Phillo

Another service to have a look at if you fly a lot (as there is a subscription fee for using it long term) is www.faredrop.com (I am not affiliated, nor have I used the site). For future flights, you can set where you want to go and when and they will send you an alert when discounted pricing becomes available.

While I would just stay in Rome, out of the two choices presented: Florence. If you want to go somewhere in florence like the Accademia, look at grabbing a tour from one of the vendors that are around the area. You will not have to line up to get in and can see it quicker. Also... for a day trip, I always do the Hop-on-Hop-off buses. The one in florence will take you around past all the key sites. As much as I love Venice, doing it on a day trip is not a great idea. I know its sacrilege saying this on this type of forum, but the cruise ships cause a lot of issues in Venice during daylight hours. The amount of people that flood the city is incredible and makes it difficult to walk around. We stayed for 3 nights there and Venice at night was just beautiful once the massive groups of tourists left.

Me Three. I was expecting to read about some new "wellbeing" offer from the onboard spa. A real step up from having your feet checked. ?

To be honest.... we had low expectations. Also... the Australian property market finally fell through its backside over the last year (we avoided the GFC downturn). So contractors are looking for work and are quicker to get jobs done. As for the cruise. Well...i am a little bit excited. On top of the cruise itself - A repositioning cruise with a LOT of sea days, my wife and I also were able to get business class airfares from Australia to Singapore to join the cruise (thanks Frequent Flyer points). so its going to be great! ?

I have an unusual (and somewhat first world problem) solution to our wait. We are 108 days away from our sailing (first RC cruise too) and to be honest, its the least prepared that i will ever be for a cruise/holiday. (that said.... I am an over preparer for holidays). My wife and I are in the middle of building a new house and whilst its under construction, we are living with my Mother In Law!!! So the cruise was designed for us to have 2 weeks away from living at the in-laws in the middle of construction. The problem is: the house is going to be finished about 3 months ahead of schedule and we will be moving in BEFORE the cruise. So i am spending my time planning our move in activities and will then use the cruise to just sleep off the hectic last few months. In short: If you want to stand the wait for the cruise.... build a new house! hahahaha! (not the cheapest way around the situation though)

I would assume that if there was change.... (if any) it would be in the next administration. That said.... I can only take a passing interest in these things considering i am on the other side of the planet! ha!

I assumed that Cuba was still open to cruises.... it was just the US government that was not allowing it?!

but now its been consigned to us.... the commoners in Australia! ?

a little more palatable on a 10 night cruise though! ?

Thats good!!! I just checked the price for our 14 night cruise and it comes in at AU$27 per day (or US$19.22 per day). However.... adding an extra AU$700+ dollars to our account is not worth it at the moment.

I agree with you @Pippa_OceanTime We are cruising on VotS in November and I was looking forward to seeing what they were going to do. While its still going to be fun, its just a pity that they arent doing at least _some_ of the upgrades that have happened on others. I wonder if the fact the ship is now going to spend all of its time for the forseeable future in the Asia Pacific region played a part?! That said... Aussie cruisers are a lot similar to US cruisers, so not having the new bars is definitely a dissapointment.

I agree with @twangster too. In this case, the reason that cruises from Singapore are included is that RCI would have done some very specific modelling on the clientele that take these cruises, what they spent on the cruise from a base fare perspective and then combine that with the average spend once onboard. Their driver would be to reduce the base fare down to a level that drives sales and then hope that passengers pay more on board. Each market is different. For example, Australians do not tip - nor is there an expectation for a tip. At home, the only time I tip is for well above average service at a restaurant or i may choose to round up a payment to a taxi driver when leaving a cab. So - when looking at cruise fares - any thing i book via RCI's Australian website has the daily gratuity built into the base fare. (i also have to mention, its Australian consumer law that this must be included in the price). Anyway, the point is - they adjust their product/pricing to fit the clientele they are expecting (this includes food in the windjammer/MDR on individual sailings). Read this specifically: https://www.royalcaribbean.com/faq/questions/what-are-culturally-enriching-cruises-from-mainland-china To be honest - I am a data nerd and what I find most interesting is how they use the wealth of information at their fingertips to continually predict and refine their product.

I agree - 245 days is too long for me. the 80 days thing is intriguing. I did plan out a "cruise" i would love to do.... Its actually a few cruises that were interspersed with long stretches ashore. so it would be around 180 days in total... with about 70 of them cruising.

Good question. I am sure others would provide a better answer than me. However, the way I look at it, the cruise line factor it like this: If you have dual occupancy, you are likely to spend $500 on board per person whilst on the ship at a total of $1000. When you are travelling solo, they know you will only spend $500... so they are technically missing out on the rest of the onboard spend. They penalise you for travelling solo because they are going to lose revenue, so they slug you a surcharge for the pleasure. Does it stink? Yep, sure does. Would your plan work (booking the room then the other person not turning up)? Who knows... could be worth trying though. HA!!. You should check the cruise contract to see what it says.

The big/small ship debate will depend on Royal's business strategy. They could look at it a couple of ways: RCI is a "big ship" cruise line and they will pursue a big ship strategy and ports to match. The smaller ships will eventually be sold or transferred to their smaller lines. Their smaller lines will focus on more "boutique" destinations that can only be serviced by smaller ships. RCI remains the "value" cruise line that is aimed at families and they continue to leave the higher spend type cruising to Celebrity, Azamara and Silversea. Potentially smaller ships could be transferred there and heavily refurbished for those cruiselines needs. RCI actually invests in new "smaller" ships at some point. As we are seeing with their new ships, they are moving to more environmentally friendly (but not perfect) designs that also reduce operating costs. I note that Vision of the Seas is the only ship in the fleet that is scheduled for Panama Canal crossings, so you would think there is still a place for smaller ships for trips like this. As for Cuba, I think its conceivable that Cuban cruises will recommence at some point in the future. The current US political environment means it cant happen, but a change in government could potentially reverse that decision overnight. (I am not trying to wade into a political discussion here ? ) So you never know what might happen in the future.

My wife is addicted to buying make up!!! (i counter that by buying electronics ? ) I was wondering if people could advise what brands they tend to sell on board? I assume that Australian (or Aus bound) itineraries will have the same product as the US sailings? I ask this as she is interested in US brands that are more difficult to get here! Also... is the pricing competitive with on shore discount pricing? Thanks in advance! ?

Yep. I think Australians (and NZ'ers) are conditioned to long travel times too! I have heard @Matt mention on the podcast that he couldnt spend 14 hours on a plane (well a bit longer from florida) to come out to Australia for a cruise!!!! I would jump on a 14 hour flight to LA right now if i had the chance! ? My wife and I went from Australia to Paris for a quick 8 day getaway a few years ago. Its only 21 hours each way! hahaha. (admittedly the cost of the fares were incredibly cheap). All said and done though... it doesnt matter how much leave you get, its just that we are lucky enough to travel and spend time doing what we enjoy no matter how long it is.

I am surprised as well. The thing is.... for us (Australia and New Zealanders) its so far away from anything. Any of our short cruise itineraries are generally 3 days to nowhere! ? I have read somewhere that all the major cruiselines would like Brisbane (in Australia) to have its cruise facilties upgraded because it becomes easier to offer 7 day itineries to the south pacific islands. My wife and I went on a south pacific cruise from sydney earlier this year (not RCI) it was a minimum 2 sea days traveling just to get to the first stop! I get a little jealous of the cruises mentioned on here going to the caribbean islands from Florida. A quick 3 day jaunt here or there!!! sounds awesome.

I still find it unusual that RCI dont have self service laundries on their ships. Nearly every other cruise company has them!

Being Australian, I get the required 20 work days (4 weeks) as annual leave. On top of that, being in the public service, i also get the short break between christmas and new year off without using annual leave. (with public holidays thrown in, it works out to about 10 days actual leave). Also... as I have been here for 17 years, I have long service leave and still have 16 weeks available to me to use! ? (i am using 2 of those for our cruise in november!!)

I do basically the same thing. If i was doing a port heavy itinerary, then I would take my "big" camera. If i am doing a smaller/sea day heavy itinerary, then i take the phone. On a recent trip to Europe (not a cruise holiday), i took photos over 3 devices - DSLR, snapshot camera & phone. Each has their particular use cases.

My bucket list holiday is to go around the world without using a plane. BUT... this is not a round the world cruise. I had played around with a money/time is no object itinerary a while ago.... it was: Australia to Singapore - Singapore to Dubai - Dubai to Barcelona (a B2B2B cruise). Then spend time traveling through Europe by land.... ending up in London for a transatlantic crossing (the one I saw was not a RCI cruise... but went Southampton to New York via Iceland). Spend time on land touring the USA. Then USA back to Australia via Hawaii - Transpacific. it was a good 7 months of travel.... but it would be awesome. I just need to win the lottery now.

I agree. Its just a pity they didnt get the promenade changes like Playmakers and Bamboo room. Hopefully the cabin "refreshes" are good though.

From my perspective (and everyone is different) my 'discontent' is around the seeming lack of update for the pool deck and that its missing out on the new/refurbished bars that navigator and mariner got. That said.... its all 1st world problems. I am still looking forward to travelling on voyager in november! ?

Agreed!! are the economics right for it? It would probably need to be home ported out of brisbane for winter months though.