P&O or Carnival Australia ?

Hello,

we are a couple from Germany and are thinking of visiting Australia next year. We love cruising and already went with Carnival, NCL, RCCL, Celebrity and Holland America (and AIDA if anybody knows this German Cruiseline :)).

We are now thinking which cruise line will be the better choice for a cruise leaving Australia.

Here in Germany we do not get any good informations about both lines and we have to book both cruises at the internet at their pages.

We are in the middle 30th.

Thank you so much

Greets

Janine

Carnival is probably the marginally better choice, but I wouldn't say either have major differences for a foreign speaker. They're both closer to each other than most of the other lines you've tried.

P&O Aust goes more for entertainment/activities, but with a probably 99% Australian audience, the cultural references, slang and so on will make this a bit harder to get into. They're also about a half star lower grade (more things you pay for onboard). They do have a range of activities under the Edge program if that appeals, many of which aren't elsewhere. All of those activities have a cost.

Carnival is tied into the US Carnival, so would have the benefit from your existing Carnival loyalty benefit. It's a bit more targeting families with children, so would be marginally easier to get into as a foreigner as well. It's not dissimilar to the US Carnival (although there are slight differences) so if you were happy with them before, you would have good knowledge of what they offer here.

Thank you.

Carnival was our first cruise line.

Because most of the cruise lines only have the ships in Australia during our winter time (and we can't go at this time) is will be the only choice to try one of these two and as you see we like to try new things :)

For us it is important to have a nice crew and a clean ship with good food.

Thank you.

Both those choices generally have nice crews. As for food, P&O is starting something different on some ships (not sure which you're looking at) called the Pantry, in place of the traditional buffet. If you use the buffet often, that may be interesting to see done differently as well.

I wouldn't rule P&O out. I just thought particularly from the entertainment and cost side that Carnival may be a fraction more appealing. However, you probably won't see or get the chance to do the 'Edge' activities on other lines, so if that is of interest it may also sway your choice P&O's way.

Good luck with your choice!

Thank you :)

On sea days we like just to hang around and look what others are doing or read a book....

We will look at the islands they are going to, maybe one of them is special and we will try this one :D

Some weeks ago, we decided the flights will be too long. But cause we can't forget that we maybe have the chance to go to the Pacific Islands and Australia, we are thinking of going again.

We maybe will go over the emirates to stop there after 7 hours and have then another 7hours flight to Singapore. Stay there for a night and a day and then going over to Australia...

We are now thinking about these trips :

Pacific Aria :

Sydney - Noumea - Mystery Island - Port Vila - Lifou - Isle of Pines - Sydney

Pacific Jewel :

Sydney - Isle of Pines - Mystery Island - Port Vila - Champagne Bay - Santo - Sydney

Pacific Eden :

Fremantle - Komodo Island - Makassar - Lombok - Probolinggo - Bali - Fremantle

any suggestions for us ?

Thank you

Greets

Janine

The Jewel itinerary is particularly good - beautiful destinations. Closely followed by the Aria. I lean more towards the Jewel because of Champagne Bay, but I've also done all of the ports on the Aria itinerary and enjoyed those too.