P&O World Cruise segments which include Australia .

[GOQ]

Hello

 

P&O World Cruise segments which include Australia

 

My late wife and I travelled the world from Hawaii in the west to China in the east and our intent was to visit Australia, but sadly she never made it.

 

I have now done 20 cruises by myself and I feel I really need to try and do that last trip to Australia.

 

One good option seems to be a segment of a P&O world cruise, the Sydney or Brisbane to Hong Kong segments of the Arcadia world cruises look very appealing.

 

Can anyone who has done P&O world cruises or segments of please give me any advice or comments on your experiences. In particular:

 

1. From which airports do you fly from/to.

2. How long are the flights and how do you cope.

3. Do you need to apply for any visas.

4. Any other advise gathered from your experience.

5. Or any other helpful advise.

 

Thanks

 

Paul

 

 

 

[david63]

Cannot help with the world cruise part but

1 hour ago, GOQ said:

From which airports do you fly from

You should be able to fly from any of the major UK airports

 

1 hour ago, GOQ said:

How long are the flights and how do you cope.

Having flown to New Zealand, via Sydney, several times it is a long flight (well over 24 hours) and you have around 10 hours time difference. Personally I would try to fly out at least three days pre cruise as you will be somewhat jet lagged and you will need those days to recover - or you will miss part of your cruise!

 

1 hour ago, GOQ said:

Do you need to apply for any visas.

I believe that you need a Visitor visa for Australia (https://www.australia.com/en-gb/facts-and-planning/visa-and-customs/australia-visa-and-entry-requirements-faqs.html)

[Dermotsgirl]

My husband and I had always wanted to visit Australia, so a couple of years after we retired, we did two legs of the 2017 Aurora world cruise.

 

I really dislike flying, so we decided to fly out to Singapore, and board the ship there, and sail down to Australia from there, thus shortening the flying time. We had several great ports in Australia - Perth, Adelaide, Kangaroo Island, Melbourne and Sydney. The next ports were in New Zealand, so we decided book that part of the cruise as well.  There was no way I was up for flying back from New Zealand, so we also booked the Pacific crossing, and flew back from San Francisco.  Minimzing the flying time definitely helped me cope

 

 

[GOQ]

Thanks for the replies.

 

I have flown to Hawaii and Shanghai before, although I was a lot younger then, so think I can cope with the long flights and time difference.

 

I would probably just stick with what P&O offer in terms of flights and transfers. What airlines do P&O use , flying from which airports for Australia ?

[GOQ]

3 hours ago, david63 said:

 

 

I believe that you need a Visitor visa for Australia (https://www.australia.com/en-gb/facts-and-planning/visa-and-customs/australia-visa-and-entry-requirements-faqs.html)

Thank you for the visa advice and web link.

 

The Sydney to Hong Kong segment I am considering also visits Indonesia, Philippines and of course Hong Kong.

Can anyone offer advice on visas for these locations, or will P&O sort this stuff out for me.

 

Thanks

 

Paul

 

[Bill Y]

6 hours ago, GOQ said:

Hello

 

P&O World Cruise segments which include Australia

 

My late wife and I travelled the world from Hawaii in the west to China in the east and our intent was to visit Australia, but sadly she never made it.

 

I have now done 20 cruises by myself and I feel I really need to try and do that last trip to Australia.

 

One good option seems to be a segment of a P&O world cruise, the Sydney or Brisbane to Hong Kong segments of the Arcadia world cruises look very appealing.

 

Can anyone who has done P&O world cruises or segments of please give me any advice or comments on your experiences. In particular:

 

1. From which airports do you fly from/to.

2. How long are the flights and how do you cope.

3. Do you need to apply for any visas.

4. Any other advise gathered from your experience.

5. Or any other helpful advise.

 

Thanks

 

Paul

 

 

 

My experience of visiting Australia on a cruise is quite old now 2017.

 

The segments tend to use have similar embarkation/debarkation ports each year but the ports visited on each segment can vary. We were interesting in visiting New Zealand and it appeared that some years the North Island was visited and some the South Island. Then the 2017 world cruise was visiting both island, so we decided to go for it, We enquired on board. The obvious embarkation was Sydney but we could embark at Melbourne, Adelaide or Fremantle we were given quotes for all these options, after mulling it over, we thought why not do Singapore to San Francisco as it was only one flight.

 

We flew Heathrow to Singapore direct with BA. And returned from San Fran with Virgin Atlantic. As we approached Singapore and they read out a long list of connecting flights to Ozz we were so glad that we had not got to get on another long haul flight. Twenty odd years ago when I was working I did fly to Sydney, it was in business and was kept well oiled throughout which numbed the senses but I would not like to do that now.

 

Hotel options, P&O offer extensions at named hotels (at a price). However if a hotel is included as it was in Singapore for one night it will not be at one of these hotels, We assumed that it would have been in central Singapore and was disappointed it was an airport hotel.

 

As far as I can remember we of obtained e-visas for Australia, there were two similar ones, one free and one chargeable it was not easy to see the difference apart from cost, however the free one was for people applying for their own use the chargeable one was for an agent etc to apply on behave of a client. As this information is old and requirements change please make your own enquires regarding visas. P&O recommend CIBT, my TA say look on CIBT’s website for the requirements then decide if you wish to apply direct.

Edited November 24, 2023 by Bill Y

[Thejuggler]

On 11/24/2023 at 5:09 PM, GOQ said:

Thanks for the replies.

 

I would probably just stick with what P&O offer in terms of flights and transfers. What airlines do P&O use , flying from which airports for Australia ?

P&O will act as an agent for the flights, so they will arrange flights which meet your requirements.  Departure and arrival airports, routing, seat class etc

 

 If you aren't London based and don't want to do a London connection Emirates are an obvious choice as they fly to Dubai from most major UK airports with connections via Dubai.

 

Have a play with Google flights and see what comes up.

 

[sleepingcat]

P and O dont do the visas, you have to do it. the Australia ones you can do online easily. 

 

P and O gave us an all in price for our flights to NZ where we toured for a month and then boarded Arcadia in Auckland to do Australia and thence back to the UK , so half a world cruise. And only flying one way was a bonus. 

 

we flew from Birmingham with Emirates,  which might work well for you. We included a 24 hour stopover in Bangkok to make the flights a bit less tiring. P and O were quite happy to arrange whatever we wanted for the flights.

 

I ve seen discussions on here suggesting that booking your flights yourself, separate from the cruise,  can work out cheaper. At the time I didn't have the experience to be able to do that confidently. 

[LA30]

We have also done this journey a few times, but we always have a "proper" stopover halfway, with a hotel stay so we can get a good sleep before the next leg.  It makes the journey just about bearable!