mattie00

Rest of the world doesn't seem to have caught on to Vanilla Slice either.

Canadians have! At least this Canadian. :D So good. Looking forward to trying the slice in Australia and New Zealand.

We would love to see you all visit Canada! Entry is free to all to our national parks this year in celebration of our 150th anniversary. Lake Louise and Banff are spectacular. Sad to see what is happening south of the border.

We noted the 5 lb. difference over the 20 lb. limit for carry-on that we have experienced in overseas travel with other airlines. Think the 50 lb. limit is about right for the checked bag. Spending time taking things out of carry-on and re-weighing. We will be away for 2 months on this trip and packing was already challenging. Thinking about buying a new, lighter carry-on as my current one EMPTY weighs over half allowable 15 lbs limit.:eek:

Don't do it. Not worth the stress. Both times we have disembarked in L.A. we have had long line-ups at immigration. People who had morning flights missed them. In one case we were not off the ship until close to 1:00 p.m. due to problems with immigration and more than one ship disembarking at the same time. Book an afternoon flight or stay overnight.

We have disembarked twice in Los Angeles. First time, everything went smoothly. Second time, 3 ships disembarking within a few hours of each other; slow immigration and customs. Second time our disembarkation time was 9 a.m. with 4 p.m. flight. We barely made our flight and many missed theirs. We stood in line over 2 hours to clear customs and were not outside with our luggage until 1:00 p.m. to take the ship's transfer to the airport. Have not disembarked in L.A. since and will only do again if the cruise we really want to take ends there. Many factors come into play besides just disembarking the ship.

We solved that problem by buying a waterproof camera.

Ditto on the waterproof camera. Best investment we ever made. NEVER take a phone on our excursion. ID cards and a bit of cash in husband's zippered pocket in trunks in small ziplock bag. Many, many snorkel/beach excursions and nothing wet.:cool:

I would really appreciate seeing whatever you are able to post as well. Thank you.

We are flying out of LAX to the Cook Islands where we will stay for 10 days and then direct to Sydney from Cook Islands. We have already been to Hawaii and thought Cook Islands would be good stop to break up the long flight from North America. The LAX to Cook Islands flight is weekly on Saturday night, arriving on Sunday in Rarotonga. We decided to start our South Pacific adventure with a beach vacation before continuing on our 6-week trip to New Zealand and Australia.

I soo agree.

 

I have no idea why people want the stress of rushing off the ship and to the airport on their last day.

We normally do not book flights for either embarkation or disembarkation days. However, the flight we are taking only flies once per week at this time so we are going to risk being 10 minutes under the Princess recommended 5 hour window. We do have insurance that will cover us if there any issues with the ship not docking as scheduled. We have arranged private transfer to the airport and will self disembark. We chose this routing specifically to be able to fly direct back to Canada and avoid LAX. Hopefully all goes well.:D

Good luck, still too early for my tastes.

Really?? We were warned by Princess because our flight is 4 hours 50 minutes after disembarkation at 11:50 a.m. instead of their recommended 5 hours. Do you really think 1:35 p.m. is too early? We plan to have a booked transfer to the airport and plan to self disembark, hoping to be off the ship by 8:00 a.m. at the latest.:confused:

Hi All. Princess has advised us that we are 10 minutes short of their recommended time frame of 5 hours between disembarking and flight time. We are looking at options for transportation from the pier to the airport. Should we assume that there will be sufficient taxis at the pier or should we book a private transfer. We plan to self disembark so will be able to leave as soon as ship is given the all clear. We are on a Sydney to Sydney cruise. As one of our stops is Papua, New Guinea, will we be required to clear customs at the pier? Any recommendations for a transportation service will be appreciated. We are in Sydney for 5 days between our cruises and thought we could line up our airport transfer at that time. We will also check with our Sydney hotel (Amora Jamison)for their recommendations. Thanks in advance for any advice.:D

We are flying from Calgary, AB Canada to Los Angeles and taking the once weekly flight from LAX to the Cook Islands where we will stay for 10 days before continuing on to Sydney. Our Calgary to Sydney return flight on Air New Zealand allows for one stopover. We had looked to stop over in Hawaii but, with the horrendous currency exchange rate between CDN$ and USD$ opted for a longer stay in the Cook Islands where the exchange rate between CDN$ and NZ$ is way more favourable. Otherwise we were looking at 16 hours flying time to fly direct. Plus we have visited Hawaii and never visited Rarotonga.:D

Here's hoping for calm seas and no cyclones.

Ditto:D

I believe it is only offered at a couple of US airports and only for domestic flights.

That's what I thought. I may still check directly with Princess though as this service would sure be great and worth the cost to be able to walk off the ship as soon as possible with just our carry-on. We are 10 minutes shy of the recommended 5 hours between disembarkation and flight time.:eek:

Does anyone know if this service is available from White Bay Terminal to Sydney airport for an Air New Zealand flight to Calgary, AB, Canada via Auckland, New Zealand and Vancouver, B.C., Canada?

I got muddled by the American date, was looking for 3 July, to check and couldn't find it.

You actually got muddled by the Canadian date. :) Thanks for the confirmation. REALLY excited about our escape from the cold Alberta, Canada weather to the brilliance of Australia.:D

So....just to confirm, Sun Princess is able to fit under the harbour bridge and will berth at White Bay terminal which means we will just take a taxi to the terminal and board the ship there...no tendering involved.

We have booked ship's tours for our upcoming New Zealand cruise. We have been reading many reports of the ship's captain doing the cruise in reverse order due to weather considerations. Doing ship's tours negates the need to contact all privately arranged tours to either cancel or re-book. This is our personal choice even though we know we spend more money on ship's tours than if we booked privately. On past cruises to other locations we have done a combination of none, private and ship tours.

Spot on.

 

Depending on hotel location taxi fare will probably be up to about $30AU. The taxi will drop you right at the main door of the terminal and check in is right inside. And you board the ship there at the terminal.

Thank you.:)

No tender needed.

 

It's just one of the transport options to get to the cruise terminal.

So...we can take a taxi from CBD hotel direct to Princess check-in at pier, drop luggage and board the ship without the need for a ferry? Not only is this our first visit to Australia but it is also our first Princess cruise and I am finding some things a bit different than what we have experienced in the past. :)

So I am really not understanding this. Do we not board our cruise ship at the pier? Our cruise also departs from White Bay in March. Sounds like we drop our luggage and are tendered to our ship??:confused: We are on the 29-day circumnavigation cruise on Sun Princess departing March 7th, 2017.

I hope these earthquakes don't mean people will cancel their trips or put off travelling to NZ in the future.

We are very much looking forward to our visit to New Zealand next February. We have always been aware of the possibility of such an event due to New Zealand's location on the Ring of Fire but have never been hesitant about visiting. The fact that our trip is during typhoon season did not stop us from booking 10 days in the Cook Islands before we head to Sydney to board our cruise to New Zealand. As long as we have trip cancellation insurance, we can always re-book should anything untoward occur.

I think most ships have the "happy hour" where you buy one drink and get the second for $1.00 We usually buy a few beers (unopened) and take them back to our cabin and put them in the refrigerator. Easy to grab one when sitting on the balcony. Between the Soda and more package, Coffee card, happy hour, bringing on our 2 bottles of wine and a few cocktails here and there we find we don't need the AIBP but we are not big drinkers either.

This sounds perfect for us. Coffee card and happy hours would work well. We are not big cocktail drinkers..mostly beer and wine with the odd cocktail thrown in if a sea day.:D Our days of being to imbibe profusely are behind us.:(

Our travel agent usually contacts us about 10 days before cruiseline's final payment due date. However, we are also watching the dates ourselves. We also contact travel agent frequently throughout the whole process especially if we see on cruise critics that specials have been offered. Doing that saved us over $2000 early on due to price drops on both cruises. We also got free gratuities which definitely add up with 42 days of cruising! Also got a free specialty restaurant dinner on both cruises after contacting travel agent. It definitely pays to be proactive and stay on top of your booking even when using a travel agent. You don't pay to use a travel agent (at least here in Canada) and it is much easier for us to monitor our reservations than our travel agent who has multiple bookings to oversee and may not see offered specials as quickly as we do.

I just completed the calculator for both of our upcoming cruises and the beverage package would end up almost twice what I would spend without the beverage package so definitely not worth my while to purchase it. The absolute most I would drink on a sea day is 2 cocktails, 2 specialty coffees, 2 bottles of water, 3 glasses of wine and one cognac. On port days I would drink a lot less.