Guinea pig

I have several CruiseCritic friends who will be taking this same trip next year. When I told them I would be going this year, I also told them that I would be blogging and would be their guinea pig. The response was that I would be more like the advance scouting party. It turns out that "guinea pig" is the more accurate description.
The major reason for saying that is the fact that there are no port talks - no shopping talk, no port lectures advising points of interest or local history/government/culture, no discussion about the shore excursions (other than the TV broadcast which is really the audio for the printed material). The consistent response from ship personnel is that they (the people, the ship, and the line) had never been to these ports. The ship was not ready for the ports and the ports were not ready for the ship.
Guinea pig.
There was a series of Destination lectures each sea day afternoon. They were, however, an aging journalist's travelog - interesting, but irrelevant. There was no focus on our ports. (Note: the lecturer was scheduled to stay on board for all 35 days, but left in Perth due to a serious illness in his family. His "Destination" lectures have been replaced by "Enrichment" lectures, so I expect that they, too, will not be port-specific.)
Every sea day morning, Carly has a "Chat with the Cruise Director" session. She is very personable and very open to suggestions. She did not originally know about the problems with PNG (visas, info, security, tours) and certainly agreed that the overall situation was poorly handled. In several other instances, she has already incorporated changes suggested at these sesssions.
Carly is a guinea pig also, The only advantage for her is the fact that she will be able to benefit from this experience because she will be back in the fall and again year from now.