MrYellowDuck

Your concierge is just letting you know that they'll not be requiring you to top up their gratuity above the auto-charged one. You're probably getting a much better deal this way.

Sometimes it will be assigned almost immediately other times not till you get to the dock

It's important to add the third scenario that sometimes you'll not be allocated a cabin at all and instead be told that there's no space for you.

Restaurants not allowing bill splitting is not tolerated in NZ. Sure some restaurants have signs "one bill per table" where I am sure they mean "one payment per table" but these signs are universally ignored.

I did have an interesting experience at a restaurant in Sydney that tried to insist that I must wait for my waitress to give me a bill before I could pay (I was at the register tired on waiting and ready to leave). I simply said that I was willing to pay right now or I was going to leave right now without paying and then I asked which of these options they preferred. As you would imagine the bill was then instantly available.

Making it hard for customers to pay is a great example of very poor customer service. Do as every kiwi does and make it abundantly clear that such behaviour isn't tolerated. Since you're fed at this point you as the customer hold every card in the deck. The restaurant has no choice but to obey your direction assuming they want your money.

Be sure to depart for the airport very early. On our last trip our taxi was stuck in absolutely horrendous traffic. Took almost 2 hours to get from the Rydges World Square (CBD) to the international terminal. Next trip we are limiting our luggage and using the train.

That hotel is very close to a train station from where it's around a 20 minute trip to the airport.

"Can't you get them to the on-board food locations?" No, not two kids all the time when I am asking them to be way off their normal schedules and out of their normal environments. They're also younger (under 6).

Our kids cruised from a young age and we took them as a pair from combined ages of 1 and 3. Never did we have trouble taking them to the many food outlet choices on the ships we've sailed. It might be that if you tried you'd be pleasantly surprised with how well kids are catered for.

I really don't know what people expect at a buffet where they preparing food for 2000 plus or more passengers depending on the ship.

The way I see it is that as the number of paying passengers increases so does the number of kitchen staff that can afford to be employed. An argument that volume makes it impossible to for example butcher meat to a restaurant standard is thus easily shown to be flawed.

The quality of the meals at the buffets varies by cruise line. Royal positions itself in the lower quartile for buffet food and they robustly deliver at this. Royal fills their ships with passengers paying $100 a day and at this price point their food options make complete sense. It's this latter point that is the reason that passengers should not expect too much from the buffet; Royal is for profit and so is acting to turn a profit even from those who have paid very little for their vacation. To some extent their is class segregation for those who pay more through up-sell restaurants and differential treatment for suite guests and so a more diverse audience is catered for beyond their bread-and-butter demographic.

It's very easy to do a DIY day in NZ with a rental car from Auckland, Tauranga, Wellington, and Dunedin; in all cases there's good access to the major rental companies from the port or where you'll be dropped off. Tourism is a major industry here and everywhere is set-up for those doing everything themselves via a rental vehicle. We're doing NZ again next January and I've had the rental cars booked for a while.

Just remember to stick to the correct side of the road (not hard for an Aussie) and to assume that a fair proportion of tourists will get very confused and so take extra care heading around blind corners.

Their new NO-REFUND policy is not just nor fair. If you're thinking this will not affect you, you are wrong.

Yes this affects me big time. I now stand much more chance of being able to book a suite at a time that is convenient for me rather than having to book eighteen months out as I do now.

A problem doing this is that you essentially waste the whole day on the flight. Unless you get a super early flight out of SYD you will be arriving into AKL at the end of the day. The flight time plus the time zone change kills the day.

Taxis are expensive in Auckland; very expensive really. You'll be very close to where the Airport bus starts it's run.

"Play Around Tassie" is a superb option for Burnie; have a look at their TripAdisor reviews (one of which is mine).

On Princess we went on an ship excursion with just the two of us. They popped us in a Taxi both ways - it was a swim with the Dolphins excursion in Mexico.

The parent will get the behaviour they have modelled for the last nearly twenty years; they will know what this is and so they also know the behaviour they are likely to experience.

We can't get Bonine in Australia which is a total bummer. They had them onboard though, for about $15AUD for a packet of 6 tablets from memory. Seemed pretty expensive!

Bonine is just a brand name. You can buy the same drug in products sold in Australia; any product containing meclizine hydrochloride is "Bonine" in disguise. You can compare recommended doses too - Americans seem to be happy taking a much higher recommended dose than is seen in some local products. You can buy 300 pills of meclizine hydrochloride from Amazon US for $10 and there is no issue with having it delivered to this part of the world.

It will get higher closer to the date you want. Business and First class have limited capacity and get sold out quickly.

There is plenty of capacity on these routes. I have been in near empty business class lots of times. The issue here is that there isn't really much competition on this or similar routes and that means the premium part of the plane is priced at a true premium.

There's not much you can do really.

Some of the 14 night NZ to AU (and reverse) cruises will give you say three stop in AU and a circuit of NZ. This equates to a lot of diversity. RCL does one-way cruises with this type of itinerary.

The temperature in any of the AU east coast cities can get above 104F on any day in summer and stay like that for a week if you're unlucky. In NZ at the same time you're more likely to get 77F and you never get the super heat of AU.

People in NZ are more like Canadians and those in AU are more like Americans; both countries are uncommonly friendly and very safe.

We drive on the correct side of the road and this does sometimes cause issues for those who have to drive on the righthand side back home. In NZ at most cruise ports its easy to rent a car and because NZ is setup for DIY tourists everything is super easy to do yourself.

The flight LAX to AKL is a good hour shorter than LAX to SYD.

And you don´t want to walk around with 10 1-Euro-coins in your pockets

Well, the Europeans are not going to be tipping in USD and you don't hear a chink-cink sound as the staff walk around. So, we know what's the cultural norm in terms of tipping. And, especially here one should do as one should when in Rome...

For us the cost of having our bank do the conversion is cheaper. This is true in both absolute terms for the spread plus my bank's rewards scheme offers double points for foreign currency purchases.

I did one of those Skagway Yukon excursions, and they had a custom's agent come aboard our bus to check our passports.

We had a quite different experience. At the border crossing the driver told the agent that there were Americans, Canadians, and three Kiwis on board. The agent let out a sign and we heard him say "I suppose I'll have to come and have a look". He got on the bus, asked the three of us to put up our hands, he glanced for a second and then got back off the bus having checked nothing at all and not having even moved close to us.

We've had a similarly strange experience coming into LAX where we were told "you're not what we are looking for - go and stand in the US line".

No tip will be expected by a driver or guide in NZ or AU. It would be a once in a lifetime experience to get a tip from a Kiwi or Aussie in this situation.

If you have a quick check through older threads you'll find that sometimes you get nothing at all i.e. you don't get to sail since there are no cabins to allocate to those in the guarantee pool.

It's okay; it's not something I would do a second time. For us the meal was at Chops (it had been advertised as being at Giovanni's).

The storyline and acting are of the standard you'd be happy with at a basic high-school production. So long as you appreciate this then you'll likely enjoy the evening.

You are probably thinking of the Freestyle machines where you must wait 15 minutes between fill ups.

Have you personally experienced this recently? My experience is that there is no delay required.

Agree GS just has coffee table

There is also the side-table / shelf (what ever you call it) next to the bed and this has the advantage of being at dinner table height. It works for one person.

You sound like a person who is at their happiest when complaining about something of no importance. Since you have two such things to complain about today then you must be very happy indeed. Tomorrow I imagine will be less happy; maybe that gives you three things for today?