colourbird

Going by previous years, the city will be absolutely packed with shoppers.

Doesn't explain why they aren't selling the repositioning cruise for Anthem then.

It's possible Anthem will stay in Sydney all year round in a couple of years time as her last scheduled cruise isn't the usual repositioning cruise, but a return to Sydney in April 2026.

Catch-22!

A lot of Aussies cruise, but many of us go to warmer climates in the northern hemisphere during our off season.

See you on the Diamond, I'll keep away till after breakfast though. We'll have to have a meet and greet.

I hated maths at school, but ended up studying statistics at university as part of a major. I couldn't see why I'd ever need statistics in real life and thought it was a waste of time, but I ended up collecting, compiling, analysing, comparing and reporting on statistics at work for over 30 years.

Actually the way classes are segregated nowadays, it is quite likely suite guests will be ushered into to lifeboats first, whilst others have to wait in their respective lounges / muster stations till they are called.

Icon of the Seas would be unsinkable, rendering any lifeboats or rafts necessary only to comply with current laws.

Pretty sure she didn't have life rafts.

We were on Edge last year and the captain said there aren't enough lifeboats for the number of people on board, but with the addition of rafts, there's plenty of space. He said it is the same for most ships nowadays.

We have a Japan cruise coming up in 699 days (but who is counting?) and have a balcony as we only do balcony cabins and haven't had any bad experiences with them (except on Celebrity Edge where the infinite balcony window was locked a couple of times. We haven't worked out tours yet, but for a previous cancelled cruise we had purchased non-ship tours for each city. I hadn't thought about walking around, but if we are dropped off at stations, a 10km walk is only 2 hours each way so probably worth doing as we'd experience a lot of Japan along the way.

Enchantment is doing almost exclusively Western Caribbean cruises from now till the end of April 2026, so not sure how they can sell Aussie cruises on her.

Must be boring for the captain. When we were on Edge on her first trip around New Zealand, the crew were really excited to be going somewhere new from them. Oceania tries to never repeat an itinerary which is good. So not every cruise line is scared to do something different. Maybe when they get more ships, they will homeport from Sydney.

When we did the 17 night Northern explorer on Coral Princess last year, there were only a handful of non-retired passengers on board so there is a market for longer cruises.