MrYellowDuck

NZ weather is usually more settled in Feb / Mar.

I really hope you are kidding. Leggings aren't pants.

Well they can be quite striking on the right person; often the person isn't right though...

Once on board just go to the restaurant you want to eat at and make a booking; in the vast majority of cases you'll be able to change to where you want.

We never consider the length of walks on ships since in our view all ships are small in the scheme of things and so all distances are short. If we had mobility issues it would be different but we're all capable of walking a few hundred meters along the flat without it feeling like boot-camp exercise.

The movement on a high deck fully aft might cause us to think but the distance to an xyz activity would never feature. The only exception we've made is on lines with a guest laundry where it's nice to be close for the purposes of popping to the iron early in the morning; having not really left the room it's nice for that sort of thing to be close. Not a considered on RCL though obviously.

If RCL is following the terms and conditions that the passenger agreed to when they first booked then the behaviour completely makes sense. The flip side here is that it's unreasonable to think they would do otherwise; while here the customer benefits in other situations they may not and it would be outrageous if policy was followed only when customers are disadvantaged.

The ticket clipping contributes to overall profitability and so implicitly is allowed for in all fares. The majority of customers are benefiting from this sort of thing.

Our eldest started cruising at two and the youngest at around age one.

We experienced no issues at all. As is the case every time you leave the house with children at that age you need to set off prepared - our main preparation was to take 150 nappies for the ten days (clearly more than enough under any plausible scenario). We were on Princess and so had access to laundry at a sensible price (free beyond the token to get the wash going on a suitcase-sized load of baby clothes).

If you're a half resilient parent who can cope with routines having to change a little bit then I don't think you'll experience anything that you would consider a challenge.

We selected excursions suited to children at that age and we took car seats with us to allow for a variety of transport scenarios that might come up.

In terms of technical difficulty this will be no different to taking your kids on holiday anywhere else.

I am sailing on Royal for the first time this summer but I expect I will love it as much as any of the others.

Plan to eat in the up-sell restaurants every night and you'll be fine. Under the free options so long as you like things like veins left in the meat when it's diced for the stews then you'll be fine.

This new policy will result in improved booking behaviours from those who make it harder than it should be for guests who want to make a booking for a cruise they actually plan to take.

Could be - because they sure can whine about the MDR. When I read the many whiny comments, I always think about what wonderful cooks they must have at home that prepare great three course meals each night for them.

In an affluent household the ingredients used to prepare the daily meals will normally be considerably superior to those typically used in the MDR. And, those superior ingredients combined with a normal level of cooking skill result in better meals. When these same affluent households dine out they select restaurants that will deliver a meal that is special relative to what they enjoy at home. Against this type of benchmark the food in the MDR is terrible.

RCL is low cost cruise line and you need to remember that this means there is quite a diversity of people on each cruise; some have barely paid $50 a head per night and some are paying more than twenty times that amount. There is a considerably gradient of expectation in terms of what will be received but RCL needs to make a profit from even those who have hardly paid anything - the "free" food thus needs to be super low cost to provide.

The negative reviews of the MDR are completely valid for the demographic they represent. RCL has other options for these folk and by and large they should be happy with them; they may still complain for example that Chops isn't a great streak house but on the other hand it's not a truly terrible one either - it's broadly acceptable when taken as a whole with everything else RCL offers.

The only issue I see is that RCL advertises in a manner that tries to create an expectation of fine dining and those who are sucked into believing that they'll get this (at such a low price point it's not really a believable claim) probably do have cause to complain.

The major problem P&O has is that the die-hard Australian audience that used to have no choice but to "enjoy" P&O are starting to discover that every other cruise line is better. The comment that P&O is like Jetstar is completely unreasonable; using the airline analogy P&O are no better than Rynair and so considerable worse than Jetstar.

There is nothing wrong with an everything-is-optional value-add approach to pricing except if the most basic fare is too low then the demographic predominantly attracted (and catered for) may not be very much like any other cruise line operating in this part of the world. Again, think Rynair - you pay for pretty much nothing and they still turn a profit by making sure they give you the least they possibly can.

The Stamford Plaza in Auckland is good and handy for the wharf.

The Amora Hotel in Sydney is good and fairly handy for where a tourist will go in and around the CBD. The Travelodge was not a Hotel I enjoyed staying at; personal I'd not stay there again. The only issue with the Amora is that the food is not fantastic but frankly there are so many restaurants nearby that this doesn't matter.

The Shangri-La is my favourite Sydney hotel and the buffet breakfast is the best I've had anywhere.

The Intercontinental in Sydney is good too and so is their food.

The crossing from NZ to AU can be rough, often is but quite often isn't too. The first time we did this I was very disappointed because I wanted spectacular seas (of the rough variety) and the gods were not accomodating; we're having another go next January and I'm hoping to get what I want this time.

Ships allow a lot longer for the crossing than they require at normal cruising speed and they keep this time as a margin for being able to slow the ship down to allow a smoother ride if the seas are very rough.

So long as you book a large modern ship (so avoid P&O Australia) the crossing will likely be pretty uneventful.

Beyond that crossing the waters are very likely to be calm.

You could always get the train if there are enough of you to handle the baggage - the Airport and Circular Quay stations are very traveller friendly. The price will break even at around three people but the train will almost certainly be quicker and safer (Sydney taxi drivers can add an element of excitement to a trip that some do not want).

"Larry Swindells Specialised Transport Services" will get you a senior-executive style of town-car service for $80+. You won't find a better provider but just about everyone else is cheaper.

Uber Black operates too. It's legal and you will get a premium vehicle with a professional driver.

RCL is very good value for money at the sticker price. However, the included food options are pretty disappointing to us since by our judgement they are at the standard of the very cheapest restaurants (one step up from a fast food outlet). Most people by my observation are entirely happy with this but if you know you won't be then budget to need to eat in a speciality restaurant every day - this is what we do and we're still very happy with the overall price.

Smaller prizes makes sense since they are still aspirational amounts of money given the new demographic of people taking a cruise. Lots of very cheap cabins allows bingo to have small prizes that still seem interesting to those who have still had to stretched to pay the modest fares we now see.

While I would be willing to go to the effort to open my wallet to receive a prize of those sizes I wouldn't be willing to pay more than $1 for a ticket. Actually I lie, at those prize levels I'm just not motivated to play even if the games were free. However, if someone wanted to give me the prize money I would say thank-you and genuinely mean it.

I'd rather see an hourly lottery draw for say $400 million with $1 tickets and no chance of anyone winning (with some insurance from a Lloyd's syndicate to help RCL pay should the unthinkable actually happen). At least there would be a fantasy element to occupy the imagination as I awaited the next draw. Here I would pay for $24 a day for a package to be in each draw.

There are children of those ages in both countries and the locals all believe that both countries are the best on the planet for raising families; objectively all of these people are right.

We started cruising with a just-turned-two year-old and there were absolutely no issues. In our case we had travelled from the majesty of NZ up to Alaska and while we were thus is a much less safe country we were careful and had no issues. The staff on the ship (Princess in this case) could not have been more helpful.

Being more serious for a moment you will not have a problem bringing a child of that age onto a cruise down in this part of the world.

I'll keep using $2 bills and we'll see who gets their drinks first.

But the reward for being first is the same as coming second save a thirty second delay (if your view is correct); coming last is pretty much the same outcome too. And, given the level of alcohol in the bloodstream is pretty constant for most passengers on a cruise ten minutes past boarding until they leave it's not clear to me that a tiny delay makes any difference even if it really occurs. Not to mention that you'll be taking your measurement whilst suffering from observer error.

I don't tip for drinks (I'm not American) and I think I get mine instantly too; the technique I use instead of tipping is to be genuinely nice to people and this seems to work for me in all situations and in all countries.

I do tip from time to time and always when on holiday in the US since the laws to protect service employees seem entirely deficient from the perspective of an outsider. I do tend to dispose of excess US dollars when leaving the ship / US too - they're of no use to me most of the time and especially not the absurdly small notes that exist only to be given away when a service person smiles at you. At my last meal I might leave a tip of $200 when a fraction of this would be the norm; this solves a problem for me (I can't be bothered going to the bank to change back such a small amount of currency), makes me feel happy (I pretend I'm making a difference), and probably this gesture is quite memorable in a nice way for the recipient too.

I'm not bagging the US system but it's not "normal"; it does seem to work quite well (and your average American service person is lovely to deal with) but then so do approaches that are more normal on the international stage. The norm where I live is to never leave a tip at all, and by and large that works perfectly well since the service staff actually get paid by their employer and the law protecting their employment prevents their employer from terminating them without first scoring ten points for jumping show-pony style through a dozen diamond encrusted golden hoops.

An RCL cruise ship is not an extension of the US; if it were many here would be unable to afford to board at all. RCL caters for the desire of some people (primarily those who live in the US) to keep giving their money away as it does equally to those who don't have this compulsion. In reality everyone is treated pretty much the same given their paid-for status on the ship. For example, a first-time suite passenger is generally better pampered (save for superficial loyalty benefits) than someone who has a high loyalty arising from 50 cruises in the cheapest interior cabin.

Beyond personal perception there is no difference in service on an RCL ship between tipping continuously and not. Yes, some people can't believe this due to the perception filter they live their lives through and any conversation on this type of topic with such friends present is likely best changed to keep civilities ticking along.

Everyone should simply do what makes them happiest.

We've been near that stateroom. My experience was when already awake in the dead of night it was momentarily possible to just hear the sound of a scraping chairs from above for a few seconds. The sound was very faint and wouldn't have awoken anyone.

The food will change. The concierge was telling me they have a repotoire of more than one thousand dishes and they change to suit the tastes of the locals. We prefer the US style food options over the Australian ones (the change in very noticeable on other lines we have sailed). The obvious one everyone knows about is that in the US you're going to have to serve lobster and in Australia the equivalent obligatory dish is the meat pie (found in the windjammer at least once).

The problem in my experience is that the curries (that have little to no chilli) food options taste okay in terms of their sauce but the compromise is to use pet-quality meat which for me makes them inedible.

Yes - we changed both the restaurant and the time; just go to a restaurant once you board and request a change.

If you'd wear it going to McDonalds then you'll be dressed well enough for the ship's venues too.

We eat at a speciality restaurant every night. We've only had one MDR experience and that was enough. RCL has very attractive pricing and once we add on the extras for things like a decent evening meal we still come out ahead versus other options.

The Indian food was TERRIFIC.

My most recent experience wasn't like this. The sauce with one of the curries was pretty good but having pieces of meat with visible veins pointed to abject laziness in terms of preparation of that meat. This you would never get away with at a land-based buffet.

We now buy a seat at a speciality restaurant for every day of the cruise.

11.30 seems much too early. Too many things can go wrong. The time of your disembark, speed through customs, dragging luggage around Circular Quay through crowded footpaths, distance involved in getting to the airport by public transport, day of the week and any number of other things. I'd aim for 2pm at the earliest. 3pm to be real safe.

Under normally circumstances taking the train they will be comfortably at the airport before 9.30am. We have been every time we've done this. All that happens if you book flight times like you've suggested is that you have to sit and wait for hours for check-in to open.