Hundreds of cruisers are asking for a wider variety of cruise itineraries with new Aussie destinations to halt the rise of fly cruise.
After Cruise Passenger published a story last week involving agents and cruise passengers calling for new cruise destinations, the response was huge.
Since Covid, cruise lines returned with itineraries only slightly changed from before the break. However, rather than a trend back towards attracting regulars with fresh destinations, the industry has been seeing the opposite.
Cruise lines are running next-to-no cruises out to Asia, there’s a smaller variety of South Pacific ports on offer, regional Australian is seeing less port calls, and cruising is become centralised to just Sydney and Brisbane.
Especially affected are longterm cruisers, who have remained loyal to the industry and their cruise lines. However, these cruisers are seeing less and less value in their favourite holiday, as they tire of visiting the same destinations over and over again.
Cruisers even joke amongst themselves about “how many times do we have to go Noumea?”, due to how common it has become to visit Noumea once or even twice during a cruise, despite it not being a guest-favourite destination.
As reported by Cruise Passenger, many Aussie’s are instead looking overseas for their next cruises, seeking more variety.
What are cruisers saying?
Experienced traveller Liz Sier is one of the cruisers ready to start looking overseas as she feels fatigue to current itineraries.
“Having toured most of Australia by car and flights over many years, I find very little to excite me about cruising to the same places all over again. Nevertheless we have cruised out of Melbourne, Sydney and Adelaide, visiting much of the East coast and south-eastern Australia.
“Cruises out of Melbourne are now reduced by higher port charges. Cruises to NZ are also lacking in a variety of ports. We’ve already spent time touring the South Island and very few cruises do much in the North. We find ourselves obliged to head overseas in order to have new experiences.”
Cruisers like Paul McLaren feel let down that cruise lines aren’t looking after their repeat customers.
“Definitely we need some different places to travel to, and cruise companies know a lot of their passengers are repeat customers, but do nothing to keep us stimulated with new destinations.”
Cruisers like Robert Caddow see the value in smaller regional ports, and wonder why they’re underutilised.
“This is very true we have done a sailing that left Brisbane and stopped at Newcastle then Wollongong Sydney and back to Brisbane.
“Both Newcastle and Wollongong were great stops, just think how great a east coast sailing from top to bottom would be.”
Cruiser Jill wants to see more cruises out to Asia.
“I agree totally with the previous comments, Australians need variety, I love NZ but how many NZ cruises can you do?
“Return cruises to Singapore and Asia would be wonderful.”
Another Cheryl is calling on stakeholders like Royal Caribbean and the Australian Government to put in the work to ensure newer and more exciting itineraries.
“I too would like to see cruise ships offer new itineraries. Places like New Guinea, Samoa, Cook Islands would be a change from the boring south Pacific staples cruise ships seem glued to.
“Unless you fly to Singapore you don’t get the chance to visit the indonesian islands like Bali Lombok and so on. This is a call for Royal Caribbean to step up and add to their itineraries.
“Unfortunately the Australian Government is too greedy with port charges and taxes which prevents travellers from visiting ports within Australia particularly in Western Australia. An overseas cruise costs less than visiting Australian ports in Western Australia from Sydney.”
Adriana has been cruising for 30 years, and high prices and lack of destination variety mean that cruising just isn’t cutting it.
“After 30yrs cruising the South Pacific, NZ and even as far as Singapore and Japan we’d love to see a wider range of ports to visit as the ones currently offered have been visited so many times I think we know more about the ports of call than the excursion offices aboard the ships.
“Cruising continues to be so expensive for Aussies compared to the US and European markets – why? Add the cost of flights and it puts a huge financial strain for some to enjoy this form of travel. Should we be looking for better prices?”
They could easily add a lot of new ports if they did fly/cruise deals out of Cairns, Darwin and Fiji. After a short and fairly inexpensive flight to get to the ship in any of these 3 locations the ship could get to a lot of new ports quickly and cheaply so people could do 1-2 week cruises to Indonesia, PNG, Solomon Islands, Samoa, American Samoa, Cook Islands, Niue, Tonga and more as it would cut out the 2-3 days at sea it takes to get there and back from Sydney or Brisbane. Also, longer 3-4 week cruises from Darwin could take in the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Cambodia &/or Brunei. Great for all of those bored with going to New Caledonia and Vanuatu over and over again.
Australian cruise passengers should be asking why the itineraries are restricted to certain ports. Once this question is answered, they will understand. Could it be something to do with port capacity (i.e. ship size, tonnage, draught etc.), or port taxes (just like the airports, ports also have charges), or pilots not skilled in maneuvering cruise ships? That the infrastructure has limitations (i.e. tour operators for on-shore experiences, transport, wharf size, garbage disposal, water supply, taxis, fuel supply etc.), or perhaps the town/city just can’t accommodate a barrage of 2,500-6,000 people and crew in one day in its one and only bakery? And, why many cruise lines don’t have shorter itineraries where guests can embark or debark at ports other than Sydney or Brisbane.
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Very disappointed in Royal Caribbean for suggesting we can’t fill Quantum and Ovation out of Brisbane and Sydney ( now lost to the Chinese market in return for 2 smaller ships) when all they had to do was vary the destinations. Quantum had endless trips to the South Pacific while Ovation had endless NZ. If they just gave the Queenslanders more southern variations and the southerners more northern destinations, the ships would have been full every cruise. I realise that fuel costs play a part but so do empty ships or even 1000 empty rooms. Just please give us some variety to create the interest. If Quantum could go twice a year to NZ or Hobart then why couldn’t it go monthly? Could Ovation not travel north to Fiji or Samoa?
I agree it is very limited of Cruise ports I have done 38 cruises and have had to do repeate cruises as its getting harder as im sick of the same repeated locations I’d like to explore more of Australian ports and not have to go out of my own Country please get more out of Sydney to new destinations and prices are increasing and servicing on ships are decreasing,we need cheaper prices for Sole Cruises as its crazy what we have to pay im 89 and desperately wanting to go on another Cruise my times running out
We have been cruising since 1996 on various cruise lines.
Reason for ships not using smaller harbours is they’re too big!
Reason why costs are so high is because Tipping/Gratutoes are illegal in Oz so this cost is built into the total cruise prices.
People complaining about not getting fres Towels morning and night, do they do this at home? No, so Why expect it on the ship?
Bigger Ships carry more people so running costs are kept down !
However Carnival who own several Cruise Lines in my opinion are Greedy and don’t look after their staff, so people are now leaving this employer.
Who can blame them?
We are now encountering the same problem of no new destinations and All Inclusive is causing a problem with heavy drinkers being Rowdy and Rude.
The drop in Attire for special occasions is so bad people think they can turn up in Vest Tops, we even came across someone on Queen Victoria wearing a Puffer Jacket in the Dinning Room on a Formal Night!
Well it did say a Jacket was required!
I’m not a snob, a retired HGV Driver but I know how to behave! Sadly some people don’t think others are on Holiday as well.
Best Wishes and Carry on Cruising!
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Should add Samoa American Samoa Tonga Cook Islands
Guam etc
Not to state the obvious, but there are reasons why ports are limited in Australia. In fact Cruisepassenger published an article about this a few weeks ago.
Basically, most ports are too far away. Sydney to Singapore is at least two weeks (note: Carnival Splendour is headed from Sydney to Singapore July 21-August 5, 2024; then Singapore to Sydney August 24-September 9, 2024). It takes almost two weeks up to Japan (then 2 weeks back)
New Caledonia and Vanuatu are only 2-3 days (each way) from Sydney or Brisbane. Fiji is further. Going to Tonga, Samoa or Tahiti adds at least a week each way, which is why those ports are best accessed during repositioning cruises (trans-Pacific) in the spring or fall.
I just got back from cruising in Japan. Japan is a great cruise destination because the distance between ports is very short, so you can see many different places. This is similar to the Caribbean and Mediterranean. In Australia, it takes several days just between Sydney and Brisbane, or Adelaide and Perth.
And not enough people want those itineraries to fill a 4000-6000 guest ship.
When I first started cruising in Australia 10 years ago (2014) the majority of cruises left from Sydney, they were mostly PO or Carnival ships carrying around 2500-3000 guests, and they almost all went to the South Pacific. Then, as now, most of the cruises were 10-12 days long, which limited the times working families could travel.