My Cherry Blossom Cruise Review

[CRUISING ALONG]

Hi Aussie_Kingpin

Thankyou for such an excellent review. Thoroughly enjoyed it.

 

Regards

CRUISING ALONG:)

[Cruising Ninja]

Well King Pin...great to hear from you. We enjoyed your company on the cruise and in the odd Lawson Exchange :D .

 

I think most of your commentary was spot on.

 

I think that the major problem was that the Pacific Sun was totaly the wrong ship for the cruise. As you said she is an old American reject sent out here to end her days carting about people that the U>S> directors of Carnival PLC ( The actual owners of P & O ) seem to think are totaly lacking any sense of appreciation for the finer points of cruising. The poor old Sun will probably be sold next year anyway according to onboard crew talk. About time as she is not in good condition.

 

Anyway she is verry rusty, has a total lack of a promenade deck ( as favoured by US cruislines. British Cruisers I am told prefer a Large and long Promenade deck.) and has a long list of maintenance probs. One of the most annoying is the rust that frequently poors from the taps in place of fresh water. Don't wory though because P and O will sell you bottled water instead of fixing the problem. I recently spoke with them about this and they don't see it as a problem and don't intend to fix it. My advice is don't try washing your clothes in your cabin until you are sure that the water runs clear.

 

I didn't experience any noise on E deck but then again I was a little forward of amidships.

 

The show lounge is a disaster for a long cruise. The seats have little padding for a middle aged but and the view is absolutely attrocious from just about every position. It doesn't help that they place large speaker boxes on the stage itself. Trying to see around all the poles into the bargain make it a nightmare.

 

Most of the tours can be better accomplished via a Taxi and a guidebook. My advice is to leave them alone as very few represent value for money.

 

The drinks were very overpriced at $4.50 an ordinary beer. Coctails and spirits where poisonous in their pricing. Beer could be had for a little over a dollar U.S. in most ports. On a six week cruise it makes drinking extremely expensive.

 

The Theme nights where an issue because none where held matching the cruise or ports visited. They even held an Island night on Saint Patricks Day ?????? Figure that one out...too Irish for me. I still dont know why No Oriental night or Mash night was held and WHY for heavens sake was their a total absence of at least one choice of Asian food on the Menu ???? I suspect it was beause the Sushi bar is an extra that you have to pay for. We just ate ashore as much as possible in China and Japan etc. The Menu for six weeks was the standard P and O South Pacific Cruise Menu constantly repeated....groan....boredom.....

 

P & O are expert at squeezing a dollar at every turn. The shuttle bus was a classic. The taxi was always cheaper except for Guam. A shuttle bus driver let it be known that the bus company got two dollars and fifty cents a head and the the ship took the other Five dollars. Now there where four of us so it cost $30.00 to use a bus that should have cost around $8.00. Well done P and O.:mad:

 

Having said that the Port Calls where good with the notable exception that we wound up in places a lot of times on Sundays and public Holidays.....Brunei is dead on Mohammeds birthday and Rabaul is likewise on a Sunday....

 

The Shark shack is great for kids...it was great to have long stretches at sea and as always the Hospitality staff was excellent.

 

The General concensus however was that P & O should stick to the South Pacific as they lose the plot if going North.

[Cruising Ninja]

.Crikey imagine being locked on the sun for 42 days with bad entertainment:eek: Id be off first civilised port that had a airport

 

Icy

 

If the onboard rumours are to be believed some did get off and some just turned up their toes and died.:eek:

[Ela 2]

Thanks to Aussie Kingpin and Cruising Ninja for the reviews. They made very interesting reading.

 

I had to laugh at Cruising Ninja's description of the show lounge. A friend of ours (known on this forum as Bazzaw) 'sounds off' in a similar vein.

 

Entertainers - I believe that Ash Puriri was on the Cherry Blossom cruise. We feel he is one of the best entertainers we have seen/heard on any cruise ship (and for us that is a lot of ships).

 

Once again - thanks for the reviews.:):)

[gizzigoo]

Thanks cruising ninja for your review and ela for bumping this review forward. As a newbie on these boards I would otherwise have missed it.

 

Thank you Aussie_Kingpin for being my tour guide, I felt as if I was actually there. Absolutely wounderful reading.

 

Funny thing about this cruise is I received a post card about this and my youngest son said "come on Mum, let's do it, ring up and book us on it". I did call P&O about this and as I had never cruised before I really didn't know what I was doing in trying to book a cruise.

 

The person I spoke to said we are not doing this cruise as we have sold the ship, "what? but I only recieved the information today, how could you have sold the ship?". He then proceeded to say there was another one coming up and would I be interested, "yes", he then told me I needed the cruise number so that he could tell me about it, "but I don't know the number of this cruise you mention" this is at the point I thought oh, boy P&O really don't know what they are doing and I gave up.

 

However it did peak my interest and I booked a local SP cruise on the Pac Sun and agree with you that 42 days on the Pac Sun might be a tad too long. I also think I was unlucky as the person I spoke to P&O must have been confused as the advertising literature does say Pac Sun, I still have it. The majority of the staff I speak to with P&O are wonderfully helpful.

 

Of course I am now a cruising junkie and want to go on every cruise I see, I drive my family nuts!:o

[lias]

Hi Aussie_ Kingpin.

 

I just read your excellent review again and noticed that you said you had a CRT TV in your cabin. We were on the cruise a couple after yours (10th-17th May) and we had an LCD TV in our cabin.

At first, I thought you might have had it wrong but after looking at your cabin photo, indeed, it was a CRT.

 

Does anyone know when they upgraded these or were we just lucky?

Usually these items are replaced during major refurbishments.

[gizzigoo]

Hi Aussie_ Kingpin.

 

I just read your excellent review again and noticed that you said you had a CRT TV in your cabin. We were on the cruise a couple after yours (10th-17th May) and we had an LCD TV in our cabin.

At first, I thought you might have had it wrong but after looking at your cabin photo, indeed, it was a CRT.

 

Does anyone know when they upgraded these or were we just lucky?

Usually these items are replaced during major refurbishments.

 

Hi Lias,

My son metioned that they were putting LCDs in cabins when we were on our cruise and he said that it looked like they were working from the lower decks up. We were on upper 6 on the 3rd to the 10th May, and I think he said he glimpsed some on riviera.

[Cruising Ninja]

Thanks cruising ninja for your review and ela for bumping this review forward. As a newbie on these boards I would otherwise have missed it.

 

Thank you Aussie_Kingpin for being my tour guide, I felt as if I was actually there. Absolutely wounderful reading.

 

Funny thing about this cruise is I received a post card about this and my youngest son said "come on Mum, let's do it, ring up and book us on it". I did call P&O about this and as I had never cruised before I really didn't know what I was doing in trying to book a cruise.

 

The person I spoke to said we are not doing this cruise as we have sold the ship, "what? but I only recieved the information today, how could you have sold the ship?". He then proceeded to say there was another one coming up and would I be interested, "yes", he then told me I needed the cruise number so that he could tell me about it, "but I don't know the number of this cruise you mention" this is at the point I thought oh, boy P&O really don't know what they are doing and I gave up.

 

However it did peak my interest and I booked a local SP cruise on the Pac Sun and agree with you that 42 days on the Pac Sun might be a tad too long. I also think I was unlucky as the person I spoke to P&O must have been confused as the advertising literature does say Pac Sun, I still have it. The majority of the staff I speak to with P&O are wonderfully helpful.

 

Of course I am now a cruising junkie and want to go on every cruise I see, I drive my family nuts!:o

 

 

This fairly typical of the experience of most of us on the Cherry Blossom. The administration nightmares created by P & O where legendary !!!!!

We have cruise conversations for years to come describing how many times that we where given the wrong info by P & O head office re this cruise.

 

It started at the time of booking and just went on u8ntil the end.

 

The first was that they insisted that the cruise was only being booked Sydney to Sydney. We made our own flight arrangements from Sydney to Brisbane as Virgin is a massive saving on P & Os so called discount air travel. Better to spend the money on your actual cruise rather than give it to QANTAS. Before leaving I had negotiated being let of in Brisbane on our return as it seemed carzy to be able to go home for the day and to then go back to the ship and sail of to Sydney and have fly back to Brizzy. In the end I told them that they couldn't stop us and we would just get off and not come back for sailing. They finaly agreed but demanded that we get ourselves off by 8.30am

 

When we got to Sydney we were refused boarding because we had no Chinese Visas despite written advise from P & O that only foreign passport holders had to check out visas. Aussies where led to believe that they would get a froup clearance. We finaly got on Board after being held in a holding pen for some two hours and signing a waver that we accepted that we might not get ashore in Shanghai. ( Some 300 passengers where caught like this )

 

When we finaly got on board we all began to swap our stories with each other as you do and we found that a number on board had joined the ship in Brisbane and cruised down to Sydney.....I have not been able to get a coherent answer from P & O for this to this very day either on board or from head office. It seems to be the case that as I didnt go through a travel agent and dealt directly with P & O I was treated like a mushroom.

 

We found others that had booked to get off in Brisbane and had none of the troubles that we did.

 

P & O eventualy did the right thing and got us our Chinese visas but its hard the get them to realise how they stuffed everyone up so badly in the booking process. They just don't admit mistakes at all.

 

The cruise was originaly scheduled for the Pacific Star but she was sold so the Sun was substitued rather than the Dawn. I think all the early releases said the Star was the vessel doing the trip.

 

Double check anything and evrything that they tell you on the phone. Right uptill just before sailing they even had us going to the wrong wharf.......Beware P&Os Port Hand often doesn't know what the Starboard one is doing.

[lias]

Hi Lias,

My son metioned that they were putting LCDs in cabins when we were on our cruise and he said that it looked like they were working from the lower decks up. We were on upper 6 on the 3rd to the 10th May, and I think he said he glimpsed some on riviera.

 

Hi Glenda

 

Great. Thanks for clearing that up.

 

Yes, we booked fairly late and were in an outside cabin on Riviera Deck; one of the last few to go. The TV was a good size too and very clear.

[Ela 2]

Double check anything and evrything that they tell you on the phone. Right uptill just before sailing they even had us going to the wrong wharf.......Beware P&Os Port Hand often doesn't know what the Starboard one is doing.

Hi Cruising Ninja,

Unfortunately this has been our experience also, particularly if there is anything slightly unusual about your cruise or about your booking. :):)

[icemaiden2310]

.Crikey imagine being locked on the sun for 42 days with bad entertainment:eek: Id be off first civilised port that had a airport

 

Icy

 

If the onboard rumours are to be believed some did get off and some just turned up their toes and died.:eek:

 

Kingpin and ninja what stamina u both have! Great reviews by u both.After doing a 14 nighter on sun there is no way i could have done 42 nights. I am looking at cb on dawn princess next march the trip sounds great.Hopefully a better ship

Icy

[gizzigoo]

So, on listening to all, about the problems with P&O communications would one be better to book through an agent? I have booked direct as P&O say that if one books with an agent they they will not discuss travel details with you.

 

I am quite confused with this, are we better to choose a T/A for all of our bookings and will they look after you better?

 

Crusing Ninja, it actually sounds like it was totally frustrating, I would have been most upset if I wasn't allowed to get off in Brisbane, it seems crazy.

 

One interesting thing I did note while you were on the cherry blossom tour I received an email regarding visas in China. It was saying that after Kevin Rudds' visit the regulations were changed and Australians would need to apply for Visas in each province or some such thing. The email is in my hard drive that I can't access at the moment. So this may have added to the visa issue.

[Cruising Ninja]

So, on listening to all, about the problems with P&O communications would one be better to book through an agent? I have booked direct as P&O say that if one books with an agent they they will not discuss travel details with you.

 

I am quite confused with this, are we better to choose a T/A for all of our bookings and will they look after you better?

 

Crusing Ninja, it actually sounds like it was totally frustrating, I would have been most upset if I wasn't allowed to get off in Brisbane, it seems crazy.

 

One interesting thing I did note while you were on the cherry blossom tour I received an email regarding visas in China. It was saying that after Kevin Rudds' visit the regulations were changed and Australians would need to apply for Visas in each province or some such thing. The email is in my hard drive that I can't access at the moment. So this may have added to the visa issue.

 

 

 

I had No dramas for the P & O cruises where I used an agent ( 2 on Pac Sky and Pac Star ) With the exceptoopn of getting my tickets and cruise info too late to book before departure. That made me decide to do the Cherry Blossom myself via the Website. The people who used agents seemed to have a lot less trouble with the whole procedure. Mind you it wouldn't stop me from doing it myself next time as I am now a lot more Knowledgeable concerning the chaos that seems to reign at P &O s head office in Sydney.

 

You now know what Can happen so do it yourself by all means but just keep an I on things. They have the SP cruises down to a formula that they repeat each cruise so if thats what you are doing it should be no hassles. If its new destinations or cruises then keep a close watch on things agent or not.

 

The Chinese Visa thing happened because P & O sent out conflicting advice to some and none at all to others. When it all stuffed up they hid behind the ecuse " Visas are a passenger responsibility ". I find that attitude disgraceful when their letters tp passengers caused the confusion. I think that someone in Head Office got it all confused and they just never got on top of it. The Chinese did change procedures recently but I think it was to do with the Olympic Games. The price for the Visa varied Greatly depending on where and when it was applied for.

 

Anyway we managed to have fun despite P & O continualy raining on our Parade ( when we weren't in ques for something or other that is :) )

 

Im not as good as King Pin but I will try to post some pics as I did some different thins on our port calls althgough we tended to buy our beer at the same shops :D

[gizzigoo]

Im not as good as King Pin but I will try to post some pics as I did some different thins on our port calls althgough we tended to buy our beer at the same shops :D

 

Thanks for the info NInja.

 

I am just an SP cruiser at this stage, but have a dream to cruise further afield when my last child is old enough to do without me. So this is when I would say I will most likely need a T/A.

 

I look forward to seeing your pics of the trip.:D