Amaroo Andrew

My brother has recently returned from a Pacific Adventure cruise to the Sth Pacific Islands. He was checking his statement for charges and noticed a debit for 'condiments`. The only thing he thought it could be was a charge for having sugar with his 'paid for' (not ship swill) coffee. Surely they're not gouging the pax for sugar in the coffee? I think it was 30 cents per sachet.

I have a friend going to Bali next week on Pacific Adventurer and he has got to the point of paying for the Visa but the payment tab won't open. Any clues?

Had many good cruises on Fairstar, Pacific's Sky, Sun, Dawn and Jewel before moving onto Princess. The drawback to Princess is one can't do a quick Sth Pacific cruise and their ships are getting too big. I'll keep looking.

In Feb 2018 I was invited to join friends on Carnival Legend for a NZ cruise. It was the worst cruise I had ever been on and I vowed to avoid Carnival like the plague. In 2022 a mate puts me on to a very cheap repositioning cruise from Seattle to Sydney on Carnival Splendor in September. Surely I couldn't get two dud cruises with Carnival. I did ! I must emphasize that the crew were terrific and have no complaints about about that part of the cruise. The good bits were the Masala Tiger for lunch and the Red Frog Pub for karaoke. So endth the good bits. If you think the pink donuts are bad try the brown Greek urns on Legend. I must admit I did start to like the art deco style decor in the accommodation passageways. Overall the food was woeful and the entertainment was worse than the Sunday afternoon free concerts at the local RSL. The cabin wasn't too bad but I am still trying to work out why they needed to put a 8 foot lounge into a two person cabin. If the TV was any smaller it could have doubled up as a monitor on a laptop. The bathroom was better than a Princess offering. Port stops requiring tender use was a complete shambles and the embarkation at Seattle and disembarking at Sydney were even worse. It is my opinion that Carnival has come to Australia to make P&O look good. That said, I have been hearing reports P&O is improving and not too bad. I might give them another go. As for Carnival:- Never ever ever again.

On the major domestic routes in respect to recovery aspects (organizing another aircraft or getting a seat on another flight) Rex may be at the bottom of the list in the event of a problem. There are only seven B737s in the fleet (6 of those aircraft are ex Virgin) and they will be spread everywhere on the east coast. Qantas will probably be the best option with Virgin and Jetstar on a par. If your time is limited you don't want to spend any of it twiddling your thumbs in an airport lounge. Every airline in Australia is suffering from staffing problems (tech crew, cabin crew and engineers) and the sourcing of spares. What is flying though is very safe. As in all things in regard to service, it all depends on what you want to pay. Oats are expensive to buy, but if you want some that have been through the horse once they will cost a little less.

I see Ruby Princess is booked in to do quite a few canal transits.

It is the luck of the draw. My friend who is up to date on his vaccinations got it. I was around him a lot before he caught it and I didn't get it. His wife who slept in the same bed as him didn't get it. Go figure!

Everything seemed to be going well prior to Darwin on the PER-SYD cruise. The skipper got on the PA prior to Darwin and announced there was a covid outbreak and as a result all pax would be required to wear masks when indoors, no mask requirement when on open decks. There were no other restrictions. I can't remember if it was pre or post Cairns there was another announcement reinforcing the mask wearing requirement but unannounced all the bar stools at the indoor bars were removed and there was no direct bar service indoors with any orders having to be placed via a steward or the ship's ap. What is going to make it hard to control is there is not a complete pax turnover on Round OZ cruises. About 500 got off and on in BNE and there was probably a major turnover in SYD. The NSW Health Advisory is not advised until 24 hrs out from the ship's arrival in a NSW port. What was a bit disheartening was the complete lack of updated information from the ship about the current status of covid on the ship other than those two announcements in about 10 days. I have a friend who caught covid on the ship and was confined to his cabin and his opinion from his dealings over covid was the ship's medical staff were clearly under stress coping with the scale of the outbreak, along with the normal staff keeping confined pax fed. One staff member I spoke to at the start of the cruise prior, to the outbreak, said the ship was running short staffed as it was and the outbreak has led to a perfect storm. Everybody was doing their best to keep the pax happy and I think they did a pretty good job.

That picture has been re-touched and doctored. The original would have had a pool of oil under the Trumpy's engine! It's got to be from the late 60s or early 70s because it is carrying a rego sticker and a front number plate. I still have the holes on the front guard for the plate bracket on my old Commando.

Would it be possible to explain which part of the cabin it is in these 2 photos? What was in place to cover the mess?

Technology waits for nobody and it will always bore on regardless of one's preferences. As it develops one has to keep pace with up to date equipment as some older phones can't download the latest Aps as they're all supported by newer IOSs. Gone are the days when there were dedicated Drinks Waiters in the MDRs. On Fairstar the waiters would walk around at lunchtime with the Evening Menu taking wine orders and that order would be sitting on the table or in an ice bucket beside the table that evening. All the bars had copies of that evening's menu so one could have a look at the choices over a pre dinner drink. On our last Majestic cruise we were always handed a hard copy menu and the choices made were written down by the waiter on his pad. No difference from years gone by. Whether Princess upgrades the MDR systems to waiters having tablets to take orders like some restaurants currently do at the moment remains to be seen. Would it be an improvement? We had no troubles once seated in the MDR and utilizing the KISS ordering system. It was the organizing a table, getting into the MDR and then being allocated a table and waiter/s that was a shambles.

Having done 2 Princess and 1 Carnival cruise in the past couple of months I have experienced both systems. Having said that I must admit to being a bit of a luddite when it comes to mobile phones although I do have one. All the initial and ongoing stuff was done by my PA (tech savvy son) my mobile stayed in the cabin most of the time. As much as it pains me to say the Carnival Ap worked a little better for the MDR stuff in that after making a mobile reservation the Ap messaged back when your table was ready unlike the Medallion Ap. This, along with the Tiger Masala Curry Bistro,are the only good things I have to say about Carnival Splendor! On Majestic Princess there was usually chaos at the MDRs with large queues outside, inadequately set tables and waiters scampering about trying to find unoccupied tables. The Princess MDRs are Ap free zones for service as the staff are still operating on the pen and pad ordering system, not that this is a bad system. And what a joy it is on a Formal Night Dinner to look around the room and see a sizable percentage of people engrossed in their mobile phones texting, Twittering and YouTubing during their meal. I am currently trying to find out to set up a permanent 7.30 MDR reservation at the same shared large table in the same restaurant with the same waiters for our next cruise on Coral. I'll be happy then and will use the magnificent Medallion to open the cabin door and order drinks.

I my work experience I have found that the IT people generally tend to over promise and under deliver and when they say they are improving the system it is time to head for the hills and hide. From what I can work out, the Ap passively tracks each person around the ship and it knows where you are. That's not a problem until there are large numbers of people at a certain point, like a bar. That passive person will appear on the POS (point of sale) display at the bar just for being near it. When a purchase is made, let's call them active now, the bartender has to find the purchaser on the display among the passive ones to bill the account. The displays only show about 6 profiles per page so he or she has to scroll about to find the active purchaser. If there isn't time to find that person on the POS display the bar staff resort to writing down the drink and cabin number on a scrap of paper and doing the data entry when things quieten down. That was happening constantly at the Wake View Bar down aft on Deck 16. All it required previously was one swipe of one's Cruise Card and the purchase was completed. A lot of the bar staff could remember a drinker's folio number. It needs a little refinement to work properly. I'm looking at my last Cruise Card from Sun Princess from early 2020 and I was in the Marquis Dining Room for the 2nd Sitting at Table 53.There was the usual small amount of confusion on the first night when one's table was located but after that everything run smoothly for the next 40 odd nights. Same waiters, same table, no queues or delays and happy days. Is it possible to arrange this with the Medallion Ap? Between the Crown and Majestic cruises we did a repositioning cruise on Carnival Splendor and as much as it pains me to state this, Carnival are doing it better! One restaurant was set aside for 1st and 2nd Sitting Dining and the other MDR was set aside for Anytime. Book a table using their Ap, sit back and have a drink and when your table is ready there is a bing and message on the mobile stating your table is ready. When one gets to the MDR entrance they take you to the table. Mind you, there wasn't much worth eating in the MDR or anywhere else on that ship! If Princess devoted a bit more time and energy to improving the Medallion Ap as opposed to pretending it is running smoothly and producing all manner of beads, baubles and bangles to go with it, things might get better for staff and passengers.

I have just recently completed an Alaskan cruise on Crown Princess and a Queensland Coastal on Majestic Princess. Both these ships are Medallion Class and these were the first cruises using the Medallion Ap. As the Crown was our first venture we didn't know too much and thought any problems we encountered we would get around through experience but this didn't turn out that way on the Majestic. I have found the Medallion is a mighty fine door opener but there seems to be problems with it at the MDR and the bars. The staff writing details on scraps of paper when the system overloads seems to be the go to fix for staff around the ship. Long queues getting into the MDR at the requested booking time seemed to be the norm with lots of frustrated passengers with flustered and clearly overloaded staff. I even witnessed the Head of Restaurants in one MDR trying to sort out one evening's mess. Is this the new Medallion Ap norm?