Relaxing Robbies

We were docked next to The World in Victoria Canada when we were on the old Golden Princess in June 2017. It was the perfect opportunity to have a good sticky beak! I don’t know how many residents were onboard, but the majority of the people we saw seemed to be crew.

We have also decided to give QE a try before she leaves Oz. We looked to add something after a booked Princess cruise in November to get extra value from our travel to Sydney, and found a 7 night cruise to Tassie. Hopefully 7 nights will be long enough for us to get a real taste, and we figured we can dress up well enough for that long. A balcony cabin for us, so hopefully the weather will be pleasant enough in early December.

We are sad to see her leave Australia. She had great size public spaces and a wonderful promenade deck, and we really enjoyed our cruises on her.

I read that they couldn’t be refueled until this morning. Leaving soon, and will be missing Exmouth.

We received an email with our replacement cruise booking number. It did have a pdf attachment Deposit Confirmation. Unfortunately it does not include the onboard credit for our future cruise deposit we used for our initial booking. I have decided to give it a few days and see if they amend this. We cannot view the cruise when we login to our account on the website.

Aternate cruise is Brisbane to Singapore. We received our Sydney to Singapore itinerary today. Nov 13. Brisbane Nov 16. Cairns Nov 22. Lombok Nov 26. Kuala Lumpur (Port Kelang) Nov 27. Penang Nov 29. Singapore

When we have some time to kill in Sydney after a cruise we normally catch a ferry to somewhere, along with all our luggage (not in peak hour). Pleasant way to spend some time.

I can also confirm that Princess processes refunds through HSBC and that the refund arrives quickly once you provide the requested bank details.

Those are the old dates before these changes that were notified yesterday.

I think the reason your cruise was cancelled and not replaced was due to your Perth endpoint. Princess has not yet revealed the new itinerary when the ship returns from Singapore to Australia after her new drydock dates. However if you have a look at Australian port bookings in Darwin and northern Queensland, it would seem that the ship will now return down the east coast instead of the west coast of Australia. Therefore Sydney to Perth has no like for like replacement cruise.

The information so far is that it is an 18 night Asia and Australia cruise, itinerary to be confirmed to us in September. I guess it arrives in Singapore 30 November for its new drydock dates.

We were booked on Crown Princess 18 day Sydney to Singapore departing September 26 2025. Our Princess email today advised that the drydock in Singapore has been rescheduled so the cruise is cancelled. They are transferring us to a similar 18 day itinerary now departing November 11 2025.

Our link doesn’t work because it is over 2 lines and the link only tries to access the first part of the address. If you manually type in the whole internet address given, then you should be able to access the information about your replacement cruise.

Correct. We were booked Sydney to Singapore departing 26 September. Drydock has been moved later so the Sydney to Singapore now departs 11 November 2025. We get $200 obc per person and a air credit of $300 to use for EZAir for the flights according to the email we received.

I am not sure of the current price, but might pay for one day on our next cruise in November.

Even the discounted internet is more than I want to pay just to check a few emails. For cruises where we will be in port every 2nd day we do not even bother now,we just check our emails and do any necessary banking etc when we are in port with mobile data. If we have a long stretch at sea we can always buy a single day if required.

Cherries Jubilee on Coral Princess post covid. The serving was 2 cherries. My jaw hit the floor when I saw it.

Your flights to and from Australia are long, but if you are flying business class you should be able to sleep. You are flying towards the west, and that usually results in less jetlag than flying in the other direction towards the east. You seem to have allowed a few days in Australia before your cruise departs, so you can recover from the flight here and do some exploring before boarding your cruise. Sydney has a lot to see, but these days can be fairly relaxed if you need them to be. Your cruise itself is not very port intensive and should be quite relaxing. There are five days at sea between Cairns and Lombok, so you should sleep well without the early morning docking sounds. We were originally booked on that cruise, but decided to cancel because it coincides with the Olympic Games and I am a sports tragic who will be glued to watching swimming etc on the television. It was a difficult decision to cancel because it is a popular cruise with a good mix of interesting ports of call combined with plenty of sea days. If your son is looking forward to the trip, I would suggest that you do not cancel, but go ahead and choose activities that are enjoyable but not too exhausting.

I didn’t get an email, but I just booked an excursion in Darwin that I had been thinking about for a while. The price was $229.95 AUD as opposed to $269.95 I saw a few weeks ago. The $40 saving is not 20%, but the banner advertising the sale did say UpTo 20% off in Australia.

I agree completely. What were Princess thinking when they decided to have Diamond Princess in Melbourne doing cruises to New Zealand in early October and November when the seas and weather are likely to be bad, and then moving it to Brisbane to do Northern Queensland cruises from mid December just when it is becoming unbearably hot and humid up north? It would have been much better the other way round. If sales of the Diamond cruises from Melbourne have been okay, it is not because people are happy with the itineraries, but just that we have so few choices and we are desperate. Personally I have resisted and am hanging out for some bargains, or will just do some land based travel later this year.

We were booked on the 37 night Hawaii loop cruise and are devastated that it has been cancelled. We already have a Freo to Sydney northern route cruise booked for next May, so we are not interested in the replacement Round Australia offering with $250 obc. After spending hours yesterday considering our options, we have opted for the Crown Princess Sydney to Singapore cruise prior to her drydock. It is getting harder for us Victorians to find suitable cruises. Costs of travelling to Sydney or Brisbane to board soon add up, and make shorter cruises uneconomic. My preference would be cruises to Queensland and the South Pacific in the April to October period when it is cold in Melbourne. I am not interested in cruising to Cairns during the hot humid wet season, and worry about cyclones impacting my cruise. No wonder the cruise lines are having trouble selling their cruises from Brisbane.

Royal Princess. Same charge for the same wine at dinner tonight.

Definitely a limit of $22 per drink for those of us still on the old plus package. We ordered Katnook Cab Sav last night at dinner. Cost on menu was $23 per glass. Charge to our account was $1 per glass. Most cocktails are still covered. Just had a 24K Gold Margarita.

We are also in wet Sydney, having caught the train up from Melbourne yesterday. Went to the Australian Museum to see the Ramses and Egyptian Gold exhibition today. At least it was dry in there, even if it was very crowded. Good exhibition. Spent the late afternoon at the Orient Hotel near the OPT meeting fellow cruisers who are also boarding the Royal Princess tomorrow. Hopefully the rain will have stopped in time for us to drop off dry suitcases tomorrow morning.