yialanliu

Yes, the 13th!

One more question, anyone know which places are the best for skydiving? I've seen possible excursions in Auckland, Bay of Isles and Tauranga. Any you would recommend?

Pay them, I have reallocated before, complaining bad service and move a portion from one person to another once but never actually deducted and many times paid extra in cash. Think of it as another tax, Americans are the most dependent on tips, hair dressers, waiters, doormen, postal workers, all make a little extra from tips, some rely on it for a large portion of their income.

It's an American thing since I used to make $2.50 an hour and tips were like $10-15 an hour as a waiter in college. If you skimped on the tip, I would be making significantly less than the $6.75 minimum at the time as that is part of the American pay system for people who were tipped, so when foreigners or others don't tip, it really hurts as that's like 80% of my income gone. Imagine how bad you would have to be to lose 80% of your income, more than just one little mistake I hope.

Thanks David! That is definitely good to know.

If anyone has some advice or tips that would be great. I've been on 5 cruises so not a total newbie but also definitely not as experienced as many of yall here!

Hi all,

First time cruising down in New Zealand and I have a few questions and couldn't find too much in the search and hopefully someone with mroe experience or a local Kiwi/Aussie could give some help. Normally I try the roll call but since so few of us are on those for non US cruises, trying my luck here?

My itinerary is as follows:

Do you know which ports are tender ports? I was thinking I'll book the cruise excursions for those and I was trying to check and on the board, it says Auckland is a tender port which suprises me being such a large city but that doesn't affect me so much. Do you know about the others?

Next, what are some of the recommended excursions? I have two little ones, a 2 year old and a 5 year old so somethign that is family friendly would be awesome. If you have any must dos or good for them, please share!

It says we arrive at 6AM Sydney, does anyone know if a 12:00PM flight is catchable assuming no special priority disembarkation or would we need that?

Lastly, I have seen reviews that the 8th floor being aboe Bliss is a horrible level. Are there any other places that would not be recommended to book?

Thanks!

Yi

Wow I was just researching them actually.

rivercruiseadvisor.com/cruise-companies/viking-river-cruises-vs-uniworld-river-cruises/

Looks to fit what we need a bit better.

Oh and cruising when done right is not much more if any than a multilegged trip so my belief is thank goodness I was brought up in a cruising family, the cost isn't bad at all in my opinion. :)

Hi all,

I just came back from a Viking Rhine trip and I would rate it a 7/10. My major complaint was that my wife and I were completely out of the age group being 25 and everyone else looked to be ~60 or older. I love the river cruise aspect of being on a river but the tours and all that were extremely slow paced and also unfortunately, we also felt isolated as we don't have kids to talk about let alone grandkids being in a very different stage of life.

Does anyone know of another company that caters to the younger folks or am I stuck with the ocean big companies if I want more diversity?

The one funny thing is there was no small kids which is great, but it'd be even better if there was a company that did a similar type of thing without gearing it to retirees.

Thanks,

Yi Liu