OzKiwiJJ

I think Princess have screwed up big time with this latest stuff. They have taken away things that were always part of the Princess deal for many years and have implemented the changes in a totally confusing manner. For the Japan cruise it really doesn't matter to us as it's only a 9 night cruise, on Diamond Princess, with only two sea days so anything morecthan the drinks package and internet package is irrelevant - well almost depending on the quality and selection of wines by the glass on that cruise. However it's a different story for the world cruise we have booked next year. We're starting to feel we are being ripped off by Princess. Since they've changed the rules some of the conditions under which we booked that cruise no longer apply, plus I suspect the wines by the glass will still be the same cheap and nasty rubbish, and less than half the selection they promised.

Check the Travel Summary for that cruise. However I'm not sure even it is accurate. For our upcoming Japan cruise we booked the Plus fare at $65pp per day. That should mean we get the three newly announced extras included. However the Travel Summary is is only showing items covered by Plus at the time we booked.

When we cruised from Barcelona on 2017 that exactly what they did - Elites and Suites first, then Platinums. We were only Platinum at the time but were in the first Platinum boarding group and there weren't many in the Elites/Suites group. They even had a nice lounge for priority boarders, with tea/coffee and cakes. Very civilised!

Often you get a better exchange rate using a local ATM than buying currency at home but that usually only applies to using a debit card not a credit card.

@Tranquility Base would it be possible for you to put together a summary of whether you need cash at the various ports you visit or whether you only need credit/debit cards? Probably only for things like souvenirs and snacks.

If you have a debit card that doesn't charge foreign transaction fees you might find it cheaper to withdraw the cash once you reach Australia.

I love it when there is a captain like that on a cruise. I hope he's doing next year's worldie too. It sounds like you're having a wonderful cruise. I'm a bit envious but next year's is a better itinerary for us so I'll just have to be patient!

I think that's mostly because a lot of the Princess Round Australia cruises hook together with the other long cruises thoughout our off-season so: -Round Australia from Sydney and Brisbane links to - - Hawaii/Tahiti from Sydney and Brisbane which in turn links to - - World Cruise from Auckland, Sydney and Brisbane which then links to - - the second Hawaii/Tahiti from Auckland, Sydney and Brisbane and that links to - - the second Round Australia from Auckland(?), Sydney and Brisbane. The first one of these can easily go either way but the second tends to go anticlockwise as the Hawaii/Tahiti passengers disembark in Sydney and Brisbane. However sometimes there is a change to this pattern ie next year Coral ends that sequence after the World Cruise. Plus I think Princess has realised how popular the Round Australia is so sometimes chucks in an extra one on a different ship. Which ever way it goes it will be hot and humid up north and probably a bit bouncy down south!

Interesting that they're doing a clockwise itinerary at that time of year. In the past they most went anti-clockwise. It's hard to predict what the conditions will be like though as it depend on what the global weather patterns are at the time. It's a great cruise to do regardless of which way it goes and being a long cruise going right around Australia there will be plenty of variety in weather as well as sights. It's definitely one of the great bucket-list Australian cruises.

In other words not much different to what it was pre-medallion, just few extra priority boarders.

Here is the Good Spirits cocktail list.

Anticlockwise for October itineraries. The weather systems mostly come from the west across the Great Australian Bight. It's much more comfortable having following seas than head-on seas. We did this cruise last October and experienced some "interesting" seas around the south-west corner of Australia but Coral handled them very well. It's usually very calm across the top of Australia at that time of year. However sometimes the March/April ones go clockwise which is OK at that time of year. Up north it's still the tail end of our cyclone season.

After my experience in March I don't think it matters whether it's the first or last cruise out of Melbourne. It's a mess! At least it wasn't hot for our embarkation, just wet!

I'm not worrying about Green/Blue Lanes any more, at least not for Australian embarkations. It didn't seem to mean a thing on any of the six cruises we did in the past year. When we embarked the Round Australia cruise on Coral last year, three days after we had disembarked from a previous cruise, we hadn't even been able to get into the app to do anything. It only took a few minutes for them to do it all in the terminal.

For that cruise, yes, not that it made any difference as the ship was late arriving so embarkation was a shemozzle. The arrival time selection seems to have vanished in the last week or so, posdibly since the new Plus/Premier deals were announced.

Before our last cruise in March we dropped from Green to Blue a few weeks before embarkation. Once we had done the health declaration it went back to Green.

Maybe the fares will be higher but if so the quality would have to be of a higher standard as well. I did a budget comparison on out two upcoming Japan cruises, one on Princess and the other on Regent, taking into account all the things we'd pay extra for on Princess that are included on Regent. The difference was under $50pp per day. Yes, current thinking is bigger is better but if more ports start banning the megaships, and passengers get sick of fighting crowds in those ports that do accept the megaships, or who actually want to visit ports instead of being on a floating resort, then the trend might change.

Because most of the wines on the Australian region cruises aren't very good. There are only two white wines - a semillon/sauvignon blanc blend which I can't drink as I react badly to most sauvignon blancs, and a very oaky chardonnay which is far too young to drink. So if I want a decent white wine I have to buy a bottle. I can drink two of the four red wines but they don't go with everything so if I want more variety I need to buy a bottle of something. Unfortunately whoever chose the Australian wines must still have their head in the 1990s. Wine trends in Australia have changed considerably since then.

Also check what flights Princess are offering. Sometimes they have some great deals.

Although it hasn't yet become a problem in our part of the world some places, especially in Europe, are starting to kick back against the mega cruise ships and I suspect this will become more and more common over the next few years. The mega ships will end up just being floating resorts with few, if any, port stops and (hopefully) a whole new wave of cruising will start to happen with smaller ships (max 3000 passengers) being built for visiting ports. This maybe a dream now but I hope it becomes a reality. And, yes, I know there are plenty of luxury lines with smaller ships but the very fact that they are small ships means they can be too expensive, so there needs to be something in between.

Diamond has the Good Spirits Bar on deck 5. Good Spirits has an extra cocktail list with some very interesting cocktails on it, plus they make all the usual ones of course. Deck 7 has Crooners, a very nice big Wheelhouse Bar, and the Explorers Lounge. Swirls is on the Lido Deck, on the starboard side outside the midships elevator foyer, so you'll be able to get the Premium Desserts if you want them. My take on whether the Plus or Premier package is worth it mostly depends on how much and what you drink, and whether you want internet. Those are the important things to me. Unfortunately with Princess not providing the promised 25 wines by the glass for Plus (only 9 are available in the Australian region, I'm not sure about USD cruises) it does make it less attractive but you do get a 25% discount on buying wines by the bottle and you only pay the difference in price for Premier wines or other drinks which helps.

The cruise I'm comparing costs against will be our first Regent cruise. I'm very much looking forward to it. The only downside to Regent and most of the other luxury lines is that they tend to do one way itineraries in our part of the world so there is always the added inconvenience of air travel. We've always enjoyed being able to cruise Sydney return on Princess but we don't like the bigger ships that now homeport in Sydney and the recent changes, since the post-pandemic restart, are really downgrading the product. The Plus fares sounded like such a great deal when they were first announced but it was obvious the original $40pp per day cost wouldn't last, $50 was more reasonable but I object to paying an extra $15 for crap I don't want and will never use. Plus they have not delivered on the number of wines by the glass that the package supposedly offers - 9 choices is nowhere near the promised 25. 😡

Regent, of course, as you'd expect being one of the luxury cruise lines. The sad thing is that Princess isn't that far behind on pricing for a lesser quality experience. It will be interesting to see just how big the quality gap is. The two cruises are almost back-to-back - we have two days in Tokyo between them.

Yes, I just realised that and edited my post.

I just did a cost comparison between our two next cruises - one on Diamond Princess and one on Regent Seven Seas Explorer. Regent is all-inclusive including excursions. We have a mini-suite on Diamond so cabin style should be comparable and I added in all the extras to match what Regent offers. Both cruises were booked during sales. The difference was less than $50pp per day!