I feel cheated by cruising opportunities in Australia

[Aus Traveller]

1 hour ago, MMDown Under said:

Congratulations  Bon Voyage  That will be a wonderful interesting port intensive cruise.  

Surely there are more ports in Queensland, cruise ships could arrange to stop at.  A member of the crew on a ship overseas told me of wonderful place their ship stopped at north of Cooktown.  I was ashamed I'd never heard of it.  

North of Cooktown? There aren't any ports north of Cooktown and it is a difficult place for ships to tender into. Maybe the reason you hadn't heard of the place is that the crew member was confused about where it is. 😁

[MMDown Under]

14 minutes ago, Aus Traveller said:

North of Cooktown? There aren't any ports north of Cooktown and it is a difficult place for ships to tender into. Maybe the reason you hadn't heard of the place is that the crew member was confused about where it is. 😁

It was an island from memory. I’ll look in to it.

[lissie]

2 hours ago, MMDown Under said:

Congratulations  Bon Voyage  That will be a wonderful interesting port intensive cruise.  

Surely there are more ports in Queensland, cruise ships could arrange to stop at.  A member of the crew on a ship overseas told me of wonderful place their ship stopped at north of Cooktown.  I was ashamed I'd never heard of it.  

Thursday Island? There is nothing much accessible up that coast - the Great Barrier Reef is a bit of a problem 

[Aus Traveller]

1 minute ago, MMDown Under said:

It was an island from memory. I’ll look in to it.

Would it have been Lizard Island? It is on the reef but it is so small I can't see it being any good for a reasonable size ship.

[lissie]

38 minutes ago, MMDown Under said:

I used to be a HAL fan, as they had such great itineraries in South Pacific also, but they had old ships which weren’t well maintained.

Well if they weren't well maintained they wouldn't be allowed to cruise out of the USA!  You need a smaller ship to get into many ports - we chose this one as it only takes 1400pax - to go any smaller you are looking at expedition style ships which are very expensive 

[Aus Traveller]

2 minutes ago, lissie said:

Thursday Island? There is nothing much accessible up that coast - the Great Barrier Reef is a bit of a problem 

MMDownUnder said she hadn't heard of the port. She would have heard of Thursday Island.

[lissie]

Just now, Aus Traveller said:

MMDownUnder said she hadn't heard of the port. She would have heard of Thursday Island.

I'm looking at the map and we've driven all the way to the top - there is nothing else up there apart from a few remote settlements which are restricted - the road/ track goes nowhere near the sea - you only see the sea on the west coast at Weipa  and at the very top coming into Cape York - there is lterally nothing at Cape York -  if you had to evacuate a cruise ship up there due ot an emergency - getting peolpe of the cape would be a nightmare. 

[MMDown Under]

7 minutes ago, lissie said:

I'm looking at the map and we've driven all the way to the top - there is nothing else up there apart from a few remote settlements which are restricted - the road/ track goes nowhere near the sea - you only see the sea on the west coast at Weipa  and at the very top coming into Cape York - there is lterally nothing at Cape York -  if you had to evacuate a cruise ship up there due ot an emergency - getting peolpe of the cape would be a nightmare. 

This was from a small ship from UK.

Small ships often visit out of the way places.

(I was booked on ferry to TI but couldn’t get insurance at the time as it was longer than four months away.  I have caught ferry from TI to the Cape). I absolutely love the region.

[MMDown Under]

38 minutes ago, Aus Traveller said:

Would it have been Lizard Island? It is on the reef but it is so small I can't see it being any good for a reasonable size ship.

No I’ve been to Lizard And Thursday Islands. On my last cruise we visited a couple of small islands whose names I can’t remember. One had pearls and one was for fishermen who flew in.  These are my happy places.  There are lots of small names islands in the North. (My great aunt had the lease on Newry Island and my uncle had an Oyster Lease on Outer Newry).

[icat2000]

Wasn't Badu or Forbes island ?

[MMDown Under]

5 minutes ago, icat2000 said:

Wasn't Badu or Forbes island ?

I’ll check when I get home. I remember thinking I wish I was on that cruise!

[icat2000]

2 minutes ago, MMDown Under said:

I’ll check when I get home. I remember thinking I wish I was on that cruise!

I know Coral expeditions do some cruising up that way. They really branching out in nice little itineraries. 

 

They got Kimberely Coast cruises 10 days at $7500 pp at the moment May and June. Not sure what the weather like that time of year.

[MMDown Under]

3 minutes ago, icat2000 said:

I know Coral expeditions do some cruising up that way. They really branching out in nice little itineraries. 

 

They got Kimberely Coast cruises 10 days at $7500 pp at the moment May and June. Not sure what the weather like that time of year.

I cruised with them from Cairns to Darwin when WA closed its borders. It was with them that I visited the two small islands last year.  No single supplement plus one deck with window upgrade!  I love that company!

[cruiser3775]

10 minutes ago, icat2000 said:

They got Kimberely Coast cruises 10 days at $7500 pp at the moment May and June. Not sure what the weather like that time of year.

The Wet Season is November to April, so by May it's more or less over. However, if it has been very wet (like this year), roads may still be flooded, which will effect shore excursions.

Was it Horn Island? That's the island near Thursday island which has the ferry to TI for people arriving by plane.

[MMDown Under]

7 minutes ago, cruiser3775 said:

The Wet Season is November to April, so by May it's more or less over. However, if it has been very wet (like this year), roads may still be flooded, which will effect shore excursions.

Was it Horn Island? That's the island near Thursday island which has the ferry to TI for people arriving by plane.

No I flew to Horn Is to get to TI.  Then I took local ferry to the Cape.

[Aus Traveller]

51 minutes ago, icat2000 said:

I know Coral expeditions do some cruising up that way. They really branching out in nice little itineraries. 

 

They got Kimberely Coast cruises 10 days at $7500 pp at the moment May and June. Not sure what the weather like that time of year.

May and June would be a ideal time of year to cruise off the Kimberley Coast. $7,500 for a 10-night cruise demonstrates how expensive it is to cruise on these small ships.

[icat2000]

35 minutes ago, MMDown Under said:

No I flew to Horn Is to get to TI.  Then I took local ferry to the Cape.

You must have had quite an adventous trip. 

 

My Pete would love to do island hopping via land in the South Pacific area but just all the logistics. Ahhh. 

[MMDown Under]

Just now, icat2000 said:

You must have had quite an adventous trip. 

 

My Pete would love to do island hopping via land in the South Pacific area but just all the logistics. Ahhh. 

Yes it was part of my around Aust air pass when it cost only 30,000 points.  We stayed one or two weeks at each place.

we used to stay on South Pacific islands en route to the US. We visited both the Cook

Islands and Tahiti on one wonderful trip. The journey is as interesting as the destination.

  

[reeves35]

The simple fact is the cruiselines can make a lot more money from their ships doing a northern hemisphere season in Alaska or Northern Asia than they can by keeping them in Australian waters.

 

As has been said, Australia is a very big place with only a limited number of port options.  In winter months, the realistic departure points for those wanting to quickly escape the cold are Brisbane, Cairns or Darwin but the latter two mean a very expensive airfare usually has to be added to the fare cost. Smaller ships can and do offer itineraries over winter from northern ports but the daily cruise fare is typically 3 or 4 times what is expected on the main cruiselines.

 

Melbourne has a short season because it is really only suited to southern Australia or NZ itineraries.  Pacific Island itineraries struggle from Melbourne because, for the same amount of time to be available in the islands, the overall cruise has to be 4 days longer than the equivalent cruise from Sydney and, in cooler months, those extra days are probably going to be spent stuck indoors.

 

Many complain about itineraries from Sydney and Brisbane but the options are limited.  For a 7-10 day cruise, the options are New Caledonia/Vanuatu or North Queensland and the latter requires a day cruise out to Willis Island so the lines can offer profitable duty free shopping onboard.  There are longer cruise options such as PNG, Fiji or Samoa but these are typically much harder to fill and usually end up with too many sea-days for many passengers. 

[OzKiwiJJ]

Unless you can afford the luxury cruise lines all the time even overseas itineraries go to the same old, same old ports, and in places like the Med you have to contend with crowding from all the other mega-ships in port that day. 

 

It will be interesting to see what Japan is like for cruising in November. Although it's late in their season it's "fall foliage" time which I believe is almost as popular as cherry blossom time.

[MMDown Under]

1 minute ago, OzKiwiJJ said:

Unless you can afford the luxury cruise lines all the time even overseas itineraries go to the same old, same old ports, and in places like the Med you have to contend with crowding from all the other mega-ships in port that day. 

 

It will be interesting to see what Japan is like for cruising in November. Although it's late in their season it's "fall foliage" time which I believe is almost as popular as cherry blossom time.

Depends early or late Nov. yes fall is beautiful

[OzKiwiJJ]

40 minutes ago, MMDown Under said:

Depends early or late Nov. yes fall is beautiful

The Princess cruise departs 31st October for 9 nights, then we have two nights in Tokyo before boarding RSS Explorer for a few more Japanese ports then on to Bangkok, where we're doing a three night post cruise package. Packing is going to be a real sod - cool weather clothes for Japan and hot weather clothes for Thailand. 

Edited April 17, 2023 by OzKiwiJJ

[MMDown Under]

5 minutes ago, OzKiwiJJ said:

The Princess cruise departs 31st October for 9 nights, then we have two nights in Tokyo before boarding RSS Explorer for a few more Japanese ports then on to Bangkok, where we're doing a three night post cruise package. Packing is going to be a ***** - cool weather clothes for Japan and hot weather clothes for Thailand. 

Lucky you will be on cruise and land package.  Not being familiar with RSS Explorer, I googled it.  My size ship!  Enjoy the luxury.  Have you cruised with them before?

[OzKiwiJJ]

3 minutes ago, MMDown Under said:

Lucky you will be on cruise and land package.  Not being familiar with RSS Explorer, I googled it.  My size ship!  Enjoy the luxury.  Have you cruised with them before?

No, it will be our first time on Regent. A friend of ours is an expert at sniffing out really good deals then tempting us with them. It should be fun. We booked that cruise first, then I found the Princess cruise which dovetails nicely and has no duplicate port stops. We needed something to soak up some FCCs from Princess and that was the perfect solution.

[sayaguru]

On 4/16/2023 at 4:42 AM, MMDown Under said:

Have a look at the number of ports on this cruise on ms Zaandam for 25 nights NEW ENGLAND, CANADA,AND ICELAND.  $US $3499 Ocean View.  

Yes, I'm green with envy.  This is the real reason people aren't cruising more in Australia.  Whoever is in charge of cruise itineraries from Australia needs a wake up call and they are getting it!! 

US sites don't include taxes so if you are quoting from a US site add $300+? Then convert it is $5,700AUD. $228 a night. Nothing startling. 

I have seen some cheap cruises in other countries though. Competition. 

There have been some great deals in Australia lately but limited itineraries of course. 

Edited April 17, 2023 by sayaguru