any of the ports you are likely to visit.

[Brisbane41]

The problem is with international travel warnings is that a lot of them are based on what people call these days "fake news" where people fabricate stories, publish them on social media and spread them and people believe it is true. This is a large country and the unaffected areas are still operating as per usual. Just this week there have been news reports coming in about bogus photos circulating the internet of the fire extent which are all fake. Some credit the photos to NASA, again they are fake. I think some are explained away over several months of fires that have been extinguished being placed on a map as if they are all happening in real time together when some may have been months ago.

[By The Bay]

Here is the latest Air quality map for South Eastern Australia and NZ to give you an idea of how local the problem of Air Quality is. The sky is not falling in.

 

[Aus Traveller]

BTW, if you look at the above map, the areas that do not have coloured circles, haven't been impacted by the fires or by smoke from the fires. We are in Brisbane (shown as green with number 50 on the map) and haven't had smoke here for several weeks. It is only a small area close to Canberra that is shown as "unhealthy for sensitive groups". I will avoid jokes about politicians.

[LittleFish1976]

Melbourne, and lots of Victoria, have been affected by poor air quality from smoke; it's better in Melbourne today but was awful 8 days ago. Over the last week probably half of those days have been poor. Hopefully, the fire fighters will make some head way with the fires over the next week while the weather is cooler, in most of Victoria at least.

You will be fine on your cruise - it's not like the whole country is ablaze but your cruise line will be careful to only offer excursions into areas that are not risky.

[possum52]

3 hours ago, LittleFish1976 said:

Melbourne, and lots of Victoria, have been affected by poor air quality from smoke; it's better in Melbourne today but was awful 8 days ago. Over the last week probably half of those days have been poor. Hopefully, the fire fighters will make some head way with the fires over the next week while the weather is cooler, in most of Victoria at least.

You will be fine on your cruise - it's not like the whole country is ablaze but your cruise line will be careful to only offer excursions into areas that are not risky.

May I ask where you live? As in the part of Melbourne I live we have only had a few days of smoke and only two which I would consider bad - Friday of last week and this past Monday. The eastern and some northern parts of the state have had smoke and bad air for a few weeks so really Melbourne has got off quite lightly. 

 

Leigh