Cruise ship fan

Yea as OzKiwiJJ said once you lose signal to the Australia cell towers your phone connects to the ships network which is a satellite service. The location of the call is then given to the (either the cruise line or manufacturer of the equipment) new service provider. Which is usually in Miami.

You would of been a fair way offshore for it to lose land signal as I have been unable to see land before I lost my phone signal.

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There is priority boarding upstairs in the OPT just before immigration. You need to ask the staff to allow you up as you have C&A status otherwise you are waiting with everyone else.

I have spoken with staff on board (Diamond concierge and the C&A host). Not sure if they will do anything to change the situation and put up some more signage and to also let staff in the OPT know.

 

BTW, suite guests were in the same situation.

So you can actually skip the queue outside as well. I never knew this. Although I doubt we would use it too much as we usually arrive before the mass crowds arrive, and everything is pretty much walk straight through, with the odd delay for a minute or so at immigration.

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Just a warning be careful when dealing with taxis in Vila. Make sure you don't pay all at the beginning. We know people who payed to be take to the other side of town and back. But when the taxi gets to the other side he will stop and demand more money. Most taxi drivers are good people but just be aware some are dodgy

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Well technically both companies have done improvements in the ports. P&O has set up a lot of the ports to allow for cruises to be possible, noticeable in Isle of pines and mystery island. Royal recently partly paid for Port Vila to be upgrade to allow for the Voyager and above to enter the Port.

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Actually, that's what I pointed out - they're not. The replacement cruises are sold out; first cruise with some availability is 28th Jan when she was leaving and after the holidays.

 

 

 

Yeah, that's what the P&O announcement said and I can see the rationale. But I don't believe that assessment is made primarily on Ovation.

The 28th one is more what I was basing it on, since it more aligns with the original relocation cruise.

I don't believe it was only based on the Ovation but the Ovation being the final push for them to change their minds.

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That isn't surprising, and isn't a case of not doing well either. Feb and Mar are off peak periods and sailings often have availability there - especially when they're one way. Look at the crazy cheap prices that the Princess cruises from Asia to Australia have sold at.

 

The early cruises sold well because they were so limited, yet offered so much more, so were expected to do well. You had lots of demand squeeze into a very limited supply - and over the peak holiday period no less!

 

What RCL is doing is comparing against the returns they get from where they would otherwise be in China. That period is still Winter so also off-peak and prices come down a lot there.

 

They are still getting a much better return from sailing here than they would there, which is what counts to them. Prices coming down a bit from already high prices isn't a big deal; compared to the relative revenue return across the fleet, and at original deployment location, it's still a very good earner.

The timing is irrelevant for the first couple of cruises since they take place during the original relocation cruise. That cruise was pretty much sold out and the ones in its exact spot as still fairly open for bookings.

It wasn't so much as saying it is not doing well but not well enough to justify having a new ship of such large capacity here year round.

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Its a different company. I doubt that Royal Caribbean would kindly share information with Carnival about its sales.

 

However I feel the reason Ovation of the Seas is not selling well is because they left it too late to add in extra cruises and many people had planned their holidays already.

 

When I looked at Ovation of the Seas I was really keen to try it but when I looked at the itinerary I thought "same old", "same old" repetitive boring itinerary that has been done to death. They would have been better off doing more South Pacific itineraries instead of New Zealand which I do not intend to go back to for another 5 years as I have been there so much.

Carnival don't really need to know exact details but they can get enough information from the Royal website and talking to travel agents.

Although part of the reason would be that they made such a big change so late, it really shouldn't of made such a big difference. The bigger reason is the lack of variation in the cruises, which pretty much comes down to the ship struggling to get into ports due to its size and passenger numbers. When they canceled our relocation cruise we would of canceled our booking but we really wanted to see the ship, plus we were a little interested to see how the ship would handle going to Mystery Island. As the cruise we ended up on just goes to the regular places.

This is where I see truth in their statement saying that infrastructure has not progressed enough. This seems true since there is hardly anywhere for the ship to go so they had to cut back on the size of the ship, to fit existing infrastructure. Rather then face the issues the Ovation has with itineraries.

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I saw that but I think the main reason is that there are so few stops along the way.

The original repositioning cruise was practically sold out.

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Maybe this is a sign that P&O Australia are struggling in the face of strong competition and strong internal competition. Lets face it we have Royal Caribbean literally pooping all over P&O Australia who have set up in a short space of time and take more passengers than P&O Australia ever get. Then there are the two Carnival ships here already not to mention all the Princess ships and the Celebrity ships that come. Maybe the passenger numbers for P&O Australia are just not great that Carnival realised they could never fill the ship unless they got rid of all the older ships. Even worst Carnival may have realised that all P&O Australia passengers would have flocked to the new ship and left the old hand-me-downs empty. I guess that it is true that Australians embrace mediocrity and cheer when we get screwed over.

No I say it has more to do with the Ovation not doing as well as originally thought. The extra added on cruises have not been selling anywhere near as good as the initial set were. So still have a large amount of cabins left. Royal has had to significantly reduce the price to try and fill it up. We have canceled our cruise multiple times to get the new much lower price. I think we have gone through 6 booking numbers. For an obstructed balcony for 3 people we have saved $2000 by doing this.

Still performing well, but not the huge hit it was made out to be originally.

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There won't any issues with other ships as they will just get tugboat to move the Eden to another dock.

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Is the Splendor still having operational issues, as it has a pretty dodgy history?

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This is taken from Cruise Weekly.

PLANS to introduce two time slots for cruise ships visiting Sydney may become a reality early next year. The Port Authority of NSW’s coo and harbour master Philip Holliday told CW the typical 6am-6pm cruise call would be shifted earlier, making way for a second

ship in the evening.

“Because there’s limited infrastructure we’ve got to try and get more out of the existing infrastructure,” Holliday said

This very likely to first occur on January 28, as Royal Caribbean created a double booking when they extended the season of the Ovation, which caused the ship to have calls at the OPT when the Radiance was due to be in. Since then the Radiance has been missing from the cruise schedule yet the cruises are still being sold, and with no answer from Royal or Sydney ports regarding what is going to happen. This could very likely be their solution to it.

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People around here get pretty testy when things are not consistent from ship to ship.

Except there already numerous things that are not consistent from ship to ship. Let alone on the same ship from region to region.

A big issue with making these decisions fleet wide is that some parts of the world it would make the lounges empty. In Australia where Royal has 5 ships currently in the summer months, there is not an issue. Every now and again there maybe a cruise that the Diamond lounge gets busy but they are rare and usually limited to domestic or relocation cruises. The CL is also rarely busy as not all that many suite guests use the lounge often, plus there are only a few Pinnacle members in Australia (I mean the crew celebrate when there is a pinnacle member who is Australian on board. I have never seen more then 2 pinnacle members on board and they were a couple. Diamond Plus usually only sits around 15-30 on board. Again all dependant on the cruise. So if they started kicking people out of lounges fleet wide, it may solve an issue in some parts of the world, but completely empty out the room in other parts.

I assume the reason the pulled her out of Brisbane was not because of poor sales but because she costs too much to run. Due to the remoteness of the ports out here, the ship needs to use a lot more fuel and due to the ships smaller capacity, it wasn't worth having the ship based there. Since the best capacity (income wise for cruise lines) is the 140 000 t mark (been told directly from several officers for different lines). So I guess they are moving her to get closer ports. Then when Brisbane finally builds it's new wharf it will bring a bigger ship to the city.

Interested in the NZ cruise, also that you say it goes to New Caledonia. Do you have an itinerary of ports and dates?

28th Sydney

2 days sailing

31st Noumea

1st Mystery Island (tendering)

2 days sailing

4th Tauranga

5th Bay Of Islands (tendering)

6th Auckland (tendering)

2 days sailing

9th Sydney

That's interesting - maybe wanting to test out tendering at Mystery island where there is a small dock etc to see how it all goes? Could also be fairly crowded with the extra passengers on a little island like that.

 

I'm hoping they offer some variation in the cruises in the 2017/18 season as I would probably book her again if it isn't just NZ/Australia.

That cruise may end up being a test of the South Pacific for the ship. Since I don't think it had tendered at such a small place before.

Thanks for posting this! Do you know if it's in that order? Ie, the 5 night Tasmanian cruise will be 23rd of Jan? Wondering if we can squeeze one in before school goes back, though at this stage we might be in Asia. Choices, choices...!

Yes the 5 night is the 23rd of Jan. 12 night the 28th, 8 night the 9th and 3 night the 17th, with the new relocation cruise on the 20th of Feb.

The tasmanian cruise does an overnight stop in hobart on the 25th - 26th of January.

The NZ cruise also goes to Noumea and Mystery Island.

Royal has now given us a letter regarding the new cruises and reimbursement.

The new cruises are, 5 night Tasmanian cruise, 12 night New Zealand cruise, 8 night Tasmania and South Australia cruise, a 3 night sampler and an identical repositioning cruise.

They have offered us $200 and the option to move to one of those cruises or another Royal cruise for the same rates.

So were those cruises listed for sale for the Radiance. As it now looks like they are cancelled as well. Unless they decided to move the Radiance to Newcastle for those cruises. Since they can keep all their other bookings and it won't cause a huge disruption for passengers since it's close to Sydney.

Oh I wouldn't be so sure. The Govt would look at the economic benefit of the additional visits (pax spending money, provisioning the ship, port pilot and docking fees) for a ship this size. There are also per pax processing fees. So it could end up being viable for them to allow Garden Island to be used at least in $$ terms.

Except Garden Island is under the control of the Navy. The government cannot just say let us use the dock. The navy has to be able to justify and give permission. Which is becoming less and less likely as the navy is getting larger ships and there already isn't enough room at Garden island so it would be a hard pitch for a cruise line to get a dock there.

Queen Mary 2, with a draft of 10 metres berthed at the Grain Terminal in Brisbane. Does that mean Ovation, with a lesser draft, should be able to berth at the Grain Terminal?

Brisbane can take the Ovation. She was actually scheduled to make her maiden call there on the cancelled cruise.

Chances are you will not receive notification unless you booked directly with RCI, so for all those who have not been contacted by RCI, contact your TAs as they would have been.

That's the thing. People are not being notified even if they booked through Royal. The travel agents are not being notified either. The ones who have been notified are in the minority. For this cruis3 we booked through a travel agent and they were not notified until they called royal asking what was going on after we asked them.

I am willing to bet there are a ton of people still thinking that the cruise is going ahead because Royal haven't notified people. Leaving them to buy flights and accommodations and make arrangements. They should of told everyone booked before they announced it was extending it's season.