Well, it seems that Princess Cruise Lines is definitely hoping that they'll be able to cruise out of Australia after the current ban ends in December.
Back in update number 6, I talked about the fact that we had a Sydney to Auckland cruise booked in January 2022, and that I had decided to also book us on the following cruise on that ship - from Auckland back to Sydney - in order to avoid risks around not being able to get flights home from New Zealand.
As it happens a lot of those concerns have reduced in the meantime - there has been a travel bubble of sorts between Australia and NZ for a while now (although this week New Zealand has quite understandably shut it down temporarily due to outbreaks in Australia). But, I figured I'd just leave it until later to decide what to do; final payments on the cruises aren't due until November when things will certainly be clearer.
But, as I said, Princess is being hopeful and they've just notified me that as part of their restart plans they have 'redeployed' those two particular cruises. So, instead of one cruise from Sydney to Auckland and another cruise back, we're now booked on two identical cruises - both Sydney to New Zealand and return. Same dates - they still leave on 18 and 30 January - but instead of visiting a few different places on each cruise they're now completely identical ports of call.
I spent a bit of time trying to decide which one to cancel, because even for a cruise addict like me, two identical back-to-back New Zealand cruises is a bit over the top. Specially when neither of them now goes to Wellington or Hobart, and both of those places are highlights for me on any cruise.
But then I realised I shouldn't do any such thing, not yet anyway - better option is to wait and see if they're even going to happen first. After all, cruise ships are still absolutely banned from entering the country, and the government has not started any meaningful dialogue about a cruise restart. It took many months for the USA and Canada to get from 'maybe cruises can restart' through 'this is what the cruise lines will have to do' to their actual restart, and I can't see it happening any more quickly here.
So, basically, I think there is zero chance of these two cruises actually going ahead. I think that just as they've been doing for more than a year now, sometime in around September the government will announce another three-month extension to the ban which will not only cancel those two cruises but also Paul and Adam's cruise to New Zealand in March.
And bluntly, it's better to let the cruise line be forced to cancel them - over the last year or so Princess has become disappointingly proficient at cancelling cruises.
On the brighter side, I have decided to get up the courage to make a third attempt at going on a "Search for the Northern Lights" cruise, following cancellation of our attempts to do this in 2020 and 2021. Same as before - 14 days round trip from Southampton with the highlight being an overnight stop in Alta, Norway. This one is in October 2023 and of course we would again spend some time in the UK / Europe before or after the cruise.
