A third Royal Caribbean ship for Australia?

[PJOZ]

I was looking at the Sydney Ports Schedule after I heard about Carnival Spirit coming to Australia, and I noticed from December 2012 there are bookings for Rhapsody of the Seas, Radiance of the Seas, and also: "Radiance Class Vessel". Doesn't look like Radiance could get in and out to be using the spots booked for her and Radiance Class Vessel. Could there be a third RCCL ship here in 2012 or am I just getting carried away?

[BrusselsGirl07]

I wonder if they mean Celebrity Century? RCCL owns the Celebrity line as well, although Century will be here towards the end of 2011. Can't wait to sail on here - I love Celebrity!

[The_Big_M]

Century is already booked in under its own name.

 

There's a few options it could be though - but there's also no guarantee any will come; they just put a booking in as a precaution in case they decide to use it as it can be hard to get slots later. It's very straightforward to cancel though. Given the recent announcement of Carnival Spirit, I wouldn't be surprised if these Summer slots don't get taken up.

[thied]

Century is already booked in under its own name.

 

There's a few options it could be though - but there's also no guarantee any will come; they just put a booking in as a precaution in case they decide to use it as it can be hard to get slots later. It's very straightforward to cancel though. Given the recent announcement of Carnival Spirit, I wouldn't be surprised if these Summer slots don't get taken up.

hope they do.

[golfer76]

I haven't seen any news regarding another RCL ship...I've only seen that the Carnival Spirit is supposed to be coming to Sydney in Oct next year. She is a similar size to RCL's Radiance of the Seas. ;)

[AuzzieCruiser]

Imagine if we had Radiance based here fulltime. The choice we would have in the winter months would be amazing. And I doubt they would have trouble filling the ships either.

Maybe Carnival is getting ahead of Royal Caribbean. Royal will seriously have to look at basing a ship here permanently.

[Australian family]

Imagine if we had Radiance based here fulltime. The choice we would have in the winter months would be amazing. And I doubt they would have trouble filling the ships either.

Maybe Carnival is getting ahead of Royal Caribbean. Royal will seriously have to look at basing a ship here permanently.

 

Lets hope they get in and bring a ship here permanently and we can then have a good choice for winter cruising. Also more competition, and better pricing.

[Brossy]

Imagine if we had Radiance based here fulltime. The choice we would have in the winter months would be amazing. And I doubt they would have trouble filling the ships either.

Maybe Carnival is getting ahead of Royal Caribbean. Royal will seriously have to look at basing a ship here permanently.

 

Totally agree with you. What I like about the new carnival ship being based here is that it will be in Aussie $. I wonder if Royal will follow suit (I know it's US$ elsewhere in the world but you never know ;)).

[The_Big_M]

Totally agree with you. What I like about the new carnival ship being based here is that it will be in Aussie $. I wonder if Royal will follow suit (I know it's US$ elsewhere in the world but you never know ;)).

 

They're bringing Carnival Spirit bookings and operations through the Australian office (unlike all other Carnival ships) and I'd suggest currency is part of that, as the Australian office already handles onboard spending being in AUD. It means they don't need to have that complication through Miami.

 

RCCL operates one currency worldwide, including in Europe, so it's a little harder for them to do that. They are competing with Carnival locally and trying to remove any perceived disadvantages. However, keep in mind that there are some benefits to onboard spending being in USD - the onboard pricing is also based on US prices, which means products, including alcohol is significantly cheaper than locally. I'd expect you'll find Carnival Spirit's onboard products consistently priced with P&O's stock, when it starts sailing here.

[AuzzieCruiser]

Totally agree with you. What I like about the new carnival ship being based here is that it will be in Aussie $. I wonder if Royal will follow suit (I know it's US$ elsewhere in the world but you never know ;)).

 

At the moment with the AUD as it is, I don't care :p. Maybe if it got below 80c, I'd be more concerned.

Apparently Royal did use Euro's in Europe a few years ago, and it didn't work out somehow.

Interesting bit though, I did see some AUD in the shops onboard the Rhapsody last year.

I'm a bit depressed I'm not sailing on her this season, but have a great holiday and cruise coming up in August/September. And I have Radiance in March 2012. That will be here before I know it!!:eek:

[Rassa]

The 3rd RC ship is probably Celebrity Centry - in Escape today under the Royal Caribbean Advert, there are 2 RC ships and 1 Celebrity - WT!!!!

[Brossy]

They're bringing Carnival Spirit bookings and operations through the Australian office (unlike all other Carnival ships) and I'd suggest currency is part of that, as the Australian office already handles onboard spending being in AUD. It means they don't need to have that complication through Miami.

 

RCCL operates one currency worldwide, including in Europe, so it's a little harder for them to do that. They are competing with Carnival locally and trying to remove any perceived disadvantages. However, keep in mind that there are some benefits to onboard spending being in USD - the onboard pricing is also based on US prices, which means products, including alcohol is significantly cheaper than locally. I'd expect you'll find Carnival Spirit's onboard products consistently priced with P&O's stock, when it starts sailing here.

 

Good point :). I also know how much cheaper their duty free alcohol is too - $10US for 1 litre vodka :D. (I know Vila is cheap too, but some cruises don't get to visit Vila ;)).

[The_Big_M]

The 3rd RC ship is probably Celebrity Centry - in Escape today under the Royal Caribbean Advert, there are 2 RC ships and 1 Celebrity - WT!!!!

 

Century was announced some time ago, has been able to be booked for some time (regarding today's ad) and it already is booked in to travel on other dates in 2012.

 

This booking is for another ship, but it will probably not be known unless they decide to go ahead.

[DreamTeam]

:DI was excited when i read about Carnival Spirit i loved my B2B cruise and would love to cruise on her from here

[Rassa]

Century was announced some time ago, has been able to be booked for some time (regarding today's ad) and it already is booked in to travel on other dates in 2012.

 

This booking is for another ship, but it will probably not be known unless they decide to go ahead.

 

You may be right, but the heading in the Royal Caribbean Advert was 'A third ship for Australia' and it was one Celebrity and two Royals.

[The_Big_M]

You may be right, but the heading in the Royal Caribbean Advert was 'A third ship for Australia' and it was one Celebrity and two Royals.

 

Agreed, I know the ad. The port listing is a potential for another one again though (but implies a third Royal since it's listed under Royal.)

[PJOZ]

Guess we'll have to wait and see (patience not my strong suit!) but I'm taking it as a good sign. It looks like it would only be here for a couple of months but would be pretty exciting anyway. Would be even more intrigued if it hadn't specified Radiance Class, but maybe that's just a red herring....:D

[shortstuffy]

I was looking at the Sydney Ports Schedule after I heard about Carnival Spirit coming to Australia, and I noticed from December 2012 there are bookings for Rhapsody of the Seas, Radiance of the Seas, and also: "Radiance Class Vessel". Doesn't look like Radiance could get in and out to be using the spots booked for her and Radiance Class Vessel. Could there be a third RCCL ship here in 2012 or am I just getting carried away?

 

PJOZ - You win the award for the "Best Detective Sleuthing" in being the first (back on Jan 13th) to suss out the fact that indeed RCI was secretly planning to bring another ship (their 3rd) to Australia with today's announcement that Celebrity Solstice would be based in Sydney for the summer of 2012-2013.

 

Well done!!!!

 

Any other info/secrets you know about????

[Gold Coast Cruisers]

Lets hope they get in and bring a ship here permanently and we can then have a good choice for winter cruising. Also more competition, and better pricing.

 

 

With you there, I would love some more choices of ships for Winter cruising here.

 

Jilly:)

[MMDown Under]

Would be nice if they could think outside the box, and bring a ship down for a trial for the American summer season.

 

They might be surprised just how many Americans would like to travel to Australia during the long northern summer school vacation.

 

And Australians love to travel north and to the South Pacific islands during our winter.

[macca46]

Too many Ships based out of Sydney.

Not everyone is happy to Fly and then cruise, they should have some Cruises on these new Ships out of Brisbane.

[Australian family]

Would be nice if they could think outside the box, and bring a ship down for a trial for the American summer season.

 

They might be surprised just how many Americans would like to travel to Australia during the long northern summer school vacation.

 

And Australians love to travel north and to the South Pacific islands during our winter.

 

It would be nice!!

 

But they seem to want to keep their ships near American during their summer.

[MMDown Under]

It would be nice!!

 

But they seem to want to keep their ships near American during their summer.

 

They have been reducing ships from the US West Coast.

 

Currently Mexico has travel alerts as an unsafe destination and Alaska has been loved to death with too many ships.

 

I believe there is a fly/cruise US/Canadian market, from the West Coast to Australia, via the South Pacific islands, just waiting to be explored, during the southern winter (our best travel season for the north and islands).

[Whoey]

Brisbane or Melbourne as home port for one of these many ships makes sense.

 

Not everyone wants to sail from Sydney!

[The_Big_M]

Solstice and Radiance are targeting significant numbers of the overseas markets, and Sydney is both more popular and better connected for those passengers; some cruises will also stay overnight in Sydney as well.

 

That leaves Rhapsody as a possibility, but given it's been getting good yields in Sydney there's not a lot of reason to move it. If they found that more domestic passengers switched to the other two and left Rhapsody emptier, there's a better chance of that - but that isn't the case so far.