EmersonNZ

Drink Packages:

You might find this article helpful which explains drink packages: https://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com/royal-caribbean-beverage-packages 

Basically there are a number of drink packages on offer depending on if you want to include alcohol, non alcohol cocktails and juices or just soda. Consider the drink packages an 'all you can drink' package (with some exceptions for more expensive alcohol based drinks).

The packages are for a single person only and can not be shared. 

4 minutes ago, Zoey00123 said:

We want to use it on the Harmony to text others in our group when we are separated - at separate activities - to get back together for other activities, as well as keep in touch with family members taking care of our elderly parents.  Will we be able to do this?

I would absolutely expect so. You should have no issue with a messaging service like Facebook Messenger or iMessege which use very little data unless you are sending photos/video embedded in them. Make sure you turn your phone cell signal off an only use wireless to avoid SMS charges).

On 5/18/2017 at 10:23 AM, F1guynz said:

I certainly hope this is the case as not having a fourth ship reduced the choice of itineraries available. The other wish that people in this region have is for a ship to based in Australia year round.

It wouldn't surprise me... maybe not this year but pretty soon. So many New Zealanders and Australians head to a Pacific Island for a mid winter getaway that having a RCL ship doing winter Pacific cruises and top end Australia makes a lot of sense. We'd certainly to one every other year probably.

On 5/17/2017 at 1:15 AM, Matt said:

I think you're taking that comment too literally.  I read it as a joke, meaning they are dealing with something logistically, so they came up with a tongue-in-cheek answer for why we need to wait so long.

I'm with Matt on this... to me this is marketing speak for "It's taking us longer to sort this out than we thought and we'll let you know when we sort it out...." (I think they would have used the same line for pretty much any delay... :-) 

On 5/11/2017 at 3:25 AM, Amanda said:

We booked a three person cruise and due to health one person will not be able to go. If we cancel that person would we be moved from a three person room to a two person Room? I can't find any information on what happens if just one person cancels.

Thanks!

I did exactly this a month ago for our December cruise. We had 3 people booked into our room but our friend can no longer go so I rang up and got them to change it to just the 2 of us. There was absolutely no issues and no questions asked. They simply canceled 1 person on the booking, reissued the cruise details at the reduce price and refunded be some money (deposit for one), They kept all the promotional details like the $200 per room credit (Wasn't per person but per room so no difference if 1 booked or 3).

All in all a painless process and really good service.

I used it pretty extensively on Ovation around the Pacific and NZ and it work "pretty well". Is it the gb fiber I am used to at home... no... is it as good as if not better than most hotel wireless services... absolutely. I had not time watching Netflix or video conferencing (I had a bit of work to do). There were a few times when it slowed down a little bit not never to the stage I would call it annoying.

We are on Voyager later this year so it will be interesting to see how an older ship compares.

On 5/16/2017 at 1:32 AM, Matt said:

I've heard glowing reviews about both.  The sushi making class offers a lot  of food, so come hungry.

Excellent... Keryn and I have both the brunch and Sushi making activities booked for our New Years cruise which we are really looking forward to. 

I don't think it too long before Australia gets a ship year round. It might not be a Quantum/OASIS size ship to start with but I could see a Voyager or Radiance doing top end Australia and/or South Pacific cruises through the southern hemisphere winter (A heck of a lot of Kiwis and Aussies head to the Pacific for a mid winter escape so why not do it on a cruise ship?).  

This has become a bit of an issue for Auckland.... there are two issues at play (1) environmentally it means extending into the sea. Our Resource Management Act while allowing this means the extension has to be weighed up against impact to environment, cultural concerns and concerns of other users etc. (2) as suggested there is a genuine feeling that local government needs to be careful building infrastructure that benefits a commercial entity (foreign at that) without clear commitments which would see a return on investment (Especially as the Port itself is a company, though ironically partly owned by Auckland City). IT is easy to say 'but the city benefits from tourism, while true the reality is that benefit in the case of cruise ships (due to their one day stay ) is normally limited to small groups of residents. It certainly is a huge positve benefit... but hard to argue that that benefit which is not highly distributed should not be paid for by those that benefit the most (The port who gets the port fees, the cruise company or the tourism operators etc). I cna argue it either way.

The good news it looks like Auckland will be getting an extension maybe a bit later than it should have. It's funny to think that far small cities in New Zealand (my home of Dunedin with a population of $128k v Auckland 1.4m for example) has a port able to doc Quantum or Oasis class (in our case 2 at once if the need is ever there) ships but Auckland doesn't.

I can't talk for the cruises out of Asia but those out of Australia and New Zealand cater more for the Australasian market. 

All the ship activities are in English and it would be the type of thing you'd expect on a Caribbean cruise. As always the quality will depend on the acts that happen to be on board at the time. On our Ovation cruise I wasn't too impressed with the main shows put that could be a personal taste.

Food is a mixture of European/American/Asian which is simular and plenty of variety. Except for offering maybe a little more variety (a few more Asian and Indian inspired dishes which caters of the varied tastes of NZ/Aust who tend to be more global in their tastes) it will be again simular to your Caribbean experience.  

The cruises out of Australia (and from 2018 New Zealand) tend to full into 3 categories: (1) Short Australian east coast itineraries, (2) Australia to Pacific Islands (New Caledonia, Vanuatu, Fiji etc) and (3) Australia to New Zealand sometimes via the Pacific.

It's an amazing part of the world and I am sure you'd enjoy a trip down this way. If you have any questions I am more than happy to help.

3 hours ago, KWofPerth said:

Auckland's harbour would be spectacular to cruise out of. A roundtrip of NZ on its own would be a great cruise I imagine.

Yeah it's an amazing harbout to cruise into with all the islands etc as you come in through the outer harbour. Obviously the Bay of Islands and Milford and Fiordland would be absolutely spectacular/ I've done a lot of diving in Milford Sound and I still find the scenery absolutely aw inspiring.

Agreed, always nice to go on different ships. We did Ovation earlier this year and this summer are on Voyager. It's kinda ironic that Ovation can dock in Dunedin (city of about 127k) but yet needs to tender in Auckland (city of 1.5m). Why Auckland can't get their act together and lengthen one of the city piers is beyond me.

This is great Bob_KY. We are in a Grand Suite on Voyager out of Sydney in December and we were wondering about the suite benefits. 

I was interested to see cruises originating and finishing in Auckland. To my knowledge this is the first RCCL cruises starting of ending in NZ with previous cruises all being ex Australia. I think this could help build the cruise market in NZ. The cruise industry itself is doing very well with ship visits dramatically increasing year on year but I'm not sure many NZers consider cruising when planing their holiday plans.

4 minutes ago, monorailmedic said:

Do they use the pro version or the standard one?  I went with the standard as one of the appeals of the SMOVE to me is that the regular one is quite portable and has a batt built in.  If I want more bulk I can use a steadycam, my DSLR, and a fullsize shotgun mic ;-)

They are using the SMOVE Pro 

Our media production team have use the SMOVE for a couple of project (when they want 'that cellphone look) and they work pretty well. On of the team now actually use his phone and the SMOVE to create very quick rough draft for pitches etc to help the client get a feel for what we will be doing.

12 hours ago, DocLC said:

I'll agree that it's not equitable, but nothing seems to be when it comes to international businesses. The textbooks that cost my students $200 in the US are sold in developing countries for $25-$50, perhaps because that's what they market will bare. 

Don't even get me started about the economics of academic publications.... The academic writes the article for the journal for free, the academic edits the journal for free the journal sells the journal back to the academic. What other industry does that? You grown the food, you cook the food and then the restaurant charges you to eat the food.... mmmmm nah 

'Discriminated' is a bit harsh... but certainly 'disadvantaged' might be apt. In this particular case I'm talking about the Sip and Surf promotion... I've only ever seen this for the alcoholic package but never for the non alcoholic packages. I imagine the profit margins are simular for the two so it seems a little off not to offer a simular discount to those that choose not to drink alcohol (or at least like in my case not enough to warrant the alcohol package compared to non alcohol). 

The other thing I noticed during my January cruise was the drinks menus (except Two70) didn't offer non alcoholic cocktails or where they did they were the same 2 or 3 drinks across the ship. It would be ice if RCL copied DCL and had both a alcohol and non alcohol 'cocktail of the day' advertised etc and maybe had half a page in a 6 page drinks menu that had some non alcoholic suggestions.  

Obviously Los Angeles, San Francisco and San Diego come to mind. Also it would be nice if there was a regular Hawaii->South Pacific-Sydney itinerary.(There is a repositioning cruise that does it but nothing regular). Basically having a ship go back and forth during the summer would be great... I'd certainly be on it. 

It wouldn't surprise me if they did a sailing from Melbourne (It actually surprises me they don't already). The could easily do a Melbourne, Tasmania, New Zealand cruise which i think would do really well. 

I wonder if they use a weekly or monthly average? Looking at the NZ$ site I seem to see changes every week or so even though of course the dollar is always going up and down by the minute. I imagine they would want to flatten those changes so people didn't see price changes every time they logged in etc.

I'd be guessing it has to be pretty soon. The last sailing listing so far is March 18 which is essentially this coming season. From what we are seeing down this way the cruise industry is doing very well is the Pacific so I can't imagine it'll be long until they list the next seasons offerings...  

I was trying to work out Royal Caribbean math as well.... I thought that maybe there is a different meaning for the word 'free' in the US now... you know like 'alternative truth'?

The prices are a bit different in NZ$ but basically it ends up about the same percentage off... certainly not 'free' Voom....

Do people get airlifted iff cruise ships on a nightly basis?

The captain just announced we are diverting our course slightly heading towards New Caledonia (from Vanuatu) at full speed to randevu with a helicopter so we can airlift someone off the ship sometime tonight. It's 6pm now, my guess at 20-22kts is we won't be in range until about midnight. The Captain apologised in advance for a slightly rougher ride due to the extra speed (again who cares if it means the patient gets the attention they need as fast as possible.

Though we have just left a Vanuatu island we are actually about 1/2 way between the capitals of Vanuatu and New Caledonia, both of which have good hospitals and access to medical flights to New Zealand and Australia if needed (Vanuatu is made up of over 100 islands stretching many 100s of kms). New Caledonia is more in the direction of our destination (New Zealand) and closure to NZ and Aust if they do eventually need further medical attention (though New Caledonia is a very good hospital and would handle all but very server cases).

No word on the nature of the condition. I imagine the demographic of some cruise passengers age related emergencies aren't uncommon.

Again the captain has done a great job in keeping the ship updated and I suspect the free will do another amazing job later tonight getting the patient on the helicopter and to hospital asap.

I'm currently on Ovation of the Seas and about 6 hours out of Noumea (New Caledonia) sailing towards Vanuatu. About 10pm the captain informed the ship that it had turned around and was heading back to Noumea to perform an intercept with a rescue helicopter (The first you actually knew something was wrong was when the captain called for rapid response teams to man their stations and for group 3 & 4 to attend to x station). About an hour and a half later (roughly 11pm) the ship met up with the Helicopter who first dropped medical staff on board, circled the ship for about 15 minutes, landed again to pick up the patient and medical personal before heading back to Noumea.

Apparently a young boy hit his head rather badly on the Flowrider (stand up so must have been over 14) was unconscious for some time and had suffered server concussion (I imagine they would also be worried about neck and spinal injuries as well). With a serious concussion I imagine the on board medical staff would not want to take any risks and would want him in an ICU asap where they can monitor swelling and any possible bleeding etc (Being an ex paramedic that would certainly be what we would have called for if we were first on scene if that was the symptoms and backstory). Obviously the nature of the injury is 'ships rumor' as only the attending medical team would have all the facts etc

The captain kept the ship informed every 30 minutes and after the evacuation was completed thanks his staff and the New Caledonia authorities for a text book. This was obviously a well practiced scenario for the crew and from the outside it seemed the whole situation was handled very well. We have now turned around and on the way to Vanuatu at 21 kts (Captain apologized we'd be late.... I really don't care if we missed the port entirely if it meant the kid got the medical attention he needs... no apology needed at all!) 

My thoughts are with the teenager and his family and I hope the injury is not serious and after some observation he his fighting fit soon with few lingering concussion symptoms (Which from experience unfortunately can take months to dissipate).