P&O New Build for Australia in 2019

[The_Big_M]

Both Mystery Island and Lifou Island can presently take two tenders at the wharf, at least they did last January on the Solstice.

 

Agreed, the limitation of 1 was removed some time ago.

[The_Big_M]

Mainly so they aren't waiting half an hour or more at the pier for the next tender to arrive.

 

True that.

 

Plus isn't it still better to be floating on a tender then waiting in a dark lounge for a number to be called?

[MicCanberra]

In my experience some ships do the tendering so much better than others and also some ports are done better than others. Sometimes it has to do more with weather/ currents (very rocky) and the passenger's safety than the actual staff being slow.

[Brisbane41]

What's the point of manning 4x tender stations ship-side, if the shore-side infrastructure is limited to just one?

 

Because it takes a considerable amount of time to disembark a tender back at the ship. If four spots are open less waiting time as four can tie up in staggered order and less waiting time for passengers and you have less time wasted meaning better time management and a more economical day.

 

Cruise ships crews do not think like a Navy. In the Navy they would do all the hard work and manage time better and have more time to relax. On a cruise ship they take the lazy option. Only open one tender station, have a bottleneck of passengers, leave late and are rushing to make up time. Poor time management.

[Mr&MrsCookie]

Doesn't sound that appealing to have an extra couple of thousand people at a time traipsing around the smaller ports like Lifou or Isle of Pines etc - would spoil it. Wonder where it will go.

[MMDown Under]

When making a decision on what cruise and ship to select, I take in to account the size of the ship and the number of tender ports.

 

I also take in to account the number of times some ships can't get in to a port.

 

eg. Falkland Islands - I was told ships with names ending in "dam" more often can't get in to port. Smaller ships, like the Hurtigruten Fram, no problems.

 

eg the Princess world cruise ship which couldn't get in to Dublin port, yet the ferry from Wales could.

 

It really depends whether passengers see the ship as the destination, or not.

[MicCanberra]

Some ports are very weather restricted and any tender port is even more so. Taking this into account when looking at itineraries is a wise move.:D

[6666oz]

I saw the TV show of them making this new P&O mega ship, we cruise for the destinations not life on board, as soon as they said 4200 pax I thought maybe if all the ports had a decent wharf, but having to survive tendering with that many people I crossed that ship off my list.

[CroNich]

I saw the TV show of them making this new P&O mega ship, we cruise for the destinations not life on board, as soon as they said 4200 pax I thought maybe if all the ports had a decent wharf, but having to survive tendering with that many people I crossed that ship off my list.

 

You do realise that the bigger ship the more tenders they use, right? They aren't that stupid to use the same amount of operating tendors that they would use on a boat half the size like the Pacific Pearl or Pacific Jewel.

[6666oz]

I have been "tenderised " enough.

[Kiwi Kruzer]

I have been "tenderised " enough.

 

Sounds like you have it all "steaked" out ...:D

 

 

If the cruising industry is really serious about Australia and NZ then they have to get off their chuffs and organise themselves.

Tendering is a hassle ....but if organised properly , can work well.

Santorini is a tender port and they cater admirably for sometimes up to 5 or 6 cruise ships each day in the season.

 

 

[The_Big_M]

Actually you are totally incorrect and misinformed about the situation.

 

The first problem with your statement is that the wharf's of the Pacific Islands can only cater to 1 or 2 tenders at a time. It does not matter how large the ship is.

 

The second problem with your statement is that the larger ships use the same amount of tender stations as the smaller ships use. They are on minimal crew when in port due to crew liberty and time off. (Tender stations are the area on the cruise ship where a tender ties up and passengers step off the tender and back onto the ship. Because if the cost of equipment, number of crew to man the stations, cruise lines will try to mimimise the amount of crew and facilities they need?.

 

On return from tender operations all cruise ships must screen passengers through x-ray and metal detectors. Even on tender operations these security screening measures are limited and even a large ship will be operating the same amount of stations as a smaller ship.

 

 

You can't make blanket statements either way.

 

It is certainly possible, and therefore true that they may have more operating tenders than a smaller ship. Given the larger passenger numbers, and modern design to cater for tendering, I'd expect that to be the case.

 

For example, on the smaller ships, they may only have one operating tender exit point. Worst case, they only have one pontoon as well. From there they can increase the exits at that point to have two operating tenders from the one point, and either one or two security processing points.

 

On the newer, and larger ships, that is increased to two operating points, which at their maximum could have two pontoons each, increasing the technical capacity to 4 simultaneous tenders on one side.

 

Note that although they have provision to operate both sides of the ship, typically only one side operates due to rougher oceans/weather on the other side. However, in very calm conditions and waters, there could be operation from both sides.

 

In practice, the island dock is and will be the main local limitation on throughput. The staff and tenders will have spare capacity in a typical situation (though good management will operate that there aren't too many people 'hanging around').

Edited April 11, 2016 by The_Big_M

[Brisbane41]

You can't make blanket statements either way.

 

It is certainly possible, and therefore true that they may have more operating tenders than a smaller ship. Given the larger passenger numbers, and modern design to cater for tendering, I'd expect that to be the case.

 

For example, on the smaller ships, they may only have one operating tender exit point. Worst case, they only have one pontoon as well. From there they can increase the exits at that point to have two operating tenders from the one point, and either one or two security processing points.

 

On the newer, and larger ships, that is increased to two operating points, which at their maximum could have two pontoons each, increasing the technical capacity to 4 simultaneous tenders on one side.

 

Note that although they have provision to operate both sides of the ship, typically only one side operates due to rougher oceans/weather on the other side. However, in very calm conditions and waters, there could be operation from both sides.

 

In practice, the island dock is and will be the main local limitation on throughput. The staff and tenders will have spare capacity in a typical situation (though good management will operate that there aren't too many people 'hanging around').

 

Try not to defend ridiculous statements when we all know the obvious truth. After 14 years of cruising I have seen many tender operations to be an expert on them. The cruise lines will minimise the amount of staff they have on the ship to police the security checkpoints. They will also reduce the number of tenders they use to save on fuel costs. Space is also a premium on those ships and the tender pontoons are wasted space and a major loss of revenue when they are not in use so therefore the cruise line will be as minimalistic as possible when factoring how many tender stations to include.

 

Supporting evidence is that the Radiance of the Seas has four retractable pontoons and so does the Voyager of the Seas. Both ships have a significant difference in the number of passengers yet going by the illogical statements above we are led to believe that

 

While the Voyager of the Seas has gained an additional four tenders it has not gained any new tender pontoons. Safety regulations dictate that one passenger must disembark at a time and then walk up the steps to the ship. Regardless of the number of tenders available, the limited number of tender entrance points to the ship is going to create a bottleneck and large queues of passengers waiting to embark. Combine that with the lack of facilities on the wharf and queues that often extend up to 500m to reboard.

[The_Big_M]

Interesting that a self-proclaimed "tendering expert" only a week ago said that "The Pacific Islands wharf's can only cater to one tender at a time. " which is incorrect.

 

The arguments above are also not true. For example, saying "The cruise lines will minimise the amount of staff they have on the ship to police the security checkpoints." However, they don't have dedicated staff for tenders; depending on role those mostly come from guest relations and onboard security so whether they have 0, 8 or 16 tenders, it doesn't add or reduce staff count.

 

"Space is also a premium on those ships and the tender pontoons are wasted space and a major loss of revenue when they are not in use so therefore the cruise line will be as minimalistic as possible when factoring how many tender stations to include."

 

The ship needs the flexibility to deploy tenders from different locations, so it's not viable to just have 1 pontoon. Moreover, to use a cliché where there's a will there's a way - look at the number of cabins that have been able to be added in recent refurbishments! There's a lot of space available and this equipment is mainly stored in the lower value areas. A pontoon is not that difficult to store in the context of the size of these large ships that we are talking about.

 

As for Voyager, she already has 4 pontoon stations so doesn't need any more. You may read reviews from others about her visits to the islands and will see that comments about her tendering are generally positive about it being done quickly.

Edited April 11, 2016 by The_Big_M

[Brisbane41]

What's the point of manning 4x tender stations ship-side, if the shore-side infrastructure is limited to just one?

 

Very simple. With the amount of time it takes to disembark a tender it means four tenders can tie up in staggered succession to reembark passengers onto the ship.

 

I can tell you have never been on a cruise that involves tenders because if you had you would realise that even when the wharf can take one tender at a time by the time the tender gets back to the ship you are sitting dead in the water waiting for the next spot. If you had been on a cruise that involves tender operations you would not have needed to ask this question.

[Tigerlily75]

I'd give it a go! P&O's old ships put me off a little, but I also hear of many things P&O does really well. So having a brand new ship tempts me to try them.

 

I suspect after two cruises that mid-size ships are for me, not too big, not too small, however I'd still like to try a big ship with all the extra features. I would love to try Ovation of the Seas but none of the dates fitted with both my leave and school holidays. Unless they now do a 7 day cruise from the 23/1 after canceling the reposition, I could squeeze that in!

[Brisbane41]

Interesting that a self-proclaimed "tendering expert" only a week ago said that "The Pacific Islands wharf's can only cater to one tender at a time. " which is incorrect.

 

The arguments above are also not true. For example, saying "The cruise lines will minimise the amount of staff they have on the ship to police the security checkpoints." However, they don't have dedicated staff for tenders; depending on role those mostly come from guest relations and onboard security so whether they have 0, 8 or 16 tenders, it doesn't add or reduce staff count.

 

"Space is also a premium on those ships and the tender pontoons are wasted space and a major loss of revenue when they are not in use so therefore the cruise line will be as minimalistic as possible when factoring how many tender stations to include."

 

The ship needs the flexibility to deploy tenders from different locations, so it's not viable to just have 1 pontoon. Moreover, to use a cliché where there's a will there's a way - look at the number of cabins that have been able to be added in recent refurbishments! There's a lot of space available and this equipment is mainly stored in the lower value areas. A pontoon is not that difficult to store in the context of the size of these large ships that we are talking about.

 

As for Voyager, she already has 4 pontoon stations so doesn't need any more. You may read reviews from others about her visits to the islands and will see that comments about her tendering are generally positive about it being done quickly.

 

It is not simple to design spaces for pontoons on cruise ships. The ships have to maintain watertight integrity and fire barrier compartments. Designing ships is a complex task and many of the features must comply with SOLAS laws.

 

The other problem that P&O Australia face is the fact that we are getting ships designed for other geographical areas of the world where port facilities exist to disembark passengers. It depends on the geographic area that the cruise ship was designed to operate in that effects tendering times and the amount of pontoons to be used. Some tender ports have high speed catamarans that can tie up beside a cruise ship and take up to 200 passengers off at a time. Unfortunately not all ports in the world have this facility. When you are talking about a ship possible designed for Carnival that operates in the Caribbean being build for P&O in Australia where they sail to the South Pacific the facilities simply do not exist to disembark passengers in a speedy fashion so the large ship become less of an option.

 

The crew are also entitled to time off, fatigue breaks, leave and recreation. In ports of call more crew are given shore leave and therefore there are less to operate tenders. Many of the crew are multi tasked to operate in different departments.

[Hobart18]

My concern for having a lot more passengers on these larger cruise ships is the tenders. Will they be going to Port Arthur, I know QM2 is supposed to be going there. There was only one docking facility operating when we went there on the Carnival Spirit and Dawn Princess. We had to queue up for over 2 hours to catch a tender back to the ships in hot weather. The tenders had to compete for docking space with the main ferry that operates from that facility.

There won't be too many little nooks and crannies that you can escape to on the larger ships with all those many passengers. I will miss the Dawn Princess once she has become a P&O ship, it won't be the same, from what I have seen about the new designs for the ship it appears to be a bit on the sterile looking side, not a fan of black and white, I love the beautiful wood panels and brass fittings. Why did they spend all that money on the recent refurbishment if they are going to pass her onto P&O just to be refurbished again.

I loved the wood paneling on the Golden Princess down near the Crown Grill, also the size of her is about right with just about the right number of cruisers on board.

[The_Big_M]

Surprising news today: This didn't last long. The newbuild is no longer being deployed to Australia and will instead join the Carnival US fleet when completed, due to projected growth there.

 

P&O say that a 3,000 pax ship is more appropriate for our market (compared to the 4200 of this newbuild), due to growth and infrastructure. Hence Carnival Splendor will instead be joining P&O instead of the new build.

[wally_bushy]

1. 
   

Whereas I prefer the older design ships, love lots of wood and brass.

 

Generally agree with you

(Although I do like the Marina)

[Mr&MrsCookie]

Surprising news today: This didn't last long. The newbuild is no longer being deployed to Australia and will instead join the Carnival US fleet when completed, due to projected growth there.

 

P&O say that a 3,000 pax ship is more appropriate for our market (compared to the 4200 of this newbuild), due to growth and infrastructure. Hence Carnival Splendor will instead be joining P&O instead of the new build.

 

Surprise, surprise, another hand-me-down. Bit insulting really

[The_Big_M]

Yes, hence why I was surprised by this news.

 

P&O locally were _very_ keen to get the newbuild though... I guess Carnival Corp (CCL) pulled rank and just felt they would get financial better returns from switching; probably used negative comments at HO about lack of infrastructure to help justify it. Perhaps local yields are down and there are questions about adding so much extra capacity.

Edited December 15, 2016 by The_Big_M

[Cruise ship fan]

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

 

Sent from my SM-T810 using Tapatalk

[Brisbane41]

Surprise, surprise, another hand-me-down. Bit insulting really

 

It is insulting but probably true that Australia could not support its capacity given that we like Princess and Royal Caribbean a lot more than P&O Australia. If P&O Australia were to get the new build then they would have to get rid of all the rusty hand-me-downs to make way for it.

[NSWP]

Surprise, surprise, another hand-me-down. Bit insulting really

Of course the Yanks like newer ships, so we get the old ones.

 

I got off Island Princess last week, lot of Elites on board, 1100 of them, they were not happy with Majestic Princess going to Japan/China, nuff said. Nor was our cabin steward, going to train in Barcelona for Majestic, Japanese/Chinese, no tip he said.

Edited December 15, 2016 by NSWP