SinbadThePorter

The trouble is that Oasis of the Seas doing 4 day family cruises out of Miami going to CoCo Cay, has become the benchmark for profitability. Now they are looking at ways to make more marginal markets like NZ/Oz and more marginal ships into equivalent profit centres.

I think that's the case for the industry generally. Demand is off the charts, particularly in the Caribbean, and the cruise lines are raking in the cash. Until that changes, be prepared to be treated as a disposable cash cow. As opposed to the old days when we were indispensable cash cows. 🤑

It might also have been Carnival Legend which was out here for a while.

P&O Australia locally have by far the bigger brand presence. Carnival Corp will be losing a great deal of brand value by dropping the P&O name. It will take a considerable ad campaign to make up for that.

The Pacific Explorer will become the late Pacific Explorer. It will be exiting the fleet. Yet to be seen if razor blades await.

This has always been a bit confusing to me, but I thought that if you had a P&O Oz Cruisling number it was also automatically your Princess Captains Circle number.

Hmmm, two Carnival ships each in Brisbane and Sydney?

If they send Jubilee, I'm on onboard. But I don't see Carnival sending out their good stuff.

The rate that Carnival has been consuming Costa ships, Carnivore probably fits too.

Yes, if you are a keen snorkeler, you need to go on the ship excursion to the pontoon between the two islands. It's on a steep dropoff, but the coral there is what you see in nature documentaries. Off the beach is pretty much a waste of time.

I suspect that Carnival HQ may not have realised that they still had P&O Oz. I can see them back at the office in Miami some guy in a cubicle turns around and says to the guy behind him, "Hey Joe, I've been reading the fine print on that Princess purchase contract, did you know that there are two P&Os?". 😝

My only experience with Carnival has been on Luminosa. I was not impressed. I've been on and off P&O Oz for over 10 years now and I think I've gotten to the stage that I don't ever need to cruise with them again. I would put the two lines on par. Both of them advertise themselves as party ships, but P&O Oz definitely has the heavier drinkers. 😵 It makes sense to take your two disappointing budget cruise lines and amalgamate them into one disappointing budget cruise line. They aren't even particularly budget any more.

I'm trying for a look something between that and "Fred Astaire in Top Hat". It comes out as jeans and a collared shirt.

The islands on that HAL itinerary are more third world than is FP. The Azamara itinerary would be more familiar in terms of infrastructure and facilities.

Ship access to the White Bay terminal is limited by the deck height of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Quantum is much too tall, so it goes to the Overseas Passenger Terminal at Circular Quay. The OPT is by far the better terminal.

It depends on your preferences. The HAL cruise is a loop through the Pacific Islands and East Coast Australia. The Azamara is one way Singapore to Auckland around the southern coast of Australia. If your preference is tropical islands, then HAL. If it's to see Australia/NZ, then Azamara. If it was me, I'd be jumping on board Azamara.

I have fond memories from there in the 80s. I think there is still a Koala cuddling place on the island. Lots of beaches and toad races at the pub.

I don't know if Norwegian is trying to market Sun as an expedition ship or what, but she is also doing stops in Cooktown. Which is not something I thought I'd see from a ship that size again.

On Conflict Island if you have any interest at all in snorkeling, try to get on the ship excursion out to the pontoon. Very well worth it. Kiriwina you don't need an excursion as it's all pretty much on the beach. Take some Kina if you want to buy carvings there, there is like a handicrafts shopping mall set up along the main path. Having Kina makes life much easier for the locals. At Rabaul you can get third party excursions at the port, but the quality varies wildly. The town of Alotau is pretty much a dead loss for me. I don't bother getting off any more. The scenery is nice though.

Also some Norwegian Sun winter cruises between Cairns and Fiji.

I just looked up the schedule and Queen Elizabeth seems to be in Townsville the week before Encounter. It looks like some lines are testing the water, so to speak.

Encounter is also visiting Townsville next January, on its way to Conflict and then back to Brisbane. An interesting choice of ports I thought.

Just an observation. Looking at that map the port of Lae appears well within reach of a cruise like this. Who would prefer to go to Lae than Alotau?

Luganville is pretty much a dead loss unless you can get a taxi, or equivalent, up to the blue holes or to Champagne Bay (kudos to the PR flack who changed the name from Hog Harbour). Some of those "taxis" are pretty dodgy.

If you need a list of the best pies in Brisbane, shout out. 😜 I can also supply a list of the worst pies. 🥵 As for New Caledonia, it's a long, long story of the native Kanak people. Land alienation, broken promises from Paris and inequality favouring French expats. It has previously boiled up, but this last one looks more intense than those before. This latest conflict was kicked off by Paris deciding that the rules on who constituted a citizen of New Caledonia should be changed in favour of the expats. The Kanaks consider many, if not most of these expats to be interlopers who should not have a say in the future of the islands. The expats generally have a very European standard of living funded by French government jobs based mostly in Noumea, and the Kanaks who are mostly rural, do not.