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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.  

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30 minutes ago, CruisingOz said:

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.  

I believe it’s from the start of this year,cruise ships with a capacity of more that 3,500 (I don’t know if that’s passengers or all up ) are ban from French Polynesia full stop.

From what I believe Quantum class usually has about 4,500 passengers and about 1,000 crew.

So unless they reduce the capacity,I can’t see them being allowed to stop there.

 

https://cruisepassenger.com.au/news/french-polynesia-to-ban-mega-ships-from-calling-at-their-ports/

 

Here’s. another one.

 

 

https://www.cntraveler.com/story/as-more-ports-ban-mega-cruise-ships-what-is-the-future-of-the-largest-vessels

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On 3/19/2022 at 7:35 PM, CruisingOz said:

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. 

How are you going with the canceled Radiance cruises .

 I have a group which I booked through a agent and we are just totally devastated. All the planning for years,gone down the drain. 
We had a Serenade cruise to tassie booked 3 years ago it was moved to ovation,then Radiance and now trying to move it back to Ovation.

They where all suites but there next to nothing available .
 

The agent and RC are all pretty none respondent.

 

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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.    

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4 hours ago, CruisingOz said:

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.    

I think Marlon Brando Was right about dealing with Royal Caribbean.

 

 

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On 3/22/2022 at 7:15 PM, RJCruise said:

I believe that its a French Gov decision and the Quantum class too big for Isle of Pines and Lifou. Radiance was to go to these two islands in 2023 and from what I remember Voyager was ok there as well.

I’ve been trying to research that but couldn’t find anything.

Can you think where you heard it ? 

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Initially travel agent. Received an email from Royal regarding itinerary amendment back in Aug 2018 involving Lifou and Isle of Pines being removed from the ports of call on our Ovation cruise. I don't believe the Ovation has been to these ports since this time. The notification was possibly internal through Royal and cruise wholesalers etc but remember hearing similar comments onboard that cruise. Ovation now very limited in ports in South Pacific - Mystery Is, Vila and Noumea.

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1 hour ago, RJCruise said:

Initially travel agent. Received an email from Royal regarding itinerary amendment back in Aug 2018 involving Lifou and Isle of Pines being removed from the ports of call on our Ovation cruise. I don't believe the Ovation has been to these ports since this time. The notification was possibly internal through Royal and cruise wholesalers etc but remember hearing similar comments onboard that cruise. Ovation now very limited in ports in South Pacific - Mystery Is, Vila and Noumea.

Some of those islands where pretty overwhelmed,Mare used to hire a lot of private vans to shuttle passengers.

What you say does add up ,the big ships aren’t calling into there anymore.

Its interesting that voyager is still allowed. There’s rumours that voyager has be swapped in the Baltic for serenade.

 I think I would prefer Voyager to enchantment next season  if it happens.

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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.        

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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.

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1 hour ago, CruisingOz said:

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.        

It even seemed crowded when we went there on Pacific Dawn in 2010. 

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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.

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On 4/1/2022 at 3:10 AM, CruisingOz said:

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.

I’ve been thinking of a cruise on spectrum out of Singapore around July .

But it has a 3 months absence from Singapore in July,August,September and most of October.

Any ideas where it goes?

 

F442E6DF-CCBE-4FCB-A6E2-CDC99FB73837.thumb.png.e66f990db1bb0a5df475f83f8c5cffe0.png

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11 hours ago, Chili said:

I’ve been thinking of a cruise on spectrum out of Singapore around July .?

 

Same, now the entry requirements into Singapore and returning have been relaxed it's possibly worthwhile now.

Although be careful on itinerary.. Royal are being pretty dodgy and selling cruises that aren't even possible. Thailand have not approved ships to enter their country as of yet.

Sorry, I'm dark on them at the moment. Royal customer service is terrible. Trying to get a deposit back from October. Keep telling me to wait 45 days, call back after 45 days, nothing done about it, they escalate to supervisor which then takes another 45 days, wait 45 days, repeat all over again. Useless! Will take your money in an instant but when it comes to giving it back.. no one at that company knows what TF they are doing.

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48 minutes ago, mattymay said:

Same, now the entry requirements into Singapore and returning have been relaxed it's possibly worthwhile now.

Although be careful on itinerary.. Royal are being pretty dodgy and selling cruises that aren't even possible. Thailand have not approved ships to enter their country as of yet.

Sorry, I'm dark on them at the moment. Royal customer service is terrible. Trying to get a deposit back from October. Keep telling me to wait 45 days, call back after 45 days, nothing done about it, they escalate to supervisor which then takes another 45 days, wait 45 days, repeat all over again. Useless! Will take your money in an instant but when it comes to giving it back.. no one at that company knows what TF they are doing.

Don’t feel guilty about being dirty on RC .The way they pulled radiance out of Oz. There hasn’t been any announcement and no one I know has received a email from RC yet.

Only After reading about it on here and Cruise Critic ,I called my agent.
And then the fun continues 
Plus we are still get cruise planner emails for canceled cruises.

 

You are right about their smoke and mirrors,they are selling Shanghai from July to October. No one in their right mind will send a ship to Shanghai.

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21 minutes ago, CruisingOz said:

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

Yeah, saw that as well.

@ChiliIs there an official answer on if Australians are now allowed on Singapore based cruises? I think at one stage they said yes, but then stopped it when Omicron came about.

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1 hour ago, mattymay said:

Yeah, saw that as well.

@ChiliIs there an official answer on if Australians are now allowed on Singapore based cruises? I think at one stage they said yes, but then stopped it when Omicron came about.

I don’t know to be honest, I believe foreign passport holders where going to be allowed to cruise out of Singapore.

Its strange how there are no ships of any brand in Singapore from July to October 

 

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1 hour ago, KWofPerth said:

Foreigners are allowed in. So if cruises resume I don't see why not.

Governments like Canada and the United States place entirely different health protocols on cruise ships so I didn't want to assume that Australia wouldn't follow this trend.  

At one point Australia blamed US citizens arriving by air and sailing on Ruby as the source of all CV in Australia.  With that blame game legacy going on I could see Australia not wanting foreigners sailing on cruise ships for the restart. 

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1 hour ago, twangster said:

Governments like Canada and the United States place entirely different health protocols on cruise ships so I didn't want to assume that Australia wouldn't follow this trend.  

At one point Australia blamed US citizens arriving by air and sailing on Ruby as the source of all CV in Australia.  With that blame game legacy going on I could see Australia not wanting foreigners sailing on cruise ships for the restart. 

That’s a good question and you are right about them blaming U.S. air crew and visitors.

Anything is possible with the clowns running this place.

 I would still like to know the reason for Royal pulling Radiance out . There was not announcement or reason just a new advertising campaign of
WOW 2 Quantum class.

 

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7 minutes ago, Chili said:

That’s a good question and you are right about them blaming U.S. air crew and visitors.

Anything is possible with the clowns running this place.

 I would still like to know the reason for Royal pulling Radiance out . There was not announcement or reason just a new advertising campaign of
WOW 2 Quantum class.

 

Radiance is a head scratcher.  She always sold well down under while ships in NOLA and Galveston often have deep discounts to fill interior and OV cabins.  

I can only assume they felt two Q class was saturating the market or they felt uneasy committing more berths to Oz until they experienced what it will be like with the restart protocols there.  

Maybe with some South Pacific islands still closed there wasn't enough route diversity to sustain another ship.  

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2 hours ago, Chili said:

 I would still like to know the reason for Royal pulling Radiance out . There was not announcement or reason just a new advertising campaign of
WOW 2 Quantum class.

 

What is demand like right now in Australia?  

It isn' just Royal that has pulled a ship out of Australia, for the October 2022 - April 20023 season, Carnival has done the same they are only sending the Splendor back to Australia for the time frame mentioned, while the second ship that was home-ported in Sydney will go to Jacksonville Florida.  And they still haven't announced what if any ship will replace Carnival Spirit in Australia. At least Royal has announced Enchantment will go to Australia in 2023.  Granted Enchantment is not Radiance but I'm thinking the reason they pulled Radiance for the 2022/2023 season is because they are not yet seeing the vigorous return of demand that they've seen here in the U.S. and/or even in Europe.

For the European summer season late April 2022 - October 2022 Royal will have 10 ships sailing from various homeports all throughout Europe. If the demand is there Royal finds a way to put the ships there if they are pulling a ship out it has to be a sign that perhaps the Australian/New Zealand market needs more time and less ships while demand slowly returns.

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Radiance was pretty heavily booked just before they canceled it .
The week before some friends asked about going on 2 of the cruises we where on and I had a look at what cabins there where. No suites and only about 40 balconies.
May be our government was going to put restrictions on the ships and RC didn’t want to have to much exposure to risk.

Maybe Radiance didn’t have the medical facilities?


 Having Ovation and Radiance float around for 6 months must have hurt.
 

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4 hours ago, JasonOasis said:

What is demand like right now in Australia?  

It isn' just Royal that has pulled a ship out of Australia, for the October 2022 - April 20023 season, Carnival has done the same they are only sending the Splendor back to Australia for the time frame mentioned, while the second ship that was home-ported in Sydney will go to Jacksonville Florida.  And they still haven't announced what if any ship will replace Carnival Spirit in Australia. At least Royal has announced Enchantment will go to Australia in 2023.  Granted Enchantment is not Radiance but I'm thinking the reason they pulled Radiance for the 2022/2023 season is because they are not yet seeing the vigorous return of demand that they've seen here in the U.S. and/or even in Europe.

For the European summer season late April 2022 - October 2022 Royal will have 10 ships sailing from various homeports all throughout Europe. If the demand is there Royal finds a way to put the ships there if they are pulling a ship out it has to be a sign that perhaps the Australian/New Zealand market needs more time and less ships while demand slowly returns.

Carnival pulled the ships when there was still no clear path to a restart. I am guessing Royal made the same plans but didn't announce it at the time. They've waited until after the restart was announced which has some people confused as to why pull out when a restart is near, but I am guessing these plans were already well underway behind the scenes.

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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

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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. 

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15 hours ago, mattymay said:

Carnival pulled the ships when there was still no clear path to a restart. I am guessing Royal made the same plans but didn't announce it at the time. They've waited until after the restart was announced which has some people confused as to why pull out when a restart is near, but I am guessing these plans were already well underway behind the scenes.

You are right Royal did wait until just after the announce that cruise would be allowed to resume, which has me thinking Royal had both a plan A and a plan B for Radiance. It would appear as though the New Orleans and Galveston redeployment was plan B, and perhaps the only reason they pulled Radiance is because they were not seeing the sales numbers they needed to see to justify sending 3 ships to Australia and felt like they had given the situation as much time as they could. This is why I asked what is demand like in Australia because here in the U.S. even before our government allowed cruising to resume demand for cruising was up.  In fact some ships were "sold out" thanks to capacity restrictions even before cruising resumed. You had all three major cruise lines Royal, Carnival and NCL all stating future bookings were up, traffic on their individual websites was up in some cases over 100%, first time customer booking were up all before cruising resumed in the U.S.. 

To cancel an entire season on a ship that is already open for sale isn't a decision I think they made lightly especially just to send that ship to New Orleans on new itineraries not yet for sale.  I think the financials/demand drove Royals decision, they must believe or have hard data that suggests Radiance will generate more demand which in turn should generate more revenue for Royal sailing out of New Orleans than it would sailing out of Australia.

I certainly hope they send Radiance back to Australia in the near future but for now it appears as though Enchantment will replace her for the 2023/2024 season.

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On 4/4/2022 at 9:00 AM, mattymay said:

Carnival pulled the ships when there was still no clear path to a restart. I am guessing Royal made the same plans but didn't announce it at the time. They've waited until after the restart was announced which has some people confused as to why pull out when a restart is near, but I am guessing these plans were already well underway behind the scenes.

I emailed our friend at RC in Sydney, I won’t name him but I hope you know who I’m talking about.

I asked about Spectrum coming to Sydney instead of Shanghai from July to October.

He said   noumea , vanuatu and NZ are closed to cruise ships. Until these ports are open Australia is not a viable market for our ships.
The size of our ships and the ports that can be accessed without these ports in operation would make it unworkable.

So I understand why they pulled Radiance out and it sounds like the coming season is in jeopardy if NZ and the islands aren’t open.

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8 hours ago, Chili said:

I emailed our friend at RC in Sydney, I won’t name him but I hope you know who I’m talking about.

I asked about Spectrum coming to Sydney instead of Shanghai from July to October.

He said   noumea , vanuatu and NZ are closed to cruise ships. Until these ports are open Australia is not a viable market for our ships.
The size of our ships and the ports that can be accessed without these ports in operation would make it unworkable.

So I understand why they pulled Radiance out and it sounds like the coming season is in jeopardy if NZ and the islands aren’t open.

I see P&O have now changed their first South Pacific itinerary to a Great Barrier Reef sailing. 

NZ should be fine by October, not sure about the islands.

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1 hour ago, mattymay said:

I see P&O have now changed their first South Pacific itinerary to a Great Barrier Reef sailing. 

NZ should be fine by October, not sure about the islands.

Here’s the current vaccination rates.
NZ is getting there ,about 80% but the islands won’t be open unless something drastic happens in the next 5 months.

My guess is if the islands aren’t open as most of Quantum’s cruises go there.Quantum will probably go to Singapore for the season.

Ovation could be floating of the US west coast again???

Now we know why Radiance was redeployed.

 

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New Caledonia (Noumea and surrounding islands) are open to tourist who are double vaccinated and who had a PCR prior to boarding the plane. So cruising from Sydney will most likely be only for the fully vaccinated and covid test prior to boarding the ship. This should mean that we can cruise there. Vanuatu may be a possible issue. Still five months and a lot can change. 

Sherpa New Caledonia 

https://apply.joinsherpa.com/travel-restrictions/NCL?originCountry=AUS&nationality=USA&departureDate=2022-04-06&returnDate=2022-04-13&tripType=roundTrip&transitType=noTransit&fullyVaccinated=true&language=en-US  

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