We choose this cruise for a few reasons. 1) we had always wanted to go to this area of the world 2) we love the "at sea" days as much as port days and 3) there were at sea days between every country visited, so on the off chance that someone would have gotten Covid, we would only have missed at most 1 country. As it was, we traveled with another couple,1 person got Covid, and missed 1 country. HAL was very prepared for Covid, and managed it well. The whole cruise which was actually 51 days (this 36 day cruise plus another one of 14 days around NZ) there were only about 60 cases of Covid. HAL had a separate set of room set aside for isolation rooms....and nicer rooms, not interior rooms. That was very well done. We wore masks for the first week, then everyone was tested, and after that no masks were required. Enough about Covid.

In the title I said the trip was bumpy. I meant bumpy from the itinerary perspective. There was 1 country (Vanuatu) and several ports, that decided while were on route, that they were not ready for a cruise ship. Several other times the seas were too rough for us to be able to safely tender to shore. Each time, HAL quickly communicated the issues to us, and each time replaced a missed port with another port that was better. We had an extra day in Sydney. docked right across from the Opera House-amazing! We had an extra day in Conflict Islands- which is a place as close to paradise as I have ever seen. etc.

We did find out quickly that the shore excursion descriptions had not been updated from before Covid, so a couple of years old. This resulted in several disappointments throughout the trip and a few surprises. HAL always made good on the disappointments with refunds or partial refunds, depending on the situation. Read more