arxcards

The Princess $99 is a promotional reduced deposit, and they are usually non-refundable. Carnival's reduced deposits are usually only $50pp. When you cancel those, you lose your $50 deposit, as that is their admin fee. So, if you cancel Carnival and book on another brand you lose $150, but if you cancel Carnival to book Carnival you only lose $50 to just change the date. Nothing warm & fuzzy about either, or many of their competitors that like to lock you into your deposit, even more than 2 years from sailing. The other thing Carnival does is that for 6 weeks after disembarking one of their cruises, you get a promo that allows you to book with extra OBC on your next cruise. OK, so I looked at a Luminosa cruise. The current everyday VIFP promo comes with $25pp OBC, where as their "Welcome Home" offer comes with $50pp OBC. All wonderful, but the extra $25pp OBC costs an extra $15pp in the fare. Wow, all that effort for $10 OBC each on something they spin as their version of a FCL without the paperwork. FCL's are also flexible deposits, but Carnival's "Welcome Home" is a booking with a non-refundable deposit.

For anyone in Lyttleton who wants to do an active scenic walk, walk the Bridle Path up to the gondola. It is steep in places, and would be 7 or 8km round trip. Also a good excuse to do the gondola while up there.

The transport is being put on by local authorities in NZ, not by the ship. Should be much of a muchness.

True, but when you read the weave over 1/2 dozen of these matching threads, the poster also commented about going into Lyttleton. I don't know of anyone who would seriously contemplate a hike into Christchurch, even worse when you aren't allowed to walk through the tunnel. To hike up the trails makes it a hilly walk of around 20km each way.

I think this reads as a walk from outside the wharf up to Lyttleton, as this lines up with the free shuttles.

Anchored outside of the harbour, and the patient is being transferred ashore by a local rescue boat. They should be heading off soon for their scheduled day in Lifou tomorrow. PS - Just on the move now.

Now onto plan B, they are diverting to Noumea.

It looks rather typical. The fiords are always a day to day proposition, but I can't see it being bumpy enough to skip Dunedin. http://www.bom.gov.au/australia/charts/viewer/index.shtml?type=sigWaveHgt&tz=AEDT&area=SEAu&model=CGW&chartSubmit=Refresh+View

Their initial response saw the removal of the shuttle into Lyttleton, but they have backflipped on that plan. The local council and the ships have a new arrangement to keep passengers off the local buses. There is a free shuttle from the ship into Lyttelton. There is a more moderately charged cruise ship shuttle into Christchurch. While these options are designed to keep passengers off the local buses, if someone can get into Christchurch a dollar cheaper via public transport they will, and I am not aware of anything that would prevent them doing so.

I don't know if you are a museum person. The Maritime museum is at the waterfront between Princes wharf & the viaduct. We enjoyed a few hours there. We also took a ferry over to Devonport. The trip itself wasn't overly scenic, but it was nice to see the Auckland skyline taking shape in the distance. We had lunch there - lots of cafes sprinkled with some boutiques. It was nice on a sunny day, but I am not sure how all the al fresco cafes would go on a rainy day.

Only for Norwich Quay 😉

As fun as it sounds, for every duck lover out there, there is also a Scrooge McDuck who is rather miffed that others are having fun and will dispose of any ducks they come across.

When it comes to being a medallion, a little black duck is not all it is quacked up to be!

Once you know it is a thing, they become a bit more visible. We found ours in an atrium lift on Coral. The initial thought was that a kid has lost their toy, then it twigged. I would say they are semi hidden, and there is more chance to see them locally on P&O or Carnival. We have seen a few since, but left them for others to find. Our duck is a bad duck that pinched my medallion and quacked-up a duty free "bill". Those that hid the duck had called him Bender, and he has been on a bender ever since.

On a good day, 11am is quite doable. Not all days are good days though. All of the cruise lines say not to book an AM flight, even for domestic. Yes, they are managing expectations, but I will also go with their guidance. If you have Captains Club status that will give you a priority disembark, that would help ensure you can be among the first off. If you are on arriving in Sydney after a transpacific crossing cruise from the US, it is unlikely to be a good day - 2pm at the earliest.

We found a duck on Coral in 2022. They usually have a tag attached that alerts you to a FB page, the name of the duck and the person who left it. I am not sure of the origins in Oz, but it goes back to before covid. They can be hidden anywhere, or not really hidden at all. Not all crew are in on the game, and many will make it to the bin. On most if not all of the Carnival ships, they have these. P&O has started to add them as well.

5 x Princess since restart for us. We had one Coral cruise where we scored one of those old totes, and another on Majestic we scored a nice mini toiletry pouch with a fair few emergency goodies inside. Nothing on the other three cruises. A pillow choc or two would be awesome.

There was a plan hatched to only take passengers into Christchurch. A few weeks after that was announced, there was a modified plan which allows for cheaper buses into Christchurch and a free shuttle into Lyttleton. I think the current stuff picks up from near the bottom of page 3 on this thread, which generally matches what Mic has mentioned here for HAL.

A wish list at present. I can't commit to anything this year beyond February until we tick a couple of boxes in real life. There are worse things in life than Princess in Alaska. What ship have you gone with?

When it comes to guarantee bookings, the strings a T/A can pull are limited, and it also relies on a suitable vacant cabin being available. Even then, it all depends on how much leverage that T/A has.

It is luck of the draw, although the Cunard deck isn't as heavily stacked. Cunard would handle guarantee bookings in the same way, except there are no 4 berth balcony cabins. An inside guarantee on Cunard could still offer up a cabin with 4 single beds in it.

Could be worse - if your parents named you Rosemary. 🤣 Barb has a significant allergy to mushrooms, and those are those nights where your eye drops straight down to the more generic "favourites" part of the menu. I showed her the menu photo last night, and she said crispy salmon cake for starters, crispy salmon cake(s) for mains, crispy salmon cake for dessert.

That info is also available on P&O's own Pacific Explorer deck plans. With only two in the cabin, the upper bunks will be folded back to the wall, but there is still no possibility of joining the lower beds Main issue though, if you book a guarantee (no frills fare), you have very little say in which cabin you will get, and there are more restrictions around cancellation costs too. P&O has now got to the stage they would prefer to sell a large number of guarantee cabins, and it is up to us to choose otherwise. This is a basic 3 night cruise to nowhere on Pacific Adventure. The lead-in "Go Fare" fare is $115pp cheaper, and who wouldn't want to pay $38 per night less when .... "Our lowest fare for guests who know exactly when they want to cruise and are happy to let P&O choose a room on their behalf"

You have a BD category balcony cabin. There are approximately 60 of these cabins, of which 24 have 4 berths. Ideally, P&O would rather see 3 or 4 passengers in those cabins to maximise their capacity, but they will also assign them to solo or twin passengers. What P&O has done is certainly not ideal for most passengers, but it is normal and well within their booking terms. Yes, if you booked through an agent it is for them to resolve and explain how your booking works. The cheapest fares are guarantee bookings, where you are getting a discounted deal for being flexible. I figure many agents will give you the cheapest option as the only option. We are in our 50's and reasonably mobile, but still avoid guarantee bookings even if it costs us a few dollars. I would happily book a specific cabin nearby such as 10183, but not book anything that would randomly place me in any one of those 60 cabins. By booking a specific cabin and electing not to be upgraded we can choose: how high or low on the ship we want to be, or whether forward or aft, to be close to lifts, to not have adjacent blocks of 4 berth cabins (noise), to not have an interconnecting cabin (noise), to have cabins above and below vs noise from activity in public areas, either port or starboard to suit our view in/out of a certain port. Good luck on getting this resolved in your favour.

If you didn't choose a specific cabin and booked with a cheaper guarantee option, they can give you any cabin in that balcony category or higher. It doesn't have to be a twin, and it can be located anywhere on the ship. For now, ring P&O ASAP and explain your situation. For anything in the future, not just P&O, book a specific cabin to suit and elect not to get any complimentary upgrades. Not all location upgrades are in better locations.