LibbyLee

Thanks for your replies. I am leaning towards the Aria as its smaller and I think looks nicer. I also see the Dawn as a more family style ship, which I'm happy to avoid.

 

One other thing I was worried about, is the smaller ship likely to be rougher than the Dawn? It will be my hubby a first cruise, and he is worried about sea sickness.

I have travelled on the same size ship as Aria a number of times now in South Pacific and have never found it to be a problem with rough seas and seasickness. If in doubt...medicate, but it would be more likely once out of the heads in Sydney and the first day towards New Caledonia and then again on the return.

Lifo has exceptional snorkelling sites, probably better than Mare.

Aria has larger cabins on the whole than the Dawn.

Do you think they would accept Pandora gift vouchers or are all sales via P&O?

I don't really get why bingo is not being offered. Don't they play bingo anywhere in WA? How strange......

The HMAS Sydney Memorial have the guided tour by volunteers, which is free but only at 10.30 am. It is walking distance from town to the memorial, about 10 minutes I understand. I am assuming there will be some shuttle from the port to town. Will have to look into that more closely.

It is a tender port in Exmouth. There will be shuttles from the tender port to the visitor centre in town. From there, all of the car rental offices are in close proximity within a block or so from the visitor centre. There is Budget, Europcar, Hertz etc.

I wonder what the mystery shore tour will be. I would like to go to the Willie Farm Oyster place, but not sure yet.

Unfortunately, our cruise departs at 5.30pm so we could not book the sunset camel tour which was my first preference. They do have an afternoon one which fits in with the cruise times so thats what we booked instead.

Hi Lisa,

We are doing the 8 night cruise in May, and I too, think the shore tours are on the most part very expensive. We have booked our own camel tour along Cable Beach through an independent camel tour company. Would like to independently visit the Pearl Luggers Museum in Broome, but apparently P&O have held all tours there and cannot independently book any tours. Not particularly happy about that!

We are renting a car in Exmouth to drive the 60kms to Coral Bay and doing our own snorkelling. Very easy to do that on own if that is a desire.

In Geraldton, we plan to walk to the HMAS Sydney Memorial and do the free tour. Also, will visit the WA Museum there which has a fairly extensive exhibit devoted to the Batavia, I believe. All of that is free too.

Hope that can give you some ideas......

Liz

From what I understand, the larger interior cabins in cat J and K are quite significantly larger than the standard inside cabins. They are also more of a square shape than a rectangular shape. As for dimensions, I think the standard cabins can be around 151 square feet and the J or K can be as big as 233 square feet.

In April just gone, I went on a Rannui snorkelling tour for the day and can thoroughly recommend it. It was exceptional and a real highlight of our cruise. It was $120 US for about 6 hours of snorkelling in 4 different sites: the coral garden, stingray area, shark area and deeper sea snorkelling. Plus we took a boat ride around the whole island and then finished with a barbeque lunch on their private idyllic island. It is a family owned business with only 20 on the boat. Fantastic!

I can thoroughly recommend Rannui tours in Bora Bora for an approx 6 hour tour including snorkelling in the coral garden, stingray feeding, shark area, deeper sea snorkelling and a circle around Bora Bora by boat with lunch included on their private motu. Exceptional value at $120 US...family owned business which we couldn't fault. Would go with them again.

I have a hard time believing that once you have legally entered Canada, that leaving the ship and returning to it while in Vancouver should be a border control problem.

 

Bodger

Believe me....we ran into a close disaster when we boarded a Princess ship in Vancouver headed for Alaska. We embarked and then decided to get off the ship to grab some souvenirs and alcohol back in Vancouver. We were not told that we should take our passports with us for our return to get back on the ship. When we had made our purchases, we returned to board the ship and because we did not have our passports, we ran into trouble. We were going from Canada soil to US territory (being the ship) and needed to have our passports for Immigration again. Fortunately, the problem was eventually alleviated whereby a Princess representative and a ship crew member accessed our safe in stateroom to get our passports out and give them to us so we could then reboard. It was quite stressful and would have been helpful if we had been given the correct information.

Hi all.....I live in Australia and my family and I are looking at a 7 night Western Carribean cruise in mid Oct 2015. When should we secure a cabin on this cruise? Is it worth waiting for a good deal with free upgrades or OBC?

Also, I am cruising with Celebrity Solstice in April 2014, should I do a next cruise booking for RCC for this proposed cruise whilst on board? Are there any real advantages?

Would like to know suggestions for which balcony cabin on Freedom too.

Many thanks in advance......

Liz

I am on a cruise on Celebrity in April and I am considering making a future cruise booking for a RCL cruise in 2015. My question is does it give you a reduced deposit and can I apply it to my family members who will be travelling with me in 2015 but will not be on the cruise with me this April?

I'm currently looking at a cruise itinerary Oct 2015 in Carribean on Freedom of the Seas. So she's still there till at least after that.

The Matson Line ships Mariposa and Monterey were not cruise ships, they were ocean liners and till the early 1970's both ships provided the regular Trans Pacific passenger service between the US West Coast and Sydney in Australia.

 

The arrival of the Boeing 747 revolutionized air travel for the masses and made air travel affordable for the majority of travellers for the first time.

 

As such in the early 1970's the great ocean liner routes of the world including London - New York (Original Queen Mary & Queen Elizabeth), London - Melbourne - Sydney (P & O UK many liners), and Sydney - US West Coast (Mariposa & Monterey) virtually ceased to exist overnight .

 

Matson lines still exists today as a freight carrier. In Europe MSC whilst primarily a freight operator, does also operate in the passenger cruise business .

That is true......It was early 1971 when I sailed on SS Monterey. At the time it certainly was quite comparably cheaper to travel from Sydney to Hawaii with a family of five versus flying. In 1976 when I sailed on SS Mariposa from Hawaii to Sydney, it was probably similar....but oh what a great way to see the South Pacific. I remember it stopping in Tahiti, particularly Moorea for the day, then Raratonga, Cook Islands and New Zealand.

It may not have been a 'cruise ship' in the same fashion as these days cruise ships however I remember the activities, entertainment, and food to be very similar and in fact, there was a person called the 'cruise director' in charge of entertainment.

In that time, it was quite common to actually be invited to sit at the Captain's table for dinner. Most of the officers would be seated at one table or another. There were cocktail party and dancing etc.

Does anyone else have similar memories of these ships?

Crystal Serenity is cruising across the Pacific . Yesterday she was at Guam and today at Saipan in the Marianas Islands. Could not help noticing the name on the containers on the wharf. Matson. It used to be a big name in crusing with regular calls to both AU and NZ , but now just does cargo around the Pacific , based in Hawaii.

 

Hi. As a child I sailed on both the Mariposa and Monterey from Sydney to Hawaii and then Hawaii to Sydney another occasion. Great ships, wonderful memories of both. My first tast of cruising from a young age and now 40 years on still loving it. Those were the days we threw streamers from the ship to the wharf before moving out from the wharf.

I always use a pointed knuckle of my index finger to push any lift button.....never my fingertip.

I sailed on two ships Monterey and Mariposa, two ships with the Matson Line from US. I was 6 when we sailed from Sydney to Honolulu in 1970 and then 11 years old from Honolulu to Sydney in 1975. My first cruises.....very fond memories especially of the 1975 one. Can't remember much of the earlier one!! Top class ships but the line folded sometime in the late 70's. Anyone else heard of them??