arxcards

We had to cancel our Kakadu tour, as I worried we wouldn't make it back in time to the ship anchored at Port Douglas 😉🤣 We have spent a bit of time in Darwin at this time of year - the start of the build-up.

Thanks. I hope so too, or a live thread will be a fizzer. We have been talking-up that tip here for a while. The other is to see the gurus at Ocean medallion if anything isn't working properly.

Previous cruise, they replaced the deck 6 carpet outside the big lounge. Just a minor inconvenience, and the stains disappeared in an afternoon. Doing it while idle? Unnecessary expense when ships weren't making any money for their masters.

Correct Don. You can upload your Vax certificate, but they still want to sight it in the terminal (on phone or printed). You can upload your RAT and health info, but they will still ask you in the terminal. You can upload a photo of your date stamped RAT with photo ID, which they may randomly check in the terminal.

And the departures, from a Marriot perspective

Majestic has arrived to a 2 person welcoming party at the Opera House. BTW, happy 50th birthday to the Opera House. She has seen many ships come & go.

Thinking through, we have been on a couple of smaller ships, but they were our big ships back then. Tricked again by time zones, Luminosa's schedule was in UTC, so she is currently on-time for her arrival into Singapore in the next hour or so. Given that all ships to arrive so far are staying here year round, the first of the summer fleet arrives in Sydney tomorrow morning.

We have just finished packing in plenty of time for a train to Sydney tomorrow. We will spend a night at the Marriot, and board on Thursday. I am hoping to catch some movements of Pacific Adventure, Pacific Explorer and Carnival Splendor during our time in Sydney. We have 11 nights this time, our first real holiday in a while. Number one priority is to chill, relax and enjoy our trip, but will have much more time to get around the ship and get plenty of photos. Also looking forward to our day in Port Douglas. With cruising shut down in 2020, we were going to take our Hawaiian cruise refund up there for a holiday, until Annastasia locked us out on short notice. We booked this cruise in a roundabout way, late in 2020, for October 2021 on Royal Princess. We thought that would be a low risk cruise for when everything restarted. No such luck, so it became Royal Princess in November 2022, until Princess changed their mind. So here it is, and we scored an extra night for nothing, although our mini was slightly downgraded to a lower location. If boarding is half as good as our recent Coral cruise, we will be ecstatic - in medallion we trust. 😁 Coral has been so easy to settle in to on two short cruises, so I am curious to how different a Royal class will feel. So far, every Princess ship we have boarded has felt familiar is a short time. Bring it on!!

Interesting Princess has been asking to do a photo with a clock in the background to show the time. It made no sense whatsoever, but we get an "urgent" boarding information text today - needs a date reference in the photo. I will cover both by putting the test and ID beside my Outlook calendar for the photos.

I noticed them close on the tracker. Nice shot!!

@Sparky74 Was Pacific Encounter that good? 😉 All is quiet, I hope all is well.

The smaller ships are off my radar, so I will leave that to others that have that sort of interest. If I was looking at booking Viking, Azamara, Seabourn, Oceania etc, I would be all over it. Alas, they are either out of our league or beyond our field of interest. On that flip side, the smallest ships we have been on are Pacific Eden/Aria, which were quite comfortable, but also inexpensive.

Thanks. Great news for Thursday.

Maybe. The more ships, the more discussion. The forum is what we make it. Now after discussing BICT parking options for P&O and Princess cruisers, we get to do the same for Luminosa and Quantum cruisers, and we get to work out the power outlets available on a wider fleet of ships - a much greater variety of guff. 😉

Sydney to Eden, here we come!

How was it? We have booked in there for one night.

Time for another update, as I will be part of it on Thursday. Just a bit of a project to capture the fleet, as they migrate south for the summer. in order of arrival dates into Australia. Jump in and post transit info for your ship of interest - port and ship cams etc. Carnival Splendor ✔️ Majestic Princess has recently departed Waitangi, on her final leg and Sydney bound. Due to arrive early on Thursday morning. Just 3 more sleeps till cruise day. Celebrity Eclipse due into Auckland tomorrow, then Waitangi and onto Sydney for 22nd October Ovation of the Seas has departed Moorea, and heading to Papeete. The tracking looks weird, as if they have changed their mind. 3 ports to come in NZ, then arriving in Sydney on 29th October. Carnival Luminosa will arrive in Singapore late tomorrow, then on to arrive in Brisbane on the evening of 29th October. When they get their ship together, she will start cruising on 6th November. Quantum of the Seas has left Hawaii and heading to Tahiti. Due to arrive in Brisbane on 1st November. Grand Princess has departed Tahiti and on her way to Fiji. She then sets off for NZ, Sydney and Melbourne. Arrives to Sydney on 2nd November, then into Melbourne 2 days later. Queen Elizabeth has recently transited the Suez Canal and now in the Gulf of Aden. Set to arrive in Fremantle on 7th November. Westerdam is approaching Apia, Samoa. Lots more Pacific ports to visit, then via North Queensland, to arrive in Sydney on 8th November. Noordam Currently cruising Hawaii. Scheduled arrival in Sydney on 12th November. Norwegian Spirit is also cruising Hawaii, and about to do voyages between Honolulu and Papeete. Arrives in Sydney on 21st December.

If they could get to the south side of Moreton Island, that would become the shipping lane from the south into Brisbane. All ocean ships enter Moreton Bay from the north. Very shallow between North Stradbroke and Moreton Islands.

Your June 3023 roll call should be a long one. P&O Australia and Princess have OBC for vets, Carnival no longer has it, and I can't vouch for the others.

They don't cruise around the island, as it isn't navigable - they just hang on the Moreton Bay side, or cruise by at a wide distance on the ocean side.

Or for some of the passengers to go and put their teeth in 😲😉 I expected Carnival to drop them as soon as they were no longer compulsory. They were having enough trouble getting passengers to wear masks on their first couple of cruises.

Well Stu, I gather you are home by now. How did it stack up?

Just a couple of Q's for those aboard. They must be having a great time, as it is a bit quiet. 1) Have they resumed some of the events, particularly champagne waterfall, Ultimate Balcony dining? 2) The government protocols no longer have compulsory masks - both crew and passengers up to 3% infection count, passengers only up to 10% infection count. Has anything changed aboard re masks?

Paid for a Princess one around 15 years ago, I think around $200 each. Came with photo prints of a few group shots with Captain, Engineer, CD, etc; fluffy bath robes, chefs top, and a couple of other bits. It was OTT, but glad to do it once. We don't need any more robes, so haven't bothered again. We did a freebie on Ovation a few years back, which seems to be a standard for the Star class suites.

The do. I don't know what it is made from, but suspect it will be a scoop of flavour powder. Short of a current cruiser, I can find out in person on Thursday.