OzKiwiJJ

It sounds wonderful, Irene. Say "hi" to Frank from us. 😘

Rolf sometimes gets the Belhaven Scottish Ale from Dan Murphys. He really likes it.

Where else did you expect them to go? As has been stated earlier there are actually a limited number of viable ports in our region so of course their itineraries aren't going to differ from other cruise lines. They can't just create new ports out of nowhere.

Huge is almost an understatement! That was the type of suite we had too. Now if only we'd had the equivalent of the Princess medallion app to order drinks on. We would have only left the suite for meals then.

That could have been it. Carnival sometimes have some amazing offers. We scored an aft Vista Suite once at about the same price as a balcony cabin. It was the first time we'd had a suite and we couldn't believe how big the balcony was - we could have held a party for fifty people on it!

It depends how you flavour the white goo! 🤣 I do a nice baked ravioli sometimes, layered with passata, then topped with white goo aka bechamel sauce, then lots of cheese. Comfort food at it's best! The white goo adds a level of creaminess to balance the acidity of the passata.

We're doing a couple of cruises in Japan in November. One is Princess which I think will have quite a few locals so announcements in two languages, the other is Regent Seven Seas which may not have many locals, probably mostly Americans and a mad bunch of Aussies!

We were on her last month and I don't recall seeing any leaky ceilings or buckets. She was in reasonable condition for an older ship. We didn't get to any of the shows but the entertainers in Crooners and the Wheelhouse were good but entertainers change regularly. Edit: I'd choose Grand over Majestic any day. At least Grand has all the regular bars and lounges for entertainment.

Yes, it took me a little while to realise what was happening. It was only when someone said they couldn't book their favourite cabin on a cruise (a BF I think) that I realise what Princess was doing. To add to the confusion fares do fluctuate. That Royal cruise you used as an example was in the recent release so it will be a while before the fares change on that. Then you have the promos ... Arrgh! It does pay to check the prices regularly on cruises you have booked. I've scored some serious fare reductions in the past. Even a November Japan cruise I booked only a few months ago had a big drop in fares but instead of taking the reduction I upgraded us to a mini suite.

That's a possibility, but I wouldn't put it past Princess to just block out the remainder of the next category of cabins and offer "Princess chooses" at the higher fare.

I'd love to do a full road trip around Australia, staying a few days at each stop, but Rolf isn't keen on the idea. He doesn't really like long distance driving whereas I love it. If the Sydney winter ends up as bad as it was last year I might drag him off on a long Queensland road trip. Either that or a Carnival cruise. I'm not sure which he'd go for. 🤣

For anyone travelling the Princes Highway in Victoria, between Melbourne and Lakes Entrance, I highly recommend the Old Rosedale Bakery in Rosedale. Very nice pies indeed, possibly the best I've had in recent years.

Agreed, I like tomato sauce on a plain beef pie but not on anything else.

The multiple languages would drive me nuts! One extra language is bearable but any more is tedious.

Or that it's more cost effective to cruise it. Plus much, much less hassle - unpack once, no worries about where to find breakfast/lunch/dinner, where to do your laundry, etc. But on the other hand you see a lot less from a ship.

Juls, you need to compare the deck plans for Royal Princess with what is available on that cruise. Royal has five categories of Mini Suite, scattered all over the ship but in general the higher categories are midships mid-levels and the others forward/aft, and sometimes up, from those. The five categories are MA, MB, MC, ME and MF. MA is the best category.There are no MD Mini Suites on this ship. MFs are only on decks 15 (Marina) and 16 (Lido) forward. The pricing goes like this: MA - $4574 pp MB - $4384 pp ie $190 cheaper than MA MC - $4204pp ie $180 cheaper than MB ME - $3854pp ie $350 cheaper than MC which seems a big difference but remember there is no MD category in between so the price jump is two categories, not one, which would probably be $180 MC->MD and $170 MD- ME. BUT there are no MF cabins available for selection, those decks are shown as "Sold Out". However if they were available, and based on the pricing differences shown above, the fare would be $3674. Guess what? That's the exact price Princess is quoting for "Princess chooses your stateroom". So in reality you aren't getting charged more to select your cabin, you are getting charged the correct fare for the cabin category you select. If you allow Princess to choose your cabin you will probably end up in an MF cabin at the same price that cabin would have been if it had been available for selection (which you used to be able to do in the past). I hope this make it clearer. By blocking out a category of cabins Princess makes it seem that you are paying more to select your cabin when, in reality, you aren't. These price jumps are fairly standard across the fleet, varying only by length of cruise (the shorter the cruise the lower the difference) and possibly by ship as some ships have more structured cabin groupings than Royal. Now I'm wondering what will happen if all the MF "Princess chooses" cabins sell out. Will Princess block out any unsold ME cabins and do the same thing? With that $350 price jump that would really stir up a hornets nest! Talk about a dumb decision by Princess!!!!!!!

Exactly. Surprisingly few given how much coastline Australia has. And many of the ones we do have are in the southern parts of Australia which get clobbered by the winter weather conditions.

What we need is some medium sized ships. Small enough to get into ports that can't handle the bigger ships (even the smallest P&O ships) but big enough that they aren't too expensive. But the trend is "bigger is better". Well, probably more cost effective for the cruise lines but I predict that sooner rather than later the bigger ships will find fewer and fewer ports willing to accept them, particularly in Europe. But the other issue is how long it takes to get anywhere by ship. Sydney to Darwin takes five sea days without any port stops. Brisbane to Darwin is four sea days. So it makes it hard to build itineraries to some of the closer Asian countries as those itineraries would need to be longer than two weeks, which is fine for us retired folk but not so easy for those who have limited annual leave. Yes, cruises could depart from Cairns or Darwin but that adds extra travel costs on top of the cruise, and some extra travel days. We just have to put up with the fact that Australia, and NZ, are a long way from everywhere.

Unfortunately those of us who aren't bothered by rough seas are heavily outnumbered by those who are, and I don't think there would be enough seasoned cruises to make winter cruising out of Melbourne viable. Also Captains aren't too keen on taking the ships through more than about 5 metre seas if they can avoid it as there is risk of damage to the ship's fittings, and risk of passengers falling and getting injured. Last year we had three cruises affected by high seas: - the first was having our departure from Sydney delayed by one day to avoid 6-8 metre seas off the Queenland/NSW border. - the second was getting stuck in Melbourne for three days to avoid 6-8 metre seas between Melbourne and South Australia - the third was on the Round Australia cruise where we spent an extra day in Fremantle, and had the Albany port stop cancelled, to try to slip between a couple of nasty weather systems. Unfortunately that wasn't totally successful as a medical emergency delayed our journey from Busselton so things were a bit bouncy going around the south-west corner. Then there was the storm that stopped Coral docking in Brisbane for a day or so, so even Brisbane can be affected by bad weather in winter (as well as the risk of possible cyclones in summer).

I wish Princess did still have some of the same old ships - the smaller ones like the old Sun Class ships. Yes, we currently have Coral Princess but she disappears after the 2024 world cruise. As to the same old itineraries - there aren't that many alternatives. For it's size Australia has surprisingly few good ports and those are mostly a sea day or more apart. New Zealand has some very good ports on the east coast but very few on the west coast. I think some of the South Pacific ports have been out of action due to wharf damages. I saw a post elsewhere saying the Port Vila is going to allow ships to anchor and operate tenders until their wharf is repaired/rebuilt. Other small Pacific Island ports may not want cruise ships to visit at the moment for health reasons, or even at all in the case of some of the bigger ships that have too many passengers for them to cater for.

I disagree that cruises were heavily discounted this season. Certainly the Princess restart cruises, from June until early October, were priced below normal, presumably to entice passengers back on to the ships after the bad publicity at the beginning of the pandemic and concerns over whether Covid would spread out of control on cruises. But the peak season fares were similar to pre-Covid fares as far as I could see. The reason for the same old ports is that there just aren't that many viable ports around Australia, NZ and the South Pacific. Ships can't just rock up to any coastal town and decide to have a port stop there. There needs to be either a wharf that the ship can dock at or a relatively sheltered anchorage for tendering. Even some of the current port stops are cancelled at the last minute due to adverse weather conditions either stopping the ship from entering the port to dock or where conditions are too rough to allow tenders to operate safely.

Princess used to regularly have a ship wintering over, doing Top End runs, and the occasional PNG and Island cruises. But they stopped doing that around 2017 (I think) when Golden transferred to P&O.

The reason there is no cruising out of Melbourne in winter is due to adverse sea and wind conditions in Bass Strait. Princess did try bringing Coral down from Sydney last year on what was supposed to be a 9 night South Australia cruise. We ended up parked at Station Pier for three days. Sydney is just far enough up the east coast to avoid the worst of the southern weather most of the time.

The one unexpected experience I really enjoyed about Broome was walking out of a cafe on Short St just as a small plane came in for a landing at the airport. Short St is right off the runway and it looked like the plane was almost clipping the trees in the street. Of course it wasn't but it was fun seeing it go over so low.

How many times do I need to state that Princess is not charging for cabin selection. All they are doing is blocking out the lowest category of cabins from being selected then offering those as guarantee cabins at the same fare they would have been if they were able to be selected. It's a very stupid move by Princess though as people, like you, think they are being charged extra to select their cabin.