Rare arxcards Posted June 18 #101 Share Posted June 18 I read somewhere yesterday that the airport in Noumea reopened in the past couple of days. It is a long way back, but a starting point. 4 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare cruiser3775 Posted June 19 #102 Share Posted June 19 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-06-17/new-caledonia-la-tontouta-international-airport-reopens/103985048 It will be a while before things get back to normal. Can't see cruising stops resuming anytime soon. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare arxcards Posted June 19 #103 Share Posted June 19 5 hours ago, cruiser3775 said: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-06-17/new-caledonia-la-tontouta-international-airport-reopens/103985048 It will be a while before things get back to normal. Can't see cruising stops resuming anytime soon. It could be years. The trigger for the violence hasn't been resolved, just deferred. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare Mycruiseobsession Posted June 30 #104 Share Posted June 30 Today's write up doesn't look any better. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-06-30/new-caledonia-tourism-civil-unrest-travel-noumea/104026412 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blackduck59 Posted June 30 #105 Share Posted June 30 Thanks for that link @Mycruiseobsession. It was an interesting read. Our cruise is still scheduled for 2 stops in New Caledonia. We decided as soon as the news of riots and death broke, that we would stay on the ship for those stops. There is nothing in the article to suggest we will change our mind by April next year. I suspect the itinerary for our cruise may well skip New Caledonia altogether. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare ceeceeDee Posted June 30 #106 Share Posted June 30 6 hours ago, Blackduck59 said: Thanks for that link @Mycruiseobsession. It was an interesting read. Our cruise is still scheduled for 2 stops in New Caledonia. We decided as soon as the news of riots and death broke, that we would stay on the ship for those stops. There is nothing in the article to suggest we will change our mind by April next year. I suspect the itinerary for our cruise may well skip New Caledonia altogether. P&O still have excursions in New Caledonia listed on cruise control for our December cruise, but I very much doubt the ship will be visiting the area. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
buchhalm Posted June 30 #107 Share Posted June 30 These people are only hurting themselves. Tourists will find other places to visit. If the "islanders" want to make a point to the French, protests should be staged in France. I hear that there are a few international events going on/coming up that would certainly grab the attention of the French and rest of the world. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare Mycruiseobsession Posted July 1 #108 Share Posted July 1 7 hours ago, Blackduck59 said: Thanks for that link @Mycruiseobsession. It was an interesting read. Our cruise is still scheduled for 2 stops in New Caledonia. We decided as soon as the news of riots and death broke, that we would stay on the ship for those stops. There is nothing in the article to suggest we will change our mind by April next year. I suspect the itinerary for our cruise may well skip New Caledonia altogether. As long as Smartraveller is in the orange no Australian cruises will dock there. There's no way to covered for holiday travel insurance with that kind of warning. Link: https://www.smartraveller.gov.au/destinations/pacific/new-caledonia Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare Mycruiseobsession Posted July 1 #109 Share Posted July 1 (edited) Too late to edit above but some travel insurance companies MAY still cover - I am just going by the one's I use. Essential travel in my mind [Must take a cruise] is not necessarily what insurers believe to be essential 😁 Edited July 1 by Mycruiseobsession 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare cruiser3775 Posted July 2 #110 Share Posted July 2 You definitely need to check whether your travel insurance will cover you when the Aust government Smarttraveller advice is at "Reconsider your need to travel" level. They don't lift it up to this level for many countries. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare MicCanberra Posted July 2 Author #111 Share Posted July 2 If smartraveller says do not travel, that is when you cancel, if you haven't already. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare cruiser3775 Posted July 3 #112 Share Posted July 3 'Do Not Travel' is one up from 'Reconsider Your Need To Travel' on Smarttraveller. It is mostly places where there is an active war occurring, like Ukraine. 'Reconsider' is less urgent, but still pretty scary to consider visiting. Egypt is currently on the 'Reconsider' list, because of its proximity to Gaza and Israel. I'd be surprised if you could get travel insurance for either category, though I'm not sure what happens if you took out the travel insurance before the warning level was lifted higher. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare Mycruiseobsession Posted July 8 #113 Share Posted July 8 (edited) I think Noumea will be off the cards longer than their optimistic September. https://www.rnz.co.nz/international/pacific-news/521560/5-new-caledonia-pro-independence-leaders-to-remain-in-mainland-france-jails-appeal-court https://www.rnz.co.nz/international/pacific-news/521566/french-pacific-news-in-brief I am thinking the current unrelated riots in France would probably delay things further again. Edited July 8 by Mycruiseobsession Added 2nd link Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare arxcards Posted July 8 #114 Share Posted July 8 September would have been a best case scenario. I am a little bit optimistic that Lifou could become available by Christmas, but Noumea could still be a year away. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare ceeceeDee Posted July 9 #115 Share Posted July 9 On 7/8/2024 at 2:48 PM, arxcards said: September would have been a best case scenario. I am a little bit optimistic that Lifou could become available by Christmas, but Noumea could still be a year away. Not a huge loss if that comes to pass. Been to Noumea a couple of times before and weren't planning on doing much, if anything, there in December. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare arxcards Posted July 9 #116 Share Posted July 9 5 hours ago, ceeceeDee said: Not a huge loss if that comes to pass. Been to Noumea a couple of times before and weren't planning on doing much, if anything, there in December. With Lifou, Noumea, Mare, IOP all out of action, there are only so many ships that can call at Mystery Island, Vila, Luganville in a single day. No issues till October, but then it gets a whole lot more complex after that. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jim_P Posted July 9 #117 Share Posted July 9 Perfect excuse for the cruiselines to further reduce the amount of ships they have in Australia. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ELep Posted July 9 #118 Share Posted July 9 I agree, having NC off the agenda presents a significant problem from late October onwards. Only Vila, Santo, and Mystery Island are available in the S Pac. Fiji is a longer trip. And NZ has proved to be tricky regarding meeting the bio requirements. I am concerned that ships will pull out of the Australian market. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare JJK2008 Posted July 9 #119 Share Posted July 9 I've been following this thread a bit and it is very disappointing to read. We made our first visit to Oz last year and wanted to do another that would include a cruise or two including NC and other South Pacific spots. Hope things settle down, but I'm a realist so most likely it won't change enough to plan a trip there, at least in the immediate future. Wishful thinking. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare arxcards Posted July 9 #120 Share Posted July 9 8 hours ago, ELep said: I agree, having NC off the agenda presents a significant problem from late October onwards. Only Vila, Santo, and Mystery Island are available in the S Pac. Fiji is a longer trip. And NZ has proved to be tricky regarding meeting the bio requirements. I am concerned that ships will pull out of the Australian market. Not this year, at least not in the main. It is too late to pull a ship and successfully resell it somewhere else. The only way they would pull ships is if they can't fill them, and they have already forecast that and reduced ships to match. If a hull is dirty and fails inspection, there will be an unlucky cruise that would have a diverted itinerary to have the cleaning done. There are a lot of negatives out there, with New Caledonia another issue for the pile. Yes, also NZ biosecurity, port fees, Coastal Trading Act, cost of living, no Red Sea transits, repetitive itineraries and possibly others. The cruise industry is rattling their chains for some of those issues via CLIA. There is nervousness & negativity running down through the T/A networks, travel publications & social media. This negativity is industry driven due to a drop in sales, which despite all of these other issues, is a consequence of the cost of living and also the root cause for the reduced number of ships in 2024/5 and 2025/6. We had a really stable economy for the best part of 20 years, which supported strong growth in cruising. The current drop in cruise sales is also reflected by a drop in our domestic tourism. As cruisers, I think we need to be careful what we wish for and try to look for the positives. These issues give a greater push to Royal's Lelepa and I am hearing that Carnival is looking at their own version. Then there are those rarely used stops like Wala & Champagne Bay that just need a bit of infrastructure to be more viable. 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare ceeceeDee Posted July 9 #121 Share Posted July 9 23 minutes ago, arxcards said: Not this year, at least not in the main. It is too late to pull a ship and successfully resell it somewhere else. The only way they would pull ships is if they can't fill them, and they have already forecast that and reduced ships to match. If a hull is dirty and fails inspection, there will be an unlucky cruise that would have a diverted itinerary to have the cleaning done. There are a lot of negatives out there, with New Caledonia another issue for the pile. Yes, also NZ biosecurity, port fees, Coastal Trading Act, cost of living, no Red Sea transits, repetitive itineraries and possibly others. The cruise industry is rattling their chains for some of those issues via CLIA. There is nervousness & negativity running down through the T/A networks, travel publications & social media. This negativity is industry driven due to a drop in sales, which despite all of these other issues, is a consequence of the cost of living and also the root cause for the reduced number of ships in 2024/5 and 2025/6. We had a really stable economy for the best part of 20 years, which supported strong growth in cruising. The current drop in cruise sales is also reflected by a drop in our domestic tourism. As cruisers, I think we need to be careful what we wish for and try to look for the positives. These issues give a greater push to Royal's Lelepa and I am hearing that Carnival is looking at their own version. Then there are those rarely used stops like Wala & Champagne Bay that just need a bit of infrastructure to be more viable. The South Pacific is definitely problematic at the moment. Will be interesting to see what happens when we cruise there in December. With ports now limited we may find ourselves having a South Pacific cruise to nowhere. 🙄 Still, a cruise is a cruise and sea days have never bothered us so que sera sera. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare JJK2008 Posted July 9 #122 Share Posted July 9 Good post Geoff, Thanks. Very informative. I didn't know about the Royal plans for Lelepa. Hope that happens. The one they built in the Bahamas is very popular. We were there in April for the first time, pretty impressive. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
windsor26 Posted July 9 #123 Share Posted July 9 1 hour ago, ceeceeDee said: The South Pacific is definitely problematic at the moment. Will be interesting to see what happens when we cruise there in December. With ports now limited we may find ourselves having a South Pacific cruise to nowhere. 🙄 Still, a cruise is a cruise and sea days have never bothered us so que sera sera. Always good to enjoy the Queensland coast and hope they can organise the tendering on all the ships 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare Mycruiseobsession Posted July 26 #124 Share Posted July 26 Just adding a news update. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-07-25/new-caledonia-unrest-french-ambassador-pacific/104140428 2 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare Mycruiseobsession Posted July 28 #125 Share Posted July 28 https://youtu.be/Owo9UNGdw6Q?si=SL5hURE_1ZrEAj1m 1 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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