OzKiwiJJ

I crunched the numbers for our 2024 world cruise where we have the Plus fare at $40pp. It worked out marginally cheaper to buy the decent Princess wines by the bottle at the 25% discount than to buy the local wines we like and pay the $30 corkage, plus lugging dozens of bottles of wine onboard would be almost impossible. We'll still get our money's worth out of the Plus fare with cocktails, coffees, and bottled water etc, and we don't care about the other stuff. But that cruise may very well be the last we do on Princess. If there was another cruise line doing a world cruise out of Australia I'd cancel the Princess one.

Remember the corkage has doubled for Australian cruises, from $15 to $30, which makes it too expensive to bring wine onboard. 🤬

Avoid January if you can as it's school holidays in Australia and NZ. Also it's best to do NZ first in Feb/March, that way you get better weather in NZ (usually) and by the time you get to Australia it will be starting to cool down a bit.

The pie thread will never die, it just has a rest every so often. 🤣

There are some nice wines on the Australian wine list but most are only available by the bottle unfortunately. I'm so annoyed with Princess. We don't buy many expensive wines for home consumption, and usually manage to pick up very good quality wines from Dan Murphys. But Princess serms to have mostly gone for very low-budget wines thus downgrading the Princess experience accordingly. I always classed Princess, along with Celebrity (and possibly Cunard) as being a little above the rest of the mass market cruise lines, sort of deluxe lines but not luxury class. But sadly they are becoming very average.

Not quite right, Thrak. Do NOT go to the Medical Center as you may put others at risk of catching it. Phone them and they will come to you, test you, and provide medical care as needed. But it is very important to advise the Medical Centre of any typical Covid symptoms. I had Covid on Coral Princess last year and they were wonderful. It's a shame that too many people have not learnt anything from the pandemic. Wandering around the closed environment of a cruise ship, unmasked and coughing and/or sneezing, is the height of selfish entitlement IMHO.

There are a lot of people on the main Princess forum that probably haven't taken much notice of the various "upgrades" to the packages so are just catching up with what is happening. We did a cruise in March, booked under one of the earlier Plus fares, so I can absolutely confirm the drinks price limits are the new ones. Of course they also put the drinks prices up, some (wines) to the point of ridiculousness - i.e. a glass costs twice as much as the retail price of a whole bottle! 🙄

Credit cards are accepted almost everywhere in Sydney these days. There might be a few small cafes that still only accept cash but that's becoming rarer every day.

We had some black ones on our first cruise last year but they didn't hold the medallion in as securely as the ones shown above. My medallion dropped out a couple of times so we tried these ones. They are much better.

Anything that fits an Apple Airtag fits the medallion. We use these which we can clip on bags or belt loops. Bought through Amazon Australia.

Sad new for those doing the Hawaii/Tahiti cruises. The whole township of Lahaina on Maui has been wiped out by a major wild fire the other day. The beautiful 150yo banyan tree which was close to the tender wharf has been badly scorched and probably won't survive. Lahaina was a lovely place to visit with interesting shops, great restaurants and a decent-sized outlet centre. My heart goes out to the residents of Lahaina who have lost both homes and businesses. 😪😪😪

That's a shame. We always enjoy going round to Anse Vatu and Baie des Citrons but not to swim. There used to be a really good cafe at Anse Vatu plus a great souvenir shop with quality items, and the Lemon Bay restaurants were good.

If Carnival is anything like Princess then the quality of the cuisine can vary greatly from ship to ship. Same menus but it's amazing how different some of the dishes look and taste. On one ship everything was oversalted even for me and I like salt a bit too.much for my health! Sloppy presentation and plating also detracts from the enjoyment of a dish. And stretching escargot with mushroom should be a crime!

Thanks, that has solved the mystery. Maybe they haven't got around to taking a photo of the Premium lanyard yet. That would be par for the course for Princess 2023. We hate wearing lanyards so the complimentary ones, which they insist on giving us, just end up in the bin.

Maybe she got confused. 🤔🤣

I got the impression from my friend that it was the thin Princess one they're now charging for. She was doing the pre-cruise stuff today so it could be another of their new charges.

A friend of mine is doing a cruise out of the US in five weeks. Apparent Princess are now charging $7 for their lanyards.

She is indeed and she's small enough to still look like a ship instead of a floating resort hotel.

It was funny, when I heard about that before we did the Carnival cruise I thought "oh no!" but by the end of the cruise we were actually enjoying the nightly song. It made everyone smile and most people sang along if they knew it. Pure kitsch but definitely better than the Baked Alaska parade.😄

Is it an overseas cruise? The Plus fare sold through Princess Australia is still $65pp per day even for overseas cruises, so it would only be AU $2730. Remember it covers internet, one device per person, which is worth $20pp or $10pp if you're Elite. Then it's just a matter of deciding whether you can use the rest of the value on drinks and the other included perks. If you like a cocktail or two, wine with meals, espresso-based coffees, bottled water, soft drinks, then it can still be good value for money. One thing it doesn't cover is the daily gratuities on overseas cruises unfortunately - they aren't included in the fare like they are on Australian cruises.

Well let's face it, Coral and Island are the smallest ships in the Princess fleet now and are probably low priority as far as ensuring they fit the new package options. I don't think Princess gives a damn whether they actually fulfil their promises. They've been promising 25 wines by the glass under the Plus package since it's concept but still haven't provided more than 9.

Yikes! My mind boggles as to how many different currencies you'd need to have to use cash everywhere possible!

Given that Coral doesn't have a dedicated Alfredos, and Sabatinis is open every night, I think the idea of having a pop-up Alfredos in that space during some sea day lunchtimes is a fair compromise. Perhaps they could also offer Salty Dog pub lunches in the Bayou restaurant. It would be nice if they'd have those pop-ups on some port days as well since the MDR isn't open for lunches on port days.

Mmmm but dark chocolate goes so well with many red wines ... Next time you're on Princess, and if you decide to have the Love Boat Dream dessert one night, try a glass of the merlot with it. It's a perfect match!

They did it several times on the Round Australia cruise last year but that probably had more sea days. Plus they had it on at least one of the shorter cruises we did but those had very few sea days.