business fare upgrade to sydney

[stuNYC]

I am an oceania newbie and wonder if any of my fellow cc'ers have went with oceania "down under". I am interested in a 25 day cruise leaving 3/29/12

that includes aus/nz and the south pacific on the Regatta but have read negative review on excursions on a similar itinerary.

 

I also thinking about a business fare upgrade from NYC to Sydney and Tahiti to NYC. Should I do it through Oceania or by myself. I was considering stopping in LA for a couple of days- to not have to travel over 24 hours in one trip.

 

Lastly how many days pre-cruise would you suggest in Sydney and is a PH1 suite worth the price differencial- I need to be midship because my wife can't walk long distances.

 

Any and all comments would be greatly appreciated

[Paulchili]

I am an oceania newbie and wonder if any of my fellow cc'ers have went with oceania "down under". I am interested in a 25 day cruise leaving 3/29/12

that includes aus/nz and the south pacific on the Regatta but have read negative review on excursions on a similar itinerary.

I also thinking about a business fare upgrade from NYC to Sydney and Tahiti to NYC. Should I do it through Oceania or by myself. I was considering stopping in LA for a couple of days- to not have to travel over 24 hours in one trip.

 

Lastly how many days pre-cruise would you suggest in Sydney and is a PH1 suite worth the price differencial- I need to be midship because my wife can't walk long distances.

 

Any and all comments would be greatly appreciated

 

 

 

It will be the best cruise you have ever taken - I am willing to bet my house on that (well, maybe not the house) :D

You can get together with other cruisers on your roll call and organize better and cheaper excursions if you don't like the ship's excursions.

You will do better buying the business class tickets on your own. The best deal would be if you have enough miles with an airline that flies that route (with AA/QF you can have a stop over in LA)

The PH1 is worth the money (if you have it). On a long cruise like this you will have a larger cabin/bathroom and extra specialty restaurant reservations, better in room dining options and many other extras.

I would recommend arriving to Sydney no less tha 3 days before (4 or 5 is even better). There is significant jet lag and your first day or two are not your normal days. There is much to do & see in Sydney.

 

 

I would suggest you seriously consider this great itinerary

‧

[Oceans&Rivers]

There isn't that much difference in location between the PH1 and the PH2, yet the price differential is usually more between the PH2 and PH1 than between the PH3 and the PH2.

 

If you can get a PH2 that is fairly close to (and our choice would be just aft of the PH1's), would you choose one of those or stick with the PH1?

 

Any PH2 cabins that you or anyone else would shy away from due to noise or anything else?

[ClaudiaF]

If you go with the cruiseline air for business, the business class seats are for over water parts of your trip..so if you are from NY you would travel coach to say L.A...It is better to try getting tickets online..I have had great buys from cheaptickets.com for business class tickets:D

[Mura]

O's normal charges for upgrades to business seem pretty horrendous to me.

 

When we did the Auckland-Sydney cruise in January 2008 we booked our own air with Air New Zealand. In our case we booked premium economy from L.A. The fight was on a 747 that had a business section (with flat beds) at the very front, then premium economy which had very comfortable seats that you could lower very much but NOT flat beds. Premium economy had the same perks in terms of food, etc., as business, just not the flat beds for a significantly lower cost. There was plenty of room between rows.

 

If you want to be out of coach but not pay as much as for business, looking for premium economy may be a good bet. When we were going home our flight from Sydney to Auckland was in coach (no premium economy available at the time, I don't know about now) on United -- although from the ads United does offer premium economy. Perhaps they just don't do so on shorter runs.

 

The thought of flying coach for so long was very daunting to me! Premium economy was very comfortable, although I agree that business would have been better!

[ebobh]

I've compared Oceania's business class offerings with what i can get through my TA on three occasions, and each time, my TA not only was able to do it more inexpensively (esp considering the deduction of air from the cruise fare for the "free air" cruises) but was also able to get routing that saved lots of time and facilitated not having to leave the ship at O-dark hundred or hang around in the airport undue time waiting for a later flight. Of course, as noted, there are also discount consolidators that could net significant savings.

 

Re PH1, if you're firm re wanting a PH, 1 or 2 (as noted, towards the stern from the center, which moves less than further forward on any vessel) should work well. we gauge the port-intensity to assess PH vs Concierge; if money is not a big factor, the PH offers in-room dining, substantial room size upgrade (for the more squeamish sailors...) and larger bathrooms vs the Concierge cabins. Either way, you'll enjoy Oceania, and it will exceed your expectations in almost every way.

[Acrusa]

We are on the Feb 21 Sydney to Auckland 2012.I have checked with Qantas. We can fly JFK to LAX economy LAX to SYD premimum.On the way back from Auckland there is no Premium class from Auckland to LAX. They told me I would have to fly 3hrs back to SYD then wait 3 hrs to fly back from SYD to LAX permium.They gave me a price of $3700.00 PP for the one way flight premium.

[GrammieK]

Acrusa,

Are you considering the premium economy? Were you able to get actual prices so far out? The premium economy sounds reasonable, but I guess it is not offered NY-LA. Business class last I looked started at 6700 for the lowest. Have you ever tried cheaptickets.com as suggested in one of the previous posts?

K

[bigdipper]

A year or so back we did independent SYD-PHX with plane change in Honolulu. Used Hawaiian Airlines business which was by far cheaper than any other alternative. Service not at Quantas levels, but at least as good as folks like United and Continental. I'd guess that you could do this sort of thing from LAX.

Ralph

[Mura]

Acrusa,

Are you considering the premium economy? Were you able to get actual prices so far out? The premium economy sounds reasonable, but I guess it is not offered NY-LA. Business class last I looked started at 6700 for the lowest. Have you ever tried cheaptickets.com as suggested in one of the previous posts?

K

 

 

My experience with premium economy was a few years ago -- it is offered more now than it was then. But just for the record, even though we live in NYC we booked round trip from LA. Since we visited with my family before and after the flights, this was easy for us.

 

United claims to have premium economy available in the U.S. but I personally have never seen a price quote.

 

For the record, we paid $3100 for premium economy, LA-Auckland, Sydney-LA, in January 2008 on Air New Zealand. I know that air fares back then don't mean anything as concerns today's air fares, but that was about half of what business cost at the time.

[GrammieK]

Mura,

Thanx for additional info. You always have something valuable to add. I understand what you mean about booking roundtrip LA instead of NYC. It is a good thing that I am recently retired - ny new job will be securing the best airfare for the cheapest rate....

Thanx again,

K

[wripro]

This is one area where I believe O needs to rethink its policy Al the luxury lines offer reasonable business class upgrades on many of their cruises. O should follow this trend.

[GrammieK]

I couldn't agree more!

We have been pretty lucky with the European cruises getting good deals on Business air on our own, but Australia is sooooo much more expensive. I still haven't given up on the 3 seats for 2 people yet. An added bonus for that is the extra luggage allowance!

[stuNYC]

It seems to be unaminnous. I will book the business class flights myself. I read somewhere that if you book through O the domestic segment- in my case NY-LAX would be economy and only the LAX -SYD leg would be business.

 

My other complication is we arrive in SYD but get off the ship in Tahait (which really is an advantage since it is only a 8 hour fiight to LAX instead of a 15 hour flight to SYD. I understand that flights only leave PPD on certain days.

[LHT28]

My other complication is we arrive in SYD but get off the ship in Tahait (which really is an advantage since it is only a 8 hour fiight to LAX instead of a 15 hour flight to SYD. I understand that flights only leave PPD on certain days.

I use this site to find flight schedules then you can check prices from the airlines sites

http://matrix.itasoftware.com/

 

Lyn

[Paulchili]

My other complication is we arrive in SYD but get off the ship in Tahait (which really is an advantage since it is only a 8 hour fiight to LAX instead of a 15 hour flight to SYD. I understand that flights only leave PPD on certain days.

 

Your ship will arrive to Papeete (PPT) on a Monday.

On Monday and Tuesday the only non stops to LAX are with Air Tahiti (from what I hear, they have a good business class).

If you want to (or can) wait till Wednesday then you can fly Qantas to LAX (Premium economy or business)

Air France also operates to LAX on some days but not M,Tu or Wed.

For flight schedules and prices for all airline, I like the ITA software engine:

http://matrix.itasoftware.com/

I hope this helps

PS while I was looking up the flights I was cross posting with Lyn :)

[meow!]

Any and all comments would be greatly appreciated

Australia is literally one of the farthest destinations you can fly to, to go further will mean you are returning on the other side of the globe or becoming an astronaut! So if you can afford business class, by all means. If not, take an overnight stop (on a hotel bed) in Honolulu, that makes a big difference. Unless you are quite small in size, cramped up in an economy seat for 16 hours straight is no fun at all, possibly resulting in a rather sore back and behind!

[Coco12]

Hi, we live in Sydney and often travel to the US (14 hours) and Europe ( 24 hours)and it is really not that far. LA to Sydney is about 14 hours and most flights leave late at night from LAX so the trip is not too bad. Premium Economy is the best value for money. I suggest at least 4 days in Sydney as there is so much to see and do. What time of year is your suggested cruise?

[Acrusa]

Hi, we live in Sydney and often travel to the US (14 hours) and Europe ( 24 hours)and it is really not that far. LA to Sydney is about 14 hours and most flights leave late at night from LAX so the trip is not too bad. Premium Economy is the best value for money. I suggest at least 4 days in Sydney as there is so much to see and do. What time of year is your suggested cruise?

 

We plan on coming into Sydney at least 4 or 5 days next year for our Feb 21st cruise on Regatta.Would like to stay at the Park Hyatt but do not know if there renavation will be complete by that time.

We are flying to Beijing in 2 weeks and we took 3 seats for the 2 of us.It was alot cheaper then bussiness class.Might do the same thing to Sydney if this works out ok.The problem with Premium is that qantas does not fly this class from Aukland.

[Mura]

I absolutely agree that several days in Sydney is a must. We were there overnight on the ship and then stayed another two days before returning home. We could have used at least another day.

 

For opera fans, the 6am tour of the Opera House (yes, I said 6am) is highly recommended. At the end they give you a nice breakfast in the Green Room. This is a 2 hour tour (and rather expensive) as compared to the standard one hour tour offered frequently during the day. You see a lot more on the early morning tour.

[stuNYC]

then spends the next 25 in melbourne, hobart, 6 ports in NZ and 3 of the south pacific islands ending in PPT.

 

curious as to what the weather is like that time of the year. I am anything but a sun worshiper!

[sacarr]

There isn't that much difference in location between the PH1 and the PH2, yet the price differential is usually more between the PH2 and PH1 than between the PH3 and the PH2.

 

If you can get a PH2 that is fairly close to (and our choice would be just aft of the PH1's), would you choose one of those or stick with the PH1?

 

Any PH2 cabins that you or anyone else would shy away from due to noise or anything else?

 

We have been in PH3 a number of times and would not book PH1 or PH2 unless PH3 was not available. Using the price differential for wine at dinner makes more sense to us.

On our last Oceania cruise we were the first cabin aft of PH2. We have not had a problem with noise except for the occasional chair moving in the Terrace Cafe above us. However noise could be a problem with the forward cabins when the ship is anchoring at a port rather than docking. I am told that the anchor chain makes a very loud noise when it is dropped.

 

Steve

[caribbeansun]

Check Air New Zealand as they continue on from Auckland to Sydney.

 

Look for some creative routings and don't be confined to one airline.

 

We did Air Canada first from Toronto to LA, Air New Zealand first to Auckland, Emirates to Sydney.

 

If you are going that far I'd suggest you tack on as much additional time as you can.

 

I suffer from jet lag but because the flight from LA to Auckland was overnight other than going to sleep very early the first day I was fine by the next day which is almost unheard of for me.

 

 

 

We plan on coming into Sydney at least 4 or 5 days next year for our Feb 21st cruise on Regatta.Would like to stay at the Park Hyatt but do not know if there renavation will be complete by that time.

We are flying to Beijing in 2 weeks and we took 3 seats for the 2 of us.It was alot cheaper then bussiness class.Might do the same thing to Sydney if this works out ok.The problem with Premium is that qantas does not fly this class from Aukland.

[Mura]

Just a note to say that when we did Sydney-Auckland we had to use United. This was 3 years ago and schedules may have changed ... and perhaps it was because of the time we were flying. We booked through Air NZ.

 

Just a note: we had to go through full security measures in Auckland on our way to our flight home even though we only walked from our United flight to our ANZ flight within the terminal. So don't try to buy any wine at the beginning airport ...

[Coco12]

then spends the next 25 in melbourne, hobart, 6 ports in NZ and 3 of the south pacific islands ending in PPT.

 

curious as to what the weather is like that time of the year. I am anything but a sun worshiper!

 

The weather is beautiful that time of year. February is often very hot but by the end of March the days are still warm but not hot at all. Low to Mid 20s (Celsius) is the average temp in Sydney but it will be cooler in Melbourne and New Zealand.