OzKiwiJJ

Yes, all onboard costs on Australian cruises are in AUD. The prices of drinks are higher to make up for no added gratuities on top of the listed price for drinks. Typically most spirits are $11-15, beers are $10.50, wine by the glass ranges from $15 to $29, and cocktails range from $15 to $24. I'm not sure what happens with the daily gratuities as they don't apply to fares purchased in Australia but do apply to bookings made overseas, however you should be able to prepay the daily gratuities - usually there is an option to do that under the Payments section of the personalizer. The OBC issue is a pain but that's how Princess have always done it. For excursions you might be better paying by credit card rather than using your OBC as you would then get the benefit of the exchange rate. Make sure you allow your bank to do the conversion (ie pay in AUD) not Princess as you'll get a better exchange rate that way.

Many years ago, on holiday in Port Douglas, I spotted this one somewhere in the Daintree area.

If I hadn't cruised last year I may or may not have caught Covid but I wouldn't have enjoyed 66 wonderful days on Coral Princess. It was worth it! 😊

Nah, you can't use a straw. They aren't big enough to suck up the onions properly.

Yes, the laundry perk is still available for Elites as is the minibar setup. We also got a blue bag on our recent Grand cruise.

A PVP is a Princess Vacation Planner.

Dream on! 🤣

There certainly is an art in eating French Onion soup with dignity. It just takes practice! 🤣🤣🤣

If I ever won lotto I'd love to do something like that on one of the luxury lines with small ships. Instead of the usual world cruise hops between countries you'd be able to visit a lot more ports in each and/or have multi-day stops so that excursions could be done to places away from the coast ie imagine stopping in Sydney for a few days and being able to do an overnight excursion to Uluru. Ah well! Dreams are free!

And that is exactly what happened. I had to isolate for six days as I didn't test positive until the second day although I had symptoms. I can't fault Princess for their care and service. I was actually glad I caught it on a cruise - it was so much easier than catching it at home as we didn't have to worry about meals, getting medical treatment etc. We had a comfy bed, a nice balcony to enjoy the ocean views from, and plenty of books to read. Good food and even good wine (since we could order wines by the bottle at no charge).

What continuing administrative consequences? I didn't have any. No medical costs so no insurance claim needed. Fare automatically refunded as an FCC for every day I had to isolate. Excellent care, great meals delivered to our cabin (I didn't miss out on my favourite formal night dishes), drinks delivered on demand. The best part was that they managed to deliver perfect piping hot single espressos for Rolf - if I didn't know better I'd swear they had an expresso machine right outside our cabin! 🤣

Great to hear you are enjoying the cruise despite having to wear masks. We did that cruise last year and loved it, even though I caught Covid onboard and had to isolate. Princess looked after me very well. I think it's smart for Princess to require masks right from the start of such a long cruise. It wasn't required on our cruise until later on, after I caught Covid. We did wear masks most of the time but were vulnerable in some circumstances because others weren't wearing them even when they were coughing heavily. I hope you continue to enjoy your Round Australia cruise, it's one of the best cruises we have in this region and Coral Princess is the perfect ship to do it on. Have a cocktail for me in the Good Spirits Bar! 😊

Possibly the luggage tag came off and it was delivered with whatever bags it was near, or the people that had it were in an adjacent cabin and didn't check the labels.

1000 / 113 * 32339 = 286,186. More than twice the price of the 1000 night cruise. I'll pass!

Put one foot behind at a 45 degree angle, put the other foot in front, and bend your knees slightly. Balance issue solved. This also works well on crowded buses etc when you can't get a seat. It's far more stable than standing with your feet side by side.

But you have the whole length of the bath to wash in plus a convenient "ledge" at the end to put a foot on while washing the lower leg. Much easier than trying to bend down in a tiny shower cubicle. On HAL we had both a shower cubicle and a shower over the bath. After one shower each in the shower cubicle we both opted to use the shower over the bath for the remainder of the cruise.

As long as the price difference isn't too big we're booking mini-suites now as I find the shower over bath is much better than trying to shower in tiny cubicles. However I will say the balcony cabin shower on Grand Princess was one of the bigger Princess ones we've encountered outside of a suite. They must have shrunk them since she was built!

I've heard of it with some cabin types on various ships but wouldn't expect it in a minisuite. However the deck plans show both the furtherest aft minisuites on that deck are twin beds only. Yikes! I would not like that!

Ask me again in November - we're doing a Japan cruise on her then. We cruised on her in 2018 and liked the ship. She is the best of the Grand Class ships that we've been on so far in my opinion.

We will never cruise HAL again after the cruise we did over Christmas. Although the cabin was lovely almost everything else was below what we expect on that level of cruise ship.

I'd happily see the vaccination rule dropped as long as all passengers wear masks when moving around the ship, in theatres and other crowded venues ie trivia and bingo, on tenders and excursion buses, and get tested if they develop symptoms. That way the spread of Covid and any other respiratory illnesses would be minimised. I'm sure, like me, that many other regular cruisers have caught the dreaded cruise cough or a cold or even flu while on a cruise in the past. It's a pity we didn't get into the habit of wearing masks years ago instead of spreading germs all over the place.

Essentially instead of garnering sympathy from the cruising public this person has been shown up as a grasping idiot but, unfortunately, has damaged the reputation of cruising yet again to those who have never cruised before.

What saddens me is how quickly people forget the hygiene precautions including mask wearing in busy spaces. Precautions that not only reduce the risk of Covid but also colds and flu. Too many people have gone back to sharing their germs with all and sundry. Plus both of us saw people leave public toilets onboard Grand without washing their hands. Seriously! 🤬

Ditto from getting Covid on Coral, early May for me as well, but I fared better than you, thank goodness - a short bout of rebound Covid a week after disembarking and I was fine. It sounds like you have Long Covid, hopefully you will recover from the fatigue soon. And that's one of the reasons I keep on with the boosters - to reduce my chances of sevete illness or Long Covid.

If one is From Australia and the other is To Australia then I always think it's better to fly first and cruise home so would choose the To Australia one unless there was a significant difference in ports on the other.