OzKiwiJJ

Before we did our first cruise I was a bit apprehensive about how I would feel being out of sight of land but after the first sea day I realised I loved it!

They had both on the 2019 Hawaii/Tahiti cruise we did but for some strange reason it was the people using the expensive tablets, who were not in the majority, who won 75% of the time.

If not there is a spare spot in our carport and we could probably drop you off and pick you up.

Possibly a mechanical issue that needs a couple of days with the ship at rest to get fixed?

That would have been a very minor reason. The main reason is because the majority of ships operating in the Australian region these days are too big to fit under the Gateway Bridge and FI was only ever a temporary solution. Portside will presumably still be used for smaller ships like the luxury lines which blow through our region once a year.

The taxi fare calculator indicated $42-$58 for a taxi from the Treasury Hotel to the cruise terminal at 10:30am on a Friday.

The problem with the new terminal is that there is nothing there. Portside had shops, restaurants and cafes, and a movie theatre, so when you had to get off the ship for passport checks as happened to us on one cruise, you could at least fill in the time pottering around Portside.

I agree it's unlikely but ... wouldn't it be great.

I don' t think they'd extend it on a regular basis but might run special ferries when ships are in port, perhaps at a higher fare. Not in the immediate future though. If there are no other ferry stops between the new terminal and the current last one then it would be a clean run. Those CityCats move fairly quickly but it is a considerable distance from Portside by water. Ah well, I guess we'll be staying on the ship on cruises that include a Brisbane port visit, unless we need to do some shopping.

I do recall seeing buses on a couple of occasions but didn't take much notice of them as we were going to use the ferry.

The last time we did the ferry trip, in 2019 on the Hawaii/Tahiti cruise, the ferry captain was a real character. He kept up a steady banter about captains of real boats (the ferry) versus captains of "that big white thing", then went past the ferry terminal so everyone could get great photos of the ship, before returning to the ferry terminal to drop us all off. Great fun! I hope they eventually run ferries up to the new cruise terminal when there is a ship in port. It's so much nicer getting the ferry on a lovely sunny day then sitting on a shuttle bus.

Princess charged us the one time we docked at the grain terminal. I'm not sure whether the shuttles at Portside were free on the times we stopped there as we took the ferry into the city.

It's the Medallion app that is causing the problems not the Medallion itself. If that works well it will be worth it. But I understand what you mean about dropping traditional dining, although that had its minuses at times. We had a couple of cruises where we ended up dining alone on a big table.

Five between now and the end of March. 😁 Those restart fares were too good to resist.

Welcome back. But only four? 🤣🤣🤣

No, sorry, I didn't post a review. However if you have any questions I'd be happy to try to answer them but perhaps start a new thread for that if you do. It was a fantastic cruise though and one we hope to do again after we've ticked off the other big cruises - Round Australia and a World Cruise.

Remember the drinks also include speciality coffees, speciality iced teas, soft drinks, bottled water for shore excursions, etc. They have to be added in as well. Coffee packages give you some savings though. It is a lot of money on a full world cruise, I know. We're booked on the 2024 one, same as you, so I did all the number crunching. After doing the Hawaii/Tahiti cruise with just the free internet minutes I would not like to do a world cruise with such a limited amount of internet . We were lucky on that cruise that there were no issues at home. On a big land trip last year we did have some issues but, of course, since we were in Australia we could discuss the problems on the phone and also had internet access. But it made me think what would have happened if we had no phone access and very limited internet on future long cruises.

In 2016 we did a repositioning cruise on Golden, Sydney to Hong Kong. This cruise was USD onboard as it was just before they changed to AUD for Asian repositioning cruises. We bought an FCD on that cruise and it cost AU $100.

Our Hawaii/Tahiti cruise was soon after they changed the drinks and wines lists. There was a lot of interest from people here so I spent a fair bit of time on a couple of our shore days uploading photos of those. And good free internet wasn't easy to find at some ports. Anyway the Plus package at $40 pp per day works out less than we spent on drinks on that cruise so if I look at it that way the internet is free. Since MedallionNet charging works on a per day system, not minutes like their old internet, the old minutes system wouldn't work. 50% discount on an internet package for those not choosing the Plus package is a fair deal IMHO. I think it works out at $7 per day for full internet.

The problem might be the people who came onboard with Covid. In two days time they could be showing symptoms and could have been infectious from the time they boarded. I really hope that doesn't happen, that people are going to be sensible onboard.- wearing masks, social distancing etc.

If that's the attitude onboard then I'm glad it was a P&O ship that was the first to restart not a Princess ship. Imagine the furore if the ship came back with Covid cases onboard and it was a Princess ship! 🤔🙄😯 I wonder if Dora will end up having some cases onboard and if so, how many.

The internet minutes were good but not really enough for long cruises. It worked out at around 14 minutes a day when we did the 35 night Hawaii/Tahiti cruise, and it was fairly slow. OK for checking emails but not a lot else. As long as they continue with priority boarding that is actually priority, and ditto for tendering I'll be happy. And the free laundry for Elites of course.

We were very lucky. It had been due to launch several days earlier and we hadn't realised the launch had been delayed. One of those "right place, right time" moments. It was a bit scary driving to the coast. It was a 50mph speed limit on the road but all the cars were doing about 80mph including us. Then a cop car went past going even faster. Then afterwards we didn't have a clue where we were and there were no Google Maps back then. We went on towards the coast until we could match up where we were with our map then headed back to Orlando.

You might be better off posting this in the main Princess forum.

I tagged along on one of Rolf's business trips, which was a conference held at WDW. While he sat in the conference rooms I had fun at the parks. That was a memorable trip, not for being at WDW, but because we saw a space shuttle launch. The word went out among the delegates so we jumped into our rental car and headed for the coast. We didn't have a clue where we were going but suddenly cars started pulling off the road onto a grassy patch on one side of a bridge, so we did too. We had to cross four lanes of traffic to get to a good vantage point at the top of the bridge. We didn't even have a clue which way to look but the friendly locals soon put us right. We had a great view of the lift off, and clearly saw the boosters separate before the space shuttle dwindled to a bright dot then disappeared out of sight. Awesome!