SUN PRINCESS "DAY BY DAY" CRUISE REPORT..ASIA..21st MAY...

[S&D]

Hi all...

 

well..we now have trivia rage too....we had complaints about our team..(we have won about 10 times)...."why do they always get the prizes...they always win!"......

 

 

well...what can I say...maybe it's because we do win...just a stab in the dark here of course..... we know the answers...sorry...our apologies to everyone else for winning the luggage tags, luggage labels, hats, bags, passport holders..what are we supposed to do...hand the prizes back..or maybe not play at all???....go figure!...:D ...you have to laugh people!!!!

 

anyway..rumours flying today...2 to 4 hour delay, no telling until the morning, we hope we make our flight, we must be there by 1pm. ....so maybe we will make it..we will see.

 

very rough today and last night..Shirl got moved to a balcony as she had such an allergic cough to the spraying in the cabins...anyway...she is OK now.

 

anyway people....I will not post again until we get home in a day or 2. Good luck to the future cruise, hope you all have a ball.

 

Over and out..

S&D

 

Love to our girls of course, also Wendy, Jackie, Anne, Addy, Steve and Rob...

 

XXXX

[jarbinks]

hi all just have been notified we will not be leaving till at least 8pm tomorrow as ship in late and needs cleaning.cannot board untill after 3pm.looks like a long wait down at the terminal as have taxi booked and to late to change.weather looks like clearing thursday so trip out shouldn' be as rough as one coming in.thanks S&D for the info been very helpful hpoe you make your flight cheers David

[margord]

Sandra and Dave,

 

Thoroughly enjoyed "taking" this cruise with you. Miss you on the Diamond board. By the way, I want you on my team for trivia.

 

Marilee

[Ricane]

Thanks so much, think we all looked forward to your daily posts, they were great. You have the right attitude - some people are not happy unless they can whinge and be miserable :eek: :eek:

 

We're going on our 1st cruise in August and can't wait but I just don't get why all this RAGE - too bad if you have to wait at the laundry, I would view this as a place to meet others and make the best of it. Hope you get lots of use out of the luggage tags etc. that you won in the trivia contest:p Some people are funny!

 

Thanks again for your input, it's people like you that keep the boards alive and fun. I've got heaps of tips and information that I would never have got from our agent - think I'll be giving them some tips.:)

 

Only 10 weeks to go for our cruise...............

 

Ella

[goody1]

Thanks so much, think we all looked forward to your daily posts, they were great. You have the right attitude - some people are not happy unless they can whinge and be miserable :eek: :eek:

 

We're going on our 1st cruise in August and can't wait but I just don't get why all this RAGE - too bad if you have to wait at the laundry, I would view this as a place to meet others and make the best of it. Hope you get lots of use out of the luggage tags etc. that you won in the trivia contest:p Some people are funny!

 

Thanks again for your input, it's people like you that keep the boards alive and fun. I've got heaps of tips and information that I would never have got from our agent - think I'll be giving them some tips.:)

 

Only 10 weeks to go for our cruise...............

 

Ella

 

Don't listen to any negative posts and certainly do not let them put you off.

My wife and I cruised on the PD when it was still the Regal Princess in Alaska in 2001 and absolutely loved it.

It was also our first cruise and now we are completely hooked. You'll love it!

[CRUISING ALONG]

Hi S & D ( Sandra and Dave)

Welcome home. Hope the ship arrives in Fremantle early enough for you to catch yourflight back to Adelaide.

Thankyou so much for posting everyday. It has been a real pleasure to follow your cruise through your experiences.

Congratulations on winning trivia 10 times. Fingers crossed we do half as well on our cruise.

Regards

CRUISING ALONG:)

[arxcards]

Still @ sea, but land is on the Horizon.

 

Hope you get to your flight in time.

 

Thanks for letting us come along for the ride!

[Cinnabel]

I had just made the same comment on KoolKrewser's site above this one, Geoff.

 

Sandra and Dave's daily reports have really become addictive, haven't they. We are all glued to the monitor (like any good cliff hanger) to see if they will make their 1pm flight!

 

The way Perth airport has been going lately. They will probably race to get there, only to find a long delay with their flight.

[arxcards]

I had just made the same comment on KoolKrewser's site above this one, Geoff.

 

Sandra and Dave's daily reports have really become addictive, haven't they. We are all glued to the monitor (like any good cliff hanger) to see if they will make their 1pm flight!

 

The way Perth airport has been going lately. They will probably race to get there, only to find a long delay with their flight.

Of Course Cinnabel,

As much as we really don't want Sandra & Dave to face any transfer rage or airport counter rage, we want to see them get home on time.......... so they can start that review. ;)

[margord]

Sandra and Dave,

 

Just wanted to say welcome home.

 

Marilee

[ROSEBERRY]

Hi Sandra and Dave, I hope you arrived home safe and sound and enjoyed the "opening of luggage ceremony " with your beautiful girls and grandbubs:)

 

Reading this record of your day by day cruise, has brought back memories of the wonderful review you wrote following your cruise Syd - Bangkok in 2004. It inspired us so much and was the reason we ended up joining you on the Sapphire Princess with the same itinerary in 2005, and then on the Diamond Princess Syd - San Francisco in 2006. Now you have us thinking Asia 2010:cool:

 

I'm sure you've created the same desire in many more C C members reading this thread, so maybe a group booking is in the air. I've printed a copy of this thread in readiness;).

 

Well I guess after you've got the laundry sorted, you'll be back to the excitement of planning for your next cruise in Feb.

Enjoy,

Kathy.

[S&D]

Hi to everyone..

 

Well. we did in fact miss our plane due to the ship's late arrival. Nevertheless...they did re schedule where possible to get people home as soon as possible. We had changed our own flight a few hrs earlier...when it was certain that we would be late in arriving. This cost us $300 ..but Princess in Sydney are looking into it for us.

 

Anyway..dear Vera and Ian gave us a bed for the night and we had a lovely day with them and a nice chinese meal for tea. We flew out very early today, got home at lunch time, and are very very tired..(not good as we have to go to work tomorrow)..:eek:

 

It's lovely to be home in our own bed....we always miss the old waterbed when we are away.

 

So now we turn our attention to the next cruise on the Diamond Princess in Feb with our very dear friends from NZ...we are looking forward to that and the anytime dining too!

 

I will probably not do a full review, as I think there will be a few of our CC members putting a couple of reviews on...and I have done my best with this day to day report...so will leave it to the others to add some further comments.

 

*

*

 

In summary....

 

PLUS POINTS

WE HAD A WONDERFUL TIME>>>:D

Lovely well maintained ship.

Good food.

Nice crew.

Great cruise director and staff.

Fab Captain.

Good ports..pity about Malacca being cancelled.

Fantastic medical attention from Dr's etc.

Good entertainment overall

Nice relaxing cruise with wonderful weather and calm seas.

LOVELY FRIENDS TO CRUISE WITH....:)

 

 

NEGATIVE POINTS

 

TOO MANY people for size of ship

NOT ENOUGH laundry facilities.... they should offer the laundry bag deals..:(

LOTS of moaning and wining people...never heard such a lot of whingers!!:eek:

Crowded buffett and atrium areas most of the time.

Strangely we had a very grumpy/disinterested cabin attendant this trip...so unusual for princess, we hope for better luck next time!!

 

 

 

We had a lovely lovely time as always....and the final word is:

the cruise is what YOU make it !!!!!!

 

 

I will leave the in depth reviews to others, and hope you have all enjoyed this thread!

 

Love and best wishes to all our friends who made this a very memorable experience...until the next time - my dears!!!!

 

Sincerely

 

S&D

[newyork40]

 

Dear Sandra,

 

It has been wonderful reading all about your trip!, was such a pity I wasn't able to make it to "The Royal" as was looking forward to meeting you (and your friends!). You mentioned the Chinese restaurant "Lotus Garden" in Connolly, well I have been there many times and live just 5 mins away from there!!.

 

Regards,

 

Trishxxx

[kaseyoz]

sandra it has been a delight catching up with your wanderings during this cruise sharing both the good and the bad.

 

I hope you have a restful day (after all the unpacking etc) before hitting work tomorrow.

 

thank you so much for taking time out to share with us back in cold wet sydney

[LouLou28]

Thanks for your 'live' review Sandra ... I thoroughly enjoyed checking in every day for the update!

 

It seems like you had a wonderful cruise (even though you were unwell for some of it) - and it was great to see you didn't let the little things get in the way of a great holiday!

 

Well done!!!

 

Thanks so much again!:)

[margord]

Sandra,

 

Thanks so much for inviting me to join you on this post and keep track of your travels. I have enjoyed reading everything you have written. Now, lets get ready for the Diamond in February.

 

Marilee

[mildew1951]

Thanks for your friendship and company Sandra and Dave and to all the other wonderful CC people we met first at the Royal and then on board. We had a wonderful time on this cruise despite the illness going around. We were lucky, only got the usual head colds which only slowed us down slightly. Hope we can do it again soon.

 

With your indulgence Sandra I have posted a few of the dot points I sent home by email to my brother in law and sister in law who are now on the current sailing to Asia. Hopefully these might assist some others. Apologies if I mention anything you have already covered.

 

Internet is 75c per minute casual and it is slow but you can buy blocks of time that reduce per minute cost eg I bought 150 minutes for $75 and received 20 bonus minutes for signing up on first day. Internet cafe is on deck 7 aft next to photo place and library.

 

Ask at pursers office on deck 5 atrium for your gratuities to be removed from your account. They will get you to sign a form and then remove these which will save you $300. You can then do your own thing with tipping if you wish although all services bought on board carry a 10% surcharge as a tip.

 

Take a tip from us and ask for your beds to be separated to singles. The cabin steward will do it for you no problems and you will be amazed how much extra room you have as the cabins are very small and cramped with a queen bed.

 

If you like good coffee buy a coffee card from any of the coffee places for $31. Gets you 15 coffees eg latte, cappuccino etc (the best). The coffee in the restaurants is average and in the Horizon Court buffet it is terrible.

 

Bring some $1 coins for washers and dryers ($1 to wash and $1 to dry)

 

There is 24 hour room service at no charge and you can get a continental breakfast delivered up to 10:30am.

 

Bingo costs $10 for 1 card of 5 games and $20 for 3 cards etc.

 

Service is excellent and food is very good. We have a bit of gastro going around the ship at present so we are not allowed to serve ourselves at buffets etc.

 

You will probably get at least 2 formal nights so bring the suit. Also an island night so a flowery shirt and a ley if you have them. There is also a western night although hardly anyone dressed up on this cruise. When you cross the equator they have a ceremony with king Neptune and you can volunteer to be covered in eggs, flower, spaghetti and dumped in the pool if you wish.

 

Cruise director is Tim Donovan. An English guy who is really good and funny too. Quite a few poms in the crew and lots of poms as passengers. There is a daily newspaper delivered to your cabin in the evening called the Princess Patter, it lists the current activities around the ship and the program for the next day. Carry this with you and get extra copies from the pursers office. There are heaps of activities around the ship like trivia, scrapbooking, camera learning, cards, board games, sports etc or you can just veg out on deck or in your cabin.

 

We got our grog through in Freo without any problems although it was in our big cases. Just wrap it in your clothes and leave in boxes it came in. I believe they are doing random checks so it is hit and miss.

 

 

Bring your water bottles for walking around or you can purchase these on the ship. Fill from cabin tap (good desalinated water) or you have to buy.

 

Shampoos, conditioners, body lotions and soap are provided. Good quality.

 

Hair dryer provided in cabins.

 

If you have more than one electrical appliance bring a small power board as you only have a single GPO in cabin.

 

Bring a couple of light sweaters as it can get cool in some of the lounge areas.

 

Langkawi is a wonderful place. Very scenic but hot and humid. If you want cigarettes or alcohol this is the place. Totally duty free. I saw Chivas Regal scotch 1 litre for $22 our money and smokes by the carton for 40c a packet of 20. But the alcohol police on board will take booze off you and hold til end of cruise. You can bring on 1 bottle of wine each and some soft drink if you wish no problem but they charge you $20 corkage in restaurants or you can bypass this by drinking it in your cabin.

 

Wines are from about $26 to $100. A couple of decent Aussie reds are around $35.

 

Don’t try to bring any spirits on at Langkawi although the stuff is as cheap there as I’ve seen anywhere, e.g. 1 litre Chivas Regal for $22 and 1 litre Baileys for $15. The alcohol police were at the gang plank to take it away from passengers who tried to bring it on board. This was the only port I noticed them doing it probably because it was so cheap. They will just confiscate and return to you at the end of the cruise (last night) you don’t lose it, so if you are planning to bring some home this is the place to do it (so cheap).

 

Kuala Lumpar markets in town have very cheap copy watches around $60 malaysian for Rolex Oyster but you need to barter hard. The market is also good for clothes and other knick nacks e.g. luggage, souvenirs etc. If you don’t book a tour into KL a taxi will cost you $180 malaysian for the round trip (transport only) or $240 if you want a bit of sightseeing. Cheaper than the ships tours and you can buy taxi tickets outside the terminal at Port Kelang. (about 70km into KL) If you go in and I would recommend it, go early and ask the driver to stop at the Petronas Towers (twin towers). Go straight inside to the queue and get free tickets to go up in the tower for the view. You will be given a time slot and will have to come back later but driver will arrange to bring you back. You can have the driver drop you anywhere a number of times and arrange to meet later say 2 hours. They are always on time and reliable. If you don’t get to towers early you will miss the tower view as the tickets go quick. The towers are spectacular. Also ask the driver to take you to the big mosque. It is ginormous and looks like a castle from Disneyland. You can go inside but need to cover up in muslim custom which they will arrange for you. Architecture in KL is awesome.

 

Singapore is very clean but has gotten more expensive each time we have gone there. Some things are still cheap if you shop around e.g. electrical. Go to Lucky Plaza in Orchard Road (Orchard Station) or Audioland at Clark Quay (Clark Quay Station). The underground MRT railway is fast, inexpensive and easy to use and will get you around everywhere you want to go. Taxis are metered and cheap and drivers speak English.

 

Bring some cold and flu tablets (plenty), vicks vaporub and a couple of nasal inhalers. Can't stress this strong enough because colds are rife. Cabin Steward will provide plenty of tissues in your cabin. Colds are rife all over ship so be prepared for this. Norovirus is almost eradicated now and luckily we have avoided it to date but both have heavy colds.

 

Hope these points are of use to someone.

 

Cheers

[kobecat]

Hi Annette & Jeff, we have loved reading this thread from your trip. We were originally booked on the Sun when it was meant to be returning to the US in April and was of course cancelled and kept here so you lovely people could cruise her to Asia. :o

 

I was interested to read you said it was 10% on top of purchases. All US based ships and also the Sapphire from Sydney add 15% to drinks and purchases.

 

Did you remove your tips totally and tip less than their recommended tips? Sounded like you did as you said you "saved money". I know tipping does not sit easily with we Aussies but that is what the staff usually work for. Do you know if it is any different while they are sailing in Australian waters or do they rely on the tips as they usually do? We just mentally add it to the cost of our cruise, but of course Princess is charging way more for their Australian based cruises than they do anywhere else so it is hard to justify. I would hate to think the crew are missing out though. They get paid in US$ normally and with the weak US$ they are already badly penalised.

 

Glad you had a great cruise and thanks for all the points.

 

Cheers

 

Beryl

[mildew1951]

Hi Beryl

 

Although we removed the gratuities from our account we thought it prudent to tip those with whom we had direct and the most contact particularly where they gave excellent service e.g. our cabin steward Danilo who was a wonderful person and nothing ever seemed too much for him. We were in cabin B517 on Baja deck. We also tipped our table waiter and his assistant although not so much as Danilo. I guess at the end of the day we gave what we felt comfortable with and yes we probably saved some money over the usual tipping charge. Tipping is not a culture Aussies have been brought up on so it is a personal thing I guess. We bought a 42" LCD TV in Singapore and saved about $800, so we tipped the taxi driver generously because he was very helpful in getting it and us to the ship in the tight time frame we had.

 

Guessing, I would say we probably tipped overall an amount near to what Princess had originally added to our account anyway, except we directed it where we wanted it to go.

 

One other thing we did was to register with the future cruise consultant an intention to cruise again. By signing a form we signified our intent to sail again within 4 years. This cost us nothing at the time but gets us several advantages; Up to $150 PP on board credit on the future cruise, a full refund up to the due date of the final payment and the ability to make one change to another cruise after we had booked without penalty. Also the deposit is 50% of the stated brochure deposit. Any other benefits offered on specific sailings would also be ours to obtain. We thought this was a good deal, given we didn't have to pay anything up front and will ensure we eventually get our Platinum Captain's Circle membership, we got our Gold level on this cruise and are 1 day short of Platinum :-(.

 

Cheers and happy cruising.

[Crown Prince]

"Guessing, I would say we probably tipped overall an amount near to what Princess had originally added to our account anyway, except we directed it where we wanted it to go."

 

Sorry, A & J:

You misunderstand the Cruise Line Policy on tipping. The workers you tipped had to put your money into the Tip Pool, to be shared with others behind the scenes. The people you liked actually got cheated by you. I hope, on your next cruise, you will do the right thing and leave the tip in place and then tip the Special Servers extra. Ask the Crew. They will explain how it works.

[icemaiden2310]

does anyone else get a strong feeling of.................:eek:

déjà vu............

[newyork40]

 

Icy,

 

I can feel the "tipping" hot potato rearing its ugly head again!.

 

Trish:rolleyes:

[arxcards]

"Guessing, I would say we probably tipped overall an amount near to what Princess had originally added to our account anyway, except we directed it where we wanted it to go."

 

Sorry, A & J:

You misunderstand the Cruise Line Policy on tipping. The workers you tipped had to put your money into the Tip Pool, to be shared with others behind the scenes. The people you liked actually got cheated by you. I hope, on your next cruise, you will do the right thing and leave the tip in place and then tip the Special Servers extra. Ask the Crew. They will explain how it works.

 

You are absolutely correct with how the autotips and the pool works.

 

Alas, we still don't have a proper concept of how AWS works in these parts. Automatic tipping (regardless of service quality) is unheard of anywhere else in Australia. Far from being the crew's responsibility, P&O\Princess should explain the system upfront in their brochures. Maybe then we will not misunderstand what the cruise line wants us to do.

[icemaiden2310]

I think the bottom line is... its YOUR money give it to whoever YOU want and if u dont want to tip.......DONT..........

 

What u do with you money is no one elses business so there ...

[Guest012]

Hi Annette and Jeff glad you had a great time....and poohoo to those who jump on the tipping bit......sure people lie in wait...bit like the alcohol smuggling oooppppps now i have gone and done it....lol...bravo to Icy ................... cheers Shiona and John