Bazandgiz

Masks have been compulsory for quite some time, certainly since early December. There was a lot of covid when we were on Grand over Christmas, and from what I’ve heard from relatives on board the current voyage, it’s even worse now. Masks are a pain, but they’re worth it if it stops you getting sick and being confined to your cabin for 7 days.

What date is this in effect from? Our cruise started on 19th December 2022, has it changed since then?

In my experience it is more expensive to buy onboard than in advance. On our Christmas cruise it cost $289 for a 4-device internet package, but would have been about $220 in advance. We waited until on board because we wanted to use onboard credit.

I'm a "technology all the way" kind of person, but Journey View is just unusable, absolutely hideous design. I loved the old web version, went through the night before and starred all the events I wanted to go to and away we went. We went old school this time and took a highlighted version of the Patter around with us - I haven't done that in donkey's years.

We had coffee packages on the Grand over Christmas, there was no mention of different prices or amounts of drinks, it was the same 15 specialty coffees we have always had in the past. We still got free specialty tea after we had used up our packages as well.

We ate in the Crown Grill for the first time on our Christmas cruise on the Grand. We're quite small eaters, so these kind of meals are generally wasted on us, but we had a free voucher so we thought we might as well give it a go. I had the filet mignon, and it was nice but not amazing - to be honest the one I had in the main dining room on NYE was nicer. My travel companion had the lamb chops and also said they were good, but not amazing. We ran out of room for dessert, so they packaged up a couple for us in a takeway container which was nice. I took a bite out of each but didn't love them. This is the trouble with food, it's all so subjective. All I really need to keep me happy on my Princess cruises is their oatmeal cookies, I love those things.

Thanks very much for that info, that's very helpful 🙂

I'll be on the Grand for Christmas too. I've done a couple of previous NZ Christmas cruises and have loved the festivities. I enjoy the gingerbread house making competition on Christmas day (despite being completely hopeless at it). There have been Christmas carols on Christmas eve, the theatre show on Christmas eve is usualy Christmas themed (cruise director reading children's letters to Santa etc). The food hasn't been particularly "festive" for Christmas day, but personally that doesn't bother me.

Oh yes, I don't want to do the Taieri Gorge again. I really liked it, but that was when it was a full trip and cost about $90 booked direct. A half sized trip at 3 times the price doesn't excite me much.

If you could ask in your group, that would be amazing, thank you!

Were there any local tour operators at Port Chalmers available for on-the-day bookings? I've been to Dunedin a couple of times before and done the Taieri Gorge railway and the city tour (and walked up Baldwin St, just to say I'd done it). I wouldn't mind a trip to Larnach Castle or Olveston House, but Princess' prices are stupidly high and more than I'm prepared to pay.

Or maybe some people don't place the same value on things as you do. As a fussy eater, I would highly suspect most of the food would be wasted on me, and I'm not a big wine drinker either. While I'd be interested in the experience in terms of atmosphere, it certainly wouldn't be worth $150 to me.

We're not big on-board spenders at all - gratuities are included in fares in Australia, we don't use ship excursions, not drinkers or gamblers, get coffee cards in exchange for mini bar. I'll probably have to suck up the higher priced internet, but it does ruffle my feathers a little.

Is MedallionNet more expensive to buy on board than it is to buy in advance? We definitely want internet on our upcoming cruise, but we want to use onboard credit for it, which it won't let us do for pre-booking. It seems unreasonable to wear a higher cost by being forced to do it this way. Has anyone ever had any success "negotiating" with the internet manager to obtain the pre-boarding price?

@Steelers36 are you still able to download the old Ocean app? I recently did my first Medallion cruise, and the journey view in the Medallion app is terrible, I couldn't use it at all. I liked the old version where I could browse the events listing and star my favourites.