OzKiwiJJ

I bought a small wooden bowl back from PNG a few years ago. It had obviously been treated against borer or whatever as it had a very strong smell. I declared it on our return and the customs guy had a good laugh - I had it sealed in layers of zip-lock bags so it didn't make everything in my bag smell. He checked it out though but it was OK.

Then again, it probably won't hurt it to grow a bit more for once. I read somewhere a while back that it is beneficial to allow lawns to grow a bit more in warm weather - I think it was something to do with protecting the roots or retaining moisture. Take it very easy! You don't want a relapse! I'm still struggling to recover from the cough I caught on the world cruise. I think I tried to do to much after we got home and paid the price for a few days I'm being more careful now and are noticing the slow improvement.

I bet this is it: L'Anse French Café & Croissanterie Probably about a 15 minute walk from the city end of the wharf - it's quite a long wharf.

We just enjoy going around to Anse Vata and Lemon Bay for good coffee and lunch.

I think there was a shuttle bus running from the wharf to the centre of town in Port Lincoln. We did the Taste of Port Lincoln excursion which was very interesting - we learnt a lot about the seafood industry there. The winery visit was great fun, they were very generous with the wine, and the dishes created with local seafood were very tasty.

Compare the Princess AUD price with the USD price converted at current exchange rates. Sometimes it's a very favourable price, other times it may be better to wait a while to see what the exchange rate is doing then decide if you want to prepay the gratuities. If it's close then the convenience of prepaying outweighs a few dollars difference in my opinion.

I wonder if there is more dry dock work needed than they could fit into the original booking? And maybe the new booking period was the only available slot for the amount of time needed? Another possibility is the dry dock company forced the change. Either way it might be another nail in the Princess coffin from the Australian perspective.

In the last couple of weeks of the world cruise I was starting to get a bit tired of the MDR selections although, apart from the odd exception, the quality was still very high. There seemed to be less variety than I recall from the 2019 Hawaii/Tahiti cruise and not some many luxury items on formal nights. We did go to Sabatinis three times - once was a wine matching dinner, the other times had the regular Sabatinis menu. Personally I thoughts the pizza by the slice from the pizza bar on the Lido deck was better than we'd had in Alfredo's in 2022. We had the original $40 Plus package. We didn't bother upgrading it as we didn't want the silly speciality desserts etc. We just wanted the internet, bottled water, cocktails, and coffees. Since the wines by the glass aren't to our taste the money we saved on not upgrading it went on buying bottled wines at the 25% discount. I think we've come out well under budget on those! 😊

You could either get internet for a single day or else the folk at the Internet Cafe should be able to help you.

Yes, it is. It replaces the old paper customs/biosecurity entry form.

We're on deck 9. As we left our cabin this morning a fellow passenger asked if we'd had water coming into our cabin like someone else on our corridor had. Nope, not us. We keep our balcony door closed. I guess those passengers learnt one of the reasons why cruise ships have notices saying to keep the balcony doors closed.

Well! That was "interesting". A short while ago we had a wind gust of 70 knots (130kph) hit the starboard side of Coral. The ship listed to port for a tad longer than was comfortable. One of the cupboards in our MDR section sprang open and quite a few side plates crashed out and a few smashed. Luckily our dessert dishes had been cleared, one of our waiters had just removed our wine bottles to storage, and we grabbed our glasses so there was no damage on our table. It was a bit scary for a few moments as it seemed to take a long time for the ship to right itself. Good Spirits didn't fare so well - glasses smashed and some of the bottles in the top cupboards fell out and smashed. All good now, the Captain has kept us informed of what was happening and there have been no injuries reported. However we haven't been back to our cabin yet ...

It's too soon to do it. Once you depart Australia on Diamond you'll get an info sheet in your cabin about doing the NZTD. It's very easy to do.

Fixed it for you! We boarded in Sydney 30th April. Time flies indeed.

Unless it's changed in the last 18 months you can't walk off the Lyttelton wharf. There used to be free shuttles that dropped off in Lyttelton although I believe the drop-off point has changed since we were there.

I must confess I'm getting a bit tired of the Princess food offerings. There doesn't seem to be as much variety in the dinner menus as I recall when we did the Hawaii/Tahiti cruise in 2019 and, of course, there are not as many "luxury" food items as in the past. Although I did try the lobster the other night and it was the best Princess lobster I've had for a long time. The buffet selections are boring too, and the savoury selections in the International Cafe rarely change. All things that are perfectly fine for shorter cruises but not on a cruise as long as this one.

We've only done one short cruise on Cunard which really only gave us a taste. We had treated ourselves to Princess Grills on Cunard, their mini-suite class. The cabin was identical to the one we'd had on Diamond Princess, just a little nicer decor. However the Cunard Princess Grills dining experience definitely outshines the Princess Reserve Collection (which we experienced in 2022). BTW we have declared the section of the Bordeaux MDR on Coral as the unofficial Reserve Collection area - we dine there every time we go to the MDR, for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and get superb service and sometimes extra dishes. Our cabin steward on Cunard wasn't as good as many of the Princess cabin stewards we've had over the years. He never even introduced himself! What live entertainment we did catch on Cunard was as good as Princess, as were the trivia sessions. We'd certainly cruise Cunard again especially if Princess keeps on building bigger and bigger ships. We're running out of Princess ships that we like!

That's awesome! Many thanks, Malcolm Lamont, for capturing our lovely ship as we enjoyed views of your beautiful island. And, of course, thanks to @Kiwi_cruiser for posting them here.

Once we get home I'll check how the exchange rates for our various overseas purchases compare with the XE rates at time of transaction - the XE graph function allows you to compare by date and time in 30 minute increments.

From memory the person doing the check-in wrote our cabin number on a slip of paper, handed it to someone else who then got the medallions while the check-in person was doing the other checks (passport / drivers licence, photo etc). It was very quick.

Not quite overnight. We move to Moorea around 4am.

We cruised on Seven Seas Explorer last November. Our cabin was gorgeous but overall I wasn't impressed with Regent. The food was very variable - sounding good but not always as expected. I doubt we'll cruise with Regent again.

Crown holds an extra 1000 passengers above Coral. If conditions ended up like yesterday's there is no way they'd get everyone ashore in time for excursions. We were so lucky!

The tender operation crew did a fantastic job getting us all on and off the tenders safely.

We had a great afternoon ashore but getting on and off the tenders at the ship end was "interesting"! We got a great view of the ship from the first stop on our tour.