OzKiwiJJ

I've tried Royal and Majestic, and Ruby which is one of the extended Grand class ships. We won't be doing any of those again so I guess we'll have to stop cruising on Princess in a couple of years.

If you have the Plus package you'll get those anyway - the Cab Merlot at least. They haven't worked out that Australians like Pinot Grigio - they think we all drink Semillion/SavBlanc or over-oaked Chardonnay! 🤬

He's also a sweetie!

We swap our minibar out for bottled water these days as we drink quite a lot of that. It saves us having to get it from the bars every night or so.

The fares for those cruises were exceptionally cheap. And 18 days on a cruise beats a week at the Port Douglas Sheraton Mirage any time as cruises include all meals and entertainment. We used to holiday in Port Douglas regularly until we discovered cruising. Not any more! 😊

Yes, it really was special.

Yes. We did a Melbourne to Sydney cruise, via South Australia, in March. Booked as a 10 night cruise but it was a 7 night plus three night cruise. We got a second minibar after the first 7 night sector.

Us neither. It's fun if you're winning but otherwise it's boring! So we don't bother because we rarely win! 🤣

We had the suite and you folk came and had a look at it.

That was lovely! Especially as I think we were all a bit nervous about Covid, and your lovely ditty broke the ice beautifully. 😘

Definitely the 26th June cruise! We had a great get-together in the Wheelhouse Bar.

It also shows the boarding times in the Travel Summary

Nothing. You can even put it in a regular wine glass and take it with you. Just don't take the bottle!

So far the best deal we've got is the Virgin cruise next year bought with points as the points effectively didn't cost us anything as we would have bought the groceries regardless. 😊😊😊

Grand had a USB port in the base of each of the bedlamps. Very useful.

Even at the higher prices for their Plus and Premier fares Princess still comes in very competitively for anyone wanting drinks and internet packages, let alone all the other "perks".

It's always been like that - the exchange rate for OBC seems to get set for a booking at the time you book. We made a nice profit on unused OBC back in 2016 as they refund you at the current exchange rate. We'd bought at 0.80 and got refunded at around 0.65 from memory.

It depended on the itinerary. It was quiet on the first cruise we did in June, more people used it on the early September Queensland cruise. It was often full on the late September Queensland cruise, and also on the first half of the Round Australia cruise. Afternoons were busier than mornings.

It wasn't a ghost town on some of the Coral cruises we did last year. It was almost too crowded!

I have heard of people doing that. Just talk to the Sanctuary stewards and let them know what you are doing. As long as both people don't stay up there together it shouldn't be a problem.

As far as I know it's still $40pp for a full day, $20pp for a half day. I don't believe it has changed since we were on Coral last year.

The amounts are in lots of $25, $50 and $100.

But did you take them to the MDR or buffet? That's where the corkage kicks in. A couple of bottles per cabin if consumed in the cabin isn't the issue. Those of us who abhor the poor quality wines currently on Princess, and the exhorbitant prices of decent wines by the bottle, would like to take wines onboard to drink with our meals. On some of the longer cruises that could mean a couple of cases or more. $30 per bottle is an outrageous corkage fee. Unfortunately Princess is now converting the USD price to AUD using our currently bad exchange rate. In the past it was just $15 regardless of onboard currency, and although expensive it was compatable with upmarket restaurant corkage fees. Now it's ridiculously high.

This is the roll call for that cruise Hopefully someone on there will be able to help you.

That's pretty much what Regent Seven Seas are saying as well.