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There's a couple of early front-runners, but as MC says, it's a long season and anything can happen before finals. Usually it's the teams that are in a rich vein of form over the last month, month and a half are best placed, as long as they've banked enough points earlier on to finish high up on the ladder. Geelong and Sydney are both well off the pace after facing off in the grand final last year, but you wouldn't write either of them off just yet (though to be fair, as a Swans fan, I firmly believe our season has been too disrupted by injuries to seriously challenge as one of the top teams this year) It was a much-needed win against Carlton, but IMO it had as much to do with Carlton throwing the match away than the Swans showing a huge amount of improvement. Still, you take them where you can and move on.

I don't know that it's that unsuccessful from an industry point of view to be honest. Considering the population here, distance to travel for overseas guests, lack of nearby ports etc, the industry appears to be going ok. There's a shipload of people leaving every day out of sydney in summer. Now, as for INTERESTING cruises out of Australia... that's tougher. There's not a lot of options nearby so you either cruise up and down the east coast, or you go up to the south pacific islands - but because it takes 2 days to get there from Sydney, it's all just sea days and so-so ports. Cruises are massive out of Florida because there's a multitude of options within a day's sail so you can have a variety of itineraries from 3 day to 7 day. We've done 8 cruises and only half of them have been out of Australia, I just find the overseas itineraries more interesting. After our two Europe cruises in October, our local cruise count will be 4/10.

Man I haven't been in this thread in a few weeks - been as busy as the Swans have been terrible. Of course, the many injuries haven't helped at all. But I don't think we're featuring in finals this year. The Grand Final curse strikes again. Still plenty of time to string a couple of wins together and build some confidence for 2024, so let's see.

Well we definitely learnt a thing or two. Just got outplayed by a better side on the day. We'll learn from it and see what happens. Would rather get a rude wakeup call in round 3 than round 23, that's for sure.

It's such a weird story. We've travelled enough that we know how to adapt and improvise when something goes wrong - let's face it, having to MacGuyver stuff on the fly is half of the fun of travelling. Why let a lost bag ruin your whole trip? There's onboard shops so you can buy stuff to get by, plus if you had multiple bags that you've cross-packed into AND had a spare change of clothes in your carry-on, there's no reason why you can't cope.

I've been on probably 5 cruises with a CPAP. It's super easy. They'll supply distilled water and an extension cable if you ask them on boarding day. Some lines have a form that you can fill out to advise of any medical requirements.

Of all the 80 points win I have seen... that was certainly one of them. It's a bit hard to gauge because Hawthorn were SO BAD. They are basically rebuilding from scratch so they won't be competitive for a couple of years. Yes, it's pleasing to be top of the ladder with a percentage of 232 (!!!) but to be fair, the Swans haven't played any real teams yet. The real challenge starts this week with Melbourne at the MCG, which should be a good test and give us a better idea how these teams are placed. Collingwood are looking fantastic this year too. Will be interesting.

OP good luck with your trip and don't be afraid to ask questions. We're a friendly bunch here 🙂

Yeah those of us who have lived in multiple countries can sometimes have a messed up accent! I moved to Sydney from Malaysia when I was 12. So I was young enough to mostly pick up an Aussie accent, but sometimes you can tell there's something a bit weird with it. But as a result I can adapt really quickly when understanding other accents or adapting my own speech to be more easily understood overseas. After a week or so in the US or in Asia, my own accent morphs a bit. But my wife (born here, parents born here) stubbornly refuses. She would literally rather starve to death than speak in a way that the poor waiter can understand her haha.

Pleasing opening game. Swans had a great starting quarter, Suns lucky to pick up a couple of cheap late goals. They also came hard in the start of the second quarter. Swans held strong though and adapted better to the humid, slippery conditions - a bit weird considering the Suns were the home team and would presumably be used to the conditions. A fantastic third quarter before taking the foot off the accelerator in the last quarter and coasting to a solid win. I'm happy with that considering the Suns have been something of a bogey team for us over the last few years. Good start to the season. Bud will probably get a week or two for that clumsy bump. Whatever. I had him pencilled in to miss 5-6 games in his last season anyway. It's interesting that a couple of the heavy favourites for this year - Geelong and Brisbane - had first round losses. I expect them to still be up there at the end anyway.

Game day! I think if the Swans hold steady this year and aim for top 4 and winning at least one final, that would be a very very good result indeed, given the heavy defeat in the grand final and the overall age profile of the squad. Of course I would love us to win the lot but a lot of it will depend on the development of the kids. Some other teams - Melbourne, Geelong, Brisbane - have traded well and improved their squad, and IMO deserve to be favourites ahead of us until proven otherwise.

No problem shuyak! There's no silly questions, as they say. Hope you get the answer you are after. P&O UK is definitely a more classy experience compared to P&O Australia, from what I've heard.

I would actually ask over in the UK forums. When people here say P&O, they mostly are referring to P&O Australia, which is a completely different line from P&O. P&O Australia is basically Australia's Carnival. Good prices, good for families, reputation for being party ships.

My understanding is that is the trade-off. With the package, you get a good price, but you cannot make reservations until you are on board.

Thank you everyone for the feedback. It sounds like if we're not really into wines (we're not), we are simply not going to get value out of this experience. That's a real shame as we have enjoyed all the chefs tables we have done previously. We will look into maybe done one of the other specialty restaurants for our special occasion.

Thanks all for your honest opinions. We really enjoyed the chef's table we did on Majestic but we got that for a pretty good price for a 10 course meal. Will think about doing it on Odyssey, but we might just opt for other specialty dining if the value just isn't there for this.

Hi all, We have our first RCI cruises coming up in October, and we're looking forward to experiencing a new line! We did the chef's table on Majestic Princess a few weeks ago and really enjoyed it so I was looking into the Chef's table option for RCI. We are going on Explorer and Odyssey, but will likely have the fancier dining options on Odyssey, if that makes a difference. 1. Has anyone done Chef's Table on a dining package, or would you recommend booking it separately? My understanding is that you cannot book dining package meals ahead of time. I am aware that CT is a smaller seating so I wasn't sure if it's likely to book out. 2. Does anyone know if they offer a CT without the wine pairings as my wife and I both do not really drink wine. On Majestic, they were happy to just bring us mocktails instead 3. Any other thoughts on Chef's Table? Thanks for any opinions anyone can offer 🙂

NCL do cruise here, but not as many itineraries as some lines. Look into the offerings from P&O Australia, Princess, Carnival as well. Though if you are used to NCL probably Princess would be your closest fit. As to which itinerary.. it depends on how much time you have. New Zealand is fantastic (we have done two NZ cruises) but IMO it's a country that's best seen by road trip. You could also do some Australian ports out of Sydney in between some other sightseeing.

Good review, and pretty much what we think as well. We've done a couple of P&O cruises and to be fair we have enjoyed them both for what they are. Clearly they are more budget than other lines. Would I go on them again? Maybe, for the right price and itinerary. But would never be my first choice.

Honestly, IMO the main lines are more similar than they are different. So pick one with an itinerary that looks interesting and enjoy the cruise. P&O is ok for the price, but definitely the cheap and cheerful option. I've been on two and have enjoyed them, but you absolutely get what you pay for. I have not been on Carnival before, but their thing seems to be the parties and drinking. So if that is your scene, go ahead. I've been on several Princess cruises before (Alaska, New Zealand, Asia) and in fact will go again out of Sydney to New Zealand in January. They have a more relaxed, classic cruising style - no water slides, dodgem cars or big parties. I've always found the Princess kids clubs to be excellent. I've not done HAL, but I believe they've got a similar vibe to Princess. I've also not done RCI but I have my first two RCI cruises in 2023 out of Europe. Their deal seems to be the big impressive ships with lots of features. Bear in mind also that Mar-May is right on the tail end of the Australian cruising season, so many of the ships that visit only in our summer will be gone. From what I can tell, the ships that are sailing out of Australia, ONLY to Australian ports between Mar-May 2023 are: Carnival Splendor (Sydney) Grand Princess (Melbourne) Coral Princess (Fremantle) Queen Mary 2 (Sydney) Queen Elizabeth (Adelaide) Ovation of the Seas (Sydney) Quantum of the Seas (Brisbane) Pacific Explorer (Fremantle) Majestic Princess (Sydney, Adelaide, Fremantle)

Six of one and half a dozen of another. IMO covid is pretty much present on all ships worldwide, and no region is particularly covid-prone compared to another. The main difference is the reporting in the media and the government restrictions in place. Now, the EU and US have had a good 12 month head start on us so it's not that surprisingly that we have more reported cases. The longer cruises seem to have more reported cases (makes sense, given the few days that it takes for covid to become detectable) and the ships that order ship-wide testing seem to have more reported cases (again, makes sense). What we can control is our own response. We're sailing on Majestic Princess on 3 Jan for a NZ cruise. We'll bring masks and sanitiser and do our best to protect ourselves and others. We don't tend to hang out in bars etc so that likely won't change much. Fingers crossed anyway.

Yeah everyone has to make the choice for themselves based on their own level of comfort and risk. Best of luck and I hope you can make it on a cruise some time in the future 🙂

Oh I agree. I only mentioned Scotland because many of the Iceland cruises that I see seem to stop at a couple of Scottish ports on the way back to Southampton or Amsterdam or whatever. My parents have been on a British Isles cruise but I am not sure personally. I would think that a land tour would be best for that region.. I'd particularly like to visit a number of distilleries in Scotland. Thanks again everyone for your great advice.

Thank you all so much for all your thoughts. 🙂 I will absolutely consider a land tour of Iceland. It seems like the sort of place that you could easily self drive as there's no big cities to worry about. But as someone mentions, it will all depend on the sort of experience you want. We like to visit a region via cruise first as it's easier (especially with kids in tow) and then we can decide to come back separately to any places that we particularly like. We've done self drive tours of Alaska (Anchorage, seward, denali, talkeetna) and New Zealand's South Island so it'd be pretty easy I think. Lots of fun planning ahead 🙂

Hi all. We've done a few cruises before but we're complete newbies to Northern Europe cruises. Heck, we've never even been to Europe before, but we're going to fix that in Oct 2023 when we do Europe and RCI for the first time. We're looking for options for our 2027 20th anniversary trip. For our honeymoon we did Alaska, and returned there in 2017 for our 10th anniversary. We were going to go back again for 2027 but we're looking into alternatives, and Norway/Iceland came up. I've done a bit of reading (the pinned post about Norwegian Fjords has been a goldmine of info!!) and from what I can work out, the main lines do these rough types of cruises: - Norwegian fjords - mixture of deep fjords and coastal towns - North cape / midnight sun - these go further north - Iceland - visit a couple of Norway ports on the way up and maybe Scotland on the way down These all sound amazing, but there's kind of no cruises that do ALL of it from what I can see with the main cruise lines. If we want to hit all the spots, we would have to do small/luxury cruises or do multiple back-to-back cruises. My question for people who have visited this region before, and hopefully have been to both Norway and Iceland... if you had to do one of the above cruises, which one would you pick and why? And if you had to do only two, which two and why? We have a ton of time before 2027 so I'm just fishing for information now. A bit more context: We absolutely love Alaska, it's one of our favourite places to cruise. We love Glacier Bay, Tracy Arm, and the charming small ports. We've also done New Zealand and love scenic cruising in Fiordlands. We prefer a small/medium sized ship and are all about the destination, not the ship.