OzKiwiJJ

Keep an eye out for those silicone measuring jugs. Unbreakable and the 1 cup one squishes inside the filter jug for packing. Also because it's flexible you can squeeze it slightly to get the best pouring spout.

The Brita filter jugs are ideal for that. The only downside is that it is too big to fit under the tap in Princess bathrooms. You need to use a glass or small jug. I found a silicone measuring jug, Oxo brand I think, in the Brisbane Myer store which was perfect. We have a water filter at home so I always drink filtered water. That may be partially why I notice the chlorine taste in unfiltered water so easily. It's a shame we don't live near each other as then I could lend you our filter jug to try.

We've done six cruises since the restart, ranging from 7 nights to 28 nights. We were both fine on the shorter cruises but I caught Covid on the 28 night cruise in October. I developed symptoms on day 14 and I'm 99% certain I caught it onboard, probably from someone standing too close to me while I was sitting enjoying a drink in one of the bars. At that stage there were no mandatory tests onboard once the cruise started. I believe that regular mandatory testing on cruises should be a must. On our Westerdam cruise, where we had mandatory testing, the Captain announced the Covid numbers each day and after both mandatory test days the numbers jumped by a significant amount. It doesn't bother me to wear a mask while roaming the ship. It doesn't bother me to do mandatory tests. I am aware that a ship is a closed environment, and am even more aware that there are going to be many selfish people who won't wear masks properly, and/or who won't report having symptoms, who will be sharing that closed environment with me. So be it. We mostly enjoyed 74 of the 80 days we have cruised since the restart, and even the six days in isolation weren't too arduous - we both love to read and I also enjoy games and puzzles on my phone. Roll on March for our next cruise!

We used a Brita filter jug when we did the Hawaii/Tahiti cruise in 2019. We didn't have a drinks package for that cruise. It was really good. I like to use 1 litre sipper bottles at night - I've drowned myself too many times using a glass in the past plus glasses aren't big enough as I can drink over a litre of water overnight if I'm not sleeping well. I just took some sipper bottles on (empty) then filled them from the filter jug. We also took a slab of 500ml bottles on with us for use at ports. We didn't bother taking the filter jug with us for cruises since the restart as we've had drinks packages for all of those so just got bottled water from the bar every day. Actually the waiters in the Ocean Bar on Westerdam were really good - every night when we stopped in for our after dinner drink they would always bring us four cans of water to take back to our cabin. I seem to be OK drinking the ship's water during the day, as long as it's well iced. It doesn't affect me but I do notice the chlorine taste if it's not iced or the ice has melted which is why I prefer bottled or filtered water at night.

That's good to hear. I miss being on Coral. It felt like a second home after all the time we spent on her last year.

The Wahine disaster took place in the middle of a very serious storm. It should never have left the wharf. I recall having to jump the fence to get into my home as a power line had come down across our wrought iron entrance gate. My mother was terrified!

Personally I felt I was much better off having Covid on Coral Princess than at home, despute missing a couple of ports. All I had to do was relax and get better - no cooking, no housework, a nice balcony to go out on for some fresh sea air, food and drinks delivered on request, and no charge for medical care including antivirals. You can't compare the shipboard environment to your home environment, unless you work in an office full time and travel to and fro on crowded public transport where the risk is of catching Covid is more comparable to the closed-ship environment. I'm more than happy to be on a cruise ship, fully vaxed and wearing my mask when roaming around the ship. Roll on my next cruise!

Yikes! I lived in Auckland for 15 years and never saw anything like this. There was always one underpass that flooded in heavy rain but nothing as severe as this lot. Very sad.

I went on it when it was Dawn Princess. The inside cabins are very narrow. Unless they've changed the furniture it was very cramped with the bed in queen mode, it's best as two singles as that gives space between the beds to move around. The bathroom is reasonable - one of the slightly bigger Princess shower cubicles. Storage was adequate. Personally I wouldn't book an inside cabin for a 14 night cruise these days. I was unwell one day on Sea Princess and being stuck in the inside cabin all day was depressing. The one thing that made our isolation bearable on Coral last year was being able to go out on the balcony for a change of scene.

It's a bit tricky with Port Douglas as it's a tender port so connecting with the private tour companies can be a problem. It's a popular resort town so the tours are timed for land-based tourists, not cruise ships unfortunately. The Low Isles are great for snorkelling if you can find a tour that fits.

Drive up the Otago Peninsula to the Albatross Sanctuary then go to the Penguin Place nearby. You will probably have to book for both of these places. Stop at Larnach Castle on the way back into the city.

I concur on the La Boheme rose. We also enjoyed the Empress Pinot Gris, which is actually made in a Pinot Grigio style. Both the Australian Pinot Noirs are OK. The Lock and Key is a bit lighter than the Rob Dolan so gives an alternative match to some foods.

But that's the same for restaurants, especially larger ones or ones that have several outlets, so it's comparable.

They work out fairly close when you add the 18% service charge on top of the Westerdam price then convert to AUD. You don't get charged the extra service charge on Princess.

A good percentage of people who have the Plus fare don't realise what those wines are and, of course, don't care what the prices are. They are wines they enjoy drinking and that's what's important to them. So Princess gets through buckets of the stuff while people like me get seriously annoyed because there are very few decent wines available under the package. Unless they resolve this soon they are going to start losing customers like us. We are currently considering cancelling the Round Australia cruise we have booked in October to do an Asian cruise with one of the luxury lines who have some very good deals at the moment.

I certainly agree that the De Bortoli Willowglen wines are seriously over-priced. It makes me wonder if whoever they dealt with here to source those wines ripped them off bigtime. But most of the other Australian wines are priced realistically based on the retail prices I've seen for those wines. Even the ridiculously over-priced Cloudy Bay Sauv Blanc is consistent to the standard restaurant markups of around 2.5 - 3 times retail price.

Typically the per glass pours are 150 ml on cruise ships, so 5 glasses to a bottle. The markups are high, yes, but no more so than a decent restaurant on land. They have to source the wine, have it delivered, store it onboard (I wonder if they have special storage to minimize movement in rough seas?), chill wines that need it, priovide glasses, and serve it. Comparing the onboard price to bottle store prices is just absurd.

Typically Princess cruises bought in Aus/NZ and operating with AUD onboard costs do not have daily gratuities but cruises operating with USD onboard costs do. However I'm sure I saw a US promo for USD ships that included gratuities as well as the Plus package. It was sometime last year but I can't remember exactly when. The original confirmation emails usually show what is included, way down the bottom.

The cruise lines usually add in shop space to the public spaces tally which, on some ships, can be very misleading as they are often not very busy compared with bars and lounges. From memory Majestic is like that - a whole section on deck 7 that has shops that were mostly empty most of the time. Designed for wealthy Chinese who want to shop luxury brands.

Yes, that day 3 test makes a big difference, I think. It catches those who had caught Covid just before their cruise but hadn't tested positive, plus those who faked their test results. Majestic Princess has some serious design flaws compared with older ships in the Princess fleet, and ships in other cruise lines. They seriously cut back on the bars on Majestic and most Royal Class ships - the spacious Wheelhouse Bar became the much smaller Crown Grill Bar, there is no Explorers lounge - it was replaced by the weird Princess Live, and there is no Crooners on Majestic. They tend to have popular dance music entertainers in the Piazza which gets very overcrowded. The Piazza is also where in International Cafe is and (I think) the bar in that area is also a Good Spirits Bar. That area alone is probably a major infection point for Covid. When we did a short cruise on Majestic in 2018 it was jam-packed all day and night.

The Royal Caribbean ships are larger so it takes more cases to reach Tier 2. I wish all cruise lines would announce the number of cases like they did on Westerdam. It might make a difference in some people's attitudes if they did. Anyway numbers should be easing off now as the current wave seems to be tailing off. The big numbers on Princess ships were when the current wave was just ramping up.

The cruise lines offer you a choice of airline but often have one that is substantially cheaper than the rest - which is why we got a business class flight one way to NZ cheaper than Qantas wanted for an economy class seat on the same flight. It didn't help with the airport queues though, at both ends!

Different demographics too. The Royal brands tend to attract a younger demographic whereas the Princess demographic is older, probably with poorer immune systems.

It happened to me only the other way around. I tacked a new cruise in front of an existing one and the existing one disappeared! Talk about panic!!!! Then I noticed the end date of the new cruise was actually the end date of the second cruise.

Is the missing cruise B2B with an earlier cruise? If so it gets automatically tacked on to the earlier cruise and you don't have to do anything for the second cruise.