Celebrity air for New Zealand/Australia cruise?

[Stacey779]

I've never booked cruise line air before, but I'm finding that it's less expensive than anything I can find online (by about $600 pp). However, I'm worried that they'll book me on 4 different flights with lengthy layovers, etc. (even though we'd be flying out of San Francisco) because that might be the cheapest option. I know I can do custom air, but by the time I pay the $50 fee and whatever the difference in flight cost is it will probably be a moot point. Does anyone know what carriers Celebrity uses to fly to New Zealand/Australia? Would you recommend me just taking a chance on Celebrity air considering that would save us $1200 between my husband and I?

[pierces]

We're booked on the NZ-HI trip on the Mercury in March and our flight is on Quantas. It's non-stop from LAX to Auckland. The return flight from Honolulu on American Airlines is also non-stop.

 

We had some worries about them routing us through Sri Lanka or something, but are very pleased with the flights.

 

Dave

[Janan]

My wife and I are considering on changing our booking from princess to the Millenium on Dec 7 2008, and we would like to know this, so if any one is out there with experiences to share Please do!

 

Stacey, What Cruise are you considering?

 

Andy

[camstart]

Being that you're flying directly from San Francisco, I don't think you'll have a problem. We're leaving next week, and our flight from LAX is a straight shot on Qantas. Our problem was the super short layover before the Qantas flight. We are flying out of Chicago, and only had an hour and a half layover before the qantas flight. Flights are notoriously late flying out of chicago. We ended up doing a custom booking and leaving much earlier in the day.

[Karynanne]

Stacey, we also leave from SFO next week for Sydney...via Auckland. I booked Air New Zealand, last March, and saved quite a lot of $$. There is a daily, direct flight into Auckland...a 2 hr. layover, then onto Sydney. I used FF miles to fly back from Honolulu on Aloha, into Oakland. We live in the East Bay.

 

Karyn

[candbgirl]

I had never booked Celebrity air before but decided to for the Scandinavia/Russia cruise in May. I live in Chicago and felt that since there were several non-stop flights each day to London I would have no problem. But there was always that little nagging feeling that I'd get routed through two or three places on my way to/from London. I finally called Celebrity Custom Air and they were able to book me directly from Chicago/London and back on the airline and flights I wanted. The total cost difference for the air flights was $69 ($19 for going/$50 for the return). The $75 charge for the service was waived since I'm a Captains Club member. Best $69 I've spent. Now I can just sit back and wait for the cruise without obsessing over the flights. :)

[Stacey779]

My wife and I are considering on changing our booking from princess to the Millenium on Dec 7 2008, and we would like to know this, so if any one is out there with experiences to share Please do!

 

Stacey, What Cruise are you considering?

 

Andy

 

We're looking at the holiday sailings in late December. We keep going back and forth between the Diamond Princess, Rhapsody of the Seas, and Celebrity Millenium sailings. I'm leaning towards Celebrity (primarily because of the itinerary). If you don't mind me asking, why are you considering switching from Princess?

[Stacey779]

sorry, double post

[Janan]

Yep, As soon as I can we are going to put our money down for the Millenium 0n Dec 7 '08. I noticed you're thinking of the Diamond, we're changing because we've sailed Princess twice before and weren't overly impressed and figured that we would try something new. We have never sailed the Diamond (old crown princess and new Crown Princess). Part of our concern was Air and even doing air on our own it would be about $2000.00 cheaper going in early december rather than Jan 5 09 like we had planned...so eventhough we sort've had our minds made up...the money savings helped seal the deal!

Good Luck with whichever cruise you choose and maybe we'll see you aboard the Millenium eventhough it's not a holiday sailing.

 

Andy

[Stacey779]

Thanks everyone for your advice. I think we might just go ahead and take a chance with Celebrity air. I'm guessing the prices I see online through Orbitz, etc. are higher because it's the holiday season. Normally we find the cruise line air to be more expensive than what we book on our own, but not this time.