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?”
For more info on Australian cruise ports, click here
