EmersonNZ

Latest update is that ti was a crew member who was injured: http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/88786622/woman-seriously-injured-after-traumatic-event-on-cruise-ship

 

Apparently it is a lower back fracture which occurred during her normal duties... The medical team who were winched to the ship provided medial attention, stabilized the women before winching her back on the helicopter and flew her to Wellington Hospital. Good news is she is reported in at stabled condition.

Local newsites in New Zealand are reporting a women suffered serious spinal injuries on Legend on the Seas yesterday. She was airlifted off the ship at 12:30am using night vision goggles approximately 32km south west of Wellington by rescue helicopter (Wellington is the Capital of New Zealand and a regualr stop by cruise ships).

 

For more information: http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/88786622/woman-seriously-injured-after-traumatic-event-on-cruise-ship

Thanks all.... I needed that!  :)

I think I've made the ultimate mistake... I just read Cruise Critic reviews on the Ovation of the Seas.

 

To say the reviews are poor... well it would be an understatement. I read the last 20 reviews and I'd say 2 were positive. There seemed to be complaints about lines, poor customers service, disorganized and overwhelmed staff and poor food.

 

Have other people read Cruise Critic and then found that there experienced differed or are we seeing a ship that is truly overwhelmed and not ready for the western market?

 

Just compared it to Voyager of the Seas also sailing out of Sydney any it is getting much much better reviews...

 

Help me Royal Carribeanblog forum... your my only hope....

/*begin speculation*/

 

I'm with monorailmedia, I'm guessing you will probably end up with the 'Surf & stream' package. I can't imagine it would be worthwhile to keep a separate internet  network profile in place when you aren't actually selling that package anymore (Not to mention it'll keep everything from training guest relations staff to printed instructions for guest easier to manage etc)..

 

/*end speculation*/

Has anyone taken part in the Flow Rider lessons? I was thinking of booking in for a session on our cruise later in the month. Roughly how long is each session and do you think it was worth while ( I normally value my time over money so if it means getting  a few rides in without long waits it'd probably be worth it for me).

 

Any information or thoughts would be appreciated.

 

Interesting... I wonder why only Ovation....

I didn't end up making it out to see Ovaiton yesterday but ti seems she made quite the impression. Apparently there were traffic jams out to the port to get a view of her coming in (We never get traffic jams in Dunedin!).

 

It also sounds like it was rather challenging coming into dock (IT was very windy and wet) puit the ship handled it well and the pilots and captain were happy with how it went. https://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/challenging-harbour-entry-huge-liner and https://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/bold-cruise-passengers-leave-comfort-zone

 

It was in Picton yesterday and again got a nice write up from the local paper: http://www.stuff.co.nz/travel/cruising/87947024/cruise-ship-ovation-of-the-seas-visits-picton

 

Only 24 days until we are on board  :D

Sorry to hear her first visit is cancelled. If/when she does arrive, do you have plans to see her?

Sure do. I'm hoping to time a visit to the port so O can take some photos of her leaving (If I do I'll post them). I believe she is due in port twice more this coming cruise season so hopefully we manage to see her.

We were supposed it get our first visit from Ovation of the Seas in Dunedin on Thursday but it looks like it'll will forgo Dunedin due to weather (which is interesting as the forecast is brilliant and Radiance of the Seas is still scheduled in port that day. I guess it must be along its rout to Dunedin etc).

 

 

We were really looking forward to seeing ti as we are sailing on her late Jan... I believe it might eb in port a couple of times before then so we will still get a chance I guess.

The boats they are racing in the America's Cup (Or as we like to call it 'The New Zealand Cup' :P ) are amazing this eyar. I got the change to see one from a chase boat and WOW!!!! They are as much plane as they are boat/ 

The Quantum class (Ovation) already sail out of Australia and their are many ports in New Zealand, Australia and the pacific that could handle an Oasis ship. If an Oasis class is to come to Australasia/Pacific I imagine it'll be for the summer season and probably see the Ovation concentrate on Australia/Pacific Cruises and Oasis 4 Sydney/New Zealand cruises (Which seems to eb the most popular for the Ovation at the moment). 

 

Cruising is certainly gaining popularity in this part of the world though I am a little skeptical if we could support a Oasis and Quantum class... still... 5 years ago I would have doubt we would have supported a Quantum class and in that time cruise ship visits have quadrupled around New Zealand.

Ovation of the Seas has docked in Sydney to start her Australasian summer sailing schedule.

 

In New Zealand we don't here too much about Royak Caribbean but it made the front of one of the most popular local news sties today: http://www.stuff.co.nz/travel/cruising/87603446/ovation-of-the-seas-the-biggest-cruise-ship-based-in-australia-arrives-in-sydney

 

Most of it's sailing will be departing Sydney and basically touring around New Zealand (including my home 'port' of Dunedin) with a few cruises around Australia and other doing the pacific. 

 

And the best part... only 44 days until Keryn and I are on board her for our 12 night South Pacific cruise!!!!!

1. Why did you consider looking at another cruise line after cruising with DCL?

 

For me it is 2 fold

(a) Disney sails mainly from the US and the east coast at that,m From New Zealand that adds a lot of extra travel just to head on a cruise when there are some amazing destinations in the pacific and Asia on our doorstep. RCCL (and many others) sail out of Australia, about 3 hours flight from here vs 28 hours to Orlando,

 

(b) Price. In some ways that si related to above (airfare difference) but also even take that out of the equation DCL is about 50-75% (or more on sale) more expensive than RCCL. While I really liked DCL I can't believe that it is worth the difference to me when the difference seems very small (if it exists at all).

 

2. Why did you consider RCCL?

 

The perfect cross section of cost, service, amenities and destinations

 

3. What keeps you coming back to RCCL instead of DCL?

 

I actually think we will sail DCL again, it might just not be as often as we sail RCCL. 

 

We've actually been to Walt Disney World and/or Disneyland about 7 times in the last 10 years which when you consider the distance would make us a regular. We are now questioning when the next time we we head to WDW as we feel the price v service no longer adds up for us as it did especially when there are so many great places around the world we would like to head back to. This doesn't mean we won't 'do Disney'' it just means it may be once every 5 years instead of our usual every year or every other.

I see the same thing even though I booked through Royal Caribbean Australia... seems like whoever wrote that clause forgot about the other 99% of the world....

Loving your trip report :-)

Yep... it seems the rule of thump is... there is no rule of thump.

 

Our specialty dining option opened up at about the 180 mark for Ovation sailing out of Sydney at the end of Jan.

I had the Ultimate Packaged booked for my lovely wife and after reading the blog post regarding the new packages went over to the cruise planner to check them out. Turns out that for our 12 night cruise the Deluxe Drinks Package is about NZ$50 ($35USD) cheaper.... every bit helps (Though I think the Non Alcoholic package might be a little more expensive... 

 

It might be worth checking your own package to see if you can make a saving (or they may have just repriced the NZ$ against the US$ since we have been gaining against the US$ in the last few months...). 

We were torn on purchasing the drinks package or not. In the end I got the Ultimate Package for my wife and I will probably end up getting the Royal Replenisher Package (I really don't drink that much alcohol so makes little sense for me). We are not 100% sure we will 'make our money' on it but we thought we would give it a go for our fist RCCL cruise and keep a tally etc and see how it worked out.

 

One advantage of the package is its is likely to encourage us to do is try something new.... Even though we could probably save money by putting money aside until the cruise and then just putting that on our account the reality is mentally we probably wouldn't take a 'risk' on something new knowing we had to pay later... since it is already paid for though there is no risk (Yes I know it is a head game.... but I swear I've been tested and am relatively normal... at least that is what my wife told me and she's got a PhD in Psychology... either that or I am the live in experiment). 

I'm seeing the same thing Breezy for our Ovation sailing in Jan (12 night Pacific/NZ). The 'for fee' restaurants just came on the cruise calendar to book but not the complimentary ones. It'll be interesting to see fi they come available closure to departure. It'd be a nightmare having to book them on board.

Well I just made my first ever dinning reservations for a RCCL. I was rather surprised to see that dinning reservations had opened up for the 'for fee' restaurants for our Ovation (out of Sydney, Pacific/NZ 12 nights) Jane 28th cruise (178 days away) when I logged on to the cruise planner today.

 

Day 2 - Wonderland

Day 4 - Chops Grill 

Day 6 - Jamies Italian 

Day 8 - Izumi

Day 11 - Chef's Table

 

So... have I made a grave mistake? What are your favorites. Since it is such a long cruise I thought it'd be nice to try each of the signature restaurants. Have I over done it? This still gives us plenty of nights to try the complimentary restaurants and if we like one of the signatures even time to do a redo.   

 

I was surprise that they were open to book so early though the complimentary ones weren't open for bookings as yet (Didn't even appear on the cruise calendar.

 

 

 

My wife and I are considering the Sydney to Seattle cruise in the next few year (we have a 2017 and 2018 cruise booked so maybe a 2019). Living in New Zealand it's nice and easy to pop over to Sydney and the idea of a couple of weeks of a ship visiting some pacific islands, Hawaii and then ending up in Seattle sounds spectacular. Who knows... we might add an Alaska cruise on the end of the transpacific cruise (I KNOW we'll spend some time in Disneyland... I'm not going that far without hitting a Disney Park).

L454S has it in one. 'Close Circuit' in this case means that instead of receiving 'Open' broadcasts you get the internal 'Closed' circuit TV provided by the ships internal system. The reality is of course they actually receive (where possible) external channels as well and then rebroadcast these on their closed circuit.

 

Normally when we think of CCTV we think of monitoring systems of some sort. This of course is a closed circuit as it is sending the signal to only to receivers/recorders connected to the 'closed' circuit but of course there is no reason the transmitting device has to be a camera(s) and like this case is actually the ships broadcast system originating the content to the closed circuit and the TVs connected to that circuit.

We just booked a 2 device package for our Jan Ovation trip (We'll share logins as between the 2 of us we normally have 5 or 6 devices).

Actually I hope they do look at localising pricing a bit more. It makes no sense I can pay 4/5 the price for a can of coke in port in NZ than on board the ship even if they were both $2.00 ($2.00 NZ v $2.00 US).

 

Not too sure if this is a reaction to the Pound dropping (Or as I now call it the European Peso. Making a decison to change the policy would likely take days if not weeks to get through management and I would be guessing they would rather at least take a watching brief for a few days before making a decision which could actually cost a lot of money to implement. What wouldn't have surprised me is if there were a lot of drink specials for sailing out of the UK and maybe a new sale by the end of the week.