Mariner - Sydney to N.Z.??

[geegeecruiser]

My husband and I just booked our first cruise on an RSSC ship. We are booked into cabin 910. I know that the Tasman sea can be very rough, and I wondered if anyone can share their experience making the crossing from Australia to New Zealand. How does the Mariner handle rough weather? Also, has anyone been in cabin 910, and if so, how did you like it? Thanks for any input.

[Jayayeff]

I can't answer your questions but would be interested in the answers as I have also just booked this cruise, and like you this will be my first with Regent...If you go to the Roll Calls for 'other lines' there are two more couples who have posted there for the same cruise...

 

Look forward to seeing you onboard in November....

 

Anne

[dfb]

Like you I was fearful of the Tasman crossing since I had heard such stories about it. We did it on the Voyager. It was like a millpond when we crossed!! So, there is always the luck of the draw at work. We were not disappointed that it was so calm and still, we loved it! Of course, there were an equal number of people who had counted on the big adventure and were grousing about missing it. Go figure. About Mariner, I would expect her to ride rough weather at least as well as Voyager. We were on Mariner January and February of this year for the Circle South America. We ran into the traditional gale forces rounding Cape Horn. Sadly! Mariner handled it OK, but I will say that with the damaged pod that we found they were running Mariner without stabilizers as much as they could. I think that may have factored in to us finding that Mariner did not handle seas as well as we found Voyager to handle them. Since Mariner cannot run at full power until the pod replacment, even with the currently modified schedules to allow long sailing times, when they are running without stabilizers you may notice. We were told that having the stabilizers deployed slows the ship down even more, so to keep on schedule they cannot use them as much as they normally would. The pod replacement is not scheduled until the first half of January 2009.

Debbie

[geegeecruiser]

Debbie....thank you for the thorough explanation of the pod and the stabilizer. That is good to know (although it won't make much difference, since we are booked no matter what the weather will be). Hope to meet you on the cruise.

 

Gloria

[jhp]

Gloria, I was on the Voyager, like Debbie, but just one segment of the WC in 2005. Like she said, Tasman sea was a cinch. However, it was going through the Bass Straits from Tasmania on the way to Melbourne that we hit a storm. It was in the middle of the night, and I slept through it, but there was a lot of damage with china, etc. in some of the public areas. They even gave certificates for surviving the "storm of the century" in this sea. Captain gave up and turned the ship toward Sydney and gave us an extra day there, which was fine with me! Not sure whether you are in these waters for your cruise.

[Travelcat2]

My husband and I just booked our first cruise on an RSSC ship. We are booked into cabin 910. I know that the Tasman sea can be very rough, and I wondered if anyone can share their experience making the crossing from Australia to New Zealand. How does the Mariner handle rough weather? Also, has anyone been in cabin 910, and if so, how did you like it? Thanks for any input.

 

We were in cabin 910 last month (May) on a repositioning cruise from San Francisco to Alaska. We feel that the Mariner is the most stable ship in the Regent fleet (that doesn't mean that it can't be a bit rough -- depending upon weather -- it just handles it better). The suite was spacious -- much better than the "regular" cabins on Mariner that are smaller than either the Voyager or Navigator (note: we upgraded to suite 910 -- were very satisfied!)

[geegeecruiser]

Thanks so much for the information! We are looking forward to this cruise.

[Donaldm]

My wife and I will also be on the Mariner from Sydney but are staying on to Los Angeles; we look forward to meeting you. Last September we were also on the Mariner when it crossed the Bering Sea. It was so rough that we received certificates stating it was the worst storm the ship had been in. They shut down the elevators so the poor room service folks had to bring the food up the stairways. They recommended that we stay in our cabins, but most people ignored it. The ship handled the seas quite well. During the storm, I followed one lady up the stairs who had a cup of hot coffee in each hand and she made it successfully. We loved our time on the ship.

-Don in Sacramento

[geegeecruiser]

Don:

Thanks for the info. Let's hope we have a smooth crossing. Now I have to figure out what the weather will be like. I know we will be heading into their summer, but I figure NZ will be pretty cool (espcialy aboard the ship) If anyone who has done this cruise wants to share their weather experience for a November trip, please join in....I have to start thinking clothes!

 

geegeecruiser