sherri3802

This is a long shot, but can anyone here share their experiences on similar cruises? 

There are 4 of us who have done a few cruises, pretty much through Princess and P&O Australia, but never have we been near a MSC ship, nor have we been to Europe before.

In particular, if anyone has any tips on how to best get from the port back to the airport, it would be appreciated.There are taxis and private car hires but they seem expensive. Has anyone tried the bus? As far as I know, the ship docks in Port Merghera. Our cruise is not till late September but we like to be organised!

Thanks in advance for any information about these ships.

2 hours ago, Aus Traveller said:

I'll start off by saying that P&O isn't my cruise line of choice, but my husband is quite happy going on a seven-day cruise from Brisbane to the islands. To me, that is better than no cruise. I will make a few comments.

 

Even two weeks ago, our cabin stewards serviced our cabin twice a day. This has happened on all our P&O cruises (several since COVID).

 

I don't mind if the desserts in the Horizon Court are only a small square of cake - I get two!

 

In our seven days there was only one show where the Marquee Theatre was nearly full - just before start time there weren't two adjacent spare seats. Usually the theatre was only half full at start time. This might have been because it was school hols and some families didn't go to the shows.

I'm jealous. Sounds as if you hit the jackpot as far as shows went. On our cruise, they were always packed out. Maybe it varies from ship to ship or number of passengers on board, I don't know.

As for the cake squares, I know it sounds as if all I was harping on about is food but I recall a Princess cruise way back in about 2009 where one day, they had all manner of desserts from cheesecake to pavlova to choc mousse etc. This was one afternoon up in the buffet. Plus icecream every aftrernoon.

Free pizzas, burgers etc

Okay, so P&O has never had all that but they have definitely cut down on the quality & quantity of the food, as far as I could see. And I would have loved a few different desserts in the buffet.

I would genuinely love to hear how other cruise lines compare these days.

I am finding some of the P&O prices are right up there eg one cruise I was looking at is over $1,500 I think for 5 days in window cabin. And close to $1,200 for an inside cabin.

On 9/30/2023 at 2:21 PM, bazzaw said:

I have many times come across people of the "I'll never cruise with P&O again " type - and I have always said in response, "we have always enjoyed our P&O AUS  cruises over many years - Star, Sun, Dawn, Aria,Pearl". But after this weeks cruise to the islands on Encounter, I think I will be joining their ranks. My reasons really are manifold - too many to go into here. But overall, the experience was very bad - worse than any other cruiseship/cruiseline we have ever been on. If these large cruiseships are the way of the future, then it looks like we have no cruising future 😞

I am so pleased, in a way, to see your post as I was wondering if it was just me feeling like this.

I went on a Pacific Adventure in April, to the islands, and it was the worst cruise ever. I had about 5 cruises before that but all pre covid. Two had been with P&O.

All I can say is the cut backs were disappointing. I didn't mind the look of the restaurants but the food often wasn't good, (especially for anyone with dietary requirements). Small serves, not much choice on the menu, pay extra for things that used to be included.

And the buffet-little squares of cake for dessert every day? That the best they can do?

In the past, the dining was pretty good, we felt we were being a bit spoilt with all the good food. Not this time.

Cabins cleaned once a day only (which we could live with, that is fine) but things such as beach towels not restocked unless you nagged. 

Everything too crowded, having to get to the marquee 30-40 minutes before showtime just to get a seat.

Not much going on in the day unless you love trivia & karaoke all the time. No daytime movies in the marquee, for example.

I could go on... and on.

What i would love to know is what cruise lines are people enjoying now, what has changed on eg Princess post covid?

I haven't written off P&O completely but OMG it would have to be extremely cheap before I would bother again.

20 hours ago, Jean C said:

Sorry, another question - do you know the current costs for using washing machine and then dryer? Also, are costs charged to cruise folio, or will they need coins? Thanks 😊

Don't know if it is the same on all ships but I was recently on Pacific Adventure and wanted to do a load of washing. In the laundry there was a box on the wall that was supposed to dispense powder sachets I think but it looked non functional. probably it should be removed.

I went down to the reception desk and asked and was handed 2 metal tokens and 2 sachets of washing powder. It was scanned to my onboard account. The tokens work with either the washing machine or dryer.

I am not 100% sure of the cost. I think the tokens are $2 or $2.50 each. I was charged about $5 in total so he may have given me the powder for free, I don't know.

My advice with the powder would be if you can, dissolve it before you add it to the machine as some of it went clumpy and stuck to some clothes. I used both sachets in the one load though, maybe it was too much.

2 hours ago, Gwendy said:

On Pacific Encounter last week, I bought some candles in Fiji, when getting back on ship I was pulled up at scanning station and told, “these are not allowed on ship, I should confiscate them, but I won’t, just make sure you do not use them in your cabin”.  
I had no intention to use them on the ship as they were going to be used as gifts and with over 60 cruises, I know the rules BUT how many first time cruisers had candles or the demographic of P&O who think rules are not for them had them.

my point is they should have been taken and kept for collection when we disembarked.  Trusting everyone to do the right thing is a dangerous situation.

That's really interesting. I had no idea that people could not buy candles as gifts. Like you, I would never have any intention of using them in a cabin. I actually would not buy them as presents either as I have a bit of a thing about them, ever since a friend had most of her house burn down with one.

But as you say, you can't trust all people to do the right thing.

I was also interested in what ELep wrote, about the emphasis on the danger of fire at sea being non existent on Pac Adventure.

I was on the ship in April & that was my impression too.

I was in an inside cabin so I have no idea if people on balconies were smoking or not but I would have thought that even if someone is in isolation, they should still not allow smoking in rooms or balconies.

One thing I did hear though was that the cruise before us had a lot of covid on board and I think it may have been the case on our cruise too. My daughter caught it but no symptoms till the day after the cruise, so she was lucky.

One thing that also surprised me onboard the ship was that, considering Covid is still around, there seemed to be less emphasis on using the hand sanitiser than there was back on my pre covid cruises.

I recall back then (On Princess) someone would always be near the sanitiser as you walked into the main dining room at night, making sure you used it.

On my recent P&O cruise, the sanitiser was there on the desk & about a dozen servers were lined up to lead people to their tables but most of the passengers didn't bother using it.
I noticed the same at the buffet. Somehow, I had expected it to be policed a bit more.

5 minutes ago, cruiser3775 said:

On Princess, I found that you had to watch the safety video on the TV in your room. If you didn't, then the TV would not open up to anything else.  Of course, you could turn it on and ignore it, I suppose.

I keep thinking of the Costa Concordia before I consider skipping the safety drill requirements.  But then, I also check under my seat on planes to make sure there is actually a life jacket there......

 I just think that at the live demos, they seemed to make the point very clearly that smoking was not a minor misdemeanor. It was in your face & repeated, you couldn't miss it.

I am not sure how things worked with the TV in our room.

It is possible the safety video was on & I missed it, I don't know. The TV worked okay the rest of the trip. I was in and out of the room for a while. I was in a room for 4.

It's certainly more convenient as a video I suppose, but I am just not sure how many people on board would have watched it.

My bet is if someone was smoking (and it sounds as if that was the case) then the person will claim they thought it would be okay in the privacy of their room and must have missed that part of the video.

7 minutes ago, gbenjo said:

I think you would find that longer stays in a port would mean higher costs, ie. port fees ( the longer in port the more they pay) and fuel costs as the ship would need to go faster to make up the extra time spent  in port, unless they make the cruise longer which would also mean a higher cost to the guest for extra days. A cruise is, after all, a cruise,  not a  transport mode between  different destinations, guests don't spend money on the ship if they are not on it.

 I understand that while passengers are off the ship, they are not spending money onboard. But from what I have seen, a good part of spending is on various drinks during the day and as quite a few people have drink packages, that could amount to a saving for the cruise line. I also think even with an overnight stop, most people would return to the ship for their evening meal or that's what I found happened when we had an overnight stay in Dunedin one time.

I am not sure about what you mean about the ship having to go faster to make up extra time spent in port. Probably I didn't explain myself well. What I meant was for example, if a cruise was for 7 days, it could cut down on the number of ports if it stayed longer in those ports. Maybe just 2 ports instead of 3. In that sense, I think the costs could even out. Higher port cost but less sailing.

Maybe I am in the minority here but I actually do think of a cruise as a mode of transport between different destinations. Sure, the cruise itself is also part of the holiday experience but the destinations are also an important part. To me, anyway.

3 hours ago, Jean C said:

Hi guys, I'll be travelling later this year with my sons-in-law and families. For formal nights I've told the sons-in-law that they'll be fine with a long sleeved shirt and tie as they don't own suits. One SIL for dressing up wears smart dark jeans and a smart dark shirt - would he be allowed into main dining room with jeans on formal night? Thanks 🛳 🥳 🐧 

I don't even think the tie will be compulsory, although it would be a good idea to bring one, just in case.
I think as long as the pants are long, clean, in reasonable repair and the shirt lookes presentable, they will be fine.

On my last Princess cruise, I found the only thing they were iffy about with men was no shorts. Open necked shirts seemed fine.

I don't know that it is not successful.

I first went on a cruise in 2009 and I think there were only 2 cruise lines to choose from, P&O or Princess and about 4 ships between them. Something like that.

Since then, I have noticed there are new cruise lines and more ships.

I think it is popular here but we haven't the big population base of some other regions.

To me, some of the problems with cruising here are that there aren't enough different destinations. Maybe we need a few more big ports or even medium ports the ships can tender to.

I'm not a fan of too many sea days. I am just not into trivia or karaoke that much, the ship lines need to offer a lot more-movies in the theatre during the day & just not up on the outside screen would be a start.

I'd be all for longer port visits. If I ever go on a cruise again, I'll be looking carefully at the number of destinations and quite a few cruises to eg sth pacific, have cut down the stops to 2 or 3 on cruises that last 7-10 days. They could do better.

I would be willing to go on a cruise that offered fewer destinations but stopped overnight at a couple. The trouble with a lot of cruises is the limited time in port. If I cruised eg to Darwin, I'd love a couple of days there.

Stopping longer at a limited number of destinations could be our point of difference to overseas cruises. I'm sure a lot of passengers would like the chance to see places in more depth.

Well, it seems the problem came down to a cigarette that set a bed alight.

P&O should shoulder some of the blame for this.

I was on it last month & the first thing I noticed was the old safety drill of the past was completely gone.

On my previous 4 cruises, we had to attend a drill before the ship sailed.

At each drill, I can remember we were clearly told fire was serious & there was to be no smoking, no butts thrown into the sea. Nothing hung on balconies. Nothing but toilet paper in toilets etc etc

We were told that breaking the rules, especially with smoking, could see us put off at the next port.

None of that now. When you board, they suggest you watch a safety video once you board.

We didn't. I bet a lot of others didn't.

We skipped it as we have attended several in the past.

But I bet a lot of people who were on their first cruise skipped it too.Anything that is voluntary and not monitored is like that. I bet this passenger will claim he 'didn't know'.

The old way wasn't perfect either, with too many people crammed into spots and having to stand for the whole presentation.

Maybe they could have a compulsory attendance at 30 min intervals in the theatre, as people board, and people scan in on their cards.

Cruising standards oin P&O have gone downhill in a lot of departments. Safety drill, food, staff.

On 5/17/2023 at 5:33 AM, oskarNZ said:

Thanks so much for your detailed and honest review.  It confirms some of my concerns.  
The P&O cruise I have been looking at was on a really good (but non-refundable) flash sale over the weekend and yet I couldn’t bring myself to book.  I think it was my gut telling me something.  
 

In this day and age, all vacation spots should have multiple vegetarian options.  I was vegetarian up until about a year ago and I still eat vegetarian meals much of the week.  I support the comments that tasty meals can be made fairly cheaply.  
I just recently returned from an all-inclusive vacation in Mexico where I had access to not one, but two, restaurants that were both 100% vegan.  The food was some of the best I’ve had.  
The success of good veg meals does require access to a lot of fresh ingredients and I read a review somewhere that P&O has really gone down hill when it comes to vegetables and salads.  

I am relieved that my post has been received so well. I was a bit nervous writing anything critical.

I think what concerned me was that if anyone had one of the more usual food allergies or preferences eg coeliac, nut allery, vegetarian, then their choices would be extremely limited at each venue.

Each meal has a list next to it to indicate if it is vegetarian, gluten free etc

There would most likely only be one choice for those people.

If you have a more unusual allergy eg can't have onions or garlic, then I believe they do come up to you and run through the menu.

To be fair, my daughter loved some of the noodle dishes at Dragon Lady and she enjoyed a meal at Angelo's. But again, there was only one option available so just as well she loves noodles.

I'm no gourmet chef but I was also surprised by one dish on the kid's menu. Pasta and sausages. The pasta, which looked like penne, came with no sauce or topping at all. Perhaps it had had a tablespoon of olive oil stirred through but if so, I could not taste it as I tried some.
Very dry. Four pieces of sausage on top ie one sausage.

My granddaughter ate most of it and seemed to like it okay but I have never seen just plain pasta served anywhere.

On 5/7/2023 at 6:50 AM, oskarNZ said:

Hello Aus/NZ cruisers,

 

My family are returning to cruising after about a 4 year hiatus and I am trying to convince some friends to come along with us.  They have never cruised before and as such, I feel a bit of pressure to make sure their first experience is a good one.  
We will be a group of 4 adults and 3 teenagers who will be travelling in peak school holiday season. Our budget is not limitless and I am more keen to show our friends how cruising can be good value for money than ultra luxurious.  
 

I
 

3) P&O Encounter also to North Queensland.

To be honest, I have steered clear of P&O over the years as I cruised with them a long time ago and found the ship too busy for my liking.  We couldn’t even get seats for trivia half the time which irritated me.  The food was better than I was expecting though.  
Many years have passed though and I am wondering how the company has held up over the years and if it’s worth trying again.  I watched a video of the ship and decor-wise it looks the nicest of the 3.  It has by far the most teenage friendly activities and it’s the cheapest meaning we could afford a balcony cabin instead of a window one.  
How does the food and entertainment compare on P&O these days? What are the crowds like on the Encounter?  Are we going to struggle to get seats in public spaces and reservations at places like the main restaurants and Edge activities for the kids?  I ask as I feel like this is the sort of thing that could make or break this holiday for us.  
I do understand that there is more nickle and diming on P&O and having to pay more for things like burgers by the pool is annoying, but on the flipside, I do like that everything is in Australian dollars and gratuities are not something to worry about.  Plus I like that it has 3 different main included restaurants offering 3 different styles of food (assuming the food is good).  We liked this about Disney. 
 

4) Lastly, I was considering the Quantum of the Seas, but scratched it after it increased in price a few days ago. Also, I worry about the reviews saying how crowded it is.  But if anyone can convince me why this ship would be worth spending as much as $100 more per person per night over the other 3, I am happy to listen.  
 

Thanks heaps for any thoughts. 

Okay, I am no expert on cruises but I have done 3 P&O. Two were pre covid.

The last one was on Pacific Adventure last month. Here are my observations, for what they are worth.

1. Nice enough ship, decor wise.

2. Prices can be really good. Sign up for emails as a past passenger and occasionally they will offer special deals.

3. The meals-there has been serious cost cutting. I mean, serious. Maybe this is so across all cruise lines, I'd be interested to know.

But where once I can recall there were about 6 choices of main meal in the dining room, it is all arranged differently now. There are 4 mains.

There are 3 main dining rooms and you are rotated through these, a different one each night. Each seems to have the same menu for 3 nights, then a second menu comes into play. I assume each venue rotates through its two menus.

But here's the downside. My daughter is vegetarian and one of her children has a nut allergy.

Each night, there was just one vegetarian option on the menu, for entree or mains. If you didn't like it, too bad. Our first night was in the Waterfront and her entree was basically just cubed beetroot. Mains was spicy beans. I'll eat anything but my meals were pretty average too. The creme brulee was very tasty but it was lucky to be 1cm deep, if that.

If you wanted anything like steak, forget it. That is listed as 'Indulge' and will set you back about $35.

No beef wellingtons or any of the special sorts of things I recall from the past.

Even my poor little granddaughter, she ordered the trio of icecream and was told she couldn't have it as sometimes they have a nut topping. We asked if she could have just the plain icecream, no topping and were told no. I do understand they have to be careful with allergies but seriously, this was the kids munu-why have a nut topping at all and surely they could have icecream that had not been near nuts?

We found the meals at the other 2 dining rooms were better. You can try to change your bookings but it is not easy. We changed one and could only get 8pm and my grandson fell asleep at the table.

My daughter refused to return to the Waterfront on our last night as it was back to the hated menu so we had to go to buffet.

4. Entertainment. It was quite good on the whole. We went to every show at 7pm.

What we found was that on the first night, we turned up about 6.45pm and had no problem. After a few nights though, even when we got there 25 minutes early, we had to split up and it was hard to get seating. On our last night, we turned up 30 minutes early and there were no seats to be had.

My daughter, before she had children, cruised a long time ago on a much smaller ship called (I think) Pacific Star and she said she much preferred that as there was never a problem getting seats. But there sure was on our cruise.

There are lots of activities teens might like though. The pools were good. My grandkids loved them.

5. During the day, unless you are a big trivia or karaoke fan, there's not a lot to do, it's a bit boring. That's my personal view. If I went on P&O again, it would depend on itinerary with a few ports. We were unlucky with one of our port days cancelled altogether and the oter washed out with rain so we only got off the ship 1 1/2 days out of 9. It would help if they put movies on in the theatre during the day and not just on the big outdoor screen. Who wants to sit up there in the cold or windy or wet weather.

6. The shops are a bit ordinary, I couldn't even find one that sold a bit of reading matter and I had finished my book.

7. Staff were obliging but some were obviously new to the job. There were repeated times they forgot to do things in our cabin eg replace beach towels etc

I'm not trying to sound too negative. I had a reasonable time but out of my 5 cruises, this one was in 5thy place, probably as we had too many sea days. But my main disappointment was meals. Tasty enough but not the quality ingredients of the past.

I am in Melbourne too and like you, I found most cruises at the moment seem to leave from Sydney.

There's a short cruise coming up in Jan to Tassie, leaving from Melb, which I thought was at least something different.

I've only been on Princess (Sth Pacific & NZ) and P&O (South Pacific, Far Nth Qld, Moreton Island)

I found Princess definitely up a notch or two, although P&O cabins were a better lay out.

My last cruise though was last month on P&O. I have not been on a cruise since covid and I was a bit surprised by the changes. Not impressed. The cost cutting re meals etc was extremely evident.

I don't know if this is the case across all cruise lines but personally, I won't be going on P&O again unless the cost is really a bargain.

Thank you for posting. I had just been about to start a new thread to ask a question but see that you have answered it.

Two of my daughters plus their families are going on this cruise in late March to the Sth Pacific and one daughter told me that they can't book excursions online. 

I have been on a small number of cruises (P &O and Princess) and to be honest, I thought she had to have it wrong as we were always able to book excursions online ages before we went.

In fact, I think Carnival have online booking in US plus the facility for someone to pay for an excursion for a gift. Such a shame that doesn't apply here.

They are going to some of the same places you went to, I think. Between them they have 4 children, ages will range from almost 3 to 5, plus the 4 adults. Do you have any advice re enjoyable excursions that might be suitable? I was thinking of gifting a glass bottom boat experience.

This FTTF you pre booked. Does the booking have to be done when booking the cabins or can it be done anytime? What queues does it apply to eg does it apply to the excursion line queue? Just to get on the tenders first though would be a bonus!

February can get quite hot so you'd be mad not to be packing some shorts & T shirts.:)

But it's going to vary depending on what part of NZ you're in.

We spent one holiday there in Jan and another in March (different years) and both times the weather was mainly beautiful & fine, sometimes hot. However, the South Island can be a different kettle of fish. There was one day when we went to visit Lanarch castle in Dunedin where there was a light drizzle and my husband was in a jacket and beanie, standing in front of a roaring fire. And there were a lot of other days where we started out with a jacket but took it off as the day progressed.

Tasmania is another place that can get cooler weather even in Summer.

I'd advise layers as someone else said. Shorts plus some long pants plus t shirts and a few jackets/cardis or wraps you can throw over them.

Some of the places like Queenstown were the absolute highlights of our first trip to NZ.

If I were you, I would consider a coach trip starting in Christchurch. Many of those will have the Tranz Alpine train trip option available. Our coach trip did & nearly everyone went on it.

You can take a coach trip which only takes you through to Wellington or get one that goes all the way to Auckland.

The great thing about a coach trip is there is a guide so you get to know a lot about each area you pass through. You get to see a lot, you travel in comfort, never having to worry about driving, and you never have to carry your luggage.

The other unseen benefit I found was that they get the timing right. They know how long it will take to get places and you arrive with time to see things. I have a friend who organised her own driving trip & pre booked accommodation but she & her husband sometimes arrived as things were shutting & then had to be on the move the next day.

By the time you factor in accommodation, hire car, petrol, Inter islander ferry & entry into tourist attractions as well as all meals etc when you do it yourself, some coach trips are not that much dearer as the price is inclusive.

I think the cruise cards are the same as always, they certainly were on Royal in September. However Princess is starting to roll out it's new Ocean Medallion which will replace cruise cards. They have started with Regal and it is a slow roll out. The Medallions can be worn on wrists or as a pendant but I'm not sure if they are colour to indicate status. The only examples I've seen have been blue.

I'd find a medallion that could be worn on wrist or as a pendant okay but with the cruise cards I always wore them on a lanyard and so they needed a hole. I couldn't care less about displaying them as such. My concern is not losing them. It's not as if most people on a cruise walk around with a handbag, so if you haven't a pocket (and a lot of women's clothing won't have one) where do you put them if not on a lanyard?

I am flying in on the day of the cruise in March going to Singapore I only want a one way fare to cruise terminal. Does anyone know is there a shuttle bus that will drop you off at the port and about what price would it be. Thank you

 

 

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I'm from Melbourne & I think the public transport system is quite good but even so, I'd hesitate to have too many different transport changes when trying to get to a cruise when you really do need to be on time.

There are some issues to consider with public transport.

1. In peak times it can be very crowded. Do you really want to be lugging big suitcases and hand luggage onto potentially packed trains or trams?

2. On public transport you can't just hop on or buy a ticket, you need to buy a myki card first. I'm not sure of the minimum you then have to deposit into the myki account. If you're looking at only one trip, why bother setting it all up. There should be a tourist option but at the moment there isn't.

My advice.

a) a taxi direct from airport to cruise terminal.

b) You could get the airport bus to Spencer street as others have suggested, and then get a taxi in the city.

Option A is slightly dearer but probably faster and less hassle.

All other options involving multiple bus/train/tram changes **shudder** don't do it to yourself.

January is a fine time to visit NZ or Sydney/Melbourne, even the Gold Coast.

Probably not ideal for the far north of Australia as it may be quite humid then.

I would say any time Jan-April is good for Melbourne.

We have twice toured NZ (in Jan & Feb) and it was excellent both times. Be prepared for some cooler weather occasionally even in summer though, especially in the South Island and in Melbourne, where it can be changeable.

We have cruised twice with Princess and they were fine. Twice with P&O. Once was good, once was not so good. Both times I felt the actual P&O ship was about 2 stars down from Princess, although our cabins were a better lay out (just a little more tired looking). The beds were very comfortable on P&O though, must admit. The dining on our last cruise with them was hopeless, worst I have struck ever, anywhere-as in over an hour's wait for entrée to arrive.

P&O, unlike Princess, also don't have a buffet open all day so you can't just pop in when you feel like it. Well, you can if you want a tea or coffee but no snack to go with it.

I have a friend who swears by the English P&O ships but the Australian ones are a whole different ball game, so much so that when I see a cruise is with P&O, it turns me off.

There is a younger feel to the P&O crowd although ages are mixed. That never worried me in the least but the quality of the ship itself & meals just wasn't on a par. I haven't tried other cruise lines but I would personally put P&O at the bottom of my list.

If you're from Scotland, you might find far north Queensland pretty fierce in January.

I'm from Melbourne, did a cruise up there in Sept/Oct a few years back & although early mornings were fine, I was done with long distance walking and exploring by noon. It was too hot and humid. I found it hard to deal with.

The Gold Coast is fine, been there a couple of times in January, but more to stay in accommodation on the beach.

For a cruise, I would think New Zealand would be lovely. We cruised there in March a year or so back & it is such a beautiful country.

But if you would love to see the Whitsundays etc, then I agree with someone earlier who suggested touring in March. Even the more southern states are lovely in March.

As for cruises. RCL & Princess are fine but P&O Aust may disappoint if you're used to RCL.

i took my grandson on a coastal cruise from Brisbane to Sydney on the Sun Princess which we got off yesterday and he wanted to get a souvenior pen from the gift shop but they have a new ruling out (not sure when it started) unless you have been to an overseas port you cannot buy anything from the gift shop including lanyards....i was shown the paper from the Australian Government that forbids them selling anything unless leaving Australia so this will affect all cruises in Australia....if the other ships that only sail in Australian waters it should affect them if they follow the Government ruling

That's interesting. So if you are doing a coastal cruise only & not going into international ports, how come the govt won't cover you with medicare for any medical expenses? Seems they want to have their cake and eat it too.

Airley beach was a waste. Bay of islands there was nothing there. The Sydney port was awesome and Indonesia.malaysia and Singapore were spectacular.

My biggest frustration was 8 of 10 of the ports were tenders.

In 30 plus cruises I have never seen 80 percent tenders !!!!

The Asia portion was incredible but New Zealand and Austtralia was a huge disappointment

Next time I will just go to Asia and save the long travel

PS I spent 2 days up at Bay of Islands when we were on a coach tour. I enjoyed it. We walked for miles, saw heaps. Went on a boat out to the hole in the rocks etc too. But nope, it isn't the best place in NZ or the most spectacular. Queenstown is amazing, Rotorua is too. And Napier-fantastic. There are also some amazing small towns you pass through too. Sincerely, try a coach tour. No need to spend hours planning, they do it for you.

Did your cruise stop at Napier? Ours did and it was a highlight of the cruise, I thought.

Airley beach was a waste. Bay of islands there was nothing there. The Sydney port was awesome and Indonesia.malaysia and Singapore were spectacular.

My biggest frustration was 8 of 10 of the ports were tenders.

In 30 plus cruises I have never seen 80 percent tenders !!!!

The Asia portion was incredible but New Zealand and Austtralia was a huge disappointment

Next time I will just go to Asia and save the long travel

Cruising is great but not for every destination.

I've been to NZ twice-once on a coach tour, once on a cruise. I enjoyed both trips.

NZ is one of the most breathtakingly beautiful countries in the world in my opinion.

But to really see it, sorry, the cruise doesn't even begin to touch the sides. I was glad I had done the coach tour a few years before the cruise.

If you ever want to see NZ again, drive yourself or do a coach tour, you'll see more. Plus on a coach tour, the guide will explain a lot to you.

As for Australia, there's a lot to see but it is spread out. If you'd rather a big city experience, maybe just spend time in Sydney & Melbourne. Healesville Sanctuary here in Victoria has Australian animals.

For what its worth,we always stay at the airport hotel the night before a flight.Check-in,leave bags,catch train,bus,taxi back to the city,enjoy the day knowing that in the morning you are at the planes door-step.2 hrs of travel,and a bit of frustration,relieves a whole lot of headaches the next-morning.Just a Thought.:):)

That sounds like a good plan.

If I were an American, docking in Sydney at 6 or 7am on ANZAC day, there is no way on earth I'd be fixing to catch an international plane out at 9.45am. You'd be pushing your luck.

Much better, if you have the time, to book into that airport hotel then go off and look around Sydney for the day. A lot of things will be shut in the morning but will reopen about noon-1pm.

Then fly out the next morning. Auckland area-Rotorua etc is all good, but Christchurch used to be beautiful. I am not sure about now, my son drove there a couple of years back and said it was disappointing with a lot of it still closed off. May be different now.

But Queenstown-if you get a chance, that is worth seeing. The colours of the water, the scenery-incredible. Just so beautiful.

We did the Tranz Alpine train trip & it was very good too.

But Queenstown is a must see sort of place.

Often cruise companies come in for flack and people assume they are not vigilant enough, yet when they do act they cop a serve as well.

In some ways I hope this case gets some publicity but in the ship's favour, with explanations as to why it is a big deal.

I'm not impressed by the daughter and her tantrums. granted, it would be stressful, but she reminds me a lot of kids in school (and some of their parents), they expect second, third and fourth chances for everything.

The fact she is pregnant or her father has health issues is irrelevant.

She said he accidentally flicked the cigarette overboard. It was no accident.

There are a couple of things I think probably could improve.

-At muster, they certainly do mention the dangers of throwing anything overboard. I think they need to spell things out even more clearly, as in-listing some of the sorts of things that can see a person taken off the ship. I know it is not the greeting ships want to give, but maybe at the end of the talk they need to really make it clear.

I'm sure there are a lot of people who go on cruises who assume if they break the rules they will just get a caution, a few minutes of unpleasantness but no worries.

-When someone is put off, they do need to make sure the person has some way to get home, even make the arrangements with the person before they leave. If a person says they wish to make their own arrangements, perhaps sign a paper to that effect.