OzKiwiJJ

We're into day 2 of the crossing to Mauritius. It's still cool but just warm enough to have our first day in the Sanctuary. We've noticed the Bordeaux MDR has been a lot quieter after 7pm over the last three nights. Prior to that it was chocka at that time, and Good Spirits is quieter too. The early show times may account for the pattern change or maybe people have just found their ideal evening routines. We've been doing morning trivia and progressive trivia with mixed success but we're having fun. Afternoon tea has just arrived so bye for now!

You're just as likely to get better pours if you get to know the bartender well - as we did on Royal Princess in 2017. We ended up having predinner drinks most nights, along with a couple of our dinner companions, at the small Princess Live bar. The bartender must have liked us as he started free-pouring the spirits when making cocktails. His Captain's Bounty cocktail, which has four types of rum (usually a half nip of each) was lethal! 🤣

Consequently the cabin is narrower where the sofa is. I means they can squeeze more cabins in per deck.

However I believe they are now considered a non-native invasive species in NZ as they are invading habitats of native birds. Very sad as they are so pretty and they are a legume so nitrogen-fixing in soil. At one stage they were planted in cleared forestry sections to improve the soil before replanting.

Then you haven't understood the situation. Cabins A,B,C,D get allocated to the 11 nighter. Cabins E,F,G,H get allocated to the split itinerary. That's what the booking system gets told and the software isn't designed to allow willy nilly selections between those cabin groups, it would be too chaotic to program. It might be possible to do it though a Princess Vacation Planner or a big and very good TA, who have the knowledge/ability to manually over-ride the booking system.

It isn't anything new. I vaguely recall tickets being required at a port or two way back. They were probably shuttle bus ports.

We've rarely had a problem choosing a cabin in a location that suits us. We've only had to settle for a guarantee cabin once on Princess, for a last minute booking, and even then we ended up exactly where I thought we would. Even our upgrade bid for our current cruise put us in our favourite location. Am I just lucky? Maybe. We prefer cabins around the mid-levels, with cabin decks above and below. We prefer mid-aft but are happy with any location that is not too far forward.

It was probably more impressive watching it than it would have been doing it. Congrats on winning trivia. We're doing OK on Coral but with just two of us we don't have much hope of winning against the bigger teams. We're also doing progressive trivia and the trivia host for that is just plain evil, in a nice way of course.🤣

Explorer looked quite impressive doing the 180° turn before heading out.

Bon voyage!

I think it was more to spread out the flow of people outside the terminal. Pacific Explorer was also in port, doing a changeover by the number of passengers arriving with suitcases as we were heading out for the day. It was a bit chaotic. The disembarkation groups on Coral moved fairly quickly so it wasn't a big issue.

You really don't need to tip the waiters on Australian cruises, especially not American-style tipping of a token amount every time you see them. However if you do get a waiter that is especially good it would be better to remember their name and mention them in the post-cruise survey. If you really want to tip then $20 at the end of the cruise is always appreciated but not necessary.

We're on Coral parked right next to you 😊 The food on Coral has been excellent.

Check what deals the cruise line is offering for your flight. Sometimes it can work out cheaper than booking direct with the airline. For example we got a business class fare Sydney to Auckland on Qatar, which codeshares with Qantas, at only a little more than Qantas wanted for an economy seat on the same flight. The Qantas business class fare for that flight was several hundred dollars more.

We're just passing to the north of Rottnest Island heading east, directly into Fremantle Port.

The value charged for each excursion will show individually on your folio but with no description alongside it. Anyway proof of the total you paid and the new total of your booked excursions should be enough. Unfortunately I would not rely on Princess to sort it out automatically. I think you will have to go to the Excursions Desk and request them to fix it.

Yes, I forgot to change the setting to Standard. They've got plenty on to keep us amused on the sea days so far. However it's been quite cold and windy so apart from poking our noses through our balcony door we've stayed inside. We've got a bit of "rock and roll" today, just enough to be annoying when moving around the ship.

I'm not sure that even Princess understands its booking system!!!!

It's not really a fee. In some cases they don't offer the lowest category, eg BF, for selection. The cabins you can select start with the BE category so show as a slightly higher price. This is stupid, IMHO, as some people actually want to select BF cabins. And when there are only a few cabins in the next available category to select they may get snapped up quickly so the fare for selecting is then the next highest category.

Thanks, Lyle. I think I'll have enough teabags to last me through. I usually only drink tea with breakfast, or occasionally with lunch in the buffet. It's not worth buying more unless I have to. Besides my favourite blend is actually nicer than Twinings EB.

Those fares are quite different to those showing on the Princess website.

Bring a record of the original prices you paid for your excursions, if you can, then go to the Excursions Desk once onboard. They know about this issue but it appears they are only dealing with it on a one by one basis if you complain. Which stinks! They should have resolve the issue at corporate level. I'm waiting to see what happens with the excursions that have been billed to our folio so far - any payments by credit/debit card go on your folio as a credit then the excursions are charged to your folio when they are ticketed. We have our excursions tickets up to Dover so far. Apparently we'll either get OBC for the overcharged amount or a refund.

That pricing for an outside cabin is a bit weird - a typo perhaps? It's the best part of our itinerary in my opinion.

We couldn't help but see it - the above ground exit from our hotel came our right opposite it. It was an unexpected delight.

Plus it only went on offer a couple of months ago after people cancelled because the ship wasn't going to Civitavecchia.