OzKiwiJJ

We managed three days in Melbourne with just our carry-ons once, and it was winter, although we wore our heaviest clothes on the plane. It was a squeeze! Actually it sometimes surprises me what I can fit in my carry-on but certainly not enough of the type of clothes I prefer for longer than a couple of days.

They are all cheap chocolate. The red ones are thicker so fool you into thinking they're better. To me all of them tasted faintly of peppermint and I hate peppermint chocolates, partly because peppermint gives me hay fever.

We knew we were going to do some bushwalking there, plus we stayed a night with friends on a farm, so we decided to go prepared. It was a very small one but had nice stiff bristles so good for cleaning sneaker soles.

Just screenshot it. It's much easier to just open a screenshot than to try to get the idiotic Princess app to co-operate.

Seeds also get stuck in the grooves in the soles that even a scrubbing brush misses. My trusty nail file sorted those ones out!

I'm not sure how it's handled these days but I recall having very strict checks after we came back from a South Island trip years ago. I'd had the foresight to take a small scrubbing brush with me and our sneaker soles got a thorough scrubbing on our last night. The biosecurity guy who checked them was most impressed!

Really neither but if I have to pick one I'd pick the tote bag. The chocolates aren't the greatest and usually we never ate them.

Yeah, that would be as bad as just taking a carry-on on an overseas trip of any length.

We'll also have carry-ons. Not sure about backpacks yet. We have a couple of super-light ones that permanently live in our main spinner bags. They are good for excursions with a lot of bus travel where we just want to take water bottles and light stuff but they aren't so good for any tours involving a fair bit of walking so I suspect one of our better backpacks will come along with us. I do like the idea of dropping all but carry-ons down to the OPT early. That's very feasible for us. I was getting a bit worried about how we would get them all down there. We'd need a maxi-Uber for us and the bags otherwise.

A lot depends on what type of clothes you wear, what size you are and a couple of other factors. I get annoyed with people who smugly post they can do two months in Europe with only a carry on. They are inevitably: - small and slim people (I'm a plus size) - who are happy to wear mostly black clothing (I get too hot wearing black during the day) - who wear synthetic fabrics (I prefer linen, cotton, or fabrics made from processed natural fibres like bamboo or rayon) - who are happy to hand wash their outfits every.single.day or (even worse) don't wash them often enough. - who never get tired of wearing the same thing.

How did that work???? Your lasagne has inspired me to make a grilled vege salad to go with meatballs. Not homemade meatballs though. Our greengrocer has these amazing frozen meatballs in sauce which are even better than my home made ones. I discovered them after we returned home from our Japan trip feeling exhausted and not wanting to cook. Now I keep a pack in the feezer. The brand is "To Be Frank".

Ugh! Why do Princess insist on ruining good dishes, like that pork rib-eye with that fake maple syrup glazing on accompaniments. It tastes vile! I love real maple syrup but that stuff is just nasty.

Even with Elite laundry taking 4 days you only need a few days worth but may choose to take more for variety. We tend to put laundry in every second day so, packing it up in the evening after showering and changing for dinner. For example for daytime outfits: Day 1 - 1st outfit worn, Day 2 - 2nd outfit worn, both sent laundry. Day 3 - 3rd outfit worn Day 4 - 4th outfit worn, more laundry sent. Day 5 - 5th outfit worn Day 6 - 6th outfit worn, more laundry sent, first lot returns. Day 7 - 1st outfit worn again And so on. So theoretically you could get away with six changes but seven or eight would be safer as a minimum. However being a chonic overpacker I will be taking more! 🤣

Bummer! Next time 🤞

I use one of those password "safes" on my phone as I try to use a different password or pin for every account these days. That way if one is compromised hopefully they can't get into anything else of mine.

I hope your move goes well, Les. Take care.

That lasagne looks delicious, Linda. I normally don't like lasagne as for some add reason the bolognaise-style meat ragu doesn't agree with me. I can't figure out why either as I don't react that way to other beef mince dishes. Roast veges would be yummy! Way back when one of our GDs first went vegetarian I modified a moussaka recipe to use finely chopped mushrooms as the meat. It worked really well but I had to halve the amount of herbs and spices in the recipe for the mushroom version.

The best tote bag we've ever got was on the Crystal cruise we went on in 2018. Normally you don't get the bag until yoyr second cruise but that cruise was a 20 night one also counted as two cruises. We took it on the Princess Hawaii/Tahiti cruise in 2019 to use as a pool bag. We didn't get one on the recent Regent cruise but we "bought" a nice one with the points we'd won at trivia and other silly games around the ship.

I just saw a post elsewhere about the world cruise upgrade bidding. The consensus from all the posts is "too expensive". We might have a chance after all. 🤞 I did do my homework before we placed our bid, checking the difference between the current fare for the nearest available cabin category to the one we have booked and the cheapest mini-suite fare. If we do win an upgrade it will be at a very good price based on the current prices and what we originally paid.

Ditto. We have standard cruise wardrobes which usually includes one of Rolf's dinner jackets. For cooler weather trips we add layers, hats, gloves. Our standard luggage set is two medium-large spinners with two overnight bags that fit on top. For our recent Japan trip we added an extra slightly smaller spinner as we were expecting colder weather in Japan, which we didn't get until the last few days, plus we needed enough hot weather clothes for Bangkok where we didn't want to have to pay for laundry. We've just bought another of the slightly smaller spinners at the sales. I'm hoping that will be enough but we have a few other bags we can use if needed. We will add a few extras of some items. Usually we take 8 days of clothes and put laundry in every second day but we'll probably increase that to 10 or 12 days. And, of course since Rolf now has two dinner jackets he'll be taking both. Luckily he's not a sale shopper so I don't have to worry about him adding to his dinner jacket collection. 🤣 My formal outfits are all silk kaftans and the whole lot together will take about half the space of one dinner jacket.

Good to hear they are finally doing that. Last time we were on Celebrity they were still adding the gratuities I think.

We're used to doing that anyway, just not in the quantities required for almost four months. Our medical kit stays on the ship though. I'm fairly sure our GP will provide us with any documentaion we need, and any extra prescription meds we need. He used to make sure I always carried antibiotics as at one stage I was prone to bronchitis which only responded to one type of antibiotic. Of course during Covid they reached their expiry date and I haven't got around to getting more. But it's not just medications, it's skin care products, shampoo and conditioner, etc. Some things are easy to find overseas but other things aren't. I've already checked UK and US stores online as those are places where we have some planned shopping time. The amount of luggage is going to be a challenge. I'm a chronic overpacker at the best of times! 🤣 At least the consumables will get used during the cruise and I've mostly learnt to just buy fridge magnets and other small items as souvenirs ... OK, I did say mostly says the person who came back from Japan with Yuzu sake, skin care products from Busan, and some yummy things from Japan and Soyth Korea. Oh, and a small stuffed elephant from Bangkok! Oops! That was in addition to all the fridge magnets. 😳

You had to do that at most NZ airports at one time - mid-90's I think.

As the nurse on our recent Regent cruise, where we both caught Covid, said " thank you for doing the right thing". If everyone did that Covid wouldn't be able to spread.

I'm sure it will go quickly. At the end of the 35 night cruise I would have happily done it all again immediately. I'm starting to collect all the consumables we'll need for the trip. Past experience has shown that it's not always easy to the products we like in other countries plus we're not going to have that much time for shopping, we'll be too busy seeing the sights.