Ovation of the Seas - 12 Night NZ, New Years Cruise - Dec 2017 – Review (Really Long)

Imagine, if you will, a witty line, a hook to get you to read this. Imagine you are reading a review from a reviewer that you have a fond memory for. Your excitement is not so much for what you are reading, but what you are planning to read, as the warm glow you feel is the excitement to come, similar to your upcoming cruise. As why else would you be reading Cruise Critic if you didn’t have a future cruise to plan for.

Now that your imaginary juices are flowing, the disappointment that I have neither a witty repertoire to start this review nor a huge collection of reviews to keep you sustained should not be too difficult to bear, as you are now thinking more about your own last cruise, or one that will be shortly embark upon, than worrying about this review.

I give you below, my review on the New Years Cruise on Ovation of the Seas out of Sydney (Australia, not Canada). The newest ship on a commercial cruise line to be cruising the waters between Australia and New Zealand. The 12-night cruise had more sea days than most cruises have nights at sea. Only 4 ports ashore over 12 nights. Royal Caribbean call the Ovation, Super Cruising, and while the ship is large, it never felt overwhelming. It was a Super Ship and one that I would be happy to sail on again.

When you sail on a ship that has more people on it than the home town of your birth, you want to make sure that you can navigate it easily, so we decided early on to get a Star Class Grand Loft Suite, for a number of reasons, that I will go into later.

If you are still reading, I thank you. You will also now be aware that this will not be a short review. I could have summed up the introduction as simply

Ovation of the Seas - 12 Night NZ, New Years Cruise - Dec 2017 – Review

But why give you only a few words as a destination, when I can take you on a journey of words. To describe something that most will dismiss as I already know that, or that is common knowledge, but to the one or two people doing the research on ports of call or the ship itself, I can hopefully give you an aha moment. I am not challenging you to a race to take on me, but wonder aloud with joy – A-HA!

This review will take me longer to write than the cruise itself. But as the famous writer said, we write the reviews, so we can get double value for our money, once on the cruise, then again as I write each day and review the photos and write their description.

So to my favourite reviews out there, I give my thanks by giving them the greatest gift I can, imitation – or in writing terms – plagiarism. Thank you Harryfat1, CruiseLifeRick and A&L_ONT.

Instead of a day by day account of Get Up, Eat, do something, Eat & Drink, Do Something Else, Eat & Drink, Get Ready for Dinner, Eat & Drink, Watch Show, Drink, Drink some more, then Sleep for 12 days.

I will group the review into the following Categories,

• Important Bits to Know
  

Then Starting at the end with –

• Summary of the Cruise
  
• Pre-Cruise and Embarkation & Leaving the ship
  
• The Room
  
• Star Class
  
• Food
  
• Ports of Call
  
• Entertainment
  
• The Ship
  

That way you can scan the thread for the section that you are most interested in.

We are booked on the 2020 transpacific, leaving Sydney and hitting to ports in NZ. Looking forward to your review.

Important Bits to know

I have posted all the cruise compasses, daily planners and other bits of information we got in this thread.

https://boards.cruisecritic.com.au/showthread.php?t=2605120

So rather than posting them again, please go to that thread if you want to see any of the documentation.

Most people on Cruise Critic have been on the same itineraries over and over again, so if you say Eastern Caribbean 90+% of the readers will know what ports you are going to and often don’t even get off the ship now, but the 12 night NY cruise on Ovation out of Sydney to New Zealand is a bit unique, apart from it being the exact same cruise as the 12 night Christmas cruise before it. To help people that come across this thread in the future here is the itinerary.

Day 1 – Sydney

Day 2 – Sea

Day 3 – Sea (New Years Eve)

Day 4 – Bay of Islands

Day 5 – Auckland

Day 6 – Tauranga

Day 7 – Sea

Day 8 – Sea

Day 9 – Dunedin

Day 10 – Cruising the Sounds (Sea Day)

Day 11 – Sea

Day 12 – Sea

Day 13 – Sydney

Some of the maps from the cruise.

And once more the boo photo.

We are a family of 4, kids aged 16 (Girl), 15 (Boy), from Australia. I am originally from New Zealand and lived in Auckland with a sister that lived in Dunedin (which I had visited a few times), so am very familiar with most of the locations.

We booked the cruise within a couple of weeks of it going on sale (18 months before the cruise) and after we had just had an upgrade to the Penthouse Suite on the Solstice, so with 2017 being a significant Wedding anniversary year (one ending in a zero) and loving the extra features of a suite, we booked the star class Grand Loft Suite, which I will talk more about under Room.

Plug for previous Review

We estimated that with Tips, Beverage Package, internet and a few other extras, it wasn’t that much more than two connecting JS. Our main criteria when picking the type of room was two bathrooms, and if it wasn’t connecting, it needed to be large enough for a roll-a-way, as the two kids were not going to sleep in the same fold-out couch.

The rooms booked quickly, the main GL’s on deck 10 disappeared while we decided what to book, so we were left with the smaller GL’s on 10 or the two on 8. We had never been in a room at the back of the ship, I thought how bad could it be, the two largest suites are on the same floor as us. Surely they wouldn’t put the two most expensive suites above 270 if noise was going to be a problem. Well Shirley, I will get back to you later. All the Loft suites (Grand, Owners and Royal) were booked within a month of the cruise going on sale and never became available later ( I looked, because I really wanted to move to Deck 10), or get a bigger room.

According to what we were told, there were 4912 passengers on board – according to Wikipedia, double capacity is 4180, maximum capacity is 4905, so this was a very full cruise! Apart from straight after muster, the ship handed the volume of passengers well, it never felt crowded.

Excellent start

going on this Xmas / New Years cruise this December. Cant wait to read all about it. Im very interested in the ports and how easy they are to get around without so many expensive ship excursions. Thank you so much for posting!!

We had never been in a room at the back of the ship, I thought how bad could it be, the two largest suites are on the same floor as us. Surely they wouldn’t put the two most expensive suites above 270 if noise was going to be a problem. Well Shirley, I will get back to you later.

Hi GottaRequalify.

I hate to ask you to reveal too much too soon - but we have a cabin right next to one of these suites (can't afford a suite :)) above 270. Could you let us know what the issues were now? We might have a chance to move if we get in soon.

Cheers...

ps: Really enjoying the review so far!

We are booked on the 2020 transpacific, leaving Sydney and hitting to ports in NZ. Looking forward to your review.

Thank you.

The ship is going to handle the Pacific nicely. There is lots to do and I don't think you will be bored.

Excellent start

Thank you. Hopefully you will stick around until the end and say similarly nice stuff for the whole review

going on this Xmas / New Years cruise this December. Cant wait to read all about it. Im very interested in the ports and how easy they are to get around without so many expensive ship excursions. Thank you so much for posting!!

If you are going to Tauranga, then the next section (rant) is for you and something to watch out for. And hopefully you will get the message to pack warm as well as cool clothes.

I have been looking at the web site on shore excursions and they are a lot more expensive than what we paid. I am not sure if it is because the AU$ is worse now than when we travelled or it is because the ship is popular and they can just get away with charging more. With the late departures especially Auckland, Tauranga, I was a lot happier doing my own thing than worrying about getting back to the ship in time.

Hi GottaRequalify.

 

I hate to ask you to reveal too much too soon - but we have a cabin right next to one of these suites (can't afford a suite :)) above 270. Could you let us know what the issues were now? We might have a chance to move if we get in soon.

 

Cheers...

 

ps: Really enjoying the review so far!

Okay - for you only, everyone else, stop reading and skip to the next post.

There was soot on the deck that was washed away every day by the room attendants, but if you went out onto the deck before they got there, you had to be careful where you leaned. Not a big problem, just something to watch out for.

You can definitely hear the parties in 270. The bass could be felt a little, but you could hear the music. All parties finished just after midnight, if you head to bed at 10pm, you are going to hear 2 hours of music, not super loud, but you can hear it. By 12:15am the parties are over, so this is a problem depending on how early you go to bed.

The opposite to this and the biggest problem is if you like to sleep in, the Azipods shook the room a lot and woke us up when arriving into port. Good alarm clock on port days, bad if you wanted a bit more sleep. Sea days and cruising you don't hear / feel them. Just when they start or change direction. At least you knew the ship was in port without opening the curtains.

More details and questions about the room should be posted tomorrow.

Thanks for your kinds words and now back to our regular scheduled programming.

Summary of the Cruise

The ship and the cruise were great. The weather was horrible. Cold and Wet made sitting on the balcony difficult to almost impossible. The silver lining – getting a deck chair around the pool wasn’t a problem. As you can see in this photo – lots of chairs available. But when the life guard has to dress up like that, you don’t want to be outside. This cruise was at the height of Summer – but in Dunedin, the temperature got up to 11C, (52 Fahrenheit), (Yes, 11 was the high for the day) not something that we were expecting on a summer cruise.

Sitting on the huge balcony was not possible, unless wrapped up in 3 layers of clothes. It felt a bit of a waste, but it is going to be a fantastic viewing spot when Ovation goes to Alaska next year. As long as you dress for the location. One day there was thick fog around the ship. They had the Fog Horn going, fun to hear, but wasted deck time as there was nothing to see.

The Cruise was a good length, but I do wish they had stopped in Wellington or Picton in the two sea days between Tauranga and Dunedin. I love sea days, and generally prefer them over port stops, but a 12 night cruise, with only 4 stops did seem to be missing something.

Dining was good, we especially enjoyed Jamie’s Italian (we ate there 3 times). We never had a meal in the Main Dining Room, but went on a tour through them and they looked really great. The entertainment was good. The production shows enjoyable and trivia, bingo, staff shows etc. kept our days and evenings full.

My biggest problem with the cruise and I am not sure who to blame – the city council or the cruise line – I am blaming the city council.

Tauranga is the name of the stop, but the ship docks at Mount Maunganui. This location has a population of 20,000. Beautiful location with a lovely beach within walking distance of the freight terminal (The ship docks at the working Freight Terminal.) So could you imagine what the port is like when 5000 passengers arrive. But there was a second cruise ship in port that day as well. So there were over 6000 passengers going into a town that has a population of 20,000.

Shore excursion busses, in an area designed as a freight terminal not passenger pick-up/down with two different cruise lines in port at the same time, and it was raining – bucketing down. Cold – today was not a beach day. Chaos. Nobody can control the weather, but what the city council and ship companies can control, is when ships dock. You see, the night before, there was a council organised concert / festival that had 20,000 out of town visitors. All the taxi drivers worked the concert the night before and were on a mandatory rest period. There were no taxi’s to pick up cruise passengers. We waited an hour for a taxi, ringing up multiple companies asking for a taxi. Any taxi that turned up was attacked like a lamb chop in a piranha tank, by people wanting to go somewhere. In the end, one turned up, we said we would pay double the meter so the driver said hop in. The ship could easily have done Bay of Isles, Tauranga, then Auckland, and everyone would have been happy.

Standing for an hour in the rain, with no shelter at the taxi rank with the taxi companies lying saying one will be with you soon, rather than just saying we have nothing to send. We lost any slack time to visit the port area itself to look around, so we spent zero money in this port.

If you are ever on a cruise that visit Tauranga on the 3rd of January, if you haven’t booked a ship shore excursion, don’t bother getting off as there will be no taxi’s until the afternoon to take you to downtown or anywhere else. There were other problems when the taxi dropped us off at the car rental place, but that had nothing to do with the city council – it just made a horrible morning worse.

I don’t know why the city council would allow a concert with 20,000 out of town visitors attending and then two cruise ships in port with an additional 6,000 people in a town with a population of 20,000. It was a horrible day that turned me off going to that port again. Why do I blame the council – its their marketing agency’s that try and attract cruise ships. They need to make sure there is enough infrastructure around the port to handle what they want.

I will continue the rant when I talk more about Tauranga in the port sections, but for now the message is, don’t go to Tauranga, as they just want as many visitors as possible even if the infrastructure can’t cope with it.

Apart from the cold and the wet this was the only nasty bit of the trip. It was the only port that couldn’t handle the size of Ovation (Dunedin struggled, but at least that was under cover).

The only other downside to the ship was the robot bar. When ordering drinks, it allowed you to put two drinks into the queue. 20 minutes of hanging around later, when your order got to the top of the queue, it would throw away one of the orders. I found one of the attendants and they said it was because the system thought that you were sharing packages. Well why did the system allow for two orders in the first place then and show both in the queue until the last minute? Overall the robot bar just wasted time. If it stated the queue was 7 minutes (ie, do I wait or go to another bar) – it was generally 20-25. It was often out of certain products. Nice to try once, but there was always spillage on the plastic cup, so you ended up with sticky hands and it always took too long.

Being in a Star cabin was great, but for those that like spreadsheets to help plan their cruise and want to know what they are doing every day. Before getting on the ship being a Star guest can really raise your stress levels as the Fear of Missing Out (FoMO) runs very high. You don’t do much planning. You don’t plan where you are going to eat. You don’t plan where the table is going to be or what size it will be or how many strangers will be sitting at it. You don’t plan the time, first or second sitting. You don’t plan what shows you are going to see, you don’t sit at the keyboard every day to see if the drink package has gone up or down, should I get the package with the internet access or stand alone. You don’t need to start a new Cruise Critic thread asking do you need a drinks package, or why should I pay when I don’t drink. Do I need to plan for 1 device or two?

Not sure if this is a problem or just the curse of being in star class 😊

You don’t do any of the planning you have to do for every other cruise, that the cruise lines have been training us to do. On the roll call when everyone is saying what they have booked you have constant FoMO. Apart from booking the cruise and booking shore excursions (RCI or private) there is nothing else to plan for – it is really boring! A bit panicky, but boring.

I never needed to go to Guest Services. There were two problems with the on-board account that I noticed via the TV, so I told my Genie, and this was sorted out within a day. Which was very good, as at times the line was really long. This sums up the advantage of the Genie – on a ship with close to 5000 passengers, you never needed to be in a long line. You could wait somewhere and get things done without being in a line. It made for a much more relaxing cruise.

Don’t get me wrong – the ship and the cruise were great, we all had a good time and looking forward to our next cruise at the end of this year on a ship even bigger. I have just tried to give a fair overview, and while it may look like I have concentrated on the negative, it is so we can learn what not to do, so no one else has to have a negative time on their cruise.

To finish the summary – would you go on the Ovation again – Yes & No. We are not going to rush to make sure we go on Ovation every year but if the only cruise available was the Ovation we wouldn’t avoid it. We just didn’t find it special enough to have a premium charged, but we wouldn’t go on the Ovation without being in a Star Class Room. If they were all booked out, it is likely we would look for another itinerary, or ship or cruise line.

Pre-Cruise, Embarkation & Leaving the ship

We live about 90 minutes flying time out of Sydney. Last cruise we flew in the day of the cruise, but the airline had trouble at departure so we were concerned about our bags not making it. For this cruise to lower stress, we decided to fly down the night before. Sydney harbour has a massive fireworks display on New Years Eve, and all of the hotels around the harbour have minimum stays and it was difficult to find a cheap booking close by. We ended up in a hotel a short walk from the harbour, booking rooms about 7 months out. Anyone going on any Sydney cruise from about the 28-30th December will have a difficult job finding a hotel room for the night. No ships leave from the main cruise terminal on the 31st Dec and 1st Jan as it is closed to setup for the fireworks.

If your ship leaves on the 2nd or 3rd, don’t come to Sydney a long time before that, as you will be caught up in the minimum stay requirement that covers Dec 31, unless it is a bucket list item to be on the harbour for NYE. It is fantastic way to bring in the New Year.

There have been other reports/reviews about the communication you get pre-cruise, therefore, I will just do a quick summary here.

About 6 weeks out we got a survey from RCI asking questions like who would you like to have dinner with. As others have reported, it more that likely is only to check that you have a valid e-mail address as none of the answers were referenced when talking to the Genie.

Then on Dec 16, thirteen days before the cruise sailed, we got our first e-mail from our Genie. This was a standard intro to the services they provide – similar to what is listed on the main RCI web site, plus a request on what time we expect to arrive. If someone wants the full text of the e-mail I can post it if you like.

We wrote back saying we would arrive around 11:45am, asking for a roll-a-way to be put in the room and asking to put us down for any back of house tours and to book only two of us for iFly and North Star. Book any restaurant he wants, but only two of us for Chef’s table.

We got sent the link to the Loop app, but never used it during the cruise at all. The one time that Josh (our Genie) needed to talk to us, he e-mailed to our land based address, which we didn’t see until after he saw us in person.

The last e-mail received came on the 27th (we had a 29th departure) with instructions on where to meet him on the day. It also had different bag tags then the ones we had printed from the set-sail pass.

On the 29th, we left the hotel and walked the 1.2kms (~1300 yards) wheeling our bags, stopping at some of the touristy shops looking for cheap lanyards, because I was an idiot and forgot them. It turned out, they were just as cheap on the ship, so if you do forget them – just buy them onboard. Getting to the cruise pier about 11:30am.

There was a man, standing at the bag drop off area, holding up, at arms length a piece of paper with the Star Class Logo. Our cruise has started.

I run up to him, drop all my bags, give him a big bear hug and yelled at the top of my voice “I’m HERE!”.

Only in my dreams – I wanted too, but didn’t. My daughter would have never come near me for the rest of the cruise. He checked our names against his list and then opened the magical “velvet” rope and took us straight (yes, no twisty turny, back and forth –

We went straight past the long queue to another person standing next to the Star Class banner.

Huge crowds trying to start check-in.

Where we were again checked against the list and then our bags were taken off us.

Then he checked our set sail passes against the information and photos I had already uploaded when I completed on-line checkin, against his tablet. He checked in myself and my wife then didn’t like my daughters photo, as the one I had uploaded, had been cropped, so it didn’t show her full head. The agent tried to take hers again. Then his tablet crashed. He tried to restart it, couldn’t so told the guy with the Star Class piece of paper to take us up stairs to the normal check in desks. He had been talking to my family while we tried to check in.

So up the stairs he escorted us, to a desk and we completed the check-in process.

For those people that say putting your photos online only saves 4-30 seconds, haven’t checked in with a group of 4 people. Getting people to the front, moving carry on bags around in a small crowded space, it takes more than 30 seconds per person to get 4 photos taken, as they wanted to retake all of them, even though I had wasted my time up loading them in the first place. I will try again with the next cruise, because if it had worked, it would have saved a lot of time.

We were then escorted to Passport control, onto security and then onto the ship. While it wasn’t our Genie that did the escort. We were escorted the entire way and he helped us get into the expedited queues. They were well sign posted, but he moved us along quickly.

We only had our stamped set sail passes at this stage, our sea passes were in our room, which I will cover later. During the initial correspondence from the Genie, he said, don’t leave the check-in area without calling me first. I asked our escort about that, and he said, the genie will be waiting once we get on board, don’t leave that area.

The set sail passes were scanned inside on deck 5, the promenade deck, where you enter the ship. I assume they set them up inside for weather reasons, but it made the area very cramped. You have the WOW of the ship, the grand staircase, everyone is looking up and around as soon as you hear the magical beep and are welcomed on board. It made it hard to move around. We didn’t see our Genie, so asked and they rang for him and were told to wait to the side.

Once he arrived and introduced himself, he said the rooms aren’t ready, Coastal Kitchen wasn’t open yet, we went for a quick tour of Deck 5, past the restaurants, into the theatre, down to Jamie’s and 270 and then went back to Vintages, where he asked us to wait until he would come back and get us for lunch. He grabbed a bar tender to take our orders.

At Mid-day, he came back and said Coastal Kitchen is now open and he escorted us to Deck 14 and into Coastal Kitchen (CK) where we had lunch at a table next to the Window. 90+% of the meals we had in CK were had at this table.

At 1pm, he came back and said our rooms were now ready and he escorted us to the room. On the way to the rooms we noticed our bags, so we wheeled them down the corridor into our room. Being Star Class on the Ovation didn’t get us or our bags into our room any earlier than any other guest.

The Grand Loft Suite is an amazing Room, which I will cover later. I will leave it just now saying that there were lots of oohs and aahs from us all. Also later, is the run through with the Genie.

Once he left, we unpacked and then went and explored the ship.

Muster was at 4pm, and our station was in 270. So after exploring we went and sat down in 270 and ordered a drink. We got there early and didn’t realise that you needed to sign in at the door as there was no one there when we first arrived.

Funny Story – On our first cruise, Disney, we stayed in our room until the muster alarm went off and then went to the muster station to find out we were one of the last ones there. We were very surprised at how everyone got there so quickly. Since joining Cruise Critic there are lots of threads / comments about how they hate people turning up late, we have learned not to wait in our room until the alarm went off. On our fourth cruise, we turned up earlier than the marshals. One of the best comments on Cruise Critic was the comment that the main reason for the Muster, is so that you can scan your group, and figure out if something does go wrong, who is the first one to be eaten.

We were glad we got there early as there wasn’t enough room for everyone and there were lots of people trying to cram into the area. The Muster took a while, and when they finally released us everyone left 270 through the same exit. It was packed and hot. People were fainting. They had Photo Screens setup which reduced the space even more. Really poorly managed. The queue for the lift was massive, so we went down the stairs to deck 4 and found another mess.

Queues for the two main dinning rooms on Deck 4 came all the way back to the lifts. The queue for Guest services came out of Guest Services and met the end of the queue for the dining rooms. There were queues trying to get to the lift banks. Everything was wrapped around everything else, people were lined up and found they were in the wrong queue, the scene was ugly. This was the only time that we saw that there was not enough space on board to handle all the passengers. Having Muster finish so close to the first seating of dinner.

We eventually made our way down to Sorrento’s where we had a couple of slices of Pizza (Including a Gluten Free Pizza) before heading back to our room to wait for sail away..

There are many places on a ship this big you could watch sail away from, but none really have the view that the cabins on the back of the ship does. There was a bottle of Red Wine in our room, but we had brought on board our own champagne, so toasted Sydney Harbour to that as we sailed away.

The last cruise we sailed out of Sydney on the Helideck. That was nice, but the wind made it very cold. My recommendation is at the back. You get some beautiful views of the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge, all the way through to the Sydney Heads.

Here is a You Tube video of the sail away. The whole journey takes about 90 minutes, so I have sped it up to get it down to about 12 minutes. The camera does not do the vista justice, as your eyes have a much wider field of view, plus you can pivot your head, which if I did with the camera, you would all be sea sick – Hmmm – it is a cruise video, so what’s a little sea sickness between friends!

dn_EqdNSfGs

Leaving the Ship

We still had to put our bags out the night before, but even though we had them outside our room before 6pm, they weren’t collected until after 10pm. We were told that they would be late picking them up, so don't worry about getting them out too early.

On the final morning we had breakfast in CK at our normal table, then went back to the room where we said we would wait for the Genie. The Room Attendants didn’t put any pressure on us, but you could see them hanging around outside waiting for us to leave, so we headed downstairs and waited in Boleros, where Suite Guests were assigned to wait. They had some snacks, water and juice out, but being full from breakfast we didn’t have anything.

Our Genie turned up as scheduled at 9am, and he walked the few feet with us from Boleros to the final Bing station and off the Ship. He then walked with us to where the bags were stored. If you have larger carry on bags, you go down a lift, if just back packs, then you need to go down an escalator.

When the doors to the lift opened, the aisle where all the suite bag tags were stored there, so not much walking required. Other bag tags had to go into another room to pick up your bags. Our Genie offered to keep walking with us, but he told us there was only 80-90 minutes before his next set of guests were due to arrive, so we bid him a final farewell and thanked him for the wonderful cruise.

I don’t understand why, but unlike arriving by plane, you don’t need your passport to re-enter Australia. You need it to leave, but not to arrive back on the cruise. There is a customs form you are given that you need to fill out, but that is only given a quick glance, and with a nothing to declare, we were let out back into Australia dragging our bags. From the time we left Boleros to the street – maybe ~10 minutes.

I looked on-line to prearrange a pickup but there was only shared rides allowed to pick up and not a van. At the top of the Overseas Passenger Terminal is a Taxi Rank, so, back into the lift we went and up to wait for a taxi. There was a line, but not a huge one. As most people were in family groups with lots of bags we were all after larger taxi’s. A big queue of 2 person taxi’s but a long wait for larger taxis. A Queue Master was doing a good job of telling passengers where to stand and directing taxi’s to match the size of the group with the first come first serve taxi that meets their requirements. We waited awhile, and agreed to wait only another 15 minutes before taking two taxi’s to the airport, when one turned up and off we went.

If there was only two of you or 4, but your bags could have fitted into a standard sedan, then there would have been zero wait. As it was, we waited maybe 30 minutes.

At the airport the person at the check-in counter did make comment about how busy it was and everyone seemed to be coming off a cruise. There was also a lot of Royal Caribbean Duty Free boxes that were spotted, so Ovation did have an impact on the number of people flying that day.

All up – a low stress, easy departure from the cruise.

My research has shown there is a train that hooks to the airport. Is there any reason you didnt use it? It looks like it would be quicker and easier just to use the train. Our flight back to the US is at 11:50 am so I had planned on taking our own luggage off first thing and hopping on the train.

PS Thanks very much, this review is exactly what I was hoping for!

Very entertaining and informative. Thanks for a fun review. I’m definitely with you on lack of stops. Can’t believe they don’t stop in Queenstown!! And as OP said Wellington would be a great stop, and Picton has so many fun options - wine tours, hiking, etc.

Sorry you had bad weather. Not much to do about that but make a quick trip to town to check that box, buying blankets at the gift shops in the way out, get soaked, eat a quick meal, and go back to ship to strip off wet clothes and get warmed up, reminiscent of playing in the snow in our younger years.

Sent from my iPad using Forums

Okay - for you only, everyone else, stop reading and skip to the next post.

 

There was soot on the deck that was washed away every day by the room attendants, but if you went out onto the deck before they got there, you had to be careful where you leaned. Not a big problem, just something to watch out for.

 

You can definitely hear the parties in 270. The bass could be felt a little, but you could hear the music. All parties finished just after midnight, if you head to bed at 10pm, you are going to hear 2 hours of music, not super loud, but you can hear it. By 12:15am the parties are over, so this is a problem depending on how early you go to bed.

 

The opposite to this and the biggest problem is if you like to sleep in, the Azipods shook the room a lot and woke us up when arriving into port. Good alarm clock on port days, bad if you wanted a bit more sleep. Sea days and cruising you don't hear / feel them. Just when they start or change direction. At least you knew the ship was in port without opening the curtains.

 

More details and questions about the room should be posted tomorrow.

 

Thanks for your kinds words and now back to our regular scheduled programming.

Thanks