MrYellowDuck

Packages are discounted today versus their normal price on our next cruise. This is nothing special though - they do this about once per month for a week at a time.

We find the food in the MDR not quite to the standard we like and so we eat speciality every night. On Explorer we think Giovanni's is the best of the bunch. Izumi uses frozen product which is a bit off-putting - defrosted fish eggs just don't work for sushi. Chops is adequate but ordinary - our sides were served only barely warm each time we were there.

RCL prices the speciality restraints to encourage you to buy a package; on a one-off basis the prices are outrageous for what you're getting. On a January fourteen nighter just coming up now we got a package for the whole cruise at under $20 NZD per night; we booked super early and have to put up with dinner at 9pm on the first night (but you can be sure I will ask the concierge to change this as soon as we are on board).

It is an easy stress-free drive from Tauranga to Rotorua all on nice roads. For our upcoming cruise we've a rental car booked and will head to Rotorua for the day. Is the airport cheapest? I suspect they'll have an airport surcharge. We're picking up from the in-town Avis. My recollection of the airport is that it's a counter not normally staffed unless there is a flight (and there isn't that many of those).

The Avis nearest where the cruise ships dock in Auckland (about a ten minute walk away) has a dozen or so vehicles types available for those dates including a "premium van". You'd similarly have no trouble from the Airport. Nowhere will be closed on those days - the worst that might happen is that some restaurants might try to charge a 15% surcharge to cater for having to pay staff more on the actual holiday day.

the rule is no drinking under 21

No, that's the rule for the US. The US has some extremely restrictive practices that those who live there are generally not aware of in terms of now restrictive they are compared to just about everywhere else. The broad categories where US culture is fundamentally different to really everywhere else on Planet Earth are: sexual relations, gun ownership, tipping, and the consumption of alcohol.

On a cruise departing AU and NZ: free sex is legal before skin has become old and saggy like on a tortoise, nobody owns a handgun and so there's no chance of someone thinking they should take theirs on holiday, nobody parts with money just because someone smiled at them, drinking is allowed from the age the majority of people have reached an adult level of maturity.

A good answer to the original question would be "She'll be in a safe and respectful land of the free and so of course she can act as any reasonable adult would want to".

JesuS; do the right thing for the church group and settle for no less.

Every RC ship I have been on alcohol policy is 21 years old to drink.

This is not defined by the ship; it's defined by where the ship is. A cruise departing NZ or AU and not going to a country like the US has a minimum drinking age of 18. A momentary Google will help to confirm this.

Are you familiar with the laws applying to where you want to fly? The requirements here include you need pre-approval from everyone you will fly over, permission from the land owner, no flights within 4km of an aerodrome, plus a dozen other rules.

This drone is an item that is banned from the ship plain and simple. If you take the drone can another passenger take a shotgun so that they can clay shoot on shore (perhaps mistaking your drone in the process)?

They didn't when we were last on her back in January. I don't think they ever will on that size of ship.

it is absolutely unacceptable dinner ware.

I think it's entirely acceptable and the opinions that count are those of people like me since RCL does allow this. If you're in the other camp all you can do is make a "humph" sound under your breath; do much else and security will be showing you the door.

We're speaking of a cruise line that offers holidays starting at amounts like $50 a day but also caters to those wants to pay $1k a day. You're inevitably going to see a lot of diversity including people who ordinarily don't eat in the types of restaurants that RCL offers through to those that would prefer a 3-star option to mirror where they eat back home.

I saw a young women with ripped jeans today whilst I was out procuring lunch, she had a matching ripped top, and I'd have to say she was delightfully well presented. I'd much rather have seen her pass by for a moment at dinner than say someone in a stuffy old suit.

Getting the Resource Consent could take a decade. We've a far-left Government as of a few weeks ago too and they're just not cruiser friendly; they'd be at their happiest to never see a cruise ship again.

The best solution fleet-wide would be to stop serving free alcoholic drinks in an environment that encourages rapid consumption (getting the unlimited free drinks drunk before the window closes). Problem sorted.

Perhaps after this event there were more severe consequences for the staff who allowed the passenger to become drunk?

I hate being trapped on an overly full elevators, but I never say anything to the shoehorn who happily squeezes on. :rolleyes:

Every elevator I've ever been in has a capacity alarm; if it goes off then someone has to get out. If you want lots of personal space then an elevator may not be the right choice. And, it's quite possible the other person getting in waited longer than those already in the lift and to be polite perhaps others should get out? If someone can squeeze their way in and they're happy to do so then so be it.

As for blocking views, I once had someone ask me to move at Disneyland because I was apparently going to block their view of the fireworks. They were sitting on a low down wall. I didn't move but I did instruct them that they should lean their head back and that by doing so they would be perfectly able to see the fireworks since the display would be high up in the sky; as an alternative I offered that they could stand like just about everyone else (they were obese but not infirm and so to sit was a choice for them that came with consequences that they did not want).

If someone is where they should not be and a show is imminently starting then ask them nicely to move first or if later necessary then change you language to be instructional; finally get staff to do this for you if you're not a person with a natural ability to instruct others. To leave just reinforces that their bad behaviour gets them results (presumably your seats). As an absolute last resort (due to the effort needed) go to a phone and call security to move them - you just need to say something like "they've been acting aggressively and I'm worried this might get out of hand".

50Hz instead of 60Hz too; this will only be an issue for things that contain electric motors e.g. hair clippers.

Our kids were trained from birth to ignore kids menus and eat the real food. By age four they ate what we ate when out land or sea. By age eight they were eating portions as big as DW. The youngest is now age ten and she has been telling me she will be having scallops every night on our fast approaching fourteen-nighter; at age eight she ordered pheasant on a Princess cruise ("I'll have the pheasant please" was not what the server was expecting to hear).

Kids very rapidly adapt - just present them with proper food choices and within a few days they'll be eating them.

It's fair to say that NZ is an almost cashless society now - it's very rare to come across somewhere that doesn't take credit cards. If we had a tipping culture it would be hard since most people just don't carry cash anymore. I can go months without any cash in my wallet.

A prepay "skinny" sim is good choice for NZ. For $20 you can get a months usage on a plan that is popular with the locals. The sim cards are available from a range of retailers and in NZ no ID is needed to get a prepay sim. Skinny runs on the spark network which has much better coverage than vodafone.

I think there is a 7 day one as well. Around $168 which equals $24 per meal and they throw in lunches as well. Maybe it's just Oasis class

Not just Oasis; we've bought a 14-night package on an upcoming Radiance cruise. Cheaper than $24 a meal too :).

I nearly always get the train. There is no messing around - you get on at the airport and it goes direct to where you want to be e.g. the circular quay station is very close to the OPT.

The networks in Australia and NZ are all GSM. tmobile uses GSM too and so in principle the phone should work so long as you have a roaming package. If you're swapping the sim for a local AU/NZ one then the phone needs to be unlocked.

What is clear is that clearing your cookies, browser cache or browse history between searches won't change any of this.

You're right in a sense but wrong overall. Price optimisation happens at several levels; you are referencing only the highest level that it happens at. Sophisticated retailers also try to set prices bespoke to single individuals and this is where tracking becomes a problem. The mistake others here are making is assuming the tracking always leads to higher prices whereas it can lead to lower prices too - the challenge for the retailer is to determine at what price point to sell to each individual. If you successfully portray yourself as a price conscious coupon clipper then you will see lower prices for example.

Try playing modern networked banks of connected slot machines using different styles of play behaviour and you'll see that they too price optimise by employing different strategies to suck your wallet dry. You can in a small way reverse the tables on the machine's programmer if you're sufficiently observant and can portray yourself as the right persona of player whilst really being entirely calculative.

The menu changes for different parts of the world, although much is common. We don't really like the Australian food items that replace the US ones. When I was getting a recipe from the concierge last cruise he mentioned that they have around 2,000 recipes and that these are necessary to cater for the different tastes of people around the world.

We went ashore very early and had the delight of a large group of topless teen girls dancing for us. This was followed by other dances from other groups of villagers but they weren't as good imo. There is really nothing much to do on Kitava - you can walk into the village or engage in the usual DIY beach activities. The locals will be selling handcrafts.

You need to ask RCL to provide you with a fridge for medical purposes and they will do so. The in-room fridges are set to maintain only a slightly chilled temperature and you can't adjust this.

It will almost certainly be cheaper to not have your charges converted to AUD by RCL - they charge quite generously for doing this and your card issue will almost certainly be cheaper.

I wonder if the cruise lines are having more passengers asking for services in their specific faiths.

I think the general response of "if you organise it yourself and don't spoil things for other passengers" would work well; this is basically what they do now.

Imagine if the whole ship had to put up with the celebration of Matariki? Presumably, RCL could make a few dollars off all of those who would need to Google to find out what it is.