NEWS UPDATE: Royal Caribbean cancels ENTIRE Australian Season | Pacific Adventure updates and more!

Join my private Facebook group for cruise deals, tips and advice - the more members we have, the better we’ll get! www.facebook.com/groups/CTGdeals Head to my website for great cruise and travel deals: www.thecruiseandtravelguy.com.au Follow me on Facebook and Instagram: www.facebook.comn/thecruiseandtravelguy www.instragram.com/thecruiseandtravelguy In an email to members this week, CLIA Managing Director Joel Katz noted that their consistent messaging around the safe resumption of cruising is finally beginning to break through to senior politicians. Ongoing discussions with the government have apparently changed in tone, and Joel Katz added, “we’re now seeing a new willingness to make progress and we’re hopeful our extensive behind-the-scenes work with government will start to show results soon.” It’s important that us cruise lovers continue to exert our collective pressure on our government, so even if you’ve done it before, head over to readysetsail.com.au and let them know one more time how ready you are for cruising to return. Perhaps mention that travelling overseas to cruise, as many of us will shortly be able to do, rather than simply cruising from here is pretty insane…although highly, highly tempting. Despite this behind the scenes headway, we learned yesterday that Royal Caribbean have suspended their entire 21/22 Australian summer season, cancelling all voyages scheduled through until the end of March. It was only a few months ago that Royal Caribbean created this now cancelled season and its first scheduled departure was set for December 13th. It was generally expected that, like Princess, P&O and Carnival, Royal Caribbean would at least extend their pause in operations through to the month of January, but instead they chose to pull the plug on the entire season. No doubt they’ll be looking across the world for other countries and cities that are willing to accept cruise operations. Disappointing, but no one can blame the cruise lines - our government is seriously letting us down. I hope that in the words of Joel Katz, we’ll start to see the result of a changing government tone about cruising very soon. Meanwhile in South Africa, cruising has officially been given the green light and will resume in November. This is despite the country of 60 million having a full vaccinated rate of 18% compared to Australia’s 65. I’m glad to see cruising return to more places around the globe, but it just highlights how utterly backwards Australia is when it comes to this mode of travel. Both Pacific Adventure and sister ship Pacific Encounter were originally set to have twin racing waterslides installed as part of their makeovers before their arrival into Australia. In 2020, P&O stated that the slides would not be installed until a later date, but this week they announced that Pacific Adventure will in fact arrive in Australia sporting the attraction. The slides are an impressive structure, perched high above the upper decks beneath and extending out beyond the side of the ship. Pacific Encounter will have her slides installed in March 2023. P&O held their virtual Fly The Flag event on Thursday night offering up family friendly entertainment, cocktail making, a word from their industry partners and a further sneak peak at the Pacific Adventure. The showcase definitely proved just how cruise-crazy Australians are, and made it very clear that we’re all longing for the day we can once again step onboard a ship and enjoy the sweet, salty smell of the ocean. Also this week, P&O launched their 23/24 season and with it, their around Australia voyage. The voyage will take its lucky cruisers on 28 night journey around our island continent onboard Pacific Explorer and is the first time in 90 years that P&O have offered full circumnavigation. Celebrity also released their Australian Edge season for booking, and I can confirm it’s been popular - proving just how ready Aussies are to get back on the high seas, but also how excited we are about experiencing a truly groundbreaking ship. The 12 itineraries focus on New Zealand, Queensland, the South Pacific and Southern Australia and bookings open to the general public from today. Thanks for watching!