arxcards

OI. I tried mine on over the Christmas break, and it fits better than ever. Returning to a cruise near you sometime soon. 🤣

I agree, but $13K is for the same cruise with more elbow room and not much more amenity. It is only the minimum bid to upgrade. If I could justify it at the time, I would be all for it, but would rather spend 13K on more immersive tours than cabin space. I can see the temptation.

Well it depends on what they do. If a bus load of Australians walks past their tour guide/driver, they may as well be volunteers instead of employees. I tip the appropriate people in the US, it really isn't optional. It doesn't take much homework to know the obligatory amounts.

Actually, they have. You can't get a poached egg for breakfast in the regular eateries, unless you pay extra for it as eggs benny.

The Hawaii route makes it easy to split the relocation in half, but with places like Bora Bora & Raiatea off the itineraries, they are less exotic. Via Asia makes for a nice change, and they can also run a couple of cruises there in lieu of our underwhelming shoulder season. Via the Suez would be plan A, but that would depend on whether they a see an ongoing risk of being an attractive target in the Red Sea or Gulf of Aden. It has been interesting watching people re-map their world cruises away from the middle east, even though they are more likely to go mostly to schedule.

Actually 10 on Explorer carried over from Dawn Princess - add 11192 & 11201.

Getting cash for travel used to excite me, especially those crisp brand new notes. Then by the time you have stowed 3 or 4 currencies and have tried to budget the right amount for each day of your trip, it becomes a royal pain. Now with being able to use plastic for just about everything, it is so much easier - and paid up to 55 days in arrears instead of weeks/months in advance. Now it will just be cash for tips in the US.

There are 8 cabins that are different, 4 on deck 11, 4 on deck 10. When it was Dawn Princess, these 8 were the only 4 berth balcony cabins. P&O has retrofitted lots of 4 berth balconies in the version you have shown, but those 8 cabins can only be figured as single beds. A bed and a sofa bed at floor level, and 2 swing down bunks above. 10198, 10200, 10215, 10217, 11222, 11224, 11237, 11239 are the original type. Like this: Top bunks swing back to the wall if not required.

You would think with Donald aboard, Disney would think the ducks are a good thing. Nope!

As elite, you are entitled to priority when check-in opens, whenever that may be. For Elite you should normally be OK for 11am. Check out of your hotel at 10, head for OPT and drop your bags, then see what happens.

Do you get anything like this in your neighbourhood?

Where there is a void of info, there will always be speculation. One thing to be sure is that changes are afoot, but as with reverting to Voyager class from Quantum class, they are not always what they are hoped to be. Another jumble that could be taking away the usual port hints in Honolulu - the reduced number of attractive ports in Tahiti could see more Trans-Pacific cruises coming via the northern route and ports in Asia. An Oasis class relocation cruise via the South Atlantic & Indian Oceans would be an interesting cruise.

We have oodles of cruise totes and did a bit of a tidy up over the Christmas break. As best as I can tell, the couple of Princess "Come Back New" totes are like new. One is from 2017, the other from Coral last year. Lots of trivia prizes and misc totes from P&O, HAL and a couple of T/A's. We should use them up, but have 10yrs supply of Woolies & Coles bags to consume first. "Escape Completely" bags would have to be 12+ years old? I am not sure they were designed to last much longer that a month of real use.

That is just a boot and shoe thing. I went through my storage tub to find a pair of new masseur sandles I put there 6 or 7 years ago. The soles had turned to jelly. I also threw away a pair of "new" 10 year old work shoes and a pair of 20 year old cricket spikes, as both split in my hands. Age for sure, but these have been in a nice shady wardrobe.

Up on the pool deck on Majestic (and Coral). They will happily microwave a Mrs Mac for you.

Was your cruise covid affected? Has been open for us on Coral & Majestic on each of the last 5 cruises. 6:30 is a bit late if you have a rushed disembark, but we always try to avoid that. There are restrictions though - suite breakfast has the regular menu plus there is no room service breakfast. To avoid the rush for an early riser, down to International Café nice and early, and grab a light breakfast & coffees to take back to room. We avoid buffet breakfast in general, and especially on disembark morning.

I was just checking whether it was the upgrade auction, as for most cruises if you are in a mini or higher, you are bidding on cabins that are already occupied. I know that the are covering all bases in case of a very late cancellation, but I find it fundamentally wrong that they are taking bids for cabins that have already been sold. There is a minimum and a maximum bid amount in the upgrade system, so there is no gazillion offers possible. They are saving plenty at the lower cabin levels by getting passengers to pay for upgrades they would otherwise be giving-up as complimentary, and wouldn't be keen to complicate things with further with move over offers.

My wife found one in a Christmas card a couple of years ago. A $100 gift card that had expired 2 years earlier. She rang to enquire about it, and was told they would honour it in a single transaction at the store of issue. They did. Treat winning scratchies the same - they too have an expiry.

Do you know anyone that puts $80.02 of petrol in their tank when they fill-up their tank and are paying by cash? I do, and I figure they save $1 per year.

Yeah, jump on one of their main competitors for a dinner in their steakhouse any night you want and dine with the crickets. Oh, with conversion it is over $100pp and the food is not as good (IMHO). They get plenty of feedback via the surveys, pursers desk and Circle Host. We had our 30th anniversary dinner in Bayou cancelled without notice in October 2022, bumped to the previous night in Sabatini's. It is nothing new - the ships still hate having to jigsaw their bookings, yet head office will continue to sell an excessive number of packages. I am not sure people will walk away from Princess, but will walk away from packages. On short cruises, demand also outstrips supply for specialty dining on P&O and Carnival. Although there are no promises from a dining credit in a package, there is still the disappointment of not being able to secure a special occasion booking.

Is this via the upgrade auction or a direct offer from your agent/Princess? The auction is somewhat automatic, and you get them for every cruise. If you don't get the email, you can still access it from the personaliser. There is a rub though. In most cases you are bidding for cabins that aren't available. All of the suites on this cruise are currently sold-out. We have also received the same offer for our February cruise, and the suites have been waitlisted for months.

Just for those not aware, those that missed snagging a specialty restaurant don't miss out completely. They can use the specialty dining credit to order Crown Grill/Bayou steak - lobster - surf & turf in the MDR. Not the same ambience for sure, but the ambiance in an overbooked steakhouse isn't great either. Front of queue is still to pre-purchase your preferred time/date/restaurant via the app with credit card, and you can reconcile that with your dining credit once aboard. On a short cruise, if you want to wait for a dining credit or OBC to pay, it needs to be your #1 mission after boarding.

This issue has been apparent since premier was announced, and we have seen it close at hand on 3 and 4 night cruises. Until a few months ago it was even worse for some, as the vouchers could be used to pre-book before boarding via the app, and the specialty restaurants were sold-out well before embarkation. We found on Majestic in November that there were plenty of bookings available on a 3-nighter until lunch time on the 2nd day, so anyone who took care of it soon after boarding was accommodated. Mind you, at the other end of the scale, there were people walking-up to Crown Grill on the last night expecting a table without a booking who were vocal about not being accommodated. People, like myself, quite like Premier packages on short cruises, as you get much more value from them than the longer ones. I do believe though, that cruises up to 5 nights should only have one specialty dining voucher, with 2 x reserved for longer cruises. However, the premier package must be working for Princess, as the specialty restaurants were very much under-used before it existed. If you have a premier package on short cruise, get it booked in ASAP after boarding to get the best option for time/date/restaurant. The same applies to suite bookings that get a included specialty dinner on night one. If you don't like what you have been allocated, you can get it changed if you are quick.

It is interesting logic. In order to save $2 for a cruise, an $8 schooner is taking $10 out of your wallet to put $2 in a jar. If I am in a saving mood, I will buy stubbies on special, with a no-surcharge tap and go, then take it to my car in a trolley that doesn't need a coin. 😉 If I am in a serious saving mood, I will just drink water. The key to saving is not to spend cash, and also not to spend with debit/credit cards. In the end, whatever works for you. My wife's cruise money-box is still empty after 10 years, but we do save for cruises. A couple of other ways to save spending money for a cruise & travel: - Check around for any put aside/party used gift cards and use them up, - Convert FlyBuys into Coles dollars and use them up on your grocery shop(s) - Run down the freezer and pantry. I would swear than some friends verge on being preppers, especially since the lockdown mentality. Using-up what you have saves a motza on your shopping bill.

It is only Aldi in our area.