RCI no longer going to Lifou?

[MicCanberra]

Re not missing much ... Lifou is known by snorkellers as one of the world's treasures. So for keen snorkellers we're missing a lot - not having been there before, it's pretty disappointing to miss it. Lifou was one of the factors in us choosing this cruise over others. Other factors came into it too of course, and it's not going to totally ruin our cruise, but it is upsetting.

 

I am sorry for you :( but I did say apart from the swimming and snorkelling.

[Kiwi Kruzer]

Same excuse given last season by RCI not go to Lifou must be a bit slow building new jetty?? Don't know why they have it on the itinerary for Voyager/Explorer

 

Building anything on Lifou would take a long time. There is no local concrete company you can phone and order a truck load of concrete to be delivered .:rolleyes:

I guess if a ship was calling every day , as they do in the Caribbean , it may be different.

[chester32]

I hope this doesn't affect me on Emerald in January....I have all my ports researched and Lifou was a snorkelling trip at Jinek Bay, so I will be disappointed to miss that.

 

Think you will be fine Lifou is still on Princess itinerary's its only RCIs Voyager and Explorer at this stage

[Russell21]

Building anything on Lifou would take a long time. There is no local concrete company you can phone and order a truck load of concrete to be delivered .:rolleyes:

I guess if a ship was calling every day , as they do in the Caribbean , it may be different.

 

According to our guide when we were there the call rate for cruise ships averages out to 1 every three days.

[chester32]

Building anything on Lifou would take a long time. There is no local concrete company you can phone and order a truck load of concrete to be delivered .:rolleyes:

I guess if a ship was calling every day , as they do in the Caribbean , it may be different.

 

You are probably right David about sourcing materials for the build , but wouldn't you think RCI would have not advertised this as a port of call months ago you don't have to be Einstein to see if a project wont be completed on time . Also why did RCI not make this call before final payment date which for a lot of cruises was only a couple of weeks ago?

For some people it is not a big deal for us it is as family members were going to join us on our cruise but because of the change they cant as there is now 3 consecutive sea days so no infants under 12 months

Sorry vent over

[CupcakeSusie]

I am sorry for you :( but I did say apart from the swimming and snorkelling.

 

Oh yes! I wasn't ignoring that part - was just having a whine about how badly I feel I'm missing out ;)

 

Something similar happened to me recently - I was in Sydney choosing a restaurant for dinner and had narrowed it down to two. One was a little more expensive but they had creme brûlée on their dessert menu. My absolute favourite. So I chose that one, had a great meal ... and was advised at dessert time that they were out of creme brûlée. I had chocolate cheesecake instead and I enjoyed it, but it wasn't quite the same. A bit disappointing but still good overall. And I could have paid less elsewhere. Know what I mean?

[Kiwi Kruzer]

According to our guide when we were there the call rate for cruise ships averages out to 1 every three days.

 

If there is a cruise ship calling 1 out of every 3 days, I presume year round , then it is in the interests of the cruise lines to use it as draw card to sell their cruise's and they should get together , pay for it and build it themselves.

After all there is far more in it for them , than the few crumbs that are thrown to the locals.:mad:

[Hot Chilli]

For some people it is not a big deal for us it is as family members were going to join us on our cruise but because of the change they cant as there is now 3 consecutive sea days so no infants under 12 months

 

Your situation is really not fair. It's not just the holiday they are missing, but special time with family that can't be replaced. I hope they get well compensated.

[mr walker]

According to our guide when we were there the call rate for cruise ships averages out to 1 every three days.

 

I was surprised at that high a number, but see that there are 30 ship port days scheduled for Nov/Dec, so at the peak it's more like 1 every 2nd day! That said, I see that 11 of these are Voyager & Explorer who are now not going, so 11 out of 30 is a big hit for the locals.

 

I take it that RCI expected to be able to port the Voyager class there when they published and sold itineraries, and the late notice suggests a snafu somewhere along the line, which should have likely been foreseen, so as to not cause the disruption that is now occurring. I guess no winners in all this, well except the alternate ports who now get extra visitors.

[robinph]

My Dec 3rd Radiance cruise is still showing Lifou on the Royal website but my Jan 25th Explorer is showing Mare.

 

To be honest I cant remember whether Lifou was originally on the Explorer itinerary as I just booked because >>>ship>>>cheap>>>going somewhere. I only glanced to see if Noumea was there and unfortunately it was.

 

Can Royal please dump Noumea next time.

 

 

Hi Woodyren, we are on Explorer 25th Jan also and Lifou was originally on the itinerary. Can't say I'm unhappy about the change, Lifou is not one of my favourite ports of call Robin:)

[Embl]

Such a shame Voyager misses out. We enjoyed Lifou. If we want more sea days we do repositioning cruises. Another day of Bingo!

[4xponder]

We were going to spend Christmas day on Lifou but now we get a trip to Wollongong :mad:

[chester32]

We were going to spend Christmas day on Lifou but now we get a trip to Wollongong :mad:

 

No this cant be right?? What are RCI thinking Wollongong instead of Lifou no offence to people of the gong but this is absurd

It probably to break up sea days i suppose but come on surely there is some where else ??

[aussielozzie18]

I am getting $100 OBC for not stopping at Lifou and I am fine with that but if i was getting Wollongong instead of Lifou on a Christmas Cruise I would not be happy either (no offence to anyone from Wollongong).

[Hogbay]

Hi all , i booked 29th exp/ots to go snorkling in Lifou for my birthday on the 2nd Dec , now a sea day and the "Goodwill" they are offering $100 obc PER STATEROOM $50 EACH :mad:That is Just giving back the port tax that they legally have too and calling it GOODWILL :rolleyes:

Trouble

[Hogbay]

Sorry to read about the group who are not going cause of bub :(

[SpainAlien]

Hi Hogbay,

 

I'm on the same sailing and I asked RCCI if we were going to get our port tax back as well. Their reply was that there would be no further OBC awarded - not quite what I asked but I get the picture. Looking at the port taxes on the website for our cruise now the have gone down from 163$ to 158$ so I guess I can live without the 5 bucks.

 

I am sorry you will miss your snorkeling on you birthday the OBC will at least get you a couple of cocktails to celebrate with

 

Xxx

 

Sent from my SM-G920F using Tapatalk

[MicCanberra]

Hi all , i booked 29th exp/ots to go snorkling in Lifou for my birthday on the 2nd Dec , now a sea day and the "Goodwill" they are offering $100 obc PER STATEROOM $50 EACH :mad:That is Just giving back the port tax that they legally have too and calling it GOODWILL :rolleyes:

Trouble

 

I am sure there is some port tax in there but would be very surprised if Lifou was $50 pp in port tax. I assume that the majority is the Goodwill amount. That said, it would have been better to be more.

 

Note: I see it was actually $5 for the port tax, thanks Spainalien.

Edited September 15, 2016 by MicCanberra

[MicCanberra]

We were going to spend Christmas day on Lifou but now we get a trip to Wollongong :mad:

 

Welcome to Cruise critic, what a shame this has happened for your Xmas day celebrations.

[Hogbay]

Point is other cruise's are going to another stop ie Mare ,Woollongong or the grain terminal :eek: The only reason i booked this cruise was to go snorklling in Lifou on my Birthday :mad:

[MicCanberra]

Point is other cruise's are going to another stop ie Mare ,Woollongong or the grain terminal :eek: The only reason i booked this cruise was to go snorklling in Lifou on my Birthday :mad:

 

That is a real shame, I can see why you are disappointed.

[LuckiePuris]

All cruise ships calling into Lifou anchor offshore and use smaller boats which hold around 100 people (known as tenders) to transport guests to shore.

Unfortunately works to build a larger tender platform in Lifou to accommodate tenders capable of handling large ships the size of Explorer of the Seas and Voyager of the Seas have not been completed, and Royal Caribbean has taken the decision to cancel calls to Lifou by Explorer of the Seas and Voyager of the Sea

 

 

 

 

So are you saying that larger ships have larger tenders, or more tenders. I would have thought the tenders were standard size, industry wide.

Sorry for being pedantic. But that's how it reads to me.

 

Logistics wise for Explorer and Voyager, it would take too long to get everyone on and off the ship using the existing tender pier which is why they are skipping Lifou.

 

Physically it can be done, Explorer / Voyager visited Lifou multiple times in previous cruise seasons.

 

However they have realised that it isn't efficient using the existing tender pier so they have started constructing a second larger pier. This new pier is not ready, so they skip Lifou this season until the new bigger tender pier is ready.

[LuckiePuris]

My cruise has been replaced with an extra sea day at the start. I'm actually really looking forward to three sea days to completely relax and unwind before the ports start.

 

$100 OBC in a quad share isn't much per person but atleast it should cover a specialty restaurant cover charge.

[MicCanberra]

My cruise has been replaced with an extra sea day at the start. I'm actually really looking forward to three sea days to completely relax and unwind before the ports start.

 

$100 OBC in a quad share isn't much per person but atleast it should cover a specialty restaurant cover charge.

 

Unless Lifou was specially on your list of places to visit, it is not that much of a loss and as you say, some OBC and an extra sea day is a nice bit of compensation.:D

[woodyren]

So the $100 OBC is only for those cruises that miss Lifou and don't have a substitute port?

 

The cruise I am on has Mare substituted for Lifou and while I am fine with that some cash for a few drinks would have made me finer if you get my drift :D:D

 

Seriously though it is a bummer for those who have children under 1 year old or those people who really wanted to visit Lifou.