Ovation vs Radiance - Australia and New Zealand

[joshgates]

A cruise to me has always meant the Bahamas/Caribbean and I haven't strayed from that...yet.  Don't know if it's the lack of travel for the last year or just my changing tastes but when I'm looking through options for 2022 I'm more drawn to itineraries that I'd usually save for land trips (Mediterranean, Alaska, Australia, etc).

I came across two sailings in December 2022 that looked interesting, both are 12 days out of Sydney to New Zealand with almost the same ports, one on the Ovation and the other on the Radiance.  The Ovation has the edge in my mind right now, better dining, more options on sea days, and it's over both Christmas and New Years.

Is there any compelling reason, other than cost, that would make the Radiance more appealing for Australia/New Zealand than the Ovation? Anyone have experience with these sailings or holiday sailings out of Australia in general?

[steverk]

I was on Radiance back in 2006.  It is a smaller ship, but what it had was very nice.  We enjoyed ourselves tremendously.

As far as Australia/New Zealand, I booked a 12 night Auckland to Sydney cruise for November 2020 on Celebrity Solstice. Alas, it was cancelled, but my research told me the following:

1. Celebrity's pricing is competitive with Royal, so there's no price reason to restrict yourself to Royal.
2. The more I investigated the two countries, the more I realized that New Zealand is more interesting for me than Australia.  With that in mind, I'd go out of my way to book a cruise that begins and/or ends in New Zealand so I can extend the stay.

Not a lot of solid info, but I hope it helps.

[SpeedNoodles]

Radiance should be able to get into smaller ports than Ovation - it looks like they do have some different stops.  Personally I think the views from the public spaces of Radiance class ships are far better than from Ovation (I've been on both - I thought Ovation just wasn't great for a scenic destination).  My opinion only, obviously.

[KristiZ]

I would pick Radiance hands down (we were on her fairly recently for a South Pacific trip) EXCEPT for your comment about Christmas and New Years -- I love love love those holidays on a cruise. So that would be the decider for me  

[joshgates]

1 hour ago, steverk said:

I was on Radiance back in 2006.  It is a smaller ship, but what it had was very nice.  We enjoyed ourselves tremendously.

As far as Australia/New Zealand, I booked a 12 night Auckland to Sydney cruise for November 2020 on Celebrity Solstice. Alas, it was cancelled, but my research told me the following:

1. Celebrity's pricing is competitive with Royal, so there's no price reason to restrict yourself to Royal.
2. The more I investigated the two countries, the more I realized that New Zealand is more interesting for me than Australia.  With that in mind, I'd go out of my way to book a cruise that begins and/or ends in New Zealand so I can extend the stay.

Not a lot of solid info, but I hope it helps.

That's a great point, I hadn't thought to check out Celebrity too, I'll do that.  NZ is the country I'm more interested in seeing, but I'm going to use this trip as an excuse to see some old friends in Australia I haven't seen in ages, I'll have to be ok with just having all the port stops being in NZ  

59 minutes ago, SpeedNoodles said:

Radiance should be able to get into smaller ports than Ovation - it looks like they do have some different stops.  Personally I think the views from the public spaces of Radiance class ships are far better than from Ovation (I've been on both - I thought Ovation just wasn't great for a scenic destination).  My opinion only, obviously.

 

51 minutes ago, KristiZ said:

I would pick Radiance hands down (we were on her fairly recently for a South Pacific trip) EXCEPT for your comment about Christmas and New Years -- I love love love those holidays on a cruise. So that would be the decider for me  

I thought it'd be an easy decision when I saw them, but I've been wanting to try a Radiance class ship and being more attracted to the smaller ships lately... Ovation wins for the Christmas/New Years part though.  Course I could do the South Pacific one on the Radiance over Christmas and just plan on NZ later.  Or Ovation now and plan on something later.  So many trips I want to do, only so much PTO a year... 

[Vanessa77]

I went on a holiday sailing from Sydney in 2019. It was nice but we had a port day on Christmas Day so it was strange to be out doing things rather than sitting around and eating way too much (not that we didn’t over eat). There was less festivities going on on the day, however again I think this was probably due to being in port. They had themed drinks, presents from Santa, lovely decorations, and some singing, and a Christmas show from what I remember. My mum loved it because she usually does the bulk of the work on Christmas Day and everything was taken care of for her which was great. We also had a large party of 11, and the dining room was great even with so many of us. 
 

In terms of ships, I’m booked on Ovation for NZ in January so can’t give you advice until then . However I can tell you why I picked Ovation? It’s a long sailing, and I wanted variety of dining. I very much enjoy the MDR, but ovation has 5 additional places for dinner, and heaps of snack/small meal options my last cruise on voyager had very few free dining options and it got quite repetitive and slow for a very full longer cruise. Shows; unfortunately I was a bit disappointed with the theater shows on voyager, only liked one of the ice shows and 1 of the comedians. I’ve heard good things about the shows on Ovation and am particularly looking forward to the 270 shows. The solarium on ovation looks amazing also with the sweeping forward views. 
hope this helps!