mattymay

The day has finally arrived...Cruise Ship ban has officially ended! 
Shame it's not a RCI ship, but Pacific Explorer will roll into Sydney Harbour tomorrow morning.

The day has finally arrived...Cruise Ship ban has officially ended! 
Shame it's not a RCI ship, but Pacific Explorer will roll into Sydney Harbour tomorrow morning.

It's great for socially awkward people.. I'll walk half the ship to start up a conversation with Bionic Barman! 
 
Also he doesn't give you dirty looks for ordering 2 drinks in 5 mins.
 

The day has finally arrived...Cruise Ship ban has officially ended! 
Shame it's not a RCI ship, but Pacific Explorer will roll into Sydney Harbour tomorrow morning.

The day has finally arrived...Cruise Ship ban has officially ended! 
Shame it's not a RCI ship, but Pacific Explorer will roll into Sydney Harbour tomorrow morning.

It's great for socially awkward people.. I'll walk half the ship to start up a conversation with Bionic Barman! 
 
Also he doesn't give you dirty looks for ordering 2 drinks in 5 mins.
 

Gotta love Facebook for rubbing in the memories.. 5 years ago today! My kids.. Harmony out of Ft Lauderdale! Such great times... hard to believe there was a world out there before Covid.

 
October is such a long wait.. 

Victorian protocols 

It's great for socially awkward people.. I'll walk half the ship to start up a conversation with Bionic Barman! 
 
Also he doesn't give you dirty looks for ordering 2 drinks in 5 mins.
 

Gotta love Facebook for rubbing in the memories.. 5 years ago today! My kids.. Harmony out of Ft Lauderdale! Such great times... hard to believe there was a world out there before Covid.

 
October is such a long wait.. 

Gotta love Facebook for rubbing in the memories.. 5 years ago today! My kids.. Harmony out of Ft Lauderdale! Such great times... hard to believe there was a world out there before Covid.

 
October is such a long wait.. 

9 nights on the Phone,(mostly on hold )talking to someone who doesn’t know what you are talking about and probably doesn’t care.
Trying to work out your FCC and L&S not to mention OBC but most important your C&A discounts.

I did Majestic Princess to Alaska in 2021 during the restart.  It was their last Alaska cruise of last year's shortened Alaska season.  
Interesting experience.  I feel like the ship was dated like I had stepped back in time to when the first in this class sailed or even before that.
Contrasting Ovation and Majestic, Ovation feels like a new ship with it's decor and all.  Majestic feels like I stepped back in time and boarded a ship built in 2005 even though the first in this class sailed around the time when Quantum did.  Very strange.  

Nice one! Unfortunately, I can't put in that kind of effort until the kids have finished high school. We're confined to school holidays for the next few years.

If you are not 100% loyal to Royal then there is plenty to keep busy with in this region over the next few seasons if Royal don't send anything new.. Celebrity Edge, Virgin Resilient Lady, the 'new' (refurbed) P&O's - Adventure and Encounter, Carnival Splendor, Majestic Princess, etc...
Add Ovation, Quantum, Enchantment, Celebrity Eclipse.. It starts to add up.

Royal would be well aware of how passionate Australians are to cruising but the uncertainty of the region having ports open would be of great concern. Unlike sailing in the Caribbean, where should a port or two close, there are several options for a cruise line to easily be redirected to and still give the customers a similar experience,  cruising locally does not have the same opportunity. If the South Pacific islands are off limit, apart from a cruise to nowhere, there are no similar alternatives.
As a business, Royal needs to make money quickly as loan debts will be upon them soon, and so need to fill ships back to capacity and have the offering in the markets which gives them the greatest opportunity to make money, and that is the US market. 
If we look at cruising numbers pre-covid for 2019, according to CLIA, Australia was the fourth biggest source market. North America 15.4m,  Western Europe 7.2m, Asia 3.7m, and Australia/Pacific 1.3m  
By passenger volume, Australia was fifth. US 14.2m, Germany 2.6m, UK & Ireland 2m, Mainland China 1.9m, and Australia 1.2m 
So as the numbers show, why would Royal send more ships to Australia for the next couple of years, the maths does not add up. the US is roughly 12 times the size of the Australian market. The best we could hope for is one day having an older Oasis class in lieu of a Quantum class, but until Royal's accounts is n the black, their focus will be on the US. 
Source: https://cruising.org/-/media/research-updates/research/2019-year-end/updated/2019-global-market-report.ashx

I don't believe they would send a brand new ship to our backwaters.
I think the most we can hope for is that in a few years the addition of Icon and Utopia pushes some other Oasis class out our way. I guess it also depends on the state of China, and will they send Wonder and Spectrum back there.

I don't believe they would send a brand new ship to our backwaters.
I think the most we can hope for is that in a few years the addition of Icon and Utopia pushes some other Oasis class out our way. I guess it also depends on the state of China, and will they send Wonder and Spectrum back there.

I don't believe they would send a brand new ship to our backwaters.
I think the most we can hope for is that in a few years the addition of Icon and Utopia pushes some other Oasis class out our way. I guess it also depends on the state of China, and will they send Wonder and Spectrum back there.

The UK "debut" will be measured in days as opposed to months.  That's just Michael Bayley trying to throw the UK a bone and make it sound like it's a massive honor for the UK to see the ship first.   Similarly the suggested or possible stops in NYC and Boston will also probably be one day if they happen at all.
MB has said it will home port in Miami.  We all know Royal and how they like to get ships into service at their new home ports as soon as possible.  We also all know how many things that Michael Bayley says never happen.  
I would not all be surprised to learn it doesn't go down as Bayley has suggested and Royal will develop another case of "getthereitis" and get the ship to its initial homeport as quickly as possible so it starts generating real revenue as quickly as possible.  
I wouldn't read anything into comments Bayley says in an interview.  Voom would be free if you believe everything he says.  How did that one work out?

There’s speculation that icon class will be a all weather ship because it’s debuting in the UK and then NYC just before Christmas.
If so It would be more suitable for the South Island of NZ.

Well that was short lived. Americans! 
 
But I’ve done the math.. 
Australia is one of the biggest exporters of LNG.. 
And.. if you watch the video.. Utopia.. it’s got to be Lelepa.
It’s ours for sure!!

Let’s hope only Aussies got this email.. and it’s a sign she’s headed our way! 

Icon will debut in the UK. 
https://www.ttgmedia.com/news/new-royal-caribbean-ship-icon-of-the-seas-to-debut-in-the-uk-in-2023-33617
 

Gavin will deploy a ship soon just so he doesn't have to respond to your emails any longer! 😄
I've priced out a September Ocean Getaway for 3 in a balcony stateroom and I'm not sure the price (flights, pre and post-cruise hotel, pre-cruise RAT, cruise) is worth the cost for 3 nighter to nowhere.