Your opinions of the splitting of the boards

[The Fox]

Hi,

 

With all the new ships and cruise lines that will operate out of Australia in the coming years I feel with the splitting of the boards on Cruisecritics that the site has unfortunatly lost a bit of appeal for me.I can only see more boards being introduced as more cruise lines and their ship threaten P&O. Its all well and good to have these new ships etc but lets not forget its geared for the overseas visitors not the Aussie markets.If it was there would be different itineraries.All these ships are here predominately for NZ,around Aussie and the South Pacific....nothing new.

 

Most of us Aussies have done these cruises several times and crave some new ports.

 

At present overseas land based holidays appeal to me more and more.

 

However since the splitting of the boards I miss the interaction with many of the regular posters and the exprience of their posts.

 

Sad but true .

 

Anyone else feel the same..

 

Col:(

[johndon]

Hi Fox

 

Dont entirely agree with you. With the P & O board I found that it nearly exclusively discussed P & O and being a Princess Fan I found it slightly annoying searching for Princess Posts. We are only cruisers out of Australia at present and find the site dealing with Australian Cruising more convenient. This is just a personal preference. I see your points about the site being for overseas cruisers as well and they are very valid. I would prefer to see how the new site goes and how popular it becomes, but for us, we like it.

 

John

[johndon]

Hi Fox

 

Dont entirely agree with you. With the P & O board I found that it nearly exclusively discussed P & O and being a Princess Fan I found it slightly annoying searching for Princess Posts. We are only cruisers out of Australia at present and find the site dealing with Australian Cruising more convenient. This is just a personal preference. I see your points about the site being for overseas cruisers as well and they are very valid. I would prefer to see how the new site goes and how popular it becomes, but for us, we like it.

 

John

[lizzy77]

I like the new sitess:p

We are not P@O people and I think that once everyone gets used to the new site all the old faces will be back.

[lizzy77]

Sorry double post!!

[Gaznjo]

sorry col I am with everyone else....

 

as a princess cruiser I now find I hardly every go to the old forum cause I am not particularly interested on what happens on those boats...

 

Plus I think it is better for international cruisers that cruise from australia to find general information...

[bazzaw]

The original single Forum has actually been split into 3 Forums now -- basically, there are not enough Forum participants to occupy 3 Forums - plus of course,there is another Forum elsewhere dedicated to Australian cruising. There is no splitting there based upon cruiseline preferences.

 

I would have to agree with the OP - that these CC forums have lost a lot of momentum and interest since splitting. I for one have never cruised with Princess - but it was very easy for me to either look at or not look at postings which referred specifically to Princess (depending on my mood and the subject matter). Now - all of us must look at 3 CC Forums each day ( even P&O haters) - because we never know what we are missing on any one of them. In the past, we only had to look at one - and read whichever posting interested us, or not!

 

Anyway - it matters not - what has happened has happened.

 

"The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,

Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit

Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,

Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it."

 

 

Barry

[thied]

I do like the way it is today as we have 3forums as has been said, but we have 3 defined forums that works very well with most topics.

 

 

 

Love Thied.

 

 

 

.

[sludger]

I think it is too soon to make comment on whether overall it is better with more than one forum.

Having said that, the one forum could not carry on the way it was with the name P&O in the title. The cruise industry here is about more than just P&O now.

 

As for there being not enough posters for the forums, it was a bit of a closed shop before on the P&O Australia forum and it was too difficult to discuss anything other than how wonderful P&O were or how lucky we are to afford to go cruising.

The new forum is attracting posters who would not necessarily have found a method of finding out or commenting about Australian cruising with other lines.

 

I am sure the numbers will increase when the word gets around that this forum is here to discuss all of the cruise lines in our area.

It probably would have helped if it wasn't down the bottom of the list of subjects, but people will find it in time.

 

Paul

[CassCruise]

I agree Col - having cruised in Aus on P&O, Princess and RCL I personally found it great to just read down 1 list to "pick out" the posts I was interested to read - now again IMHO it is not as appealing of a night to have to flick through several!

 

Jane

[The_Big_M]

I don't find it much of a change as I had to scan through a few before anyway; P&O just covered Aust based stuff, and then the other lines for their individual details (amongst others). All that's happened now is the Aust-based topics have moved groups, and have added a P&O specific to the other cruise line specific ones for the scan.

 

It's a big world out there! :-)

[Sandielle]

I find that irrelevant posts are being added in three forums instead of just the one. Luckily there is an 'ignore' button.

[Kinkacruiser]

I never go to the P&O board, as I'm a Princess fan. I've always been in favour of a Princess Australia board, but realise that will never happen, even if we will have 3 of the girls here later this year.

I like the 2 new boards...though have to think where to post certain topics.

Also, I don't mind skimming though the topics to see what interests me.

Agree with others who have mentioned the positives re overseas visitors popping into the Aus cruising board...all good.

[LuckiePuris]

I think the new boards are working well, as the old P&O board was predominately P&O threads and if you were interested in other cruise lines, you had to search through the pages and pick them out.

 

With so many new cruise lines coming to Aus / NZ waters, CC members are now trying out other lines.

 

If you want P&O specific information, you refer to the P&O board. And if you want information on other cruise lines and ports etc, you can come to this board. Makes it easier to locate the information and threads you are interested in, without having to sort through pages.

[Bella cruiser]

Personally I am reasonably happy with the new system.

 

Negatives in my view are that you now have to search three boards for items of interest and some things are being posted multiple times to cover each board.:rolleyes:

 

Positives in my view are I like G'day Mate it's fun and informative:D. Also happily, the condescending antagonists seem to be largely resisting the urge to announce their self proclaimed superiority on the P&O board (and you gotta love that:))

[Kiwi Kruzer]

Its still early days yet, but I am getting to like the new set up..

 

(When I can get on, and the pages open:mad:)

 

I like the title Australian and NZ Cruisers,

and I think G'Day is great.

 

The new board is how I saw the old P&O Australia being,

ie a board where we could talk about all cruise lines and cruising down this way, but it was set up in the days when there was only P&O Australia , and it was just the name that put people off.

 

Its great to see folk from overseas popping in for a chat, and I would like to see that grow.

 

With the way the new board is , I cant see why we can't chat about P&O Au here as well......just as long as some people dont post the same thread on all 3 boards.:rolleyes:

 

I find I am coming here more and more, and only now and then pop into the old board.

 

Everything will grow and find its own level , so keep on posting folks, and we will see where we end up.:)

 

It was only after reading Cruise Critic , after my first cruises with P&O Au , that I realised there was a whole new world of cruising that is open to us.

Now its coming to us , and heres the perfect place to share all our various experiences.

 

[bazzaw]

David

 

I can see where you are coming from - BUT it seems to me that we have created a "problem", which is just a reverse mirror image of the "problem" that we supposedly had before.

 

The perceived problem that we had before - was that a new poster who wanted to cruise in Aussie/NZ waters (or even the South Pacific) with a cruiseline other than P&O - could not find a suitable Forum. (because the other Forum was labelled P&O, under the Forum Cruiselines grouping)

 

Now - any new poster who wants info regarding P&O cruising and goes to the relevant (read "old") Forum, now finds that there is almost nobody there - because wonderfully experienced cruisers like you no longer go there.

 

So - in my view , we basically have an almost identical problem, but mirror reversed. I believe that we should ask for the P&O Forum to be scrubbed - and ALL Aussie related cruising matters come to this new Forum. Otherwise we have a two-headed Bastard!!!!

 

 

Barry

[CassCruise]

So - in my view , we basically have an almost identical problem, but mirror reversed. I believe that we should ask for the P&O Forum to be scrubbed - and ALL Aussie related cruising matters come to this new Forum. Otherwise we have a two-headed Bastard!!!!

 

Barry

I agree:)

[Hot Chilli]

I like the new split system. I have 'been there, done that' with P&O so it's great to be able to read about all the different lines / ships coming to our shores without having to scan through the same old P&O stuff.

[Sandielle]

The perceived problem that we had before - was that a new poster who wanted to cruise in Aussie/NZ waters (or even the South Pacific) with a cruiseline other than P&O - could not find a suitable Forum. (because the other Forum was labelled P&O, under the Forum Cruiselines grouping)

 

Now - any new poster who wants info regarding P&O cruising and goes to the relevant (read "old") Forum, now finds that there is almost nobody there - because wonderfully experienced cruisers like you no longer go there.

 

So - in my view , we basically have an almost identical problem, but mirror reversed. I believe that we should ask for the P&O Forum to be scrubbed - and ALL Aussie related cruising matters come to this new Forum. Otherwise we have a two-headed Bastard!!!!

 

Barry

 

I agree:)

 

Me too!

[wildweston]

Me too!

 

Me too

[sludger]

The thread that finally produced this situation was actually called " now what shall we call it?"

It was started by myself and although I believed and still believe that the forum could not go on in it's previous form, it was meant as a humorous attempt (lost in translation at the time) at getting Walt to rename it.

I didn't dream for one minute it would cause the splitting of the forum.

 

Having said that I for one prefer it now, I do not go to the P&O Australia forum because I am not particularly interested in cruising with P&O at present for lots of reasons. That's not to say I will not in the future, when that day comes I will go there.

 

It is much much easier to get information about other cruise lines without running the gauntlet on the other forum if anything negative towards P&O Aust. was suggested.

 

I shall say though that it is too soon to make a judgement about removing the P&O Australia forum.

 

Paul

[bobhsv]

I did find the new boards a bit daunting at first. After having been 'away' for a bit, and when I finally checked in again, I thought...what the...but I have become used to it.

 

The only change I would have suggested is in the subtitle. I think "Australia and New Zealand Cruises" would have been better than the wording 'cruisers'. That to me defines all cruises leaving both our shores. I like the G'day Mate one, as it separates the more serious topics with the fun topics.

 

Jen

[The_Big_M]

Not in favour of removing the P&O forum, as it's saying that that line and those 4 ships don't deserve their own discussion space, compared to other lines and ships. I wouldn't be surprised if it sends the odd newbie to then post about them in the "Other Cruise lines section", or just P&O UK, which isn't quite the desired effect either.

[callmewhatever]

Yeah I liked the old way better 2 Col!