geoff2802

Excellent price - well done. Enjoy your cruise!

Thanks both - appreciate your help. Will keep an eye out. It’s actually 2024 we’re planning for, so availability should be fine for a while yet.

We're looking for a PNG cruise from Brisbane in Winter 2024 and I see that P&O has a 10 nighter in June of that year on Pacific Encounter. Current price is $1799pp each with 2 adults in a balcony room for "Value" package and $200 OBC. I see P&O have sales all the time... do they often discount these PNG cruises or a they very popular and full price is the norm? Does P&O happily honour price drops? TIA for any info. Slightly O/T; apologies.

Yep, they were both reasons. We also saw Airlie after the last big cyclone and it was pole-axed. We also decided a nearby major airport and cruise port were important. 😀 My wife's from bayside Brisbane and her family is all in SE Qld. Property prices were reasonable on Bribie 6 years ago and we sold our house in Sydney. Have not looked back.

Go for it. Both sound good!

If you haven’t found them already, check out Hideaway Bay and Dingo Beach. Beautiful spots and affordable. Good pub at Dingo. Hideaway is quiet. We seriously considered buying there but settled on Bribie for various reasons.

Yes, the wider Brisbane area - Sunshine Coast and Gold Coast specifically. I should have said SE Qld. We got sick of Sydney and moved up here to live by the water. Loving it. The new cruise terminal is good too. Now the health emergency is over Anna can’t stop the inflow.

The hard data tells us that people are moving from NSW (and most recently from Vic as well) to Qld, for whatever reason. Pretty sure this is mostly from the two capital cities to Brisbane area. https://www.abs.gov.au/articles/population-movement-australia That's my 🍍 😀

They’d love to draw attention away from Princess’ release.

My guess is that Sapphire goes to Singapore year round.

Tthe return of Princess to Asia is the likely reason for Diamond coming our way. Coral doing long cruises, round the world.

Sure looks like Diamond will be home ported in Brisbane instead of Coral. She and Sapphire are a bit different to the Grand class ships - a little larger by tonnage and less cabins. There is a small pool area back aft whereas the Grand ships have cabins there IIRC. I woudn’t be surprised if those Coral cruises to/from Perth are cancelled. If Crown goes to Sydney I hope they’ve finally sorted out the propulsion problems.

Hey springaussie, Several of the Crown Princess bookings in Sydney are 2 days before or 2 days after Coral Princess bookings in Brisbane. Perhaps a change of ship for Brisbane? Don’t know why they woudn’t have just put the Sydney bookings in the name of Coral though.

Funny how Australian governments and their agencies implement infrastructure just in time for it to become obsolete (partially in this case). Perhaps available space for turning basin prevented them from designing for ships longer than 300m. This was a good project for Cairns in any case.

Shame that from 2024/25 there is no Royal ship deployed to our market that can take advantage of the port expansion. Looking at that port calendar there are still a lot of ships tendering, aren't there.

The PortsNorth project page says ships up to 300m: https://www.portsnorth.com.au/ports-north-projects/cairns-shipping/ I’d assume tendering.

Imagine the size of the battery! Anyway, better get back on topic…. Looks like no third ship for Australia. Royal is annoyed with the NSW government over the lack of progress on a third terminal.

I may have read outdated information. Can’t imagine the ship could travel far on a fuel cell

Yes, Icon has fuel cell and LNG. Of course it won’t be going to Norway.

Interesting. Does any cruise line have zero emission ships in the pipeline?

Hey Chilli, There’ still no entries for a Royal ship in Melbourne’s port calendar. Do have any evidence?

Interesting…. Where’s Spectrum going? Do you think they will restart in China (either mainland or HK)?

As of a few weeks ago, Royal Australia were planning to release their 2024/25 deployment in March (reliable source), so there is a significant delay.

I’ve found most cruise lines including Royal use very poor exchange rates when setting fares in AUD. Choose a US TA.

I had a quick look… Pricing on Royal’s US website for Spectrum is out of kilter with TA in the US. The TA is around USD 100 pppd for gty balcony. About to announce a big discount (to an inflated price)? I didn’t look at AUD pricing - it’s probably worse.