OzKiwiJJ

Somewhere in Japan?

I think it's only the Royal Class ships plus the new Sun Princess.

The Australian 2024 world cruise, on Coral Princess, departs at the end of this month. I haven't heard much chatter on the forums / roll calls that I follow as to what has happened with those who were doing the Sydney to Civitavecchia segment. Some Australian TAs have been flogging the new Sydney to Capetown sector at around AU$100pp per day standard fare for a balcony cabin so I suspect a few people have cancelled. Hopefully you'll receive more information from Princess in plenty of time to choose what you want to do.

Yes, but it's a classic example of why not to book early flights after a cruise.

Great minds think alike!

Majestic is going to NZ. I have friends waiting to board her. Hopefully the seas will calm down a bit by the time she finally departs.

Correct. We spent a whole day wandering around Brussels looking for the street art. I think we got a map from the tourist bureau that showed where most of it was. It was really interesting as it took us out of the main tourist areas. It was the last stop on a six week trip in 2008, which included our very first cruise - a 7 night Rhine River cruise. Little did we know then that in another six or so years we'd get hooked on ocean cruising.🤣 Your turn.

Crown is an extended Grand class ship - they added an extra deck when they built her so larger upwards not lengthwise.

Coral Princess is about the same size and it looked a bit tight for her to turn around. But Crown is actually a bit shorter in length than Coral so will fit easily.

They also have to be able to turn in that part of the river. That may be the limiting factor not the ship size fitting the wharf.

Neither but you're both in the right country.

It was probably too dangerous for pilot transfers.

She's a Grand Class ship so should be able to dock there. I think it's only the Royal Class ships, and the new Sun, that are too big.

Not Amsterdam but you're getting close.

Not the UK, south of that.

You're in the right part of the world.

Where was this street art?

Out of Australia?

It was only $25 in March last year when the drink limit was $22 so $3 extra. That was actually better than in 2022 where it was $20 and the limit was $16 so $4 extra. $8 extra is too much, especially as we'll also have to buy wine by the bottle to get wines that we like. I'll just have to drink the VSOP and hope I don't react to it - I have an annoying reflux condition that can be triggered by some cognacs and single malts so I have to be careful. The money we save by not upgrading our package (for no additional benefit to us) will pay for wine etc.

Earlier this year we did a cruise from Sydney to Tasmania return with two port stops. So a totally Australian cruise At the first stop, Burnie, which is a working port with no cruise terminal, there were biosecurity officers onboard the ship checking all bags before passengers were allowed to leave the ship. At Hobart, which does have a cruise terminal, the bag checks were conducted as you entered the terminal. Australia and New Zealand take biosecurity very seriously to avoid imported pests making new homes there. In fact in Australia there are even biosecurity checks between some states.

In the Australia and NZ region there are no gratuities billed daily for booking made in that region, regardless of the fare you booked. However if you booked a standard fare from, say, the US you will get charged daily gratuities in AUD during your cruise. Also if you book a Plus or Premier fare in Australia for an international cruise, paying the AUD cost for those fares, you will get charged daily gratuities on your cruise unless to opt to prepay them.

So two different stories on one ship. I'm not going to bother asking on Coral. We'll just test out various options and see what results in extra charges. I don't think I'll be able to have an occasional drop of my favourite cognac though, I think they've hiked the price of that up to much now.

Yes, I started this when we were all stuck at home due to the pandemic and it seemed a nice way to visit and discover places around the world that we may not have been to, or if we have then to bring back fond memories. It is better to have helpful responses to guesses, not just yes or no. Responses that guide people in the right direction. If the game seems to have stalled then clues are appropriate but remember people aren't online all the time so don't jump in too quickly with the clues, give people time to think about it first. I see nothing wrong with using Google Maps to check whether your guess is on track. For example I wondered if the previous photo was the Crown Ranges in NZ but a quick check on Google showed me it couldn't be as that road has more vegetation around it. This is supposed to just be a bit of fun not a competition. Let's keep it that way.

I'm keeping all my fingers crossed that the weather and seas will be kind to us as we start the world cruise. Coral is going to have to make a fairly fast run across to Fremantle and and bad weather could seriously impact our itinerary.

Trying to outrun a storm going from Hobart back to Sydney. I'm not sure how high the waves were that we actually encountered. The BOM was predicting 8 metres, and it did get quite bouncy, but I think we avoided the worst of it. We did hug the coast quite closely as we cruised up the NSW coast as it was still very windy. We had great views though.