OzKiwiJJ

Well, our successful bid freed up a balcony cabin on that cruise so you never know, you might be lucky. But we're boarding in Sydney not Auckland. Fingers crossed for you!

My suspicion is that Princess were trying to "encourage" us to bid higher but we weren't prepared to do that. Also I'd seen some chat online when the upgrades were announced for the world cruise and the consensus was it was too expensive so I had a gut feeling we may not have had too much competition for that upgrade. Plus I knew of someone else who had received the "outbid" email and who did nothing and still got their upgrade. So we hung in there and were lucky. 😊 There was only one mini-suite still available around that time but, oddly enough, that wasn't the one we got. We ended up in a better location which suits us perfectly. It really will make our world cruise even more special.

No. Only a small percentage of passenger post here. Others may post on other social media platforms. Even onboard they may announce how many Australians are on a cruise but don't usually break it down by state.

So sad for your lovely town and it's community. 😪

Ditto bugs and NZ scampi. Brush with lemon butter, maybe a liitle garlic and parsley for variety, and grill until just cooked. Perfection!

I agree. I once, back in the early 90s, seriously upset a chef at a popular Aucland seafood restaurant by telling the waiter I just wanted my crayfish brushed with lemon butter and grilled. But ... but ... but ... we can do this sauce and that sauce and ... No, plainly grilled please. And it was excellent!

Did they pass the taste test though?

Lucky Frank! But it looks like the quality has improved considerably. Rolf did that on our Diamond cruise last year but the lobster tails were half that size. I was glad I'd chosen the steak and lobster as the lobster was barely worth eating.

That's the best looking lobster I've seen on a Princess ship in a long time. And the guy behing the lobster is a good looking chap too! Happy Brithday, Frank. 😘

I very much doubt that will happen but we've budgeted to buy wines by the bottle. That will cost us about the same as upgrading our Plus package would except buying the wines means we will get decent wine to drink against getting almost nothing we could use if we upgraded the package.

It certainly can. 😊 We often cruised in inside cabins pre-pandemic but now prefer to have a balcony cabin or better just in case, which has proven to be the right decision since I've had Covid on two cruises so far. Being able to go out onto the balcony while in isolation is a real bonus.

It may also depend on what bids they have for the cabin class you originally booked. I would not be surprised if there hadn't been many bids for minisuites on the world cruise as the minimum bid was quite high. We were just lucky to have had a small windfall before the bidding opened so put a bid that was a decent amount above the minimum but still in the low range. Maybe a tad too low to make Princess happy so I think the "outbid" email was to try to "encourage" us to raise our bid. It didn't work though. If they had bids for balcony and oceanview cabins, plus some unfulfilled guarantees then that may be why they ended up accepting our lowish bid. Happy days for us!! 😊😊😊

I guess we never reach that limit. But if we did have that many alcohol drinks we'd probably just alternate who "paid" for those drinks so it would work our fairly even in the end. It just takes a little bit of thought and planning.

We always book in advance then watch for price drops. If they happen before final payment we've usually been able to get our booking refared. If you book though an overseas TA you will be charged the daily gratuities. Also be aware that overseas prices don't always include port fees and taxes up front, they are added on just before you complete the booking. In Australia what you see up front is what you pay and there are no extra gratuities,

We bid on an upgrade from a BA Balcony cabin to a Mini-suite for our upcoming world cruise on Coral Princess, out of Sydney. We bid at about two fifths of the difference between the balcony cabin and current price of the cheapest, still available, mini-suite category at the time, which was essentially a fairly low bid but a decent amount above the starting bid price. Four days ago we got the "You have been out-bid" email offering us a chance to increase our bid. Nope, our original bid is all we can afford. Today we received another email saying our bid had been accepted. We have a mid-aft MB mini-suite for 110 days! We are so excited!

We did a 35 night cruise in 2019 in an inside cabin on the old Sea Princess, and those inside cabins were much smaller than on the newer ships. We really only used our cabin to sleep, shower, and change clothes. There are plenty of spaces around the ship to sit and relax. Go exploring during the first couple of days and hopefully you'll find the perfect place. Although we tended to move around a bit - coffee in one place, quiet reading in another, outside for a bit of fresh air (weather permitting), and so on.

Do you actually have separate accounts each? Our onboard accounts are linked so no matter which account it goes on it only results in one payment. I set up the account and at the end of the cruise the balance on my husband's account is transferred to mine then the total is charged to our credit card. So it really doesn't matter who pays for the drinks.

Do chair yoga! You can find instructions online, or e-books on Amazon, for the various exercises. It will give you some exercise without putting weight on your leg.

We didn't have a drinks package on Cunard so just bought wines by the bottle, and found some very nice ones I must say. Most were reasonably priced (compared with Sydney restaurant prices) but we did lash out one night on an expensive burgundy. However our final account was definitely a bit too much on the high side! 🤣 But we had a wonderful and rather indulgent cruise on Cunard. Even at $65 the Princess Plus fare is still good value for money even if you have to pay extra for decent wine. The 25% discount on wine by the bottle means it just works out cheaper for us to have the package and buy bottled wine for dinner, than to pay for internet (even with the Elite discount), coffees, bottled water, cocktails, after dinner drinks, and bottled wine at full price, however I'm so happy we got the basic Plus fare at $40pp per day when we booked the world cruise.

Every so often I feel these little bubbles of: excitement? joy? happiness? anticipation? popping up. It has really made a difference to how we feel about this once-in-a-lifetime cruise. Roll on April 30th ... but not until I've finished packing. 🤣

110 days worth! We've decided to put a lot of our consumables into a large carton which we're going to put up on the closet shelf. We'll tape it closed and stick a luggage label on it and hand it in with our bags. That's already packed! 😊 Now we can put some into the bathroom, and what's left will go into a suitcase under the bed.

I hate to tell you but the US Plus wines may be worse than Willowglen, and that's saying something! We only tried three on Diamond: - the pinot noir which wasn't as good as the Australian one - the pinot grigio which had no pinot grigio characteristics and was even more bland than the Willowglen Semillon/Sauvignon - the chardonnay which, like the Willowglen, was overly oaky with that raw new oak flavour. Luckily I'd budgeted for wines by the bottle and we had some very nice ones, made even more enjoyable by our wonderful waiter sourcing Riedal glasses for us. We were very spoilt!

Yes, it will make the cruise just that much nicer just having the extra space and somewhere to sit in the cabin other than on the bed. We've both wandering around with big grins on our faces today! 🤣

The longer bathroom vanity, and the extra space under it, will be very useful too. We can store all our extra bathroom consumables on that under-vanity shelf - my skin care, shampoo & conditioner, Rolf's razor blades and shaving cream etc.

The distillery was actually quite fascinating. The guy had built all the machinery itself. I really enjoyed the stop there. Our tour didn't actually stop at a winery, we had a wine tasting at one of the Penneshaw restaurants. The factory behind the honey shop was also very interesting, showing how they extract the honey.