OzKiwiJJ

Celebrity switched to including gratuities in the fare here either late 2016 or early 2017. Our 2019 cruise with them had no added grats.

On Westerdam over Xmas/NY it took at least 4-5 days of a 14 night cruise to educate our dinner waiters about how we like wine by the glass - one wine with the appetiser and another with the main. The selection of wines was very basic too. 🙁

Yes, I've had them extended a couple of times. Just phone Princess and they should be able to help you but sometimes have to refer it to a supervisor. Point out that there are virtually no cruises available over our winter for you to use those FCCs.

We flew in from Sydney in December. Auckland airport is fairly easy to navigate - just follow everyone else to the baggage arrival area. Our flight arrived late aftenoon and the queues through customs were horrendous. I imagine the HAL reps will be waiting at the meet and greet area at the exit from the secure area of the airport into the main concourse. You should be able to spot them easily.

It's always a risk flying in the day the cruise departs. We tend to arrive at least one day earlier. Did you book your flight through HAL? If so they will get you to the next port if your flight is delayed, otherwise you may have problems. I'm not sure what happens with passport control in that situation.

Remember cruising had just restarted to NZ and that may have been the first HAL ship there although P&O Australia and Princess had probably visited Auckland before HAL. It may have even been one of the first Auckland embarkations as often the ships round-trip from Australia. Anyway it sounds like they were more organized for boeckli's embarkation.

Stick to Australia only if you come over in June or July. NZ gets quite cool then with the odd snowfall likely in parts of the South Island. There are no cruises around NZ in our winter. However it's an ideal tiime to go to Cairns and Uluru although I believe the nights will be cold at Uluru. Sydney usually has lovely winter weather with pleasant sunny days, often reaching the low 20s Celsius / 70F in the afternoons but with cool nights.

They certainly weren't very organized for luggage drop-off when we were there, unlike the pre-Covid Celebrity cruises we did. We dropped our bags off around 10:15am and there wasn't anything set-up outside. Rolf had to take them into the terminal building. By the time we'd dropped off our rental car and walked back to the teminal, with a coffee stop along the way and some quick shopping as Rolf had forgotten his hat, they had set up a baggage drop outside the building.

From what @ljandgb has said earlier they will have limited time so I've added some timings. - Sydney 3-4 nights depending on what time the flight arrives ie allow three days sightseeing. - Cairns 3 nights allowing two full days sightseeing. - Uluru 2 nights, one full day sightseeing - Hobart 4 nights allowing three full days sightseeing That's 12 -13 days just for that. A one way NZ cruise (Auckland to Sydney) usually takes 12 -14 days if it covers the standard ports plus Fiordland. One wasvis best as you don't waste the extra two days crossing the Tasman for the second time. NZ by land takes longer than expected. It's a long thin country and not all the roads are dual highways. Just doing.the South Island can take 2-3 weeks. Add another couple of weeks for the North Island. One way to minimize this is to fly into Auckland for two nights, then fly to Rotorua for two nights, then fly to Christchurch early morning and drive to Queenstown via a one night stop at Mt Cook (Aoraki). Stay two nights in Queenstown then fly out. That's seven nights / eight days.

The Auckland waterfront is a lovely place wander around. If you've just come off a long flight then the best thing you can do is to get out in the fresh air and (hopefully) sunshine to help reset your bio-clock. Drop your luggage at the terminal and go for a walk. There are plenty of cafes and restaurants (although some of them are a bit expensive), and a nice shopping centre across the road if you need any last minute things. There is also plenty of seats in some parts where you can sit and relax for a while.

When we boarded Westerdam in December it was a free-for-all for a while. We had the first boarding time of 12 noon. We arrived about ten minutes before that time, were directed upstairs and told to sit and wait until "called". They started processing people where they were sitting and also in a line that was standing. More and more people kept arriving, filling seats just processed or joining the line and it was clear the terminal staff weren't keeping track of who/where they had processed. We had ended up in the back row and were totally ignored for quite some time. Eventually our row started to get angry and demand they process us. It still took another ten minutes after that. Eventually one of the staff told all the others to only process the noon and following arrival times (12:15?) and we finally got checked in. It sounds like they'd streamlined their process by the time you boarded Noordam. Just as well!

For example if you want to snorkel the Great Barrier Reef you could do a cruise that takes you up that way but usually you'd have to do a ship's excursion out to the reef with hundreds of other passengers. In less time than a cruise would take you could fly to Cairns then transfer to Port Douglas for three nights. That would give you time to do two totally different reef trips - one to the nearby Low Isles, the other to the outer reef on one of the smaller reef boats. Of course you could stay longer and do a Daintree tour or explore more around Port Douglas. One place you can't cruise to is Uluru, you need to fly and spend a couple of nights there. Where else do you want to go to? Most of our major cities have enough places of interest, locally and as day trips, for a few days each.

Princess still lists their protocols under their Cruise Health section. You see the details under the FAQs. There are separate FAQs for Australia, Japan, and for the rest of the world.

It was there last November. We got off the 58 tram after crossing the river from the CBD side and boarded the shuttle bus back to the port at the same stop.

I believe there has been a push from certain factions in NZ to ban cruise ships from Fiordland but nothing official has come of it so far. I think the "new" hull biohazard ruling came in just before Covid hit so the effects of that are only just being felt this season. Fiord is just a variant spelling of Fjord. Since NZ calls that region Fiordland I tend to use the Fiord spelling for there but would use Fjord when referring to other parts of the world.

It's a bit tricky doing drinks other than cocktails as the bars don't always have drinks menus anymore and capturing and posting screen shots from the app takes a lot of time. I'll see what I can do though.

Rolf likes Fat Yak beer on Princess.

How odd. On the HAL cruise we had a passpirt check in Hobart. That was a one way cruise though so may make a difference. But I'm sure we've had passport checks in the past when returning from other cruises that went to overseas ports. Now I'm confused!

Passport checks are only done if the ship has travelled to international port during the voyage, and usually take place at the first Australian port of call after that, e.g. Hobart if the ship came from NZ via Tasmania. I believe Ruby arrived in Sydney direct from NZ that time so passports should have been checked. Other than that Princess disembarkations have always been efficient in Sydney as far as I can recall. The bit that takes the longest is usually finding your luggage. 😀 Sometimes the customs clearance queue moves a bit slow but if the cruise hasn't been to an international port, or done the Willis Island cruise-by so duty free can be sold onboard, then there is no customs check. I can't comment on the bus transfer situation.

The wine menu with prices is here:

Auckland to Waitomo Caves then across to Rotorua - the back route from Te Kuiti used to be a lovely drive but I haven't done it for many years. Allow two full days in Rotorua. Then head for the Coromandel Peninsula via Tauranga. There is a loop you can do up one side from Waihi - stay two nights at Whitianga so you have a full day there. I recommend a boat trip to Cathedral and a visit to Hot Water Beach (check the tides as to the best time to go there). Then go around to Coromandel, stay there, then head back to Auckland via Thames. That's 7 days. If you want more detailed directions let me know.

Only 63 days? Nah, not long enough! 🤣🤣🤣 We're booked on the Aussie world cruise next year. It's 110 days! 😯

I'm sure you won't have any problems. Have a great cruise.

I don't think it's quite that simple. Ships don't hang around doing nothing until it's time for the next NZ itinerary. They're doing other itineraries so no easy way to free up time for hull cleaning unless it is deemed necessary. Now don't get me wrong, I'm all in favour of keeping NZ's pristine waterways free from nasty imported marine life but ... Surely this isn't the first NZ itinerary that Pacific Explorer has done this season? Why now? Has NZ happily been letting her in without hull checks on other cruises? Or were her previous hull checks clean and this is something new - if so where has she been to develop a dirty hull? Is it only Fiordland visits that trigger hull checks or is NZ worried about all ports? If it's the latter are merchant vessels subject to the same hull testing or is it only cruise ships that are being scrutinized? My curious mind wants to know more. 😊

I've just installed an update of the app. That might help. It didn't change the Lane status but it does seem to work faster. Don't worry too much about Green versus Blue Lane. It really doesn't make much difference. Last year we had Green Lane on one cruise and the terminal staff still went through everything step by step, and on another cruise we had Blue Lane but they saw our info on their devices and all we had to do was show our IDs and vaccination certificates. Go figure!