PrimaCruiser

Hi David

I'm off on Pacific Eden December 7th -11th to Moreton Bay and with the family on Ovation of the Seas B2B April 9th-14th 2018 Singapore-Singapore, 14th-26th April 2018 Singapore-Tianjin.

Thanks for keeping this thread up to date. I love seeing where everyone is going away to :) cheers.

I am agreeing with everyone else.

It's not worth getting wine in Singapore.

We always take 2 bottles from Sydney, or any other Australian port.(and sometimes 4 bottles).:)

 

To answer your other question. If you take 4 bottles, they SHOULD take 2 off you on embarkation, and return them to you on the last night of the first leg.

But if you board separately, with 2 bottles each...........................................................

 

Aussie Frequent Floaters

So any tips on how you pack it in your checked luggage so it stays in 1 piece? I've got visions of red wine through my luggage :o I'm guessing your other suggestion has worked so will consider that :)

That is why I was thinking about duty free wine from Sydney airport for bringing onto the ship.

I'd forgotten about Duty Free :) Hmmm food for thought. Thanks all for your input. :)

Hi all.

I'm a lurker and don't post much so hope it's ok to ask a question.

All cruises to date have been leaving from Sydney. Next year we leave from Singapore twice. We are doing 17 days B2B on Ovation.

I'm wondering now with the corkage fee coming into effect whether it's better to just buy what wine we might drink onboard as we go or am I likely to find reasonably priced wine in Singapore before we board that might also give me a few more options. As in wine/ where they have come from.

We aren't big drinkers so drink packages are not an option it's just more the best options for the allowed 2 bottle allocation for embarkation. I just thought that price wise it might be as economical to buy it onboard as we go rather than trying to find a bottle shop in Singapore.

Also for B2B's is it allowed to double dip, so 2 embarkations technically means 2 lots of 2 bottles? Not that it really matters just wondered.

cheers all :D Happy to hear your more experienced thoughts

On the last night of a 20 day PNG cruise on Dawn Princess, was leaving the Wheelhouse Bar and noticed an elderly man sitting alone so decided to say hello. Anyway after a bit of a chat it turned out he knew my father as they were in the Navy together in WW2 and both did the very first Sydney to Hoabart yacht race (on different boats) in 1946. He also knew my brother as he lived in the same suburb. Small world!!

 

After a couple of hours talking, the bar closed up and our drinks ran dry - but before we adjourned for the night, he picked up his walking stick and unscrewed the handle and topped up our glasses with port from the hollow stem and mentioned something along the lines that they would never think to look there.

 

Was a pleasure talking to him and I often wonder how he is.

Ha! Very cool. :D:cool:

I love the Voyager. Having just been on her sister I definitely prefer Voyager. She has an amazing cruise director Mitch ( he usually has the asian season off I think, he is Canadian) and she is just a lovely ship.

I travel with children so the dream works characters and the parades are important to us, they are just great as is Adventure Ocean. The AO staff were amazing. You won't be at all disappointed but I guess I'm also easily pleased.

I found the food in the MDR better than Windjammers and I'm a coffee snob so there was 1 barista at Cafe promenade and 1 barista in the star lounge that knew what they were doing. Great coffee if you snagged these 2 making it for you, otherwise it is pretty awful.

The ice show is spectacular, do.not.miss.it. also watching the morning show with Mitch and Elise is pretty funny too. ( I know who watches TV on a cruise, but it was funy).

Have they swapped it to Giovanni's have they? In January we had it in Chops and it is a great night. Chops food is awesome and I had a really fun night.

So I bought 2 refreshments packages before the change for our christmas cruise. Phew! if the new price is $40 bucks. Hooley dooley!!! :eek:

Am considering a RCI drink package and just had a few questions.

 

This would be for cruises departing from Australia (so keeping in mind that the drink menus are priced higher than normal, as they include a gratuity).

 

Royal Replenish Question

 

Does this include Lemon Lime & Bitters?

 

Inclusions on website:

This all-inclusive package includes our full selection of premium coffee, premium tea, and bottled water, including sparkling and still.

But that's not all. You can also choose fresh squeezed orange juice, non-alcoholic cocktails, and any fountain soda, which includes a Coca Cola® souvenir cup. Bottoms up!

 

Thank you

Luckie,

I had the Royal Replenish in January on Voyager SYD to NZ and I had a couple of LLB's and I handed over my card and they didn't say anything, just swiped it no problems. :-)

yes in January the dream works breakfast for our cruise was already booked out so pre book if you are keen.

We didn't think we missed much though as we saw all the parades and found all the characters for the photo ops throughout the cruise.

A good spot for the parade was the outside chairs at the pig and whistle. The other good spot we found was sitting on the stools at cafe promenade :-)

I've lived here ALL my life, born and bred Wangi boy, Newie first started to be used in about the mid 70s, prior to that it was just Town.

And then of course the debate about whether it's Newie or Newy... :D I've only been here for 25 years so technically only just a local :rolleyes:;):D

sorry Newie = Newcastle.

haha, funny that Newy people think that everyone knows where and what Newy is ;-)

Nope I throw mine away while cruizing, saves weight for more duty free :eek:

love it, "holiday undies". :-)

I have the Donner bag as well. It is the best bag. I looked everywhere for a great cross body bag. Nothing came close to what i imagined I wanted. I had similar requirements as you. Then I read a thread on here about the donner bag and managed to find one and yay amazon would send it to Aus!

I used it all over our NZ cruise in January. I could fit a whole heap in the bag.:)

Hello

How come I've only just discovered this thread?

More importantly I'm on a cruise with 2 people listed here already!yippee!

Please add

22Dec...PrimaCruiser...Explorer of the Seas.. Xmas New Year Pacific Islands and Fiji.

cheers :-) Trish.

yep agreed ^^ as everyone else has said ...we just walked up the beach and then swam out. I didn't end up snorkelling just swam around but people in my group did with no issue and no tour.

wow what a turn around in a few months. :(

we were in Dunedin in January on RCI VOS and we hired a car from Dunedin Detours direct from their website. Pick up drop off no problem super easy, car we chose was a buzz box Nissan Tiida for 2 adults 2 kids direct from port chalmers. Biggest issue we had on the day was keeping my 8 year old from vom bombing in the car on the way back from driving to the albatross centre.

thanks for a great review. I'm on voyager in January, so I'm eagerly reading all the latest reviews. :-)

thank you for all these ideas. I have some of these games already and have created a wish list of some we might take along with us.

:)

thankyou all.

I'm not really a seasoned bingo player, i've just been on a couple P & O cruises and had a great time with their Bingo.

:-)

First time cruiser on Royal next year but have cruised previously on P&0 and I'm just wondering what Bingo is like on RCI ? Is it really fun like P&O do or different? I read a post somewhere that said Bingo was all automated with machines and you don't use dabbers etc? Also what's the price and set up etc, e.g how many games do you get to play.

cheers and thanks.:)

Yes our event page over on FB is more active and social than the roll call here for our cruise.

I find the FB event page easier as i'm on FB more frequently anyway, but I still check CC as I find the information posts on here very useful.

CONVERSATION!

 

talk to each other about your day. What did you do? What will you do in the evening. What will you do tomorrow. What is your best memory of the cruise so far.

 

Sometimes we will play word games or trivia at the table too. We like to teach currency/country or capital cities as a game. Sometimes my DH will give the kids a little history lesson about the port we are visiting the next day = you can get the "port" sheets from guest services and talk about them at dinner too. Perhaps too advanced for your 2 year old, but you can engage the 6 year old with conversation. You can even do video diaries each night - taping them talk about what they did that day.

 

We generally cruise during the school year, and the teachers' will often ask the kids to complete a vacation journal. So sometimes, I will let them work on their journals for a bit. This is a good activity for your 6 year old. Do they have an ipod/ipad/leap frog that they can take pictures with. Let your child take pictures to remember their trip, and they can later print and add those pictures to their journal.

oh thank you for such a great idea. I didn't think about a video journal. Also When you say the kids do a paper journal , do you just use a scrapbook type thing with big plain pages or something different? cheers!

Hi all. Will be a first time RCI cruiser on VOTS next January and I have 2 kids that will each be in Explorers and Voyagers.

Was reading a review on here that said that there was a limit of 50 kids max for each age grouping. Is this about right? If so, do you only get one entry to AO per day so that everyone might get a chance? Of course there will be lots of kids, I'm expecting that it's school holidays. Just wondering how it's all managed.

Another review said that the cruise to NZ January 2015, there were 1200 kids on board.

I have not cruised with my kids before, so kids club is all new to me.

cheers