arxcards

Sydney time. I have found that during the morning you get a shorter queue. They have been mostly helpful, but more difficult questions tend to be - well - leave you hanging until the chat times out.

That fits with the tier 1 showing on NSW cruise page.

Hang a disco ball in the tenders.

It should, and on a normal day it will. As with the day Les mentioned, Border Force delayed everything by 2hrs, and they were disregarding Platinum/Elite/Suite priority in favour of boarding group allocation only. Once in the terminal, you always have PES priority, but the lines on that day were outside the terminal. I believe OPT has never had a priority lane outside the terminal for Princess. On most days, there is no build-up of passengers waiting, and people get into the terminal when they arrive, and onto the ship soon after. The only way to truly honour priority is to have boarding A set aside for Elites & Suites, B set aside for Platinum & club class.

Pacific Encounter and Celebrity Eclipse racing off the NSW North Coast.

Coral is back to tier 2

Come Back New [ly infected]. I am impressed we managed to dodge it for over 2 1/2 years, and it took 4 cruises to get there.

My symptoms had evolved to man-flu status this morning, so I am pretty sure I am carrying enough of whatever it is to give them an accurate test. Yes, resting up.

You can try. On a normal day, embarkations are a breeze. All those there early can be on before people start to arrive for the A boarding. Just be patient enough to let them call priority passengers and A boarding passengers through, and tack onto the end of the line. It works that way at OPT for Coral, but Grand Princess also departs Melbourne on the same day - which are you cruising on? If there is a crowd, just drop your luggage and go and find a nice spot for a coffee till it settles down.

On 20th October Les, they would have asked you to go away and come back at 4pm. While the ship thinks they have resolved that issue with OPT, the terminal has other ideas.

Phone reception isn't their problem though. The app & medallion have worked fine for us. They would prefer to provide a carrot for having the app, as it does add some more benefits to your cruise if you are using the app aboard. That is why they have deliberately limited the features on the web version and personaliser. The web version didn't exist until around 4 months ago. I do accept that that it isn't fair for people that chose not to own a smartphone. Lots of long term loyal passengers miss out on opportunities to dine where/when they want, and there are still issues when a delayed boarding results in priority passengers without an A boarding to come back hours later.

I agree about Vila. Once you get off the wharf, it is a nice place. Once you get out of town and get around the island, it is even nicer. Private funding will be the only way to get what they need, as public funding just seems to get absorbed into the system. Lelepa will need a Fung Kuei store though.

Looks like I have bought home a souvenir. Started feeling ordinary last night, and feel like crap today. It looks like it isn't covid though. I took a negative RAT last night, but with more significant symptoms this morning, I have headed-off to get a PCR.

Rationed. Port side on day one, starboard on day 2.

Not this season or next. They go to Fiji where they can dock.

You are going to need a spot where at least two tenders at a time can offload, or the ship will take most of the day to empty. None of those large cats to help speed things up either. For tendering, a nice purpose built wharf behind the markets would be great, but they don't have anything near what is needed ATM.

Personally, I think the photo as "proof" is for other reasons. For around 4 months, they had a couple of hundred cancellations on the day before departure for most cruises. The numbers did not stack-up vs the number of cases generally in the community. For that reason, I think a photo proving a positive test is of much more interest to them, as till then you could just claim covid if you didn't feel like cruising, and get a 100% credit to kick your booking down the road. After all, our governments don't require that photo for boarding, just the declaration. If you have answered that question on the app, they don't really need to ask again.

We did a few times, but it was pretty boring with no tables to count in the corridor. 😉 Majestic corridors are a bit skinnier than those on the older ships, particularly noticeable when full of luggage.

Given that you can't collect till check-in, you will be on the ship less than 1/2 hour later and can see what you are buying at "Oceanfront"

Carnival Splendor ✔️ Majestic Princess ✔️ Celebrity Eclipse ✔️ Ovation of the Seas ✔️ Carnival Luminosa ✔️ we were hoping to see her from the decks of Majestic Princess while crossing in Moreton Bay on 29th October. Alas, they had a diversion in Indonesia, and delayed their scheduled arrival into Brisbane until 30th October. She is preparing for her inaugural cruise from Brisbane on Sunday. Quantum of the Seas ✔️ Grand Princess ✔️well, sort of a tick. She has arrived to Australia, but has just departed for her home port of Melbourne, due there on Friday Queen Elizabeth one more Asian stop to come in Benoa, then headed for the West Coast, arriving in Fremantle on 7th November Westerdam almost a tick. Quite an itinerary for a transpacific. She arrives in Australia tomorrow, with a port stop in Cairns. With Airlie Beach to follow, she will be Sydney bound, arriving on 8th November. Noordam has now departed Nukualofa, Tonga. Next stop is Norfolk Island, then Brisbane on 9th November and finally into Sydney on 12th November. Norwegian Spirit is still some time away, currently having a fun time cruising around Tahiti. Arrives in Sydney on 21st December.

Nominal passenger number + nominal crew number = total aboard. Multiply by 0.004 should give a number in the 20's. They advise %, as that is what the government tiers are based on. The 300ish number presently on Coral Princess would be vastly different for Coral Adventurer.

I don't know where their 0.4% came from. They had to open a second quarantine block during the cruise, so they have managed that better than Lazarus to get the number back down so low (20 - 30 passengers)

Thanks Les, Apart from the cabin location, I would go close to an 8. We have had a few in the 9's over the years though.

Proof would be difficult, but we have used these tests mostly honourably in everyday life here for the past year or so. You just do what your cruise line asks of you, and hope that everyone else is doing the right thing - the vast majority do. Seems that most cruise lines are asking for you to take a photo that includes a date reference alongside your photo ID and your RAT test. Even then, they have only been randomly checking these photos, as the local governments only require you to take a test and declare (attest) your result.

As long as it isn't yours 😉 Have a great cruise.