South Pacific Cruise Reviews

I've always said I'd never go on a cruise until my family twisted my arm to go. All I can say is wow, what an experience. This was the best holiday ever, and I can't wait to go again! 

My family of four had an excellent vacation aboard the Celebrity Solstice.  We were unfamiliar with the islands but were very impressed with the destinations.  The staff aboard the ship were fantastic and catered to our every need, including two celiac diets.  We especially appreciated the all inclusive beverage package we purchased!

The cruise was great. The problem I have with Royal Carribean is that during the entire cruise someone is trying to sell you something, spa services, beverage and resturant packages.  It got very old after the first few days. 

favorite - scenery of New Zealand and Australia 

Improvement needed

- tender coordination - insufficient number to handle all of the passengers 

- wider variety of food (more Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Indian cuisine)

- lack of things to do on the ship, particularly on sea days

- need to run 3 shows each night instead of only 2.  Often we could not fine seats in the theatre 

we had a brilliant 10 day trip on the explorer of the seas. The boat was gorgeous - plenty to see and do. The shows were fantastic and the kids were entertained at all times. Our wonderful wait staff in the gorgeous Sapphire dining room were the highlight of our trip. Valentino, Omkar, Sashi and Ajay became lifelong friends and were fabulous with our needs and our children. The flowrider was a favourite. Food was good and overall a wonderful experience 

We especially enjoyed the snorkeling experiences on the islands. Our. cabin and evening dining room staff were very good. One of our party had special food needs so we found it difficult to have to have lunch and breakfast in a different part of the dining room and with different staff each day. Some facets of the that particular ship's facilities could have been initially explained better e.g how the t.v. worked, pool towel borrowing system.

We were on the voyager of the seas last feb 21-march 5! The cruise is a very memorable experience. Smooth sailing, everything is perfect! relaxing and worth it! All staffs are amazing! always smiling and ready to help! It's a very clean cruise ship, i can't complain about anything! Service is awesome, fully packed activities, 24 hours room attendants, the staterooms with balcony are perfect, size is reasonable, a lot of compartment and very clean! The only thing that i can say needs improvement are the lifts, but still not a big issue.  abug thank you to Mukesh and Eugene who patiently catered us in the sapphire room! they were amazing, very quick and efficient! To all the bar staff at the Tavern, R Bar especially Garry and Schooner Bar with Bartender Gil! Gave us best experience! so friendly and no dull moments! Also special thanks to our room attendant Bliss who cleaned our room 8608 for 12 days! Fantastic job, spotless all the time and very friendly! Will definitely go back as it is an awesome cruise! 

This was our fourth cruise with RCI and picked this cruise because the ship was the Ovation of the Seas and it ticked all the boxes.

This was a repositioning cruise from Sydney to Singapore. 

There was about 4000 passengers onboard, but didn't seem like it, always found a table in the windjammer cafe, food was very good, Deepak the manager was excellent, a very funny man and really enjoyed his jokes, but the food and service in the dining rooms was always excellent.

Shopping was high end. Don't forget your toothpaste etc as they didn't sell these items.

The Solarium pool area was great, never had a problem getting a sun lounge.

All prices onboard in USD.

Drinks on board were pricey, but we purchased the drinks package since we were spending 11 out of the 14 days cruising and felt it was good value for money.

The shows onboard are second to none.

Plenty of activities, North Star, iFly, Wave Rider, dogem cars, roller skating, indoor and outdoor movies.

Overall a excellent cruise.

Food was good. Dining room staff very helpful. i thought there was too many people on this ship. No chairs when trivia was on, no loungers by the pool and no seats in the windjammer for meals. We took most of our meals back to our cabin to eat them. Overall we had a good time but we have been put off going on ships with a huge passenger capacity. Extra charges to go onto Darwin  Brisbane and kuala lumpur. That was unexpected as we have always had a free shuttle bus into town on our other cruises.

Ovation of the Seas is a very large boat when you first walk in to the boat on your first day as you arrive on the boat there is no wow Factor unlike other Cruise Lines where they have a beautiful atrium. This was one of the many downfalls of evasion the shops they had on board were very limited the speciality restaurants we're not worth the money you had to pay for them this was a view shared by many people on the cruise and the food you could get an especially restaurants was all available and the dining rooms when selecting your cabin be very Shore you are not by the main picture theatre or above 360 at the rear of ship as it is a very noisy night and day

Purchased as a late Valentines Day present to each other we thought a 3 night cruise out of Adelaide would be nice... the woman who sold us the cruise at the Phil Hoffman Travel Expo actually worked for the CMV company and raved about the Astor... we explained it was a romantic getaway and she booked us in... And then when we boarded... we had two single beds that couldn't be converted... one of the beds was lilting so that you felt you were going to roll out of bed at night. The dining room experience was just that, an experience that I wouldn't want to repeat... I felt we were shuttled like cattle to out table and rushed through our meal... and the buffet style restaurant had inadequate seating for the number of guests and you had to be quick to get food or the restaurant would close. All in all I would not go on the Astor again... very disappointing!

The food was excellent, the stage shows/entertainment were excellent and all the staff were very helpful and pleasant.  We would be very happy to recommend cruise line to our friends

This was the 7-day trip to the Society Islands plus the Tuamotus.

This was our second trip on the Paul Gauguin.  We did the 10-day cruise last August specifically to snorkel at the two atolls, Fakarava and Rangiroa, in the Tuomotus.  We never got there because an engine problem kept us five days in Bora Bora (they had to fly in an engineer with a part from France!).  They provided us with some compensation, so we decided to book the seven day version of the same cruise (only one day in both Bora Bora and Moorea instead of the 10-day trip that schedules two days at these two islands).  We knew we were taking a chance going in the rainy season and we sure did run into a lot of rain.

Two of the days, because of bad weather and rough seas our excursions were cancelled, including Moorea and once again Rangiroa!  We did the pinnacle snorkel in Fakarava, but only got to snorkel near the beautiful coral and schools of fish about 20 minutes.  We enjoyed our excursions on Huahine, and Tahaa'a.  But the best day of the trip for us was on Bora Bora.  We had arranged an independent snorkeling tour with four stops.  Even though it was raining when the trip began, with only one other couple aboard.  We had a fantastic stop watching giant manta rays gliding below us, then a stop with many fish, then a great stop at a beautiful coral gardens, and finally a last stop to watch a couple of eagle rays swim by at a distance.

The trip was still very good, and the staff were excellent as was the food.

Now for a few minor criticisms.

Paul Gauguin had us fly on Air Tahiti Nui from Los Angeles on the late afternoon flight.  Flying into Papeete and getting to the ship after midnight had some negatives: we missed the first days activities and dinner, and also the first port talk on the first three ports we were visiting.  They should be able to just videotape this kind of presentation as other cruise ships do and repeat it on the cabin television.

I thought they could have done something classy on Valentine's Day, like give the women flowers when they came for breakfast.

The majority of people going into the dining rooms never use the hand sanitizer that were placed there to prevent illness.  On the big cruise ship a staff person is positioned there to make sure people do clean their hands.

We still had a good time and recommend this cruise to all.  As my boss where I work said, better being in the rain in Bora Bora than being in the snow in Minnesota Minnesota!

The Celebrity crew did a fantastic job as always. This was our 4th cruise with Celebrity, 2nd on the Solstice, and we have not been disappointed. The service and food were excellent. We were impressed with Celebrity's concern and care when several passengers were injured and hospitalized in an excursion bus accident. We already booked our next cruise.

Favourite part of cruise was the variety of things to do & see. The staff were helpful & friendly. The islands were magical, getting to & from was easy. The food was delicious, tried all 3 resturants. Definitely recommend this cruise.

Our cabin steward was amazing but that's the only positive.

I upgraded to a suite and paid over $6,000 for it, when I get to the room its a regular room with a small table and a couch pushed up against the wall.  I was ripped off, didn't get any of the amenities AA promised I would and I am unsatisfied at the highest level.  The cruise was pitched to me in such a positive fashion but I was truly ripped off.

We had a wonderful trip. There was fog in New Zealand and our Captain kept us safely out to sea. Sorry to miss a couple of ports but got some much needed R & R! We loved the journey and opportunity it get to know some other people on the trip. Would highly reccommend this trip.

The fine dining served on board were awful....mainly very salty. There is only a specialty dining to choose. This is unlike the Golden and Diamond that we cruise in 2015 South America and 2016 Japan cruises, there were varieties of specialty dining to choose.

the entire cruise was a disaster. We chose this cruise to visit Dunedin and Christchurch but due to heavy fog we had to skip these ports. To us, it is money spend for 10 percent of what we invested.

Although we did the 32 days South America and 17 days Japan cruises, the last experiences put us off our plan for the 104 days round the world cruises in Sea Princess.

Hi 

great service and food, guess the only complaint would be better coffee but that's probably just us. It would have been nice to be able to turn air-con off lucky we had a balcony so we could open the door, but then again that's probably just us. We had a fantastic time it was so relaxing! 

This was our first Royal Caribbean Cruise and it did not disappoint.  The Ovation of the Seas is one of the largest cruise ships with over 4000 passenger capacity. We were worried about waiting in lines but did not need to - we booked at Silk for 6pm everynight and walked straight in.  I guess it depends when you travel - there could be queues in peak holiday times - reading other reviews, I see this was an issue.

The Fine Dining Restaurants were elegant in décor and service was impeccable - we went to Jamie's Italian for a long table lunch it was amazing!

We loved spending time in two70 watching the ocean and relaxing. 

I took some instant coffee for the cabin - there are teabags supplied but no coffee.

Overall the trip was amazing - we are hoping to go again late December.