OzKiwiJJ

I'd love to do a full road trip around Australia, staying a few days at each stop, but Rolf isn't keen on the idea. He doesn't really like long distance driving whereas I love it. If the Sydney winter ends up as bad as it was last year I might drag him off on a long Queensland road trip. Either that or a Carnival cruise. I'm not sure which he'd go for. 🤣

For anyone travelling the Princes Highway in Victoria, between Melbourne and Lakes Entrance, I highly recommend the Old Rosedale Bakery in Rosedale. Very nice pies indeed, possibly the best I've had in recent years.

Agreed, I like tomato sauce on a plain beef pie but not on anything else.

The multiple languages would drive me nuts! One extra language is bearable but any more is tedious.

Or that it's more cost effective to cruise it. Plus much, much less hassle - unpack once, no worries about where to find breakfast/lunch/dinner, where to do your laundry, etc. But on the other hand you see a lot less from a ship.

Juls, you need to compare the deck plans for Royal Princess with what is available on that cruise. Royal has five categories of Mini Suite, scattered all over the ship but in general the higher categories are midships mid-levels and the others forward/aft, and sometimes up, from those. The five categories are MA, MB, MC, ME and MF. MA is the best category.There are no MD Mini Suites on this ship. MFs are only on decks 15 (Marina) and 16 (Lido) forward. The pricing goes like this: MA - $4574 pp MB - $4384 pp ie $190 cheaper than MA MC - $4204pp ie $180 cheaper than MB ME - $3854pp ie $350 cheaper than MC which seems a big difference but remember there is no MD category in between so the price jump is two categories, not one, which would probably be $180 MC->MD and $170 MD- ME. BUT there are no MF cabins available for selection, those decks are shown as "Sold Out". However if they were available, and based on the pricing differences shown above, the fare would be $3674. Guess what? That's the exact price Princess is quoting for "Princess chooses your stateroom". So in reality you aren't getting charged more to select your cabin, you are getting charged the correct fare for the cabin category you select. If you allow Princess to choose your cabin you will probably end up in an MF cabin at the same price that cabin would have been if it had been available for selection (which you used to be able to do in the past). I hope this make it clearer. By blocking out a category of cabins Princess makes it seem that you are paying more to select your cabin when, in reality, you aren't. These price jumps are fairly standard across the fleet, varying only by length of cruise (the shorter the cruise the lower the difference) and possibly by ship as some ships have more structured cabin groupings than Royal. Now I'm wondering what will happen if all the MF "Princess chooses" cabins sell out. Will Princess block out any unsold ME cabins and do the same thing? With that $350 price jump that would really stir up a hornets nest! Talk about a dumb decision by Princess!!!!!!!

Exactly. Surprisingly few given how much coastline Australia has. And many of the ones we do have are in the southern parts of Australia which get clobbered by the winter weather conditions.

What we need is some medium sized ships. Small enough to get into ports that can't handle the bigger ships (even the smallest P&O ships) but big enough that they aren't too expensive. But the trend is "bigger is better". Well, probably more cost effective for the cruise lines but I predict that sooner rather than later the bigger ships will find fewer and fewer ports willing to accept them, particularly in Europe. But the other issue is how long it takes to get anywhere by ship. Sydney to Darwin takes five sea days without any port stops. Brisbane to Darwin is four sea days. So it makes it hard to build itineraries to some of the closer Asian countries as those itineraries would need to be longer than two weeks, which is fine for us retired folk but not so easy for those who have limited annual leave. Yes, cruises could depart from Cairns or Darwin but that adds extra travel costs on top of the cruise, and some extra travel days. We just have to put up with the fact that Australia, and NZ, are a long way from everywhere.

Unfortunately those of us who aren't bothered by rough seas are heavily outnumbered by those who are, and I don't think there would be enough seasoned cruises to make winter cruising out of Melbourne viable. Also Captains aren't too keen on taking the ships through more than about 5 metre seas if they can avoid it as there is risk of damage to the ship's fittings, and risk of passengers falling and getting injured. Last year we had three cruises affected by high seas: - the first was having our departure from Sydney delayed by one day to avoid 6-8 metre seas off the Queenland/NSW border. - the second was getting stuck in Melbourne for three days to avoid 6-8 metre seas between Melbourne and South Australia - the third was on the Round Australia cruise where we spent an extra day in Fremantle, and had the Albany port stop cancelled, to try to slip between a couple of nasty weather systems. Unfortunately that wasn't totally successful as a medical emergency delayed our journey from Busselton so things were a bit bouncy going around the south-west corner. Then there was the storm that stopped Coral docking in Brisbane for a day or so, so even Brisbane can be affected by bad weather in winter (as well as the risk of possible cyclones in summer).

I wish Princess did still have some of the same old ships - the smaller ones like the old Sun Class ships. Yes, we currently have Coral Princess but she disappears after the 2024 world cruise. As to the same old itineraries - there aren't that many alternatives. For it's size Australia has surprisingly few good ports and those are mostly a sea day or more apart. New Zealand has some very good ports on the east coast but very few on the west coast. I think some of the South Pacific ports have been out of action due to wharf damages. I saw a post elsewhere saying the Port Vila is going to allow ships to anchor and operate tenders until their wharf is repaired/rebuilt. Other small Pacific Island ports may not want cruise ships to visit at the moment for health reasons, or even at all in the case of some of the bigger ships that have too many passengers for them to cater for.

I disagree that cruises were heavily discounted this season. Certainly the Princess restart cruises, from June until early October, were priced below normal, presumably to entice passengers back on to the ships after the bad publicity at the beginning of the pandemic and concerns over whether Covid would spread out of control on cruises. But the peak season fares were similar to pre-Covid fares as far as I could see. The reason for the same old ports is that there just aren't that many viable ports around Australia, NZ and the South Pacific. Ships can't just rock up to any coastal town and decide to have a port stop there. There needs to be either a wharf that the ship can dock at or a relatively sheltered anchorage for tendering. Even some of the current port stops are cancelled at the last minute due to adverse weather conditions either stopping the ship from entering the port to dock or where conditions are too rough to allow tenders to operate safely.

Princess used to regularly have a ship wintering over, doing Top End runs, and the occasional PNG and Island cruises. But they stopped doing that around 2017 (I think) when Golden transferred to P&O.

The reason there is no cruising out of Melbourne in winter is due to adverse sea and wind conditions in Bass Strait. Princess did try bringing Coral down from Sydney last year on what was supposed to be a 9 night South Australia cruise. We ended up parked at Station Pier for three days. Sydney is just far enough up the east coast to avoid the worst of the southern weather most of the time.

The one unexpected experience I really enjoyed about Broome was walking out of a cafe on Short St just as a small plane came in for a landing at the airport. Short St is right off the runway and it looked like the plane was almost clipping the trees in the street. Of course it wasn't but it was fun seeing it go over so low.

How many times do I need to state that Princess is not charging for cabin selection. All they are doing is blocking out the lowest category of cabins from being selected then offering those as guarantee cabins at the same fare they would have been if they were able to be selected. It's a very stupid move by Princess though as people, like you, think they are being charged extra to select their cabin.

Rolf enjoyed Pirates Life beer on our recent Grand Princess cruise.

No, it means that there is a category of cabin that you used to be able to select but that is no longer available except as a guarantee. So instead of the pick-your-own categories starting at the lowest eg IF or BF, they now start at IE or BE or whatever the next highest category is. The lowest category is now only available as guarantee at the same price you would have paid if you were able to select it. Look at the difference between the other category prices, you'll see a similar pricevjust between each category - see my example in post 46 above. As to the difference between the March and October cruises - were they the same ship and the same itinerary?

Wow! You're still getting those fatigue episodes three years later but I'm glad to hear the frequency is lessening. That wascthebone thing I was scared of when I caught Covid but luckily I recovered quickly. Our first few cruises last year were on Coral Princess, bouncing around the Australian coast, including a full Round Australia cruise (28 nights). The quality of food on those cruises was very good but, yes, there were some noticeable cutbacks - padding out the escargot with mushroom was very naughty! However they seemed to have an ample supply of good quality lamb cutlets which I made the most of - they are so expensive in Australia they've become a rare treat. I'd noticed even before Covid hit that the quality of the food on Princess ships varied ship to ship, presumably depending on how good the Executive Chef was. The best was 2019 on Sea Princess. We only had one cruise with really poor quality food but luckily it was our second cruise with Princess, not our first, so we risked a third cruise and that was good quality. We did one cruise with Holland America over Christmas and the food on that was very disappointing.

Yes, I believe it will be 1:1, it certainly was in 2017 when we did a Med cruise. Great to hear from you, Chris. Have you fully recovered from the Long Covid effects? Princess fares were very low for the first six months of the restart here, which was from June last year. I guess they wanted to entice people back to cruising. We got a bit carried away and ended up doing six cruises last year. Oops! I think the fares are on the increase now but not too outrageously so far. However Princess is doing some very silly things (in my opinion) that is devaluing the experience. Onboard costs for things like wines have gone up but the by-the-glass wines are cheap, bottom of the range wines which means that on some of them the Princess mark-up is more than 1000% of the retail price. I guess Princess thinks their guests are stupid! I did catch Covid on one of the cruises we did last year but it was very mild. Princess put me on anti-virals so I recovered very quickly. In our region Princess covers all medical costs, plus gives refunds as FCC for each day in isolation. We had wonderful care and service onboard, and our Kindles were well-stocked so we were able to just relax, and recover in my case - Rolf never caught it despite being isolated in the same cabin. Where are you planning on cruising next year? We're doing a couple of Japan cruises this November - one with Princess and the second with Regent Seven Seas which ends in Bangkok. Next year we're doing the Princess Australian world cruise. I've always dreamed of doing a world cruise so we decided we'd better do it before we get too old to enjoy it properly. Take care, have fun, and keep on cruising.

We're doing a cruise around Japan in November. Bought in AUD, using an FCD purchased in AUD, but the OBCs we get will be in USD. 😊

Except I think what Princess are now doing is different. From what I recall other cruise lines offered cheaper guarantee bookings but all cabins were still available for selection for those who wanted to book that way. The guarantees were allocated from what was left close to embarkation day. We ended up with a minor upgrade when we booked an RCI guarantee cabin some years ago at a very good fare - lower than the cheapest cabin category and we ended up a category or so above that. Princess are blocking out all cabins in the lowest category for some cabin types which stops people who want to book in those locations from doing so. Plus Princess aren't really offering a cheaper fare - the guarantee fare is essentially what you would have paid for an F category cabin if it had been able to be selected directly. I did a quick check on the pricing of a balcony cabin on a 2024 7 night cruise. A BA cabin was $2404 A BB cabin was $2344, $60 cheaper. A BC cabin was $2284, $60 cheaper again. A BD cabin was $2224, $60 cheaper again. A BE cabin was $21644, $60 cheaper again. No BF cabins were available. A guarantee cabin was $2344, $70 cheaper. So you'd save an extra $10 on the BF cabin that you would probably be allocated. Big deal! Note: these sorts of price breaks are typical of Princess pricing but, of course, vary by length of cruise and maybe even by itinerary.

OK, I see what you mean now. Your previous post was a bit ambiguous. However if people don't know that cabins that appear to be guarantee only can actually be selected by using a TA (and are all TAs able to do this?) then they may just say "stuff it, I'll look at a different cruise line". I just think what Princess are currently doing is very stupid and may have ongoing negative effects.

Huh? My comment wasn't anything about TAs pushing people away from their preferred cabins. It was commenting on the new Princess booking trick where ?F, and possibly ?E, cabin categories are no longer able to be booked by selecting your preferred cabin so are guarantee bookings only UNLESS you happen to be one of the lucky people whose TA can circumvent this new, crazy system.

That's very interesting. That would indicate that Princess is doing some very weird things. Are they trying to drive customers away? Don't they realise that word soon gets around on social media and people will get very annoyed when they hear some people are getting "special treatment" by using a TA. And does it apply to all TAs - colourbird isn't having much luck with their TA so maybe not all. Very strange indeed!

You may not know your cabin until the very last day.