OzKiwiJJ

Cruise in the Australian region - no smoking at all anywhere inside the ships. 😊

What do you need to know? There will probably be a thread running in the Australia / New Zealand forum where those of us on that cruise will post our comments as the cruise progresses. There is also a roll call in the Coral Princess Roll Calls forum.

It's fun! But make sure you book your dining well in advance. The Test Kitchen is really worth trying.

This was one of the menus we had on our Diamond cruise. I had no complaints about the dishes I chose over the whole nine night cruise - and that is actually unusual for me. No, I lie, I chose the lobster/steak combo on one of the formal nights and the lobster wasn't worth eating. It was tough, tasteless and tiny. The steak was lovely though.

The Princess Royal class ships are worse than the older classes though. They sacrificed lounge/bar/theatre space for more space for high end shops. Ah well, I guess that's what the Americans want! 🤔🙄😡

Did they not offer the Japanese "Always Available" MDR menu items on your cruise, as well as one or two Asian dishes in the main section of the menu? We cruised on Diamond around Japan last November and I was in foodie heaven with all the Japanese/Asian selections in both the MDR and the buffet. But it very much depends on what your personal tastes are. I love Asian food, especially Japanese, so it suited me perfectly. However I have heard there are noticeable cutbacks on the ships sailing out of Australia this season nonot what I want to hear with a 110 night world cruise starting in a month's time! It would be interesting to hear if many people have noticed menu/buffet cutbacks on US-based cruises.

It sounds like Princess actually listened to the feedback when they built the later ships of that class then.

You can go out on deck any time you like unless the decks are closed due to weather conditions, especially strong winds. It's wonderful being out on deck on lovely day when you're in the middle of the ocean with nothing around you but the sea. 😊

I used the term lecture theatre style as that best describes the seating style. It's quite good for game shows, but useless for trivia as it's hard for teams to group themselves given the style of seating. It just isn't as flexible as the Explorers Lounge it replaced.

I agree! Diamond is a standard size Grand class ship, with a few Japanese touches. Crown is an extended Grand class ships ie an extra deck of cabins was added when she was built but the public spaces - dining areas, bars and lounges - remained the same size. If you choose a cruise on Crown during school holidays be prepared for long queues to get into the MDRs, and difficulty finding a table in the buffet. Royal was the first Royal class ship built. The bars/lounges and theatre are too small and there is no promenade deck. The Explorers Bar has been replaced by a lecture theatre style area which is a bit strange.

They do say in the confirmation of bid email that notifications could be as close as two days before embarkation. I was very surprised when we got our upgrade just over a month before we embark.

Well, our successful bid freed up a balcony cabin on that cruise so you never know, you might be lucky. But we're boarding in Sydney not Auckland. Fingers crossed for you!

My suspicion is that Princess were trying to "encourage" us to bid higher but we weren't prepared to do that. Also I'd seen some chat online when the upgrades were announced for the world cruise and the consensus was it was too expensive so I had a gut feeling we may not have had too much competition for that upgrade. Plus I knew of someone else who had received the "outbid" email and who did nothing and still got their upgrade. So we hung in there and were lucky. 😊 There was only one mini-suite still available around that time but, oddly enough, that wasn't the one we got. We ended up in a better location which suits us perfectly. It really will make our world cruise even more special.

No. Only a small percentage of passenger post here. Others may post on other social media platforms. Even onboard they may announce how many Australians are on a cruise but don't usually break it down by state.

So sad for your lovely town and it's community. 😪

Ditto bugs and NZ scampi. Brush with lemon butter, maybe a liitle garlic and parsley for variety, and grill until just cooked. Perfection!

I agree. I once, back in the early 90s, seriously upset a chef at a popular Aucland seafood restaurant by telling the waiter I just wanted my crayfish brushed with lemon butter and grilled. But ... but ... but ... we can do this sauce and that sauce and ... No, plainly grilled please. And it was excellent!

Did they pass the taste test though?

Lucky Frank! But it looks like the quality has improved considerably. Rolf did that on our Diamond cruise last year but the lobster tails were half that size. I was glad I'd chosen the steak and lobster as the lobster was barely worth eating.

That's the best looking lobster I've seen on a Princess ship in a long time. And the guy behing the lobster is a good looking chap too! Happy Brithday, Frank. 😘

I very much doubt that will happen but we've budgeted to buy wines by the bottle. That will cost us about the same as upgrading our Plus package would except buying the wines means we will get decent wine to drink against getting almost nothing we could use if we upgraded the package.

It certainly can. 😊 We often cruised in inside cabins pre-pandemic but now prefer to have a balcony cabin or better just in case, which has proven to be the right decision since I've had Covid on two cruises so far. Being able to go out onto the balcony while in isolation is a real bonus.

It may also depend on what bids they have for the cabin class you originally booked. I would not be surprised if there hadn't been many bids for minisuites on the world cruise as the minimum bid was quite high. We were just lucky to have had a small windfall before the bidding opened so put a bid that was a decent amount above the minimum but still in the low range. Maybe a tad too low to make Princess happy so I think the "outbid" email was to try to "encourage" us to raise our bid. It didn't work though. If they had bids for balcony and oceanview cabins, plus some unfulfilled guarantees then that may be why they ended up accepting our lowish bid. Happy days for us!! 😊😊😊

I guess we never reach that limit. But if we did have that many alcohol drinks we'd probably just alternate who "paid" for those drinks so it would work our fairly even in the end. It just takes a little bit of thought and planning.

We always book in advance then watch for price drops. If they happen before final payment we've usually been able to get our booking refared. If you book though an overseas TA you will be charged the daily gratuities. Also be aware that overseas prices don't always include port fees and taxes up front, they are added on just before you complete the booking. In Australia what you see up front is what you pay and there are no extra gratuities,