OzKiwiJJ

Not completely, it's trying to creep in here unfortunately.

I have. It uses the same app as in Australia

The mini-suites on Diamond are a bit bigger than a standard balcony cabin on Celebrity Solstice. They are slightly wider and longer. They have a walk-in closet area with the bathroom opening off that. They are very comfortable cabins.

If you booked in NZ or Australia then yes, there are no added gratuities. The best adults only pool on any Grand class ship is the Lotus Spa Pool forward. Most people think it's either part of the Lotus Spa or part of the Sanctuary but it isn't. However because it's just below the Sanctuary sometimes the Sanctuary stewards keep an eye out for kids or exceptionally noisy groups.

I 'm hoping it will happen this year!

I'll second that. I can go all day without sunscreen in the northern hemisphere but in Australis and NZ I slather SPF 50+ on, otherwise I'd burn very quickly.

I'll be interested to hear what you think of it.

I think they add that in as an extra fueling stop as it's then a long way to the next port. I'm too old and creaky to slide down sand dunes these days!

Yes, we ended up using that for pre-dinner drinks but it was almost too quiet then.

Yes, I think if it hadn't been totally chocka it would have been OK. It was an 8 night South Pacific cruise early December so it looked like many families were having pre-Christmas get-togethers. If there had been just the lower berth numbers it probably would have been OK but an extra 450 or so people just swamped the ship. Luckily we got into the Sanctuary and the weather was nice for the whole cruise so we got away from the crowds during the daytime. The other problem was the Wheelhouse Bar was also the Salty Dog Pub so very limited seating there for pre-dinner drinks. Plus the only place that served espresso was the International Cafe so ypu can imagine how crowded that was. There was supposed to be a cafe in the buffet but we couldn't find it. Still on a world cruise the passenger count would be more reasonable so Crown might work.

The original itinerary had almost as many sea days up until Suez. This year the major part of the itinerary is Northern Europe and the Baltics.

The Brisbane folk board two days earlier. Princess has offers out to them to arrange flights or coach travel, or two refund up to a certain amount for flight change fees. We did a cruise on Ruby once, which is another of the extended Grand Class ships like Crown. The downside to those ships is that there are more passengers, 3080 lower berths against 2670, but the same amount of public spaces. On the Ruby cruise we did there were over 3500 passengers and meals were a nightmare. You couldn't get tables in the buffet and often had to queue for over 30 minutes to get a table in the MDRs. Of course this was when they still had Traditional dining as well as Anytime. It was horrible!

The Grand was in Australia last year, homeporting in Melbourne, and is here again now. We cruised on her last March and she was in reasonable shape then. Crown is coming down for our 24/25 season\, and both Crown and Grand will be here in 25/26.

I've got a CD of Christmas songs I bought many years ago. One of the tracks on it is "What Are We Gonna Get For 'Er Indoors". It still makes me laugh!

We lose Brisbane as well. We get 6 in return: Fremantle (OK, OK, it's an Australian port but we don't get to go there all that often) St Louis, Mauritius Capetown overnight Walvis Bay, Namibia Mindelo, Cape Verde Islands Las Palmas, Gran Canaria I'm sad to miss Sri Lanka, Aqaba, Crete and Salerno but not fussed about the rest. Hopefully the Red Sea situation will have quietened down by then. I'll be interested to hear your comments on the 2025 WC. Crown is one of the extended Grand Class ships so 3080 lower berths instead of Coral's 2000.

Bali, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Aqaba, Crete, Salerno, Civitavecchia, Corsica, Barcelona.

So do I.

The main advantage of a drinks package is the convenience, as long as it's also cost effective. You don't end up with heaps of charges on your account.

Abd the taxi companies wonder why people prefer Uber. We walked out of the OPT last month and once we'd reached the pick-up zone we ordered an Uber. It arrived in about 3 minutes.

Pre-Covid I ran a spreadsheet of all our drinks purchases on the 25 night Hawaii/Tahiti cruise, just to see how our spending went compared with a drinks package price. I updated it every day and even tracked our coffee card usage. We came in well under the package price. Because the prices are crazy now we end up doing both - Plus fare for internet and most drinks except wine, and buying wine by the bottle at the Plus 25% discount. Although you don't get much of a discount overall on overseas cruises because they add 18% gratuity to the price. Luckily we got the Plus fare for the world cruise at $40. Since we're not interested in all the other rubbish they've added to it we're not going to upgrade it, but we'll spend the equivalent of that on buying decent wines.

When there are delays with check-in opening they will not let you into the terminal until they get clearance and check-in starts. You can drop your luggage off and The Rocks are just a short walk away with some nice cafes. I haven't experienced a check-in quite as late as this but typically (and don't tell everyone 🤣) turning up half an hour before the stated time usually works.

Sometimes they show "Sold Out" when they are messing about with pricing or itineraries - the upcoming world cruise, and it's various sectors, is showing sold out at the moment but I'm pretty sure it isn't and as soon as they announce the revised itinerary it will be available to book again

At current exchange rates there is very little difference between paying the US Plus price with gratuities included or paying the AU Plus price and paying the gratuities separately, although in the latter case they often offer prepayment of the gratuities in AUD and that can work out a bit cheaper.

It actually doesn't matter what time you get for disembarkation - that's just the earliest time you can get off. As long as you're not too late getting off you can wander off anytime after your group has been called. On Princess we usually request the latest disembarkation group of times and they always give us the first time in that group which can be any time from 8:30am to 9:15am - these days you can't specify the actual time unfortunately. So we leave our cabin 7:45-8am, have a leisurely breakfast in the MDR, and by the time we've finished breakfast our group has been called so we just stroll off.

True, an abacus is nowhere near sophisticated enough! I need a detailed spreadsheet! 🤣