-
Posts
13,710 -
Joined
Content Type
Forums
Store
Blogs
Downloads
Events
Gallery
Everything posted by arxcards
-
Crown princess versus Westerdam for NZ
arxcards replied to Sallyandtex's topic in Australia & New Zealand Cruisers
Easy solution that you have chosen which is great advice. Do both. -
Carnival Cruise Line to Absorb P&O Australia
arxcards replied to boeckli's topic in Australia & New Zealand Cruisers
As much as they keeping asking for a higher tier, any Carnival VIFP at 1000 days is still Diamond. In the grand scheme of things, adding P&O numbers would barely be a blip on their loyalty program. They also have a milestone program to keep the serious cruisers interested. -
Crown princess versus Westerdam for NZ
arxcards replied to Sallyandtex's topic in Australia & New Zealand Cruisers
If the price and itinerary were equal, I would likely go with Westerdam. As for Crown vs Royal, personally I would like to get one on Royal before she departs at the end of this season, but then we do have two cruises booked on Crown. I don't think the two ships are so much good & bad, just different. -
Crown princess versus Westerdam for NZ
arxcards replied to Sallyandtex's topic in Australia & New Zealand Cruisers
Princess has added a few vegan options. I haven't taken much note though, and certainly can't make a current comparison with what Westerdam is offering. Seats at shows - if I really want to see it, I get there early to get a good seat. Mostly, we don't bother with shows. Seats at dinner. Princess are switching to 3 version dining in September. You can prebook traditional dining (early late for all of cruise). You can pre-book casual dining via the app, then vary your plans and adjust your bookings for each day once aboard. You can also do walk-up dining. They have separate dining rooms for each. Apart from a day when the booking system crashed, we have never had to wait for a seat on Princess. We have only ever had buzzers on P&O and Carnival. Up till now, we have rarely done a walk-up dinner on Princess, so it will be interesting to see how it works. -
Carnival Cruise Line to Absorb P&O Australia
arxcards replied to boeckli's topic in Australia & New Zealand Cruisers
@CDaze71, without outing anyone, it is a prolific cruiser that is connected to a school. I also figure that half the school staff in Greater Brisbane will cruise at the drop of a hat, and that might not have narrowed things down much. -
Crown princess versus Westerdam for NZ
arxcards replied to Sallyandtex's topic in Australia & New Zealand Cruisers
We could go with either, and our choice would be based on the convenience of the itinerary, then price. - Westerdam is smaller and quieter, and more comfortable in the public areas. - Most Westerdam cruises will turnaround in Sydney at White Bay - perhaps less convenient than OPT, but you do cruise under the bridge. - Crown will be busier than Westerdam, especially during the holidays. Activities attract crowds, but that includes HAL's cooking demos. - Depending on cabin type, I find Princess cabins almost as comfortable as HAL. For a mini, I prefer Princess' current spec. - Food varies from cruise to cruise across both lines, and I find Princess food to be generally a match for HAL. In my opinion, Westerdam has a better buffet, Princess is better with International Cafe, deck pizza & burgers. I prefer Princess MDR, slightly. - Crown & Pinnacle Grill are a near match on quality, but Pinnacle Grill has a bit more choice. - Crown Princess is $AU. Royal is bigger. We have cruised on Majestic, and prefer the grand class in preference. Not a good & bad thing, just different. The promenade is much better on Crown, although there is a bit of up and around to get around the bow. -
Carnival Cruise Line to Absorb P&O Australia
arxcards replied to boeckli's topic in Australia & New Zealand Cruisers
You had me wondering about a secret handshake level, but they do top out at Diamond. Diamond Plus is a Royal Caribbean thing. -
Carnival Cruise Line to Absorb P&O Australia
arxcards replied to boeckli's topic in Australia & New Zealand Cruisers
The free eggs benny at seaday brunch is delightful. 🤣 -
How are the Swans doing 2024?
arxcards replied to NoWhiners's topic in Australia & New Zealand Cruisers
Midway through the last quarter, it looked as if the Giants had a sniff. -
Carnival Cruise Line to Absorb P&O Australia
arxcards replied to boeckli's topic in Australia & New Zealand Cruisers
I reckon that is correct about how the loyalty programs will be handled, so that leaves no carrot for P&O cruisers to remain loyal to Carnival. They can just book Princess instead, and use the CC loyalty status they have already built instead of going back to square one with VIFP. It isn't so much about the perks as it is about being seen as a new cruiser. lol. I am aware you love Carnival. Also our friend in common is very much a Carnival girl these days too. At the other end of the scale, I have other Brisbane friends telling me that Carnival serve up dog food and have canned a small group cruise for late 2025 because it will be a Carnival Encounter. I think John has learned from past comments that loose lips may sink ships. When Spirit was taken away to cruise Alaska during the latter days of covid, John made the big announcement about how exciting it was to have an extra ship in Alaska. Wonderful, but that was 48hrs before Brisbane passengers were notified that their Spirit cruises had been cancelled. Nice to know there is more news to drip feed about Carnivoz, so I wait with bated breath and expect a media release which JH will recirculate. So far, the big soapbox news for Carnival has been the Hub app (P&O has an app) and they will be able to accrue VIFP points (instead of CC points). -
Carnival Cruise Line to Absorb P&O Australia
arxcards replied to boeckli's topic in Australia & New Zealand Cruisers
Correct. P&O days haven't counted to Princess most cruised lunches for ages. Those of us who would still hold elite status after a change would get the best of both worlds. However, there would be even more of the predominately P&O cruiser group that would lose their black medallions, mini-bar and laundry if those changes were made. Still a win if they are happy to continue cruising with elevated status on Carnival, but a loss if they would rather be on Princess. Most of my P&O friends hate Carnival with a passion. -
Carnival Cruise Line to Absorb P&O Australia
arxcards replied to boeckli's topic in Australia & New Zealand Cruisers
Just about balance. If they see Sydney as a 2 ship market during winter, it would be dumb to be catering it with two Carnival branded ships. Not all Princess ships are pinned to Alaska. -
Australia Cruise Market 2024
arxcards replied to JJK2008's topic in Australia & New Zealand Cruisers
In the BC days, it was a bit more than Royal's annual aspirational thought bubble, with more substance than the Oasis class and year round ship bubbles. Since restart, it has all changed. Priorities have been shuffled and it is nowhere near the top of Royal's list. The Aussie office still wheels it out from time to time, but the money needs to come from head office. In short, nothing to update. -
stockperks app for shareholders' OBC
arxcards replied to Aus Traveller's topic in Australia & New Zealand Cruisers
I do black my account number out, as I have the software to do it, but I don't think they can do anything much with that number. In the US, they handover that info instead of a statement. The questions aren't dumb. When you know, you know. Till then you can just wing it or ask away. -
Cruise Ship Disaster Series
arxcards replied to lyndarra's topic in Australia & New Zealand Cruisers
Season 1 is also available via streaming on Foxtel. -
Carnival Cruise Line to Absorb P&O Australia
arxcards replied to boeckli's topic in Australia & New Zealand Cruisers
We used to have one of them here for much of the winter, and the ship also gave us Pacific Circle or Indian Circle cruises. I am on a short winter cruise on Splendor in a couple of weeks time to celebrate Barb's birthday, but it is 2nd prize. Our apparent full-time Princess ship will be Iceland at the time, so Splendor it is. Yes, it is brash and busy but we can handle it for short cruises. We also prefer Princess food to Carnival, but we don't mind the idea of 2 meals per day on Carnival - brunch & dinner, with an occasional lunch time snack. If we had a Princess winter option, it would be Carnival who? Fiji is noice at this time of year. -
stockperks app for shareholders' OBC
arxcards replied to Aus Traveller's topic in Australia & New Zealand Cruisers
From the landing page after logging-in, on the top menu I click on Account, then select "Statements" from the dropdown. This opens to a page that says "Trading account statement". Beside that, you will see three other tabs - click on "Portfolio Report" You will see your current shareholdings, as well as the pdf and download button near the RH edge. There are a couple of other page options, but this has worked for me, both by email and now with stockperks. I hope that helps a bit more. -
Cruise Ship Disaster Series
arxcards replied to lyndarra's topic in Australia & New Zealand Cruisers
Next week - P&O Bedbugs doco. -
stockperks app for shareholders' OBC
arxcards replied to Aus Traveller's topic in Australia & New Zealand Cruisers
Printing it out still makes it blurry, and they prefer electronic documents. On your smartphone, logon to your CMC account and navigate to the portfolio report screen. On the right side you will see "PDF" and a download button beside it. Click that and it downloads a pdf file to your phone. Alternatively you can download to your computer, but will need to email that file to your phone for it to be used in the app. Upload the pdf file to stockperks -
The 200K isn't a deterrent. You have been paying it for years. That is a $46 per passenger tax that is built into the port fees and charges part of your fare. It was already $30pp (130K) in 2015. They could venture south for a few cruises out of Sydney too, but with more competition from Carnival. If they market it right and add even add Lelepa to itineraries, they can woo many of QLD's disaffected P&O cruisers away from Carnival.
-
Princess Loyalty Accelerator
arxcards replied to Sparky74's topic in Australia & New Zealand Cruisers
https://www.princess.com/en-au/cruise-deals-promotions/double-the-love Unless they are adding another tier down the track, it means nought. We usually do a Princess cruise in October/November. Not this year, and we are not about to jump in to book one. -
Princess Loyalty Accelerator
arxcards replied to Sparky74's topic in Australia & New Zealand Cruisers
2 x 🥚 points = 🥚 points 🤣 -
The timing is right for Brisbane to hold onto Voyager (or surrogate) year round from 2026. With no more P&O in Brisbane, it should be a cakewalk. Royal is a more respected brand in QLD than Carnival.
-
Carnival Cruise Line to Absorb P&O Australia
arxcards replied to boeckli's topic in Australia & New Zealand Cruisers
Sort of a yeah nah. Yeah, they are killing-off P&O as a restructure to save on costs. We don't have a choice. Nah, they don't want their existing passengers to spill away from their brands. In Sydney it is very mixed, but not so in Brisbane. Going forward, Brisbane will have two Carnival ships, a summer of Royal Caribbean and a short Princess season. For Brisbane P&O cruisers, Royal Caribbean is already preferred ahead of Carnival. The board and management of Carnival care deeply enough to have us thinking we are on a winner, so that Bradbury of the Seas doesn't become Brisbane's year round ship. Over time, I think Carnival will adjust their brands to match our market - more Princess, less Carnival. If Princes offered winter cruises out of Sydney or Brisbane, I would have no reason to cruise on Carnival at all. -
Carnival Cruise Line to Absorb P&O Australia
arxcards replied to boeckli's topic in Australia & New Zealand Cruisers
That would be a win for us, and something that will keep us doing occasional short cruises with them, as we did with P&O. Our hit & miss P&O history added to our short Carnival cruises would give us platinum VIFP. Not a big deal in the scheme of things, with some priority & token extras, but there is still a feeling of getting something for loyalty. But, this would be a sticking point. If you had to lose your P&O status towards Princess Captain Circle in order to get them credited for Carnival VIFP, there would be a riot. A definite carrot for you, I and others that would keep our elite status regardless, but what of those who have 15 P&O + 3 Princess cruises? One thing is almost 100% sure. Carnival operated "P&Oish" cruises from next April will no longer count towards Princess. Their PR soapbox was big on highlighting VIFP coming to the P&O ships, but they are not about to tell you it is replacing Captains Circle in the same sentence. Maybe they will let you choose how you apply your past P&O loyalty, but that all sounds a bit complicated.