mr walker

Our Australia Day lunch 😁🍺

HAPPY AUSTRALIA DAY 2024!!!!!!

Family BBQ today with 3 generations here to celebrate our great country. Steak, sausages & chicken kebabs 🙂 Oh and some salad 🙂 A few cold beers to keep us hydrated - it's forecast for 40C here in Penrith today.

Enjoy you day!!! Cheers

10 minutes ago, MicCanberra said:

Wish they don't  go bigger than Radiance but most likely will be Ovation size or larger.

 

Us too - Radiance class is the best for us, or Voyager as second choice -any bigger just doesn't suit as well for us.

4 hours ago, MicCanberra said:

The cyclone is expected to possibly hit maybe around Townsville but it may further north or south or east or west they are guessing.

Maybe they need to calibrate their ouija board??

2 hours ago, cruiser3775 said:

If you take an official ship shore excursion that visits wineries, most lines will allow you to bring back one or more bottles and not confiscate them until disembarkation. 

I don't see how that would work. Returning to a ship we have never seen a skerrik of interest by the crew scanning our bags & collecting our belongings (if required) of where we may have been and whether we went on a 'ship-tour' or whatever.

26 minutes ago, arxcards said:

 

I normally wouldn't borrow, nor mention the source, but since one of their writers likes to copy/paste comments from this forum without attribution, it is only fair. The time was 3:45pm.

 

👍😁

36 minutes ago, yes!yes!yes! said:

there's an 80s theme tonight

 

 

for our Majestic cruise in a few weeks (10 Feb), there are a number of "Party" nights showing on the schedule including ABBA, Motown, C&W, 80's.

On Princess do people typically dress up 'in theme' for these nights like on other cruiselines, or is the dress-up more for the entertainment crew? On P&O, Carnival & RC etc, many passengers dress-up for the evening & photos are a big part of it.

View from yacht club at Airlie, having lunch & a couple of beers - well worth the tender ride in.

Note: photo used zoom on camera & the ship is further away than it looks in the photo.

We had done the aquaduck tour prior to having lunch - not sure if it still operates as I saw it was up for sale a couple of years back.

Just so we can all understand what caused the problem to be aware ourselves, what was the thing that initiated the problem? Did you incorrectly enter your PIN which started the chain of events ie needing to answer security questions etc? It seems unusual for the problem to occur in NZ.

Most are conscious of needing a fallback to our 'primary' card, without the need to carry large sums of cash. We have a debit card, and a travel money card as backup should something go wrong. I don't want to spend my holiday washing dishes if my card is declined 😮

Glad you were able to get through it with your daughter's help

5 hours ago, cruiser3775 said:

 Note that, even when this happens, it does not stop HAL from charging you 19% gratuities when you order drinks.

The auto-grats applied to drink purchases etc have nothing to do with gratuity applicable to services such as dining waiters & stateroom stewards 

Looks a great option Lyle.

Adding to what Mic already replied re the Sth Pacific Islands

- Noumea is on the main New Caledonian island Grande Terre & is a modern city & Lifou is an island in the Loyalty Islands province of New Caledonia  which is more rustic & basically a beach day

- Vila is a relatively modern city (by Sth Pacific standards) on Efate island of Vanuatu. Mystery Island is an uninhabited 'cruise-ship' only island, where locals come from nearby islands for the day - it again is basically a beach day.

- Lautoka & Suva are on opposite sides of the Fijian main island of Viti Levu, Savusuva is on Vanua Levu Island (I have not been there) & Dravuni is a very small island which is a beach day

All of these places are very interesting to visit, each different to each other. 

Based on you updated plan, when will you likely be in the Sydney area as I am keen to meet with you & Lynn and maybe visit Penrith & the Blue Mountains - Penrith is about 50km west of Sydney CBD and at the base of the mountains.

Cheers

Whilst none of us won, the good news is that Powerball has jackpotted to $100M in the next draw & we have a 'chance' to win that 🙂 Should be able to have a decent get-together for that!!

1 hour ago, Ozwoody said:

You know I'm surprised that no one has challenged me on my harvesting bromeliads from our bromeliad tree, what no gardeners out there?

I had/have no clue of what you were taking about & decided to not show my ignorance 🙂 I guess I could always look it up on my phone 😮

maybe instead of a ship, the process can be quicker if passengers arrive on a Yellow Submarine?

58 minutes ago, NSWP said:

Papua New Guinea would be off the cruise list for now, what with the locals playing up, looting, rioting, 15 dead in Port Moresby and Lae.   Out of control.  Been there twice, I don't like it anyway.

53 minutes ago, Mareblu said:

I think you’re right, sadly.  I would dearly love to visit my mother’s first husband’s resting place in Bomana War Cemetery, but that may not be possible for a long time.

 Not good news for PNG. We are glad we got to visit the Milne Bay area on our Sun Princess cruise in 2017 as Tracey's Dad served there in WW2.

I really do not know how the country can go forward. Australia has poured money into PNG for decades now, but it seems the country is no better today than before.

Quite a tale there John 🙂 Not sure I would have been as adventurous as you were.

I have learned to accept my shortcomings as regards to home projects etc & luckily Tracey recognises that I am pretty useless when it comes to anything involving tools and working with my hands. She accepts that in that regards I am somewhat similar to Frank Spencer or Victor Meldrew. Luckily I had a career that used my brain 🙂 

Luckily, I realised early in my life that having friends who were even worse in that regards was a good thing as it didn't make me look so bad. So few of my mates are particularly useful either 🙂  The mate who built a shelf for the microwave that gave way in the middle of the very first night has set a low bar for me.

My lot in life then has been to pay others to do many of the things that perhaps would be DYI for others.

20 hours ago, mr walker said:

Well, I'll play along on the idea of us doing somehting as a group - tonight's Ozlotto jackpot is $5M & we have a ticket. Let's see what we win & then we can make a plan 🙂 

Sad news I'm afraid - no win!!! 😮

Will keep trying.......................................

15 hours ago, OzKiwiJJ said:

You had to do that at most NZ airports at one time - mid-90's I think.

Oh, that makes sense. I visited Palmy regularly as my major customer in NZ had their plant there. Didn't get to too many other regional airports as mostly travelled thru Auck or ChCh.

3 hours ago, NSWP said:

I will be drinking out of a paper cup soon, with the packing being done re my move end of Feb, to Moruya.

Good luck with the packing mate. I hope all goes well with the packing & the move.

Cheers,

Neil & Tracey

2 hours ago, colourbird said:

 

Another problem in America apart from tips was prices displayed on menus or in stores never showed the full price as they added tax at the time of payment.

From some American colleagues the story is that businesses refused to be tax collectors for the govt, or at least want people to know how much is going to the govt in the transaction. Not sure that their point is being made as they are collecting the tax, the customer is paying the tax & the govt is getting the tax 🙂 

Closer to home, well NZ. I recall a levy being placed on passengers flying out of Palmerston Nth airport. The airlines refused to collect it by adding/including in fare and so you had to line up & pay the fee and then show the receipt at the boarding gate.

It's a strange world. 

2 hours ago, OzKiwiJJ said:

Nah! Dream bigger than that! We'd all do a cruise with Lyle and Lynn. Maybe just a short one though!

Well, I'll play along on the idea of us doing somehting as a group - tonight's Ozlotto jackpot is $5M & we have a ticket. Let's see what we win & then we can make a plan 🙂 

18 hours ago, OzKiwiJJ said:

Oddly enough just after we bought the ticket I thought it would be fun to host a cruise get-together for all us regulars if we won the big prize! We'd have to wait until Lyle got here next year though.

Oh I can see it now. Julie & Rolf hosting a party at the Cruise Bar on the eve of Lyle & Lynn's cruise departure with all the CC folk attending 🙂 Who knows. maybe it will happen!

16 hours ago, boeckli said:

 

Boarded Majestic on Dec 10. Arrived at OPT 11.45, walked on to ship at 12.10 (15 mins of that was taken up going through the security snake)

Thanks for that. With no 'allocated' times for boarding, I will just book our shuttle pick up for 10:30 am & so should be at terminal by around 11:30 am & see how we go.

We can always drop the luggage and adjourn to a nearby cafe or pub - we will be on holiday 🙂 

We were on Ovation in February. There were shuttles from the port to downtown Dunedin. I think it was US$25 or so return. Can't be sure as we spent the day in Port Chalmers this time.

20 minutes ago, OzKiwiJJ said:

So I'm hoping my shopping luck carries through to the upgrade bid. Oh, and we also bought a Powerball ticket. If we win that we might just spring for a suite! 🤣

 

If you win big Powerball jackpot, a few of your friends here on CC will hoping you spring for a cruise for us - doesn't have to be a suite 🙂