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South Pacific 2019


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On 11/04/2017 at 1:34 PM, PocketsRN said:

Anyone have an idea when they're gonna be releasing the new South Pacific itineraries?  I figured they would've been included with the Australia dates last week, but they didn't. 

I;ve been checking my laptop hourly for the past week, haha. 

So far on the Australian site, they have added in the past week a Family Sale, an over-55s sale, and today a sale for Caribbean sailings.  But no new itineraries for the South Pacific. Anyday now...

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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...  

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On 19/04/2017 at 7:22 PM, EmersonNZ said:

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...  

As Matt mentioned above, the itineraries are still showing as TBD for 2018-19

https://loyaltoyoualways.com/Deployment/

Out of interest, the pic for the "Exotic" sailings looks like the Twelve Apostles on Victoria's Great Ocean Road. Could it be that RC is adding Victorian stops in 2018-19? Or even sailing out of Melbourne??

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On 20/04/2017 at 4:24 PM, EmersonNZ said:

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. 

Today on Facebook...

2018/19 Season Revealed

Our 2018-2019 Australasian season will see favourites Ovation of the Seas®, Explorer of the Seas® and Radiance of the Seas® return, offering a variety of itineraries sailing throughout Australia, New Zealand, the South Pacific, French Polynesia, Asia and North America.

Ovation of the Seas® returns for her biggest season yet offering even more opportunities to experience Australia’s newest, most imaginative holiday experience. Unfortunately we bid a fond farewell to Voyager of the Seas® as she will be redeployed to Asia for a year round season. In a first for us, we will offer one departure from Melbourne on Radiance of the Seas®, and even more departures in Auckland to both Melbourne and Sydney.

2018/2019 Season Cruises will go on sale 16 May.

So one sailing from Melbourne, plus several stops there.

And no more Voyager.

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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.

 

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On 27/04/2017 at 8:35 PM, EmersonNZ said:

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.

 

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

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I wish they would do one Auckland to Auckland via the South Pacfic on Explorer OTS. ATM only Radiance comes out of Auckland and even though Radiance is newer it feels more dated than Explorer. 

Actually I like to try different ships rather than go on the same ones each year so I wish they would swap Explorer for Mariner or Adventure (even though technically they are nearly the same as Voyager and Explorer). As itinaries are limited here I would like to see different ships to keep things fresh.  I guess I am in the minority because most people seem happy sailing on the same ships year after year. Oasis class are too big for Australia and NZ but I would like to see a Freedom class ship here in the next few years.

It is cool having a quantum class ship here but you certainly pay a premium cabin price for a near new ship compared to ships from the '00s

 

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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.

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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.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Their comment "manoeuvring their mega-ships around the world is a mighty task at times" doesn't quite make sense to me. They already announced what the itineraries for Australia / South Pacific would be and it seems it is pretty straight forward to get the ships to Australia from Singapore/China and Vancouver,

Also as they are taking bookings for all the other regions that know what ships they have available for this region.

I wonder if there are now back room negotiations to get Voyager back to Australia for 2018/19 season as the financial impact of having one less ship would be pretty significant for the tourism industry. I think it came as a bit of a shock to everyone when they pulled Voyager from the market and now the ports are scrambling to come up with a solution.

Time will tell I guess.

 

 

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11 hours ago, F1guynz said:

Their comment "manoeuvring their mega-ships around the world is a mighty task at times" doesn't quite make sense to me. They already announced what the itineraries for Australia / South Pacific would be and it seems it is pretty straight forward to get the ships to Australia from Singapore/China and Vancouver,

Also as they are taking bookings for all the other regions that know what ships they have available for this region.

I wonder if there are now back room negotiations to get Voyager back to Australia for 2018/19 season as the financial impact of having one less ship would be pretty significant for the tourism industry. I think it came as a bit of a shock to everyone when they pulled Voyager from the market and now the ports are scrambling to come up with a solution.

Time will tell I guess.

 

 

This was my thought too, though it would be a bit late in the day to re-arrange things I would've thought.

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13 hours ago, F1guynz said:

Their comment "manoeuvring their mega-ships around the world is a mighty task at times" doesn't quite make sense to me.

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.

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Maybe they were being humorous but ultimately I think that the release date delay is the result of last minute negotiating going on to return a fourth ship to the Australian market.

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. Currently P&O, Princess and Carnival all have ships here year round but I prefer RCI. People like to escape up to the Islands during winter because it gets so cold down here.

It is hard to describe but as RCI are only here between October and March if you want to do more than one cruise if feels like no sooner than you have flown to/from Sydney that you have to go back again for another cruise because the season feels so short. It would be nice to be able to cruise in June/July to spread things out a bit.

Looking forward to seeing the hopefully updated itineraries.

 

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I looked up the Sydney port schedules yesterday. The 2018/19 summer berths have now been updated to remove Voyager and place Explorer into the dates that were published a week or two ago.

Interestingly however, Voyager is still showing up in late 2019 and beyond. There's a number of ways this could be interpreted, but my guess is that the Port Authority is still negotiating for all 4 ships (Voyager, Radiance, Explorer and Ovation) to be based down under from 2019/20 on.

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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... :-) 

 

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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.

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From Facebook...

The wait is over! 2018/2019 new season sailings on sale next week...

Our new summer season cruises will go on sale next Tuesday, 30 May with favourites Ovation of the Seas, Radiance of the Seas and Explorer of the Seas all returning with a variety of fresh itineraries to destinations throughout Australia, New Zealand, the South Pacific, French Polynesia and Asia.

Make sure to mark it in your calendar! 2693.png

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51 minutes ago, KWofPerth said:

Thanks F1guynz. The sailings that I was eyeing off on Explorer are exactly the same as published a few weeks ago. Are you aware of any changes in the itineraries?

I have printed copies of the last ones at home. I will compare these to the latest ones tonight and see if there are any differences.

Looking forward to booking next week :1_grinning:

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2 minutes ago, F1guynz said:

I have printed copies of the last ones at home. I will compare these to the latest ones tonight and see if there are any differences.

Looking forward to booking next week :1_grinning:

I had a copy saved on my hard drive and just compared the two (too much time on my hands!!).  There are no changes. So one wonders what the delay was all about.

Ditto with booking next week! :5_smiley:

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We have booked a GS Explorer for March 2019 for 9 nights up to the Islands. We looked at Ovation which is doing the same cruise 2 weeks later but a GS cost $4000 more. Not good value for money in my opinion. We are on Ovation later this year but RCI charge such a premium for sailing on her I think it will be a one off.

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On 30/05/2017 at 7:12 PM, F1guynz said:

We have booked a GS Explorer for March 2019 for 9 nights up to the Islands. We looked at Ovation which is doing the same cruise 2 weeks later but a GS cost $4000 more. Not good value for money in my opinion. We are on Ovation later this year but RCI charge such a premium for sailing on her I think it will be a one off.

I agree that Ovation seems overpriced. Some of the feedback I've come across has not been glowing, either.

So personally, Explorer sailings hit the sweet spot. Booked an October 2018 trip out to New Caledonia in an interconnecting interior for my family, plus treated my oldies to a cabin nextdoor. So no Grand Suite for me :3_grin:

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1 hour ago, KWofPerth said:

I agree that Ovation seems overpriced. Some of the feedback I've come across has not been glowing, either.

You will pay a premium for a new ship. We see that here with Harmony of the Seas. Nature of the beast.

Also, I can find negative feedback on just about anything. Don't read into it.

I think the bottom line is if you want the latest and greatest (Ovation), then you will pay a higher price than for a ship that's been around the block a few times.

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10 hours ago, Matt said:

You will pay a premium for a new ship. We see that here with Harmony of the Seas. Nature of the beast.

How long does a ship have to be in service before it's no longer considered the "new shiny"? Quantum is 3 years old, Anthem 2, and Ovation is the baby at 1 year. I see that Anthem still has a definite premium on it, although I'm not sure if that's because it's the only RCI mega ship going to the Caribbean out of Cape Liberty or because it's still "young" relative to all the other ships (or a little of both).

And it seems like all of the Oasis class ships still carry a premium, with Harmony having the highest of the bunch.

I just find it odd that these ships carry such a high premium over their smaller, older sibling when you pay a price in the much more limited itineraries they offer. But, I'm still a total cruise noob, so maybe there's a reason that explains it that doesn't boil down to "capitalism".

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13 hours ago, JLMoran said:

How long does a ship have to be in service before it's no longer considered the "new shiny"? Quantum is 3 years old, Anthem 2, and Ovation is the baby at 1 year. I see that Anthem still has a definite premium on it, although I'm not sure if that's because it's the only RCI mega ship going to the Caribbean out of Cape Liberty or because it's still "young" relative to all the other ships (or a little of both).

And it seems like all of the Oasis class ships still carry a premium, with Harmony having the highest of the bunch.

I just find it odd that these ships carry such a high premium over their smaller, older sibling when you pay a price in the much more limited itineraries they offer. But, I'm still a total cruise noob, so maybe there's a reason that explains it that doesn't boil down to "capitalism".

I think when the ships are no longer the focal point of TV commercials.

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  • 2 months later...

Hi, there is a sale on the Australian and New Zealand website at the moment for the South Pacific. If you made a booking when the cruises initially came out it may pay to check the pricing of the current sale. I cancelled and rebooked yesterday and saved $300 NZD. This sale also has a reduced deposit.

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