mr walker

No Les, not too many dressed like that. There were some well-dressed folk for the Gatsby night, and many went to a deal of effort for the Back to School, Bianco & Halloween nights.

I think our experience would be "hmm-FIRST & last time with P&O for us". Just back from Pacific Adventure Bounty Cruise on Sat & guess that P&O and us are not a good match. We chose the cruise purely for the itinerary (Norfolk Is, Tonga, Fiji and Noumea) & we enjoyed them all. Good weather and spending times with friends and family was good & we met some nice people. Not all bad, & we did enjoy our time, but RC, Princess & Carnival are clearly a better match for us for sure. Food was just OK, food variety was poor, entertainment so-so & lack of communication & organisation was terrible. Staff did their best but the whole ship is just a bit off in terms of delivering a memorable experience. We didnt mind the ship itself and our 14th deck balcony cabin was really good. Anyway, we went with doubts that it would be what we would want, and we pretty well got that 🙂Still, we got 15N of no cooking and cleaning and the beer was cold and freely available 🙂 so not all bad.

G’day Les, just catching up on CC as we are on Pacific Adventure cruise - we are in Fiji now. Hope you are on the mend mate. Stay safe & hope to hear good news from you & catch up. We are thinking of you. Cheers Neil and Tracey

To me, P&O are giving options, & you can choose what best suits your needs. Based on your numbers for the extra fare less the OBC (Go vs Value), I would be happy to pay an extra $12.50 pp pn to choose our cabin & have flexible cancellation options. We depart on this year's version of Bounty Adventure next Fri (20th) - we booked a year ago on a special promotion, which was only available on Value & Value Plus fares, which was a 'free' upgrade to balcony. Our deposits were $49pp - total fare $2674pp (Value) - zero OBC. 8 days to go!!!

Don't know where this was taken, or who the 'old' guy on the right is, but Rosie is looking very well 🙂

duplicate post - the button must have been stuck 🙂

And when we are all gone who will be left to carry the country?

Many good folk live in Canberra. Problem is that we voters mostly have only a choice of which idiot to vote for & get fined if we don’t vote for one idiot or another idiot.

I worked with a guy for many years who always used the expression “dressed up like a pox doctors clerk”. I never understood the significance of the pox doctors clerk reference but it seemed the meaning was of being very well dressed. Thanks for bringing back an old memory - I’ll try and dress up appropriately for our next cruise 😁

Not saying it applies in this case, but some organisations apparently act to refine email lists from time to time by sending email blasts out and then deleting off addresses that come back as inactive or similar. Others send 'offers' to test out that you are still 'alive' by responding to them eg stores offering boosts or deals when the email responds. Or maybe Princess were just not interested in my answers 🙂

Perhaps they don't want to hear from me - survey email arrived on Wed & yesterday the link opened with Survey Closed 🙂

And even then, the Naval 'brass' had declared squatters rights on Garden Island, preventing any future cruise ship terminal development. 🙂

I think your concern is well founded. Good that you have alerted others

Thanks Les, it was a great day for the Panthers!!!! Lucky I didn't drink Crownies at the game, just a few mid-strengths before kick-off. On the way home from the ground, between leaving the carpark & getting onto the M4 for the run back to Penrith, pulled over at RBT testing set-up - passed OK 🙂 Had a few celebration drinks & a hotdog around midnight at home 🙂 Still celebrating today. Cheers

Panthers won NRL Grand Final v the infidels from north of the Tweed!!!! B2B2B or 3-peat as it’s being termed. We are still celebrating here at foot of the mountains 😁 Do we dare to dream of 4 in a row??

Agree 100% with that. Given a choice, dawn entry into Milford Sound is just special.

Anyone hear any news about QANTAS starting a cruiseline? I don't have many Virgin points, not enough for a cruise for sure, but have a lot of QANTAS ones! 🙂

Strewth that’s no good mate. Speedy recovery!

Thanks for sharing your comprehensive review - interesting read for sure.

Further proof that the world has gone mad! I grew up in Western Sydney & we attended non-airconditioned school on much warmer days, and then walked home afterwards. Didn't hurt us. We went to cricket practice straight after 🙂 Then walked home from there.

There are reports of some tip seekers here having gone hi-tech, using tap&go devices and even codes you scan with your phone to give them money. We went to a gig recently in a club & the artist had the code-scan system for the audience to leave a tip, I guess in acknowledgement that no-one carries cash anymore? I can see the day when onboard a ship, the waiter/bar staff will carry a tap&go device for tips 🙂

We have always been very conscious of re-boarding times on all our cruises. always aiming to be back well ahead of deadline, even telling our driver of an earlier time at times for JIC. But on our Wellington, NZ port call in 2019 we came as close to missing the ship as we ever want to. Returning from our non-ship tour of LOTR sites & WETA workshop tour, our mini-bus became stuck in roadwork traffic that was making us later & later for all-aboard time - our driver was becoming more & more concerned. There were 4 of us from the ship on the tour and the other 6 or 8 on the tour was staying in Wellington hotels, where they were to be dropped off enroute to our ship. At one point the driver asked the other passengers if it was OK for him to drop us off at the ship first and a number of the passengers objected to that insisting they were to be dropped off first as they got on first????. The driver just shrugged his shoulders and went along with them. We reached a point close to CBD & I was now mentally planning our way to Akaroa to catch up the ship tomorrow, when Tracey suggested we aim to go to the ship shuttle bus CBD pickup location to try and get to ship that way. The driver agreed with us & took a couple of turns & there parked was a bus with SHIP SHUTTLE sign - I checked my watch and it was now 5 minutes to all aboard time. I jumped off the bus with Tracey telling our driver don't go until we tell him & raced across the road to shuttle bus. The driver confirmed he was going to ship & I raced back across the road and told the tour driver he could go & ran with Tracey back to shuttle bus. I grabbed the other couple that were on the tour from the ship & said let's go - they thought I had abandoned them 🙂 I said no, we were all in this together & I was always coming back for them. The 4 of us jumped on the bus & were the only people onboard. I said to the driver "we were lucky to get the last bus" & he replied quickly "the last bus left 15 minutes ago, this is the backup bus to catch the stragglers." We sat there for what seemed to be a long time before the bus controller spoke on his radio and then told the driver "you can go now". The bus seemed to take forever to reach the ship, and when we pulled in, all the cones/barriers etc were gone, but we could see the gangway was still in place. We jumped off the bus and hustled towards the ship, made it up the gangway & thru the card scanner & we were aboard. The four of us, even though we had never known the other couple, went into a group hug, so relieved to having made it. Several minutes later, the captain came over the speakers saying " we would like to welcome back Mr & Mrs somename who apparently have decided to join us, and we can now depart". We WEREN'T the LAST ones aboard after all that. We agreed 'NEVER AGAIN'. It's funny now, but it wasn't at the time. At Akaroa & Dundedin we made sure we were back early from our tours 🙂

So sorry to hear this. Mr Gut was a stalwart on this board & I am saddened to learn of his passing. Condolences to his family and friends.

There's a few comedians on here, many of them are funnier than some of the 'professional' comedians. Well, they give me a laugh, smile or maybe a groan, more often than the 'funny' ones on TV or ships 🙂

Recorded last years and will just watch again - seen one NYE fireworks display, seen them all 🙂 NYE fireworks - 2nd biggest waste of money in 2023.