MrYellowDuck

Have you looked into Ripple? http://www.ripple-connect.com

That looks a lot like a mesh net and if so then I imagine for it to work on a ship then a lot of people are going to need to be running the app.

I don't see that the complaint being made here is a fair one.

Royal facilitates a solution to the issue that you have - they work with rental companies that have available the type of equipment you desire and additionally they allow you to bring your own equipment if you prefer.

The rental company will have a lower cost of capital than the Royal and so will be able to supply what you want at a lower price than if Royal did so directly.

Of course you will have to pay yourself for equipment since it would be entirely unreasonable to expect others to help cover your special costs. There is a cost here. There is a provider available. You were told this both times you asked. There's no real issue here that I can see.

That's a pretty good article for that particular tabloid. The main issue I imagine is that when you're interviewing your keyboard it's hard to get facts. All they want to achieve is clicks to sell advertising - so long as the headline is appealing they've done their job.

The luggage tag document becomes available around 48 to 50 days away from boarding.

The trains in Tokyo are super easy. The ticket terminals all have an "English" button. There's a good trick to know: Buy the cheapest ticket that the machine issues and then go to a fare adjustment machine near the exit of your final station and here you can pay the extra needed - this saves you ever having to work out what is the correct value ticket.

What Princess does (or did last time we sailed them) was to have US passengers paying gratuities and AU and NZ customers not. It was cheaper to pretend to be a US passenger and pay gratuities rather than claim our actual NZ status.

Yes, read the terms and conditions to get your answer

It's fascinating to read about differences in consumer protection between countries. Here, if the advertisement says something different to the terms and conditions then the advertisement holds.

Most Australians and most New Zealanders won't tip extra; many will turn off the auto-tipping if it is turned on. Some other lines now don't bother billing daily for fares bought in AU and NZ; prices have not been increased - they were already considerably higher than a US guest pays.

American's love to pay tips and those from many other countries do not. Lines cater to keeping both groups happy.

Unfortunately, this is all too true! :(

My favourite decoy question is something like "teams in this organisation work well together". The question is really asking whether your team works well with other teams and the only good answer is "absolutely yes". This is a bit like "the food was great" question - the question has rather little to do with the dish and everything to do with the person who gave it to you.

But corporate thinks 3 = fail, 4 = fail, 5 = pass

Exactly and it's essential that those completing the survey realise this. I manage a team in a organisation of around 15k staff and we always do very well in the staff survey and twice we've come top.

I do invest in helping my team understand how surveys are constructed, what the questions are really asking, and what will happen in response to different types of scores. I say "be 100% honest, but realise if you don't score highly then we will act to remediate what you're saying is wrong and so make sure you're voting for a change you want to go through yourself". This is important for me and my team which is why I do this. The same is happening with the wait staff - those completing the survey need to know what is really happening.

The food not meeting your liking will be viewed as the fault of the wait staff - they should have made better suggestions or detected you were not happy and fixed this. Of course good wait staff do exactly this which is why there is a question asking whether this has happened.

The survey is only about the wait staff - the questions may appear to go beyond this but they don't. To pretend the survey is as it appears is a disservice to those who need it filled in correctly. Sure some people will refuse to play by the rules of the game but the majority of people are smart enough and agreeable enough to do the right thing once it has been explained to them what is really happening.

If the waitstaff are not up to standard then show no mercy in your feedback. If they are entirely acceptable or better then a "5" is the score that reflects this. If you want to complain about the food do so through a different mechanism since doing so via the survey on the wait staff will not achieve what you want.

The solution I once used at Brisbane airport was to rent the cheapest car I could. I then put my luggage in the boot and left it at the rental lot - the attendant was surprised but since there was no other luggage option it worked for me. I then got the train into the city and spent the day as a tourist.

I commence packing about an hour before we will set off to the airport. My wife tends to pack the evening before. We've never forgotten to take anything that matters.

This isn't the same as saying there is no planning. If there's something we need to buy then we will have already bought it; often months in advance.

It's called Integrity. Some people have it. Some people don't.

The package is designed so that you can use it in any way that you please. It's rate limited so you can't suck down more than you've paid for. While the impression can be created of all devices being online at once in reality only one is.

There's no cheating being promoted here. Most people are only capable of using multiple devices by signing-in on each device one at a time. Some people can reduce this effort. Without being silly this can be done only for those devices in the immediate vicinity of the primary device accessing the wifi; there is no practical way of achieving the outcome for devices in different parts of the ship.

There is no legitimate integrity concern here.

If the question were "I looked over the shoulder of another cruiser and watched them tapping in their wifi password and I am wonder whether it's okay for me to use this rather than buy my own package", then we'd be in the realm of needing to explore integrity.

If you want multiple devices to access the internet at the same time you'll have to pay for it, a router won't do anything at all, you'd still have to access a browser and login on each device, and the number of devices that can use it at once is limited to what you paid for.

This is not true. A tool like Connectify would do exactly what is required. Due to the faraday cage that is the cabin the signal won't get far but that's fine if you want to use multiple devices in the cabin at the same time.

Our eldest has cruised from age two and our youngest from age under one. We've had no difficulties. We did need to take an entire suitcase of disposable diapers on one itinerary where it seemed unlikely it would be easy to restock - this is one thing to think about. The other thing to think about is the need to do laundry - since there is no guest laundry you'll be paying for this to happen.

The tap water on a ship is as good as or better than bottled water. The water you get at the dinner table and the water used to cook all of the food is the same water as in your cabin. It is warm out of the tap and so it won't necessarily taste great to someone used to cool or chilled water.

We were Princess cruisers at the time and they had portable cots available. This did take up a big proportion of the spare space in the cabin though. This sorted the sleeping location for the baby.

At eleven months your baby will be on solids at least partly - this is good because meal times on a cruise are a breeze since the staff will fall over backwards to help.

I'd not hesitate to take your baby with you - everyone will have a great time.

I have seen that a lot of the prices end in 0.49; so can legitimately be shown as the lower whole dollar. $8 becomes $8.49 and they make an extra 6%. Prices in NZD that is.

The security theatre is much less intense on a ship; arguably they're really only looking for contraband the presence of which may reduce their takings.

On our first cruise we had to wait for a clean due to norovirus. The ship was late boarding to the point that all foreign guests were boarded first since immigration wanted to go home. My wife and I were the third and fourth passengers on. In the lift I spoke to one of the staff and they said the only people who get sick are those who do not pay attention to personal hygiene. They also said because the crew know how important this is it is mostly the passengers who get sick and not the crew. When I got back I looked at the report filed to the CDC and sure enough there had been hundreds of sick passengers and I think just two sick crew.

So, pay attention to hygiene and I think you'll be fine. The ship will have been sprayed down with disinfectant everywhere and this will go on for days. In the dead of night you'll be able to spot staff with sprayers doing the walls and so on.

There are business that provide queue order optimisation, google keywords "queue order optimization disneyland" i.e. businesses that can tell you what order to do the rides in to minimise your waiting time. You say what rides you want to do, how many times, what date, arrival time and departure time and the tool works out the best order.

We've used these tools for upwards of forty days at the parks (it would be more days but the commitment to visit from New Zealand isn't small).

If you're going for just one day and don't want to waste time queueing when you don't need to then go have a look. The tool is cheap but... wait for it.... you'll need a credit card to pay...

I've cancelled a cruise booked from New Zealand (via the Australian website) and received a full refund. The refund conditions were clearly displayed and the amount back varied based on the length of time to go. It took less than two weeks to see my money.

I'm not sure I understand the rationale for not charging you the extra $700. You did say you had elected to change from a cheaper to a more expensive option?

As an example, a typical bank in New Zealand charges a 2.25% conversion fee and the conversion fee for a New Zealander from RCL is 2.50%. So, I tick the box to not convert. Also, with my credit card I get double points for purchases not in NZD.

RCL looks like it engages in price testing presumably with the aim of building a demand model that can then be used during price optimisation. What I imagine has happened is that RCL has noticed that by having only the more expensive option available the number of people who then choose to buy the more expensive option than they want more than makes up for those who choose to go without internet instead. Or put more briefly - RCL makes more money by having just the more expensive option for sale.

Not allowed on cruises from Australia ,all are collected before you board and returned after cruise

I've not experienced this. I've taken an iron onboard from Australia too, and slap-my-hand, I used it too; always attended in case of fire etc.

P & O Australia is bottom-tier cruise experience. They survived in my view by being the only operator for a long time. With competition now starting in this market I don't think anyone in-the-know would choose them. My opinion - others may hold an alternative view.