ccsclean21

What about Australians sailing to Indonesia on a Royal Caribbean ship, does this cruise line arrange the visas on board for Australians.

Has any Australian who has sailed on a Royal Caribbean ship stopping at Indonesia tell me if the line organizes the visas on board.

Thanking you

Hi all

My wife and I will be sailing on the Koningsdam christening cruise for 20 nights from Rome 9th May. we have a stateroom at the front of the ship overlooking the bow. We have never been to Europe so what better way to see the places that we are calling into and it beats driving.

so when i get back i will be able to let you know what the ship is really like.

kind regards

wayne:):cool: all set for the big day.

Hi Esilef

Thanks for the info.

Regards

Wayne :)

Hi

has any Australian Citizen traveled on a Royal Caribbean cruise to Indonesia recently. i see that there are conflicting information on the web regards to arranging visas on board. do the Royal Caribbean cruise line organize visas onboard for you or do you have to go to the embassy to arrange it before you cruise. can someone help me out with this information.

thanks

Hi

I would normally purchase the soft drinks package and the last time i was on a cruise i would have been lucky if i had no more than about 10 glasses for the 13 day cruise i was on. So the cruise line made a profit, so it evens things out along the way. It didn't worry me that i didn't get my moneys worth. It's more about knowing that you can relax on your cruise and not be worrying about how much the bill is going to be at the end.

if you have kids on a cruise and you have to pay per glass," boy" it can sure shake the credit card and I'm sure it doesn't cost the lines that much for the sodas.

As for the alcohol, i don't think it has anything to do with people getting drunk it's more about getting these people and anyone else who just wants a glass to pay through the nose for it, but they will still get drunk and at the end can't pay their bill due to their stupid drinking on board. you hear about it a lot from other cruisers who have seen it happen.

want to stop heavy drinking. have a rule, if you are caught being over intoxicated then you lose the drinks package for the rest of the cruise, so again cruise line makes profit.

it's all about making a dollar, sure the lines need to pay for the glamorous ships they are building but we as customers are entitled to some savings as well like the drinks package. if they remove the drinks package then they should replace it with something else like free bingo etc.

a bit of give and take. every time i read a review from people it's about some cruise line they have been on cutting back on things like staff for example. without these fantastic staff it wouldn't be a holiday. next thing you know you will have to make and tidy your own cabins or you want something to eat, go make yourself a hamburger, oops they already have that on the ships. so we are heading in that direction.

so my advice to the cruse lines that are trying this on and they know who they are. you can only penny pinch so far and with the penny pinching goes the quality of service and your customers will then backlash with bad reviews and if your ranking goes to low then know one will go near you and it will end up costing you a hell of a lot more to get them back and to build up confident just because you wanted to see if you could make a few more dollars out of your passengers.

The cruise lines should have more bar staff to stop the over crowding at the bars also the staff can keep an eye out for over-intoxicated passengers as at the moment they are too busy to notice anything.

Cheers

Hi

It works out cheaper to get the soft drinks package as kids can drink a lot of soft drink and if you pay by the glass you will be putting your hand in your pocket every 5mins and at the end you have spent way more than the drinks package plus the kids are on holidays so why restrict them, they have a right to enjoy themselves as they would be doing things they wouldn't be doing at home. As for the alcohol i don't think people need to drink themselves stupid to make it worth while for the drink package. people who get the drink packages and drink themselves to excess have a problem and even if you didn't have the drinks package they would still go over board with the drink and be annoying with other passengers, that's who they are even on land, you see them all the time staggering around the streets and they didn't get the drinks package at the local on land but they still got drunk. People don't want to be forking out all the time when on holidays and if you can pay for the packages before you go that is one thing less that you have to be checking on as it is already paid for even if you don't drink more than what the package is worth.

As for a glass of alcohol being a rip off, they could sell it duty free, that's what they used to do and the lines would still make a profit.

so drink package or no drink package you will never stop people going stupid and drinking to excess. My word to those that get drunk all the time, drink to enjoy not to be stupid.

Thanks for that. I will have my children with me and kids go through gallons of soft drink and without the drinks package it would cost a fortune.

I thank you again for the comment.

:)

Hi All

I am planning on going on the Diamond Princess in September 2015

from Singapore to Sydney, does this still mean no drinks package if we are sailing out of Singapore ?

I have been on the Voyager Of the Seas November 2014 there were drinks package so i think it is more the problem with the Carnival Australia company not the government.

i have been on the old Oriana in the early 80"s and the boozing onboard was to the point that when arriving back in Sydney you would see carpet removed from the ship after a throw up job. i asked the management of the line why we weren't getting the newer ships that were used in overseas and was told that the companies who owned the ships reckon that there were 2 reasons and one was that they reckon Australians were drunk heads and they didn't want their ships ruined by us and the other reason which i think was more of the case that it was too expensive to reposition the ships to Australia and there was not enough people out here to fill up the ships and i thought this was narrow thinking.

But back to the drinks package, i think it is all about costs as the lines know that Australians can drink so why not rip them off and get rid of the drinks package and charge by the glass.

anyway back in the early 1980"s when you went on a cruise and you bought a glass of alcohol it was suppose to be duty free so you actually got it a lot cheaper than on land so why are we paying full land price when we are out at seas not in Australian waters. we should be getting duty free not taxed drinks.

My other question is will the soda packages be still available or they ripping of the kids as well.

Come on Carnival Australia get your act together and get out of the dark ages Australians are more refined these days and love quality wines and spirits sure there are still some party animals as we used to call them but why rip the rest of us off as we like to just walk up to the bar and order a wine or beer without the over consuming and don't have to worry abut how much it is going to cost at the end of the trip.

when i was on Voyager in November i did not see one over intoxicated passenger, so what is the problem. Royal Caribbean have it right.

Hi

I was on board the Voyager of the Seas from Singapore to Sydney 25/11/14 cruise and the ship used a drone a number of times out at sea.

the ship was some where in the Barrier reef when the ship turn 180 deg and came to a stop to do an advertising shoot by a drone then again going through the channel at brisbane early in the morning the drone was at it again then again out at sea the ship did another 180 deg turn and headed back up the coast for around an hour before turning back on course so drones are being used by cruise lines. apparently they are going to use it in some company advertising.

Hi all

this is my first post and i will be on Voyager of the Seas on the 25th November 2014 and Iam looking forward to it. My last cruise was many many years ago on a russian ship, yikes that was a piece of scrap metal floating on the ocean eating fish and potatoes, but enough of the nightmares.

The pictures that have been posted are excellent and looking at them i am wondering if they'll get the ship ready on time as that is a lot of work also i imagine the cruise line doesnt want people to see the finished product as they would possibly want to post it themselves, an artists is the same, you can"t see the painting till it is finished.

Thanks for the fantastic photos and i will make more comments after i see the ship for myself.

:)