Golden Princess missing South Island..

[Kiwi Kruzer]

I have always maintained that they start the cruise season far too early in NZ.Diamond Princess used to leave SE Asia in Late Nov and arrive in Sydney early to mid Dec. We did that twice, one year from Bangkok and then from Singapore. The weather was delightful.

This year Diamond was brought down earlier to satisfy the demand for the Around Australia Cruise.

[OzKiwiJJ]

Celebrity Solstice was in Milford sound on Saturday and Explorer of the seas on Sun seems a bit odd to me that Princess pulled the pin (Just saying).

 

Both of them probably slipped around the bottom of the South Island before the seas got too rough. Golden was one day behind and the Significant Wave Height map is showing 4-7m seas around there this morning, and those conditions are heading up the west coast of the South Island over the next day or so. I think the captain of Golden made a very wise decision.

[Kiwi Kruzer]

The weather is extremely changeable down there. Whenever it stops raining its just like the first day of Spring.

Over the weekend you may have heard of the helicopter tragedy at Franz Josef Glacier. ...just North of Milford Sound.

It crashed , and all 7 on board were killed. The weather was fine on the coast when they started ,but it rapidly closed in and caught them.

[Hawka]

The weather is extremely changeable down there. Whenever it stops raining its just like the first day of Spring.

Over the weekend you may have heard of the helicopter tragedy at Franz Josef Glacier. ...just North of Milford Sound.

It crashed , and all 7 on board were killed. The weather was fine on the coast when they started ,but it rapidly closed in and caught them.

 

yeah that was sad, i went there was going to do the helicopter trip where they went over both glaciers and landed on fox and you went down a crevasse but weather was bad when we got there so we did it by foot though i did not do the crevasse as had fallen off a horse 3 weeks before so i didnt still was awesome up there saw one piece of ice fall on the way up [thought would be ok when doing the chopper trip but as we climbed mountain to get to the spot to hop onto glacier thought i would not even though felt ok just to be on safe side in case i could not climb out ], next day was sunny as , so different between two days was amazed that it cleared that quick

[OzKiwiJJ]

Over the weekend you may have heard of the helicopter tragedy at Franz Josef Glacier. ...just North of Milford Sound.

It crashed , and all 7 on board were killed. The weather was fine on the coast when they started ,but it rapidly closed in and caught them.

 

Yes, very sad. We did a helicopter trip up onto Franz Joseph some years ago. Luckily we had a perfect day for it. That bad weather must have hit extremely fast. Tragic.:(

[Scanorama]

We sailed on the Sun Princess to New Zealand in the beginning of 2014 and due to weather we had to overnight at Tauranga and missed Napier and the Sounds. Port taxes and fees were refunded, but we didn't get anything else, most passengers were understanding of the decision and that is just part of cruising.

 

The sea between Tauranga and Wellington was very rough and lots of people got sick, the ship was very quiet during that sea day with sick bags located everywhere. The captain spoke at the Wake Show showing the weather chart to justify his decision of cancelling the Sounds and it showed that the sea would be significantly worse than between Tauranga and Wellington, he said that the ship would be fun but lots of passengers would get sick.

 

I did the exact same cruise almost exactly 12 months before (one day difference) and the weather couldn't have been better. Even the Sounds were sunny and calm, the only port we missed so to speak was Dusky Sound because the wind picked up considerably in the afternoon.

[lovedecruise]

We did a cruise on Sun Princess from Brisbane up to Port Douglas in October this year. Due to the weather, we missed 2 out of our 3 Ports. We were refunded the Port fees as well as being given 30% of what we had paid for the cruise, as a credit toward a future cruise. This is the first time we have missed a Port so thought it must be the norm to give compensation - obviously it isn't.

[GUT2407]

We did a cruise on Sun Princess from Brisbane up to Port Douglas in October this year. Due to the weather, we missed 2 out of our 3 Ports. We were refunded the Port fees as well as being given 30% of what we had paid for the cruise, as a credit toward a future cruise. This is the first time we have missed a Port so thought it must be the norm to give compensation - obviously it isn't.

 

 

It really comes down to what % of Ports you miss, in your case it was 2/3 s so no big surprise you got more than just port fees, Golden was a fair chunk too so again no real surprise.

 

We missed one out of 12 so would have been a real shock if we got anything other than port fees.

[The_Big_M]

We missed one out of 12 so would have been a real shock if we got anything other than port fees.

 

And some lines you don't even get that!

[OzKiwiJJ]

We missed one out of 12 so would have been a real shock if we got anything other than port fees.

 

Yes, we missed one port on our Sun Princess cruise last Christmas and only got the port fees refunded ... and didn't expect anything more. It's just a part of cruising.

 

But I have all fingers and toes crossed for our Christmas cruise around NZ this year. I really need most of those port stops to catch up with friends and family in NZ. :D

[Greensteam]

We missed out on Fiordland two weeks ago on Dawn Princess due to bad weather predictions and redirected straight to Dunedin on the previous afternoon.

The cruise before us got in, and I see that the current cruise is in Milford Sound today. Good for them, sad for us.

We had our port taxes of $23.95(?) refunded.

It's just the luck of the draw.

[Brisbane41]

Its just bad luck and incentive to book another one. They will get their port taxes refunded for sure. As I see it if the weather was that bad anyway you probably wouldn't even get off the ship if it involved a port of call. The only time a cruise line should offer compensation if it is through their own fault such as neglecting maintenance and break downs as a result.

[Greensteam]

Its just bad luck and incentive to book another one. They will get their port taxes refunded for sure. As I see it if the weather was that bad anyway you probably wouldn't even get off the ship if it involved a port of call. The only time a cruise line should offer compensation if it is through their own fault such as neglecting maintenance and break downs as a result.

 

Absolutely agree. Safety must always come first and when you have a pax average age of 64, people are not very stable on their feet. It was reported that we were heading for 8m swells. Sad that we didn't get to go into the Sounds, but happy not to cop the rough weather all the same.

Last year on Legend we skipped Lifou because of dangerous tender operations. No big dramas. It's all covered in the small print and you accept it in the T&Cs.

The trip did give me enough of a taste of NZ to entice me to plan another holiday, but this time it will be a fly/drive. I want to see more, and you can't do that from a 10 hour stop over. Every time my ship did a NZ cruise when in the navy, I got posted off for training. I missed out on 3 opportunities that way. DDGs forever 'Brisbane41'

[GUT2407]

Yes, we missed one port on our Sun Princess cruise last Christmas and only got the port fees refunded ... and didn't expect anything more. It's just a part of cruising.

 

But I have all fingers and toes crossed for our Christmas cruise around NZ this year. I really need most of those port stops to catch up with friends and family in NZ. :D

 

NZ seems to have a pretty high %.

 

Good luck I hope who catch up with them all.

[GUT2407]

Its just bad luck and incentive to book another one. They will get their port taxes refunded for sure. As I see it if the weather was that bad anyway you probably wouldn't even get off the ship if it involved a port of call. The only time a cruise line should offer compensation if it is through their own fault such as neglecting maintenance and break downs as a result.

 

Agree.

 

We say if the Capt doesn't want to go there nor do we.

 

Sure we may be disappointed, but hey we'll just have to book another cruise.

[MicCanberra]

Agree.

 

We say if the Capt doesn't want to go there nor do we.

 

Sure we may be disappointed, but hey we'll just have to book another cruise.

 

Best attitude to have.:D

[Hawka]

Golden that got back yesterday got to all ports and all but dusky sound like others said if the captain doesn't want to go nor do I.