sir-magoo

1 hour ago, wintrev said:

Hello again Arxcards - well you will be thrilled to know that Princess lied outright to me. I just checked the roll call for the October 18 cruise from Singapore to Perth to discover that it has been cancelled!!!!! It is still showing on the website however. The poster said that they have been offered the same cruise from Singapore on September 26th - so that means the Coral is not going into dry dock there. The plot thickens. Luckily we transferred to the 15th September cruise from Perth but have already lost one port making it an 11 day cruise. Who knows now if even that one will go ahead. Wish they would be more truthful!

Yep, I can confirm this.  I received the cancellation notification for this cruise today, followed shortly afterwards by the Princes rep trying to flog-off the trip to Singapore instead.  Not at all interested in the trip just before a dry dock.

Not sure yet what they are doing with the ship, but looks as though it isn't coming back to AUS as originally planned.

37 minutes ago, summernz said:

Thank you, sounds like it would be best to get a small coffee.  How strong was the coffee?

Yes it was pretty good coffee.  Similar strength to what I usually get from your average coffee shop here in AUS.  Only the single shot (which I think was only half because each coffee dispense was spread across two shot-glasses, and a small got one of them), but in a smaller cup which kept it to the "usual" strength.

6 minutes ago, summernz said:

Has anyone been on the Ovation of the sea recently and used the coffee card.  Did they punch the card twice for a large coffee  or just once? 

 

I was on there just before Xmas and when they handed it to me (I had to collect it from the coffee shop - not delivered to the room), they said that it was one punch for a small, two punches for a medium.

I never actually tested that, I just stuck to small coffee's after being told that.  It is good value at 1-punch per coffee, poor value if they are double-punching for the med/large that is only 50c more to purchase.

3 minutes ago, Aus Traveller said:

If you test positive, you and your travelling party will receive a Future Cruise Credit for the full amount paid for the cruise. Re travel insurance - some travel insurance companies would cover it for the insured person and their travelling companion.

 

I am unsure what you mean by the last para. 🙂

Thank you.  I was hoping that was the case but just couldn't find it anywhere.

That last para is their old flexibility clause that ends in Nov.  It allowed cancellation of your cruise up to 14d before departure, with varying refund/FCC options.  The FCC refund you mentioned means this wouldn't be needed.

Does anybody know what actually happens if you do test positive on your 24h RAT?  Their FAQ's say you need to call them and they will cancel the booking.  But does that mean a refund, a FCC or do you lose your money?  I can't imaging Travel Insurance would cover that.

The seem to have a flexibility program, but that finishes in Nov, and needs to occur 14 days or you lose your money.

1 hour ago, Chiliburn said:

Is that directly with Royal?

Because I’m thinking of trying to do one on a slightly different itinerary and pay a difference.

Hi, yes I was booked directly through Royal.

Easiest thing to do is just try their online form.  I read elsewhere they are less strict through the online form as it doesn't need to be exact, just similar.  The cruise you want may already be listed there and save you a call.  Basically you just add your name, date and booking ID, then you get presented with a bunch of options to change to.  You only need to select 1, don't need to select all three options.  If your target cruise is listed, you wouldn't need to pay any difference.

https://cancellation.royalcaribbean.com/?brand=R&_ga=2.94405592.594647497.1590767327-1101230479.1590767327

I did my online L&S just over 2 weeks ago.  Same instant email response saying I would hear within 72 hours.  After 1 week I phoned and they said it had been referred to the revenue team because the target cruise didn't have an identical level.  This was despite the actual same cabin was free, but they had just re-categorized it, along with most others at the original level.

After just over 2 weeks (Friday) I called again.  Was originally told that the L&S had been rejected because it was a Xmas cruise.  After referring to the supervisor and a few more minutes on the phone, they approved the L&S, telling me I should get the updated confirmation on Monday after they had adjusted port fees.  Will wait and see.

I'm in the process of lifting and shifting my xmas 2020 cruise now with RCCL. Unfortunately there wasn't a matching Xmas cruise next year, but there was a NYE cruise on the same ship, same itinerary and departing from Miami instead of FLL.

I thought they may reject the L&S because it is going to a NYE cruise that is about $1,500 pp more than our current xmas cruise, and they originally said no.  But they eventually let me have it.

I know that it is still quite a way off, but I see zero chance of us being able to go on the original cruise, and didn't want to invest in final payment knowing that.

13 hours ago, eclue said:

So much greed in this world.....glad the lawsuit got thrown out.

Yes agreed!  It would be great if the cruise line could counter-sue both the individual and the legal firm that brought it to court for costs associated with defending these types of law suits.  Maybe that would stop these sorts of ridiculous actions.

Hi, does anybody know why carnival spirit appears to have diverted?  It should be on its usual 2 day trip back from noumea but marine traffic has it at anchor around Gladstone/Bundaberg 

we are On another short trip now and due to get on her Wednesday.

1 hour ago, joejoe 59 said:

I phoned Insure and go regarding alcohol levels in system,  & they told me it was any amount of alcohol, even one drink.  So even one drink & they won't cover you, this was only last week. 

Wow that is interesting, and worrying.  Insure & go were one of the few that I found that seemed to be a little more lenient.  Some had an exclusion that stated any alcohol in their T&C's, but Insure & go have the following stated:

"Any claim arising directly from you, your partner, relative or your travelling companion consuming alcohol"

Just have a good look at the T&C's.  After those recent reports of people having claims rejected due to alcohol in their system, I started looking more closely at them.  Some of them have wording that says any alcohol in your system can be a reason to reject, while some others had wording to the effect of claims being rejected if alcohol is determined to be the majority cause of the issue.

I am not a lawyer, so do not know how either would hold up during a claim, but I feel more comfortable with the majority clause rather than any alcohol clause.

The way that I have done this in the past is to have international roaming turned on at your carrier but data roaming (mobile data) turned off on your phone.  This allows you to send/receive calls/SMS's through your phone at fairly high, but still manageable rates, but not incur ridiculous data charges.  The rates that I have seem are similar to what you mentioned, but just a little higher for SMS messages as I am usually billed in $AUD.

What usually happens is your phone will latch onto the ships local services that will allow basic cellular services over their satellite link to get calls and sms's.  Your phone usually shows something like maritime where you would usually see the cellular symbol.

If you have iMessage on, that will may work over the ships wifi too, but I am not sure as I usually have that off.

I agree with what others have mentioned, definitely turn off mobile data or it could cost you a lot on the ship.

I was trying to figure out the same thing earlier today myself as we are also booked on this one, and also after just recently being in Alaska seeing the fairly obvious difference between the "usual" and connoisseur tours.

I couldn't figure out any difference and there was nothing online that could identify what may be different about it either.

Anyhow, we like the itinerary and the timing is good, so we are still keen to go.

Not sure if you are also doing a land tour too but we just did another ATV tour last night at Fairbanks - Midnight Sun ATV tour.

That one was by far the best of the three I did in Alaska this trip, Skagway was 2nd with Denali 3rd.

Great machines to drive, plenty of power and a great track to go through.  By far the best that I have done this trip or any other.

7 hours ago, Robinsilver said:

What I was thinking of doing in Juneau was the rafter in Mendenhall Glacier. Any idea if they have a booth offering that? Or should we just book through the cruise line? I have walked on a glacier in the Canadian Rockies, so being actually on the glacier doesn't quite have the appeal that it does for someone who has never done that.

Hi, sorry I can't remember specifically rafting there, but they may have.  There were lots of options but I can't really remember all of the specifics.

We just did the Skagway ATV tour last week.  It was a little more than just an ATV tour as it included a pretty nice ferry ride to/from the site (about 45m each way).

Was good, only downside was that it is very dusty as they haven't had much rain there.  Lot of mozzies too.

We both enjoyed it though.

1 hour ago, cottonballs99 said:

We have a helicopter tour scheduled for our port day in Juneau.  I'm so so hopeful that this will work!  BUT - if it doesn't, shouldn't I have a backup plan?

 

If so, what would be the easiest to do "spur of the moment" without having to book things ahead?

 

Thanks!

Hi, we had our Juneau helicopter tour cancelled on arrival (actually just after the bus picked us up) last week due to weather.  There are plenty of options that you can switch to, just selling from booths at the port.  Just make sure you have something in mind and I am sure you will be ok to find something.  We just swapped over to a zipline tour which was pretty good and had the original refund within a couple of days.

If you have access to Discovery Channel on Foxtel, there is a show called Outback Pilots, it was on at 8:30 but will be on again Discovery2 at 10:30. 

Tonight's episode showed about 10 minutes of a helicopter medivac from P&O Jewel, from the Helicopter side of things.  Was quite interesting.

Yes very disappointed with this. Avomine is my go-to choice, otherwise I get horribly ill onboard, even in very slight seas.

I have not tried using it yet, but Phenergan is listed as having the same ingredient and strength as Avomine. That is usually freely available in chemists here in Aus.

Just come back and found a few replies. To summarise, the TA in Miami is allowed to book for us, but Princess will not accept the onboard credits because they were purchased on a cruise that was booked in Australia even though the cruise was thousands of miles from Australia (go figure!) My TA spoke to a supervisor at Princess who's response was "that's just the way it is but you can get a refund of the OBCs if you wish."

 

Just to repeat, there is nothing in the Princess Terms & Conditions which says that. If anyone from Princess is reading this thread, please comment.

 

Terry

Wow that does sound like a strange restriction. I just booked an Alaska cruise using our FCD's purchased while on an Australian booked Princess cruise. Only difference I guess is that both the original cruise and the new cruise were booked directly through Princess.

We are on our way to BA today with a sailing date from Ushuaia of the 28th to Antarctica. It should be good although a little nervous about the crossing [emoji31]

 

 

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Haha, looks like we left for BA the same day you did. We had an overnight there, and just arrived in Ushuaia midday today. We are also departing for Antarctica/South Georgia on the 28th, but on Ponant.

I am generally not a fan of Noumea, but last time there around Xmas we took a ships tour that I really enjoyed. It was a 4 hour tour, called snorkeling the bays (or something like that). Because it is only 4 hours, they may still run it after your 3pm arrival.

Anyhow, it was really good. Lots of fish, good coral and a few quite large turtles that would just swim and float around you.

Not sure how adventurous you are, but there is also a pretty good zipline adventure place. More of a zipline obstacle course than just straight ziplining, but again quite fun if you don't mind heights.

I believe they are getting to Sydney early and mooring by Taronga Park Zoo with tenders for the day.

Thanks Mic, that's good to know. I can't ask them as they aren't the internet type, so wouldn't be logging on while on the ship.

I have been watching Solstice as we have family on there. It looked like they missed Dunedin yesterday and were meant to be at the Fiordland today. I noticed last night that they were almost at the Fiordland area before midnight, then this morning out into the tasman, so it looks like they skipped Dunedin/Fiordland and headed back across the tasman early to try and avoid the worst of it.