bazzaw

One thing to think about having been to Singapore many times including one extended stay. Singapore is basically 32C, day and night, Summer and Winter. If you are going to get around Singapore you will use the brilliant underground railway system - but you will not be wanting to walk too far from your hotel to get to the airconditioned subway station (wherever it is ). So look for a hotel no more than 300 metres from a station. BTW - the food courts in train stations in Singapore are great - not as good as the hawker centres - but airconditioned!!!!

Barry's Three Laws for Cruising in Australia -- 1. Never cruise north of Brisbane in Summer 2. Never cruise south of Brisbane in Winter. 3. Never cruise west from Melbourne at any time. These Laws were written by me during my time in the Australian Navy. Admittedly Naval Destroyers are a little a smaller than cruiseships but they weren't designed to operate as a floating block of apartments either.

NO NO!!! Go to the Yorkeys Knob Yacht Club for lunch!!!!!!!!! You might get to meet Yorkey - with his knob! - and go for a walk around the little town - there's nothing much there- but you might decide to come back and live there for the rest of your days!!

There is a great little Yacht Club in Yorkeys Knob - right at the tender jetty. Here in Oz - anybody can enjoy "clubs" like this without being a member. Lunch and a few Aussie beers might suit you?

Where's a good place to get Foreign Currency these days. It's been a long time since i had the need for any - but I am going to need a few hundred dollars of Japanese Yen for arrival into Japan soon. Looking mainly for convenience rather than exchange rates, etc.

IMO - and as far as I am concerned - "upgrade" isn't an upgrade unless it is out of your current category. eg Inside to Outside , Outside to Balcony, balcony to Suite , etc. The rest are just different Grades within your category.

That would be up to Celebrity

I would suggest that anybody who still suffers from the Covid Paranoia virus should not even consider going on a cruise - or to their local shopping centre. Stay at home!

No.

I think that difficulty is in the definition of the word "City" . In days long gone when it was claimed that "Brisbane" was the largest city in the World, it was because there was only one Brisbane City Council. Melbourne and Sydney had several "Council" areas. Sydney City Council covers quite a small area. London is a huge "city" - but the City of London is very small.

That has largely been my experience. The best one being -We once booked a "kind of" World Cruise with P&O UK (at least that was how it was "sold") - guarantee inside, 42 days Brisbane to Southampton on Oriana, 19 days in London with my son in London over Christmas, and another 42 days on Arcadia back to Brisbane. $12K per person. We didn't have a cabin allocation for the voyage to UK until only 3 days before departure - a "superior" outside dropped for us - the "superior" being that it was an outside cabin the same size as a normal balcony cabin , including the balcony area. It was VERY comfortable. Much the same thing happened for our return - got a huge disabled interior cabin about a 50 meter walk to the Theatre entrance ( made going home after the evening shows very convenient ) 🙂

We were so poor - I had a bicycle with only one pedal. My family were so ignorant that they had no idea how to get it fixed. 🙂 But I survived. Unfortunately any similarity between the Brisbane of the 50/60s and today is purely coincidental 😞

Dress code on Australian based ships in Australian waters is - casual to the point of indifference. Shoes are required on Formal nights.

I think that guarantee fares are a VERY important part of the cruiselines business model. Else why do they mostly/normally go to such lengths to make attractive "moveover" offers to passengers who have already paid full fares so that they can accommodate lesser paying guarantee bookings?? . Seems to me like this may become a bit of an unintended disaster and own goal for them?? How many people here now will have second thoughts about booking a guarantee fare? - and how will that doubt impact the cruislines bookings model??

I am surprised that Cunard have lasted here in Oz as long as they have. We have done 10 cruises with Cunard (only 2 of which were from Aussie ports) - and I have always thought that Cunard is not a good mix with the Aussie demographic. They thought it would be easy and profitable pickings here because we are very keen to try new things - but Covid came along and things changed. They are obviously now returning to their more traditional base.

I am often amazed by some people - if we can afford to cruise , as an example, we don't really need to worry about the idea that we can get a better exchange rate for the AUD in New Guinea ports than we can get here in OZ. 🙂 Of course if we are planning on spending $5K AUD then perhaps it is relevant - but $100 AUD???? I tell people that I spill more beer than that in any day 🙂 I cant really believe how tight some people are 😞 - and I don't want to hear from any cruisers here about how "some people" are not very well off .

https://www.9news.com.au/national/carnival-australia-major-cruise-company-to-pull-ships-from-melbourne-ports/4bb4d111-2d2a-47ad-968a-4eb8e798b5d5

I have to wonder whether it is indicative of the numbers washing their hands and those who do not??

I can never understand why, when a ship has say 3000 passengers, only 300 get Noro during an outbreak . Any ideas??

I have reached the opinion that the cruiseline Companies don't really give a RATS about these kind of situations when they happen . Obviously they would rather that they didn't occur - nobody in business likes bad PR - although NO PR can sometimes be worse than bad PR - but they know that there is a never ending queue of eager customers waiting for the next cruise " Shutup - and take my money".

Because the business model doesn't allow for any breaks between major refits to "fix things"

I wasn't really making a reference to current economic conditions. Slight upticks like that mentioned here now are nothing. But todays AUD/USD is greatly different to those times when it was 33 cents to the USD or $1.00 to the USD. I have read that the reason for these wide swings is that the USD - being the Worlds Reserve Currency- is the "safeplace to goto" when stuff happens around the World . War breaks out? Sell AUD and buy AUD. US economy collapses?? Sell AUD and buy USD. So when times are dodgy around the World (which is almost everyday these days) - sell AUD and buy USD. The big boys want their wealth in USD not Aussie Dollars or Russian Rubles 🙂

Yes - me too. Remember that period well. I can never work out why, when the American economy gets into a mess, the Aussie Dollar goes down ? 😞

The Qld CHO in his latest report said that the majority of hospitalised COVID patients were older people who had not been vaccinated within the last 6 months - and encouraged those who are not "current' to get a booster . He mentioned nothing about any new/latest vaccine being necessary

Why would anyone test themselves with a RAT test - that is the only way you get Covid these days.