arxcards

It didn't work for us. 11 nights with a drinks package, only to return home with covid.

4 months on, and we are hoping for a bit of lingering immunity. We are only doing 3 nights to Brisbane, so that works in our favour too. We are still happy to go masks in lifts and busy areas.

There may be some more news afoot. The NSW cruising page is now a dead link, and a lot of "should" words are showing in the alternate page.

It looks like you have now left Suva again. Godspeed, and enjoy your sea days back. If you have been loitering around any of the bars, could you LMK if Leny is still in Good Spirits bar.

Nice butt, with a good look at our favourite cabin.

Thanks for the good news. We have already penciled in Alfredo's for embark lunch. I hope the extra disembark time for a domestic cruise following an international cruise is only minor, and a smooth boarding follows. First stop, Good Spirits to say hello and grab a drink, then the short walk to Alfredo's. The cabin and safety stuff can wait.

My main "what if" is what do we do if we get sick overseas? Cancellations and being bumped from a paid itinerary would also be a pain in the R's, but it is more of the health angle that has led to us booking lower risk travel over the past year. We are starting to plan some more adventurous trips though and will weigh-up our own risks when it becomes time to book. If every decision we make is based on "what if", we wouldn't travel at all.

Take care of yourself. I hope you can recover back to your pre-covid health. We both came home with covid from Majestic at the end of October. My wife had a bit of a lingering cough, but otherwise has recovered OK. I have been a bit worse for wear with ongoing fatigue. I have no pre-existing illnesses but have been needing 2 nanna naps every afternoon & evening in order to function. Over the past couple of weeks, I have started to notice some of my energy returning which is encouraging. I don't feel sick, but it has been frustrating.

This is great news, but I have my fingers crossed in hoping history doesn't repeat. We were on Majestic's first no mask required cruise in October. We thought it was great but were noticing a daily increase in coughers and sneezers beginning at day 0. We returned home with covid, and Majestic (and other Carnival ships) reinstated masks when they hit 800 infections on the following cruise. Now we embark Majestic again on Friday to a no-mask environment. I am pretty happy about that, but also hoping we don't hear those Twilight Zone coughing sounds after we board.

And especially those that lower their mask to make it easier to cough/sniff/sneeze.

Us included. An hour in a tin can either way is more expensive than a week on Luminosa.

There lies the difference. If the delays/missed ports are their fault, they will compensate. Diverting for weather reasons or medevacs, they will only offer a token credit plus refund any relevant port charges.

The video is 9 years old - pretty much guaranteed the cabin will still look the same.

The price will be the same. I am all for booking aboard, but with pre-purchase now available, popular tours can be sold-out before you board. I don't know about the cake on Carnival. You can pre-purchase balloon decorations, but they don't have an online link for notifying of any celebrations. Give Carnival a call and see if you can prearrange the cake. They do have some really nice cakes at their coffee bar, but they won't be pre-decorated.

The casino can open as soon as they are out to sea. Cruising past Willis Island is a qualifier for duty free though. They will usually launch a weather balloon from the weather station. Not sure if they are curtailing this due to recent controversial balloons. 😉

This policy was meant to end in October last year. Covid is still around, so the policy has continued to be extended. I can't be sure what they have in place in the coming months, but as long as the protocols require a pre-cruise covid RAT, they are likely to continue their current policy.

It makes sense. For anyone with a belly full of preventative ginger, if it backfires it is horrible. Throw in some skittles for colour.

Norwegian Spirit will be back here for our next 2 summers. They cruise a slightly shorter season than the other visiting ships December to March, but you choose NCL for a reason. For us locals, it is convenient to cruise Princess or Carnival here, but that is because they are $AU onboard, and gratuities are part of the fare. As you are from the US, if the NCL itineraries don't fit, Royal Caribbean and Celebrity are a decent fit and it is $US onboard with daily gratuities added. NCL has mostly open-ended itineraries, and there are no cruises that are Sydney to Sydney on their schedule. I guess it depends if you want to cruise the Aussie Coast, or cruise to New Zealand from Sydney. NCL does do Sydney to Auckland, so you are able to fly into Sydney, do Aussie things then cruise to Auckland to do some NZ things before flying home. There are a limited number of cruises that do a 4 week lap around Australia, but are popular enough to close to sold-out and not discounted. A Queensland coastal cruise from Sydney of Brisbane would be my pick for cruising into Australian ports.

Timing is everything. The cruise ban was going to be lifted 3 months earlier, but omicron showed-up the week before the announcement. There were signs that many of the current restrictions were going to lift around Christmas time, but the current spike took care of that. Masks mandates were removed in October, and plenty of ships are cruising without them, but Princess has continued to struggle. With only 4 ships remaining here through the winter, it is a good time to drop all of the pre-boarding restrictions and monitor what happens.

Yes, that is still current as of today, and is being risk managed ship by ship. Our state governments stopped mandating masks in cruise terminals and on cruise ships in October. We cruised on Majestic's first cruise of the season in October, and no masks were required. We both came home with covid, and the following cruise had 800 cases aboard, a new world record for an infectious disease on a cruise ship. Things are winding back. I have read that the current Coral cruise has done away the day 3 test. P&O and Carnival are only asking for masks indoors on their longer cruises. The NSW page only has occasional ships reporting as tier 1, and there hasn't been a tier 2 in months. Less covid on land and less at sea. These mandates were cookie-cuttered from the US' CDC cruising framework that had nothing to do with Ruby. Only our media and a few officials that had their pants pulled down are the only ones hanging on to the Ruby debacle. When will it end? Covid was supposed to end in 2020, wasn't it. Masks are a cruise by cruise, ship by ship approach from the cruise line. There are no mandates. If there is no coughing, there will be no glares. There is nowhere I can think you will need to wear a mask outdoors and they don't count heads on the deckchairs to determine if it is crowded.

Hey @Kiwi_cruiser How many ships call in New Plymouth? Weather permitting, Island Princess is meant to be calling there on Wednesday.

As mentioned, size comes into it. When buying luggage here, there are two different carry-on sizes, commonly referred to as domestic carry-on and international carry-on. The "international" size is commonly used all over the US, but is oversized for most economy Oz/NZ flights. Depending on the airline/aircraft type, the international carry-on bags will not fit in overhead lockers.

Turns out Noordam & Majestic Princess are back to Sydney tomorrow. Ovation's AIS has them arriving tomorrow evening, presuming they will berth at OPT after Majestic's departure.

I wondered how many more times they will share a port as Island navigates through our waters. Off-hand, I know of Cairns on 23rd Feb, which will be nice to have them sharing the same wharf. Going by schedules, they will also pair-up in Tauranga tomorrow.

No, they are still heading for Tangalooma as scheduled. Cruising close to the NSW & QLD coast, it is not expected to be overly rough.