CruisingOz

13 hours ago, twangster said:

Do we know if foreigners will be allowed to sail from Australia in 2022 yet?  

There seems to be no reason. If double vac's and have a negative test, welcome. I am booked on the transpacific and know of a number of US citizens taking the cruise. 

For travel restrictions and requirements, I always use Sherpa. Below is a link to Singapore. Unlike the US, masks must be wron on the ship when indoors and you will need to have either a Singapore sim card or you can use Telstra as you must have the tracing app. 

https://apply.joinsherpa.com/travel-restrictions/SGP?originCountry=AUS&nationality=USA&departureDate=2022-04-04&returnDate=2022-04-11&tripType=roundTrip&transitType=noTransit&fullyVaccinated=true&language=en-US

Just watched a Q&A YouTube video from the Singapore Cruise Society who are on-board the Spectrum for a shakedown cruise. Interesting 

Those offers are normally for new bookings but I have successfully applied some to cruises, but they only had deposits on them. This is messy, but you can cancel the sailing and rebook it. Yiu would need to do it with them at the same time so the cabin is not scooped up by someone else. If booked through a TA, TA would need to cancel it and you would need to book direct. Issues could be the TA, if FCC was used, time for money to be refunded, etc, etc. 

How about book a B2B and have an awesome Alaska holiday. I would love that, but I am in Australia, so I have to let all my offers go, so sad

9 hours ago, RJCruise said:

Small world, our first cruise was also on Rhapsody - Jan 2013. We were really impressed by the ship. Cruised many times on Radiance, Voyager and Explorer. Like them all. Moving the Diamond lounge on Voyager was a bugger as we liked the original area upstairs. Have to agree with Mare. Excellent main beach. On our one and only P&O cruise went to a place called Champagne Bay which was really nice but have never seen a Royal cruise go there.

Yes, small world. The Rhapsody cruise was the reason we fell in love with cruising. Champagne Bay, in my opinion, is the best beach in the world. We went there once on a Royal cruise which also visited Luganville and it was either the Radiance or Explorer we sailed on. We were supposed to sail there again on the Voyager 13th February 2021, but covid killed that sailing. I am always looking for Champagne Bay as a destination with no luck, yet.

We took advantage of the offer on a recent January and February cruise

We always start our cruise with a Kraken Lava Flow out by the pool. Having that drink in our hand means we are cruising and life is great 

30 minutes ago, Chili said:

 I think I would prefer Voyager

The amplified Voyager was an awesome ship. In my opinion it provided the best relaxation and activities between the Radiance and Ovation class. Our first cruise was on Rhapsody back in 2013 and recently on the Grandeur, so do not mind the Enchantment, but would far prefer a Radiance or Voyager. For us, it would be about the destinations and Mare is one of my favourite ports seldom visited, so the ship is not a big deal.

Lifou and Isle of Pines would never be able to handle an Ovation with 6000+ passengers, they do not have the infrastructure. In Lifou, Jinek Bay Marine Reserve limits the daily numbers and Isle of Pines coral has been destroyed by tourist and again, the island elders wanted to limit daily numbers. Not to mention they are both tender ports and and so even the Voyager struggled with queues, both on and off the ship.        

We always wait until we board as they will offer discounts on-board. Go there on the first day

We were there in early February, third ship back. The vendors were vocal and considering all they had been through, hurricane and no tourism, so I can not blame them. We knew what we were looking for and made a targeted purchase, which caused a fuss from the other vendors, and we felt bad for them. We simply tried not to engage but we pushed, we had a vaild excuse, which was, we were from Australia and could not import wooden products, which helped.  It was tough and emotional for us as we thought about how hard life is for them, so we make our time there quite swift.  

Hello RCB Community, We will be travelling with my son and his partner. We will be in a GS and they will be in a balcony. Will they allow us to invite them to dinner at Coastal Kitchen? I would say the rules say no. and so it may depend on the concierge and availability. Has anyone been allowed guests at CK?   

19 hours ago, Chili said:

next to nothing available

It is a nightmare and Royal and TA consolidator have long wait times and no solutions. One of my cancelled cruise was a 13 night Sth Pacific JR suite and under the L&S rules, there are only 12 night New Zealand but no JR suites and so nothing to change to. Also they have lost my deposit, we have the receipt so that will work itself out, but the casino credit seems a loss. 

I want to take advantage of the Australian double points offer and want to sail the South Pacific as already doing NZ, but the itineraries are nothing like what Radiance offered. Prices are really high as cabin stock is low, so value for money really is not there. I am frustrated but there really is nothing I can do.    

The host is wrong as it starts once you hit the 1500 points. I have noticed that there are good hosts and thoses. Some are proactive and monitor play and have seen hosts actively seek out people to give them a Prime sticker, and then there are those like the one you had who had no idea. 

It must be weather related. We sailed the Symphony end Jan and early Feb and there were high divers on each of the shows. We were lucky to see the show four times over the two sailing and each show was slightly different due to weather . We had no Hairspray thanks to covid

1 hour ago, Chili said:

I’m still amazed they are advertising Tahiti on the trans pacific

Big cruise ships are allowed in Tahiti and Moorea. Big ships are banned from Bora Bora, the rest is okay

With isle of Pines and Lifou, I believe the draft of the Ovation is too deep. It is fairly shallow, especially Isle of Pines where both the Radiance, Voyager/Explorer dredge up a lot of sand when moored and engines used to maintain position.  

6 hours ago, mattymay said:

Did you receive this as an email?

We never received an email and we are also D+. I saw the update on this site and thought to look through as I wanted to book another cruise for my son. I am still shattered if the Radiance is cancelled and not replaced by Serenade or Voyager. As much as Quantum class is nice, they are not our favourite class  

26 minutes ago, mattymay said:

Yep, she's gone!

I am shattered. Favourite ship, better destinations and had booked using casion credits which will be a nightmare to have them moved. 

You know, looking at the costs of Caribbean cruises, I could fly to the US and cruise for around the same. Looks I am going back. The flights and jet lag is the killer so prefer not to. Maybe next week Royal may surprise us and announce a ship shuffle 

I am so upset, and I hope it is an IT glitch. All Radiance of the Seas departing Sydney Australia have been removed and in fact if you search worldwide, Radiance cruises are blocked out for the whole period it was due to sail our waters. I have/had three booked, which I only booked last week. 

It is killing me, I need to a name otherwise how do i know if I bump into the legend

6 minutes ago, mattymay said:

Understand that.. some of us were just hoping they'd send a spare ship early!

That would be a dream. I think the Australian market could support three brands 12 months of the year. I would love the option to sail Royal and not have to wait or bite the bullet and cruise P&O or Carnival during April to October. With the world as it is today, thinking about China and Hong Kong, Serenade or Radiance offering a home port in Sydney would be awesome. We know there is demand but Australia would need to prove itself to be offered larger ships. Having recently cruised an Oasis class, I would love the opportunity to take the family to experience the most amazing ships. Taking the family to the US is not an option but a Sydney cruise, vert doable.   

Royal Caribbean's Ovation is not due until October 29th into Sydney, which is an 11 night New Zealand. It is scheduled to start the transpacific Oct 9th. So looking forward to both and now more confident to book accomodation in Hawaii  

Unlimited, just ask the barman on my last Voyager cruise who kindly walked me to my cabin. Embarrassed, yes. My wife was not impressed with the knock at the door at 4am

Could also queue up in a no reservation line, get their early and ask. The queue normally started about 20 feet from the entrance to the left side

We had to have the test to fly home to Australoa via Qantas. We were lucky with the ships requirements as our cruises were all within a day so Royal provided all the tests as needed, but we had a fiv day gap to fly home so needed one with in the three day window. 

The free tests did not have an area for passport details and nationality. We managed to have them put on the form but only as employee ID. It had no QR code and did not correctly report all the required test details. Only really that we ere negative. At the time we had to have certain details our Government needed. In Australia the government has a Smarttraveeller website which showed the right and wrong report, and the free one looked very much like the wrong report, so we did not want to risk it for a nominal cost

We were in South Beach Miami and required a RT-PCR to get home. We initailly went to a free clinic but they did not have the required details on the email, so I went to Fast Test. They cost us $149 USD but had the QR code and all the required details to allow us to travel back to Australia.