Australia/NZ Cruising News

[Chili]

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.

[mattymay]

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.

[Chili]

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 

 

[twangster]

Do we know if foreigners will be allowed to sail from Australia in 2022 yet?  

[KWofPerth]

1 hour ago, twangster said:

Do we know if foreigners will be allowed to sail from Australia in 2022 yet?  

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

[mattymay]

1 hour ago, twangster said:

Do we know if foreigners will be allowed to sail from Australia in 2022 yet?  

I'm guessing it's a yes if you can arrive by boat

if you can arrive by boat

 

[twangster]

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. 

[Chili]

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.

 

[twangster]

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.  

[JasonOasis]

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.

[Chili]

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.
 

[mattymay]

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.

[CruisingOz]

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

[CruisingOz]

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. 

[JasonOasis]

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.

[Chili]

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.

[mattymay]

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.

[Chili]

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.

 

[CruisingOz]

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  

[Chili]

Noumea is closed to cruise ships.

https://www.newcaledonia.travel/au/coronavirus

 

[CruisingOz]

20 minutes ago, Chili said:

Noumea is closed to cruise ships.

Yes, for now. Five months is a long time, so let's see. Noumea was the last port to close down just prior to the cruise shutdwn and so maybe the first to open up?

[Chili]

On 4/3/2022 at 7:50 PM, 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.

Just released,as of 11th April and spectrum is deployed from July to October.

https://www.royalcaribbean.com/sgp/en/cruise-ships/itinerary-updates?country=SGP

 

[mattymay]

Yeah, just got the email

 

[Chili]

1 hour ago, mattymay said:

Yeah, just got the email

 

Looking good baby,looking good.

 I’m 60 in July and I don’t want to be in Sydney.

A question,can you do back to back?

[CruisingOz]

Yes, I believe so. Royal will provide the required test. Review the Q&A YouTube video from the Singapore Cruise Society as I believe they mentioned it. In the US they did it for all the B2B and S2S cruises