OzKiwiJJ

We booked a 2017 Med cruise through a US TA. No problems, she supplied a US address for the booking. We saved a few thousand dollars on the fare.

Go to Guest Services as soon as you board

As far as I know it doesn't state that anywhere, it's just what I've observed personally and through comments from others in the past. We did five cruises on Coral Princess this year and there were no daily gratuities added to our account so it hasn't changed since the Plus fares were introduced.

It seems that if the onboard currency is AUD the gratuities are included, if USD you pay extra. Has anyone noticed any exceptions to this?

Oh dear! Starting early with expensive tastes? 🤣

We did the Princess excursion in Rabaul some years ago, first to the volcanic observatory then to a few other places. It was worth every dollar. The locals entertained us at almost every stop.

@RobinBancsyour son might like to try the twice baked goat cheese souffle if it appears on the menu one night. It is absolutely delicious, and I don't like goat cheese that much so that's saying something!

On Coral they were serving lobster in the MDR. The menu only mentioned prawns but when served there was a lobster tail as well. They may not have put mushrooms in your escargots. My guess is they were running out of escargot on Coral during the Round Australia cruise so "stretched" them with mushrooms. They actually stated 'mushroom" in very fine print on the menus after the first time they did that. I think they might have had a few complaints! I would have been quite happy if they'd had garlic mushrooms on the menu but if I order escargot I don't want to taste mushroom!

NZ crayfish (rock lobster) is a tad better IMHO but Tassie or Bass Strait crays are my favourite Australian choice.

If my memory is correct it was listed as a 25% discount on the Plus deal for Elites, not as a fixed amount. If they offer that again based on the new Plus price it would be $48.75.

The captain wasn't impressed by the way some passengers behaved during the first helivac. Everyone had been told to stay off their balconies while the helicopter was operating around the ship but, of course, some people thought that didn't apply to them. When the captain announced the second helivac he gave those people a stern telling off and told them not to do it again!

We did a Sydney-Tokyo repositioning cruise in 2018. Onboard costs were AUD and there were no daily gratuities, they were bundled into the fare as usual for cruises departing from Australian ports.

It might be slightly more chlorinated than in the past. They have to add the chlorine to kerp the ship's water supply pipes healthy. I've had iissues with the chlorine taste for years. On our last few cruises we've had the drinks package so just got bottled water onboard. It does annoy me that they only allow the small bottles under the package though.

Covid, and also sea conditions, may affect the number of production shows on a cruise. In the past most cruises of 14 nights or longer had about three, I think.

Of course you can do that. Coral and Grand both have Promenade decks - deck 7, and Crooners midships is the best bar to get dri ks from. Unfortunately Majestic doesn't have a Promenade deck nor Crooners. There are bars outdoors on most ships. Depending on the ship some of the Princess bars are quite spacious and nice outside the busy times.

There will be separate area to go to which should be listed in the Patter for the day. From there you will be sent down to the next available tender. Note: you don't get priority tendering when returning to the ship though.

It was a brief Elite perk on one of the promos.

The weaknesses are the dining areas where masks aren't worn while seated. Masks are less effective in stopping you from getting infected than they are from stopping an infected person from spreading it. We were very careful on all our Coral cruises but did take a slight risk in removing our masks in a couple of the bars where the seating was well spread out. Unfortunately we had a couple of instances where people not wearing masks stood close to us while talking to their friends nearby and that's how I think I caught Covid. Luckily it was very mild and Princess looked after us very well.

The ones we use say 10 to 15 minutes for valid.

It certainly is. Actually if Princess had put more garlic in the mushroom escargots they wouldn't have been too bad but the mushroom flavour overpowered whatever garlic there was.

They started adding the mushrooms in September. The ones we had on our June cruise were lovely, and the first lot we had in September were yummy too. The next time I thought I tasted mushrooms but they were still quite subtle. However the time after that there was a very strong mushroom flavour so I stopped having them from then on.

Oh yum! That would be delicious. I must try that.

Hope you both recover quickly. I had rebound Covid too but it was very, very mild, just over 24 hours of a slight sore throat and stuffy nose which were the primary symptoms when I caught Covid. Then I had a couple of days of feeling tired. I tested negative though. All good now and ready for our next cruise. Take care of yourself!

Yep! 😊

If they're anything like the ones on Coral a couple of months ago they are more mushroom than escargot. Very disappointing. 😪