"13-Night South Pacific Cruise From Honolulu Ending In Sydney" really is 13 sleeps

[geoffrey]

So this threw me a bit, so posting here in case this trips up anyone else.
The "13-Night South Pacific Cruise From Honolulu Ending In Sydney" is an accurate title. You will sleep on board 13 times (unless you nap ) even though the itinerary show 15 days.
13 nights in 15 days? It is the International Dateline and the definition of "day". A "day" is often not 24 hours long. Many cruises cross time zones and a day may have 23 or 25 hours. I think there was one time we had a 22 hour day. Crossing the International Dateline is an extreme example of this. "Day" 8 and "Day" 9 will have significantly less than 24 hours. They will each have about 12 hours in each "Day", depending on exactly how they do this.

Just to be sure, here are the port schedules for Honolulu and Sydney . Wonder leaves Honolulu on Oct 13, Honolulu time and arrives in Sydney Oct 27, Sydney time.

Also of note, I looks like the Wonder will use the "White Bay Cruise Terminal", not the "Overseas Passenger Terminal" right under the Harbour Bridge in the Rocks area

 

[choomTOP]

As someone going on this trip, DCL decided to skip Day 8 (Fri Oct 20). It's still listed in the itinerary but only to say "International Date Line." You can't add any onboard bookings. But the rest of the itinerary is still listed out as each day so "Day 15" is arriving at Sydney.

And yes, the Sydney terminal is White Bay, and then they'll move to the more picturesque Overseas the next day (to much fanfare, I would presume!).

 

[KarenMom]

I'm on this cruise as well and it took a bit to settle this in my brain. And coming home our flight leaves at 11:10 am (3 days after the cruise ends) and we get home at noon that same day. If you move forward one day you have to lose one day coming back the other way. We leave 3 weeks from today for some time Aulani before the cruise, I can't wait!

 

[HyperspaceMountainPilot]

This is my dream cruise. I hope you have an amazing time! As I understand the time zones, you’ll actually get an extra hour about every other day, right?

 

[KDG]

It will be fun to celebrate crossing that imaginary line and also the equator. Hope there are some commemorative recognitions of those two events.

 

[Little E]

Hi cruising friends! I'm on this cruise too! Are any of you having luck with booking excursions? Either Disney ones or private ones? My friend and I are late to the game...we just recently booked this cruise and we are frantically trying to figure out what to do for excursions. Most Disney ones are already booked and we're having a hard time trying to find other options.

Any ideas folks have stumble across would be awesome! TIA!

 

[HyperspaceMountainPilot]

Hi cruising friends! I'm on this cruise too! Are any of you having luck with booking excursions? Either Disney ones or private ones? My friend and I are late to the game...we just recently booked this cruise and we are frantically trying to figure out what to do for excursions. Most Disney ones are already booked and we're having a hard time trying to find other options.

Any ideas folks have stumble across would be awesome! TIA!

Have you tried 3rd party agencies? We’ve had luck with TripAdvisor/visitor tour vendors with high review scores.

 

[Little E]

@HyperspaceMountainPilot My traveling partner is looking at 3rd party agencies right now for this trip. I just didn't know if anyone had any specific experiences that they could recommend? It's hard to know which ones are good and which ones are sketchy sometimes. We are wanting to make sure we get back to the ship on time...that's a given when you book a DCL excursion, but a little nerve-racking when you book with a 3rd party. We are two gals traveling together and we want to make sure we're safe and we get back to ship in a timely manner.

 

[ironz]

Hi cruising friends! I'm on this cruise too! Are any of you having luck with booking excursions? Either Disney ones or private ones? My friend and I are late to the game...we just recently booked this cruise and we are frantically trying to figure out what to do for excursions. Most Disney ones are already booked and we're having a hard time trying to find other options.

Any ideas folks have stumble across would be awesome! TIA!

We did a tour on American Samoa with Tour American Samoa, not booked with DCL. It was fun, and they did get us back on time. Tour guides were good. The bus (used all around American Samoa) was a little rough.

On Fiji, we did the ColoSuva rain forest hike through DCL. You could easily arrange that on your own...we saw lots of people arriving there via taxi.

In New Caledonia, we took a small boat to Signal Island with DAL Ocean Charters, booked independently. Would not recommend for little ones, but it was fun. A very bumpy boat ride to a pretty island where we snorkeled with sea turtles. (There are also snakes).

 

[gotomu212]

@HyperspaceMountainPilot My traveling partner is looking at 3rd party agencies right now for this trip. I just didn't know if anyone had any specific experiences that they could recommend? It's hard to know which ones are good and which ones are sketchy sometimes. We are wanting to make sure we get back to the ship on time...that's a given when you book a DCL excursion, but a little nerve-racking when you book with a 3rd party. We are two gals traveling together and we want to make sure we're safe and we get back to ship in a timely manner.

I did book AS with Tour American Samoa and about half the ship did as well. We really liked our tour BUT there really isnt a tourist infrastructure. The guides were not really guides, the itinerary was a bit all over the place -again we liked it but this isn’t the seamless process you’re used to in the Caribbean.

In Fiji, I would NOT recommend going third party (and I am usually all about third party). New Caldera has an area you can walk around on your own but venturing out I would go with DCL. A big part of the issue again is that they just aren’t used to cruises in these ports, we loved Fiji but there are a few safety issues to be aware of. Finally if you did miss the ship getting to the next port is nowhere near as easy as hopping the inter island flights.
I loved this cruise, but port excursions werent a real focus.

 

[Little E]

Thanks so much...this is really helpful info!