OzKiwiJJ

We did that too and we ended up with onboard credit left on the last day so I went shopping and bought myself some lovely earrings. 😊 I did buy the laundry package pre-cruise though since it was a 14 night cruise on top of four nights in Auckland. It was very good value.

Most cruise lines, no matter where they are operating, are USD onboard and for prebooked things like excursions. Even for Mediterranean cruises, which would have to be one of the biggest cruise regions in the world is USD on most/all ships not Euros. We are one of the only regions in the world to have some ships that operate in AUD. Most of the cruise lines offer fares in AUD, even some of the luxury lines now. But things like excursions are still in the onboard currency on many lines.

Coral is a very stable ship. We had an aft cabin on one of our cruises, not right at the very back though, and went through some fairly bouncy seas on that cruise without feeling the motion too badly. However there have been posts about serious creaking in the aft section of Coral recently. I think it affects the starboard side more than the port side though.

Celebrity also charges USD onboard but no gratuities. Other cruise lines like Holland America, Cunard etc have fares in AUD but everything else including added gratuities is in USD. However they often offer the option to prepay the gratuities in AUD and sometimes that can work out a bit cheaper than having them added to your onboard account. Other things like drinks packages, excursions, laundry packages, speciality dining, that can be bought pre-cruise, are usually in USD which makes it messy to budget. One good trick is to work out what your onboard costs are likely to be then watch the exchange rates carefully to decide if it's worth purchasing onboard credit before your cruise. Sometimes that can work out cheaper.

Was it you that warned me to look out for the rebound? It was someone on this forum anyway. So I wasn't too worried when i started to get a mild sore throat again, I just hunkered down at home and waited until it went away. Luckily it didn't linger. Phew! It sounds like you had a really rough time with the rebound.

Good to hear you recovered quickly, Leigh. Those anti-virals are magic! However watch out for "rebound Covid" in a couple of weeks. I had a mini set of most of my symptoms over a period of about 36 hours then a day or so of feeling a bit tired. That was about two weeks after I'd recovered from Covid on our cruise last year. After that I was fine.

No, not at the moment but they do cruise policies.

We've been using Insure and Go and have been happy with them. They processed a claim back in 2017 reasonably efficiently. They also put our newly purchased annual policy on hold two months into the pandemic then when we requested it be restarted they gave us a full year instead of the ten months remaining at the time of the hold.

Yes ... and no. After two Celebrity Auckland to Sydney cruises (NZ clockwise) with port side cabins we managed to book a starboard cabin in our preferred location for third. Our cabin was a lot warmer in the evenings than on the previous cruises and I was unable to get it as cool as I liked for sleeping. That cruise started in late March so more sun was hitting the cabin in the late afternoon / early evening as we cruised down the NZ coast. However I also suspect either our cabin air-con wasn't working as well as on previous cruises or Celebrity were economising.

Princess have already done that! In some cases to the point where the per glass price of at least one wine is ten times the retail bottle price! 🤬

It's a shorter trip to the outer reef from Port Douglas. Cairns is a city, Port Douglas is a holiday town. It has a gorgeous beach with no buildings overlooking it, some excellent restaurants, and if you stay close to the main shopping street, Macrossan St, is very easily walkable. We spent many holidays up there before we discovered cruising.

Agreed. I find it annoying seeing those extra cost items on the menu especially after enough time on the ship to realize they have cut back on some of the "luxury" dishes that usually appeared on formal nights. Princess was still doing a very nice Chateaubriand in March though but no lobster.

The one thing I did like about the Whitehaven Beach excursion was that you saw quite a few of the Whitsunday islands - we went the opposite way after leaving the beach. We were there in September and the water was quite a pleasant temperature. I agree that a short stay in Port Douglas is the best way to see the reef. We went out on one of the smaller boats, Wavelength, and had a wonderful time.

I'm fairly certain each of the Carnival Corp brands operates as a separate business under the corporation umbrella. The corporation probably provides security in times like the recent pandemic, and of course is listed at corporation level on the stock exchange, but P&O still has to balance its budget and operate within its means - so things like non-essential maintenance may get deferred until the company accounts are a bit healthier.

If your itinerary says Cairns it will be docked. It would say Yorkeys Knob and indicate it's a tender port if that was the case.

I don't think the Melbourne season issue has anything to do with any particular cruise line. From what I saw of the port schedule a while back most of the port bookings were the luxury cruise lines who don't use Melbourne as an embarkation port - in other words probably day visit ships only. I wish the Port of Melbourne would actually come out and say what is happening as the cruise lines are getting blamed for not offering cruises from there. We went on Dawn Princess in 2015 and she wasn't in great shape then although I believe she did get refurbished when she became Pacific Explorer. Although P&O Australia is part of Carnival Corp the line is expected to operate on it's own. Being such a small cruise line and with cruising restarting here much later than overseas I imagine P&O is very stretched for cash right now so some maintenance may be being deferred.

Grand Princess is currently scheduled to move to the US then cruise on the west coast until April 2025. Of course that could change...

Outside is the best place to be. For the other fiords pick an area where you can easily move from side to side but for Milford be on the port side. You'll understand why when you get there - it's all about the initial impact of seeing the scenery open up on that side. I've cruised into Milford four times now and it still awes me. I've also visited Milford by air and by road but arriving by ship is just spectacular.

The best side going into Milford Sound is the port side. It's to do with the way the view opens up as the ship progresses into the fiord, it's more spectacular on that side. Remember to look up and back as well as forward.

We've certainly done enough Princess cruises to have experienced a fair amount of variety in the quality in some areas. Although we cruised on Celebrity three times it was always on Solstice but even that varied from cruise to cruise - each cruise was roughly two years apart.

We use a phone showing the lock screen with date and time set alongside the RAT cartridge.

Ditto, especially when they engage with the passengers and have a sense of humour - I'm thinking of Paul McD on Princess last year who was not only a very talented pianist but also kept us in fits of laughter with some of his medleys.

Not quite as each line has a particular style and ambience. But certainly food, entertainment and service can differ between ships of the same line

We're regular Princess cruises but have also cruised on Celebrity, Carnival and Holland America. We were very disappointed in the Westerdam cruise we did last Christmas. The food was decidedly below Princess and Celebrity and the entertainment mostly didn't appeal to us - we dined late and by the time we finished dinner there wasn't much happening. Our Carnival cruise was some years ago, on Carnival Legend, and we were pleasantly surprised. Very good food, good entertainment, and a great piano bar.

We were there last October on the Princess Round Australia cruise. Didn't get to go ashore though as I was still in Covid isolation.