arxcards

No, it isn't a new requirement. It is a domestic cruise, and Willis Island is part of Australia. The whole Willis Island arrangement is purely about allowing the sale of duty free goods on the ship. A couple of possibilities - Do you book your cruise via the US? Are you a resident with an overseas (ie, British) passport?

Pay your onboard folio in $US. Even if Cunard offers a reasonable conversion, 28 degrees will have the best possible conversion for the day.

For T2, it depends what carousel you are collecting luggage from. For some, the taxi rank is a bit closer, for others the private hire cars are closer. Whichever way, both are shorter distance than it is from airbridge to the carousels.

The money saved on plate of food is more than lost in bar sales alone. Yes, the dining room will be closed by the time you board, but those that are hungry will still be at any of the other eateries for a late afternoon snack. Yes, they like to economise. The best way to do that is to leave port earlier and travel at the slowest possible speed to the next port. The savings are massive, and far outweigh the cost of food. If they say the delay has been allowed for due to the immigration process, then take it at face value. If it was a money saving exercise, every ship would already be using the same tactic.

I guess that sums up a fair bit of my thoughts too. The PR fizz usually goes up my nose, and their social media tells outright lies about the first cruise line to do this or that. They are not reinventing cruising, just reimagining or styling parts of it. A 4 star product at a 6 star price isn't going to get up the gangway.

In their favour, Island Princess was already going south from Sydney to Fremantle, so their itinerary changes from that point on. With Brisbane as a turnaround port on Coral, that adds several days of navigation in comparison, and they must be weighing-up whether to fly passengers to Sydney or a Melbourne alternate. I have no idea on the numbers boarding in each of the three starting ports. It stinks that your long made plans have been jumbled, but good that you will get a few months notice to plan things for the altered ports. Compared to Island, that is a godsend. I was curious to see if Princess was reselling the altered leg for Island. Not available on their site, but I can still book to board in Auckland on Monday to cruise to Dubai. Why o why do they never tick all of their boxes. Probably a 100% certainty - I like that .

they have

Those on Island Princess has been informed in the past day or so. They are now skipping the Suez and going via South Africa. They are departing Sydney in 2 weeks, so they are more imminently affected. Hopefully things can settle (a lot) by the time Coral is ready to depart mid year.

For all of the media blitz since the ship arrived, it is not translating into a good volume of forward bookings. It was always going to take time to establish goodwill & repeat customers, but they are still falling short. So far I have held off from making a booking, as it seems they change their minds too often: Melbourne base, oh no it isn't selling, lets cancel some cruises and add Sydney, You can't use Velocity points, oh wait, now you can, Other perks added on the run that weren't there early doors - bar tabs, reciprocal loyalty benefits, And now a possibility of more changes on cruises next season. When they can settle down, I will take a look, also considering we already have cruises booked for 24/25 and 25/26. The Suez Canal will likely affect their relocation back to Europe and potentially the relocation back late this year. It might also affect a couple of cruises early next season due to the altered relocation. Potentially though, if they are finding it too hard to make money in Sydney & Melbourne, they might find it easier to ditch us all together and head to the Caribbean. After all, next season already sees Princess & Royal Caribbean each dropping a ship.

As with this capture, the link is under the sign up and log in buttons - "sign in with booking number" Depending on your version, it should take you to a screen like this

Yes and no. If you login to the new app with your email & pass, you can only view your next cruise. You can view future cruises individually by logging in with the relevant booking number for that cruise, log out and repeat for each cruise. Yes, it is a pain with a mobile device to be recording & storing booking numbers somewhere, but that is where it is at.

I guess this has filtered through to most by now, as it certainly wasn't announced via a PR release. When it was first announced, 360 dining was purely an invite dining option, available to full suites, casino high rollers, most cruised and social media inflooencers. More recently, it has been made available for booking as well. To my surprise last week, I read that 360 was no longer going to be doing invitations to suites, and it was only available for a PP booking charge. Further digging led to a confirmation that all suite bookings made from 1st December 2023 onwards would no longer be entitled to a 360 invite. By some stroke of luck, our booking confirmation was on 30th November. For anyone looking to book a suite on Discovery, the 360 dining is no longer an included perk. They continue to chop & change and hopefully they will work it all out one day. You can check whether you have the 360 as part of your suite by checking the travel summary. 360 will be listed if you have snagged it. We initially booked as standard but are changing to plus. It is a hedge of sorts, with an expectation that by the time Discovery Princess arrives here, the prices could be anything. If we find we can still get better value with standard, we will cancel the plus package just prior to final payment.

When the time comes late next year, I will try to get the details of the concierge so that we can get our 360 booked in ahead of boarding.

Barb doesn't have a drivers licence and has never driven, as I drive her up the wall daily. Without the necessity to have a licence, she is otherwise a bit nervous to try as she was a passenger in a horrific accident when she was a child. My father has never had a licence, and has never been inclined to travel overseas (best country in the world, why would you ever leave it). Oh the fun to get Barb's passport. We had to get a replacement for her birth certificate, and we only every had a commemorative copy of our marriage certificate so we then had to pay for the official copy to prove change of name. That gave her enough points to get a drivers learners permit which in turn gave her enough ID for a passport. The government photo IDs have since come along, and have the same ID integrity as a drivers licence, but without the permission to drive.

Correct. Alternatively, book them ASAP after boarding. Then it will be charged to your folio and zeroed with your premier dining credit.

You can have the flying fox. I am OK with heights, but I would only be doing it if free. I am happy to trade drink tips with the 20s & 30s at the mixologist bar. I more than keep up.😂 Instead of grumbling about mobility scooters, I am doing my bit to bridge the generation gap. 😉

Without a Princess cruise on your signature, it is only perception. I am usually slightly below the mean age on princess, although I am close to bang-on it these days. Cruise on longer cruises outside school holidays and you will have an older crowd, regardless of the cruise line. Virgin is pitching at a younger crowd, so they give off that perception. They are realising they have to advertise to the hilt to attract young cruisers. So far, of those I personally know that have cruised Virgin, 90% are older than me - Virgin was the new breed back and Branson was the cool one back when I was in primary school. Without cruising on Virgin myself, reality may not match my perception either. IMHO, if you have 90% old people on a Celebrity cruise, that makes them Celebrity old. It would only be in Alaska that I have seen anywhere near that % of retirees on Princess. Yes, they have plenty of older passengers, but far from defining.

Heaps better signage since the upgrade. Just don't go looking for platform #1 or #2 and you will be fine.

I am a bit surprised, as they are adding another ship to their fleet. There are lots of bits to it. Add the cost of international flights for those from the UK that would usually make up the numbers, post covid jitters from those that believe that Ruby Princess caused it, cost of living and a general slump in our cruise numbers. Great review too.

Princess aged? I am now in my 50's and did have a cruise booked on Edge for March but cancelled for personal reasons. I am concerned - am I now too old for Celebrity Edge? We have cruised a couple of times on Solstice and really didn't see much of an age difference to what we see on most cruises. Maybe the crowd has been a bit younger on Carnival and a bit older on Cunard/HAL NZ cruises generally attract an older average crowd than South Pacific cruises do.

Their numbers show there isn't enough of a market. It is more about the Americans than it is about us. If they are flying 13 to 20 hours to cruise out of Australia, which port do you think they are choosing to cruise from - Sydney or Brisbane? I would fly to Brisbane to do a cruise to nowhere on Wonder, but I wouldn't want to be 1:6000 sharing the tenders. All of the ports will be tender ports, and port amenities already struggle to handle 4000 passengers.

It is also being used on the shipping pages for Yorkeys & Airlie Beach. I believe the shipping movement pages require more accurate info that the cruise terminal schedules. Whichever, Voyager class or Voyager class. Either is a downgrade for Brisbane.

Welcome to CC. What ship are you planning your cruise on? PS: For most ships, the odd numbered cabins are starboard (right side)

Could it be Big Gav in a brown suit Phil?

How does it go @Chiliburn?? Ovation is coming back in October 2024, but now been cancelled for the following October (2025) Quantum to Sydney Voyager to Brisbane. Or are there some extra twists & turns to be unveiled?