Aus Traveller

If you want to donate this (such as school supplies), I suggest Kiriwina would benefit more from any donation rather than the Conflict Islands. Kiriwina has a local village (with a small school) but Conflict Island is a business owned by an Australian man. People living there are probably cared for reasonably well.

I could be that the specialty decorations team were working on other ships and dates had to be juggled. They probably contract with the decorators to work for 'X' number of weeks on their locally-based ships. Their decorations could easily have been loaded when the ship was in Brisbane.

I agree with Geoff and Mic. We have never had a problem with a guaranteed booking and will continue to book that way if there is a reasonable saving.

I originally thought the letter sounded as it if was sent days prior to the cruise BUT I am now doubtful. It clearly wasn't an email and the sheet of paper has the RCI logo in colour and the page doesn't have fold marks from being posted in a standard envelope. It looks like it was handed to people in person and that would have to be at the terminal. I understand it isn't unusual for a cruise to have a small number of over-bookings. The cruiselines know from experience how many cancellations they will get. They can then email a few customers with a move-over offer until they have enough cabins to accommodate all the guarantee bookings. In this case, maybe it is as a few people have suggested - some last-minute change either a maintenance issue or needing the cabins for another purpose such as isolation. Either way, it was sh...y for the people who were expecting to go on a cruise only to be turned away. I feel the compensation was very poor.

I hope he recovers quickly. All the best to you both.🙂

The Quantum of the Seas cruise in question is going to Noumea. Travel insurance is compulsory or passengers are not permitted to board the ship. I agree with your comment about vacation time off work being an issue.

Over-selling on flights is common practice in the airline industry. (I don't mean what Qantas did.)

Sorry. Sorry. I was mixing up the two events currently under discussion. No excuse. I should have put brain into gear before posting. 😁

I see the point you are making, but it isn't likely that anyone flew 10,000 miles for a P&O cruise. They don't market their cruises outside Australia/NZ.

We never liked the Jewel. My husband called it the Pacific Zirconia. He even photo-shopped a pic of the ship with the name change. 😁

When I was trying to book a transfer it wasn't under excursions.

I know of several occasions on Princess and on P&O where passengers are offered a 'move-over' to free up cabins for people who booked on a guarantee. The mover-over offer is usually a full refund PLUS a free cruise of a similar length some time in the future.

I agree. 50% refund + $300 OBC was pretty good.

So do I. 🙂

That is an unbeatable price.

You can book on board the ship, but that won't help you if you need a transfer to get to the ship. A few months ago I wanted to book a Princess transfer from Sydney airport to the ship so I couldn't do it on board. I phoned Princess and they said I had to book it through my travel agent. He did it without a problem. From your post it sounds like you have a Princess Cruise Planner. He/she should know how to do it. How soon is your cruise? I got a bit of an impression that maybe the transfer couldn't be booked until a few weeks prior to the cruise, but I am not sure about that. If you are travelling with a companion there isn't much difference between the cost of a taxi and two people in the shuttle bus. The taxi would be around A$60.

Our cruise on 23rd October was supposed to be from Brisbane to Noumea/Lifou/Port Vila. However a cyclone got in the way and when we arrived at the terminal, we were advised that we were going to Cairns instead. It didn't matter much to us because we were going just for the cruise, not the ports, except I intended to buy duty free alcohol in Vila. We were given $100 OBC for the change of itinerary. I felt sorry for people who were going on their first cruise, or who had got passports that now weren't needed. There were a lot of children on board, so I suspect there were a lot of unused passports.

There are no public transport options from the cruise terminal. Princess has transfers to the airport and I think also to the Roma Street Railway/Transport Centre. The other option is a taxi or Uber.

Did it end up as a full refund? The last I heard was 50% refund plus $300 OBC.

The letter indicates that people were advised ahead of time, but it is still awful. Presumably no-one would have flown to the port unless they took option 1 in the letter, but that doesn't mean they could get a refund of their airfare.

I see the point you make about the 2025/26 itineraries.🙂

How can Carnival pass the extra cost on to passengers making it cost a few dollars extra? Itineraries have been published and bookings accepted. $3.50 might not sound much, but multiply that by the number of passengers and it becomes a sizeable amount. That is every time the ship docks. I suspect that Carnival has publicised this issue hoping it will put pressure on the authorities to delay increasing their port fees.

Then I agree. Snorkelling equipment would be a good gift.

I doubt that snorkelling gear would be much use on a cruise to Airlie Beach. If the family goes on a trip to the Reef, the excursion company will have the gear that is required. I feel that snorkelling gear for four kids would be a fair bit of stuff to carry and it wouldn't be used anyway.

The NZ fiords are sometimes missed because of weather. I wouldn't agree with the comment that 'the rest of the ports are industrial ports well out of town'. Dunedin - dock in Port Chalmers (but not an industrial port). Lyttelton - not really an industrial port. Wellington - dock very close to the middle of town. Napier - a working wharf but only 5 minutes' drive form the centre of town. Tauraga - dock in Mt Maunganui (not an industrial port). Auckland - dock in the middle of the CBD.