Visit three continents in four weeks with Princess Cruises Posted on Tuesday, August 24, 2010 | 0 comments

An exciting cruise itinerary for 2011 would have to be the 28 night cruise on the Ocean Princess departing Rome (Civitavecchia) on the 15th of October 2011. This four week voyage includes stops in Europe, Africa, and Asia before arriving in Singapore on the 12th of November.

The Ocean Princess (formerly the Tahitian Princess) is the sister ship to the Royal and Pacific Princess is intimate in size with a capacity of less than 700 passengers. The Pacific Princess is a personal favourite of mine as there is so much space onboard to relax, deck chairs are plentiful and queues that you associate with larger ships are not present.

This 28 night voyage include calls at Sorrento, Italy; Athens; and Kusadasi, Turkey (for the ruins of Ephesus) before transiting the Suez Canal and continuing on to Sharm El Sheik, Egypt; Aqaba, Jordan (for the ruins of Petra); Safaga, Egypt (gateway to the Egyptian ruins of Luxor and Karnak); Dubai; Muscat, Oman; Mumbai, India; Cochin, India; and Kuala Lumpur.

To view a full range of Ocean Princess departures please visit cruisesalefinder.com.au

Pacific Pearl Posted on Tuesday, August 10, 2010 | 0 comments

Last night I attending an announcement regarding the Pacific Pearl and her launch in December 2010. The ship will have some fantastic features never offered before by a P&O cruise ship. The Pacific Pearl will launch in Auckland New Zealand on the 22nd of December which is the first time a ship has ever been launch in NZ. After a summer season cruising out of Auckland the ship will move to Sydney. The god mother of the ship hasn't been named but a good guess could be Julie Bailey.

One of the fantastic new features is a LED 7 metre outdoor big screen like they have on some Princess ships. The screen will play movies, games, and even karaoke under the stars!

The Pacific Pearl will have a "Dome" area at the top of the ship, similar to the Pacific Dawn, however it will be very different to the Dawn as it will double as a lounge/viewing area by day and in the evening it will be an entertainment area that then turns into a night club late in the evening. The viewing during the day from this area is said to be spectacular as the windows are on a 90 degree angle unlike the Pacific Dawn's windows that are on a 45 degree angle.

The Pacific Pearl's other first is a swim up bar, which I suspect will be very popular, and very difficult to get a seat at.

Early bookings for the Pearl have exceed all expectations with many of the early sailings ex Auckland starting to fill up. Personally I think the Pacific Pearl will be another step in the right direction by P&O and will again lift the standard of local cruising to another level.

To view some of the sailings on the Pacific Pearl visit www.cruisesalefinder.com.au

Celebrity Century coming Spring 2011! Posted on Wednesday, July 21, 2010 | 0 comments

In Nov 2011, the stunning Celebrity Century will make her debut in Australasian waters, becoming the region’s highest rated cruise ship*. Celebrity Century will sail a range of 12 – 18 night cruises from Honolulu, Auckland, Sydney and Fremantle. Itineraries will be released in the coming weeks and due to go on sale on Fri 30 Jul with an exclusive early booking offer.
*Berlitz Guide to Cruising 2010

Onboard Credit Posted on Wednesday, July 14, 2010 | 1 comments

What is onboard credit? And why do some cruises receive it and others do not?

If you look on on websites you will notice that many cruises have a bonus internet offer of onboard credit. This means that when you board the ship your onboard account is automatically credited for the amount shown on the website. It can be used to pay for any onboard expenditure including shore excursions, duty free shopping, or fixing up your bar account. The credit is there to be spent and any onboard credit not used is non refundable. It is also important to note that no vouchers are issued by the cruise line for onboard credit, instead it is just applied to your account.

So why do some cruises have it and others don't? The cruise lines allow us select cruises that we want the onboard credit on and we are limited in the number we can select. However because we are a cruise specialist and big sellers this is acknowledged by the cruise lines and they allow us to select more cruises than your regular retail travel agency.

Also look our for our "cruise sale weeks". We can have a maximum of six cruise sale weeks a year and during a cruise sale week all P&O and Sun and Dawn Princess cruises 7 nights or more receive onboard credit of up to $100. If the cruise already receives onboard credit then this is additional to that making for fantastic value.

High demand for QM2 Circumnavigation Cruise Posted on Tuesday, July 13, 2010 | 0 comments

Congratulations to those of you who were lucky enough to secure a cabin on one of the three QM2 Circumnavigation Cruises that went on sale yesterday. Within an hour most cabin categories had sold out on this historic voyage and by the end of the day the Fremantle and Adelaide departures were completely sold out. To give you an idea of the demand for this cruise when our office called Cunard at 5 minutes to 9am ( it went on sale at 9am) we were on hold for 30 minutes before our call was answered.

It will be interesting to see in the next few days how many of the cabins held will become deposited reservations, however I am sure they will get snapped up as soon as they are released and the cruise goes on sale to the general public.

One thing that is for certain Cunard will repeat this cruise again in the future. There aren't many cruises that can sell out 18 months in advance!

Guarantee Cabins Posted on Thursday, July 8, 2010 | 0 comments

What does means when a cabin is on guarantee status? A question we are often asked as the cruise lines seem to be offering guarantee cabins more and more these days.

When a cabin is on guarantee it means no cabin number can be selected at the time of booking and the cruise line guarantees you the cabin category booked or higher. There is a strong possibility of an upgrade, however where they place you is at the cruise lines discretion and changing a cabin number after it has been allocated is hard to do.

So why are so many cabins going on guarantee status? The cruise lines do this when they need to fill a cruise and they will over sell a lead-in cabin grade (lead-in means cheapest price) and upgrade people into higher cabin categories. It also happens when there are only a few cabins left in a cabin category so an upgrade is not guaranteed.

If you do book a cabin on guarantee you must be prepared to take a cabin located anywhere onboard the ship, so a guarantee cabin is not advisable if you are traveling in a group or if you have a specific preference to where you are located. If these factors are not important to you then you can quite often get a very good deal.

Princess Australia 2011-12 Program Released Posted on Monday, June 21, 2010 | 0 comments

Princess Cruises have just released their largest ever Australian cruise program with 48 cruise departures in total. The big increase this has been on cruises to New Zealand with a total of 27 departures on offer. To support the increased number of departures to NZ Princess Cruises have enhanced their onboard experience by adding the following:

o Special food menus to include the famous NZ egg and bacon pie for breakfast.
o Fjord Balcony Dining Breakfast as you sail through Milford Sound
o Inclusion of New Zealand beers, Stein Lager and Rheineck.
o Port Lecturer destination experts will be on board each vessel to deliver illustrated
port lectures for each port visited with tourist recommendations, traveller tips and
historical overview.
o Naturalist during day of scenic cruising in Fjordland National Park, a certified park
ranger will provide bridge narration (similar to Alaska) for each vessel.
o In-Port Cultural Practitioners in select NZ ports Maori cultural practitioners will
present 45 minute afternoon enrichment workshops demonstrating an aspect of
their culture and heritage. Maori masters with skills in explaining their respective
disciplines will include: Kapa Haka dance traditions, tiki warrior rituals, Waiata chants, Maori word lessons.

However the big reason for the increase to the cruise program has been the arrival of the Sea Princess, who will offer 12 different cruise departures between October 2011 and March 2011 during her maiden Australian cruise season. A highlight to the cruise program for the Sea Princess will be the very popular 42 night Cherry Blossom cruise departing on the 4th of march 2012.

The Sun Princess will call Brisbane home for the summer which is the first time a Princess ship has called Brisbane home. A stand out itinerary from Brisbane will be the 42 night China and Japan Cruise in September 2011. The Dawn Princess will return to Melbourne for the Summer operating 13 night cruises to New Zealand.

Another big announcement that Princess Cruises made was the removal of tipping from all Sun, Dawn and Sea Princess Australian cruises from May 2011 which I am sure we will all enjoy!!!

To view a these new departures visit CruiseSaleFinder