SinbadThePorter

If your preference is to sail from Auckland visiting New Caledonia and/or Fiji and returning to Auckland, then probably your only real option is on P&O Pacific Explorer. P&O is usually regarded as a budget cruise line. It is generally more family oriented than other cruise lines, so you tend to see more young adults and children on board. For a quieter cruise I would recommend Princess or Celebrity, however they may not have the itineraries you want.

Don't know about iPads, but as far as I know mobile phones cannot act as a router for anything other than the mobile connection. In other words they cannot transfer data between wifi networks. A Windows 10/11 laptop has no trouble doing this. You can also get proper mini routers that will do the job for about $30.

Exactly, the cruise lines would have undoubtedly preferred to make grats mandatory, rather than continue to let Australians remove them. They were discouraged from doing this because of pending or existing consumer law. So they were eventually forced to fold the grats into the fare for local cruises. The other thing to remember is that Australian law does not apply outside of Australia (except in rare cases). So things purchased in the US from US companies are not subject to the same conditions as those purchased in Australia from Australian companies (which may be subsidiaries of US companies).

The Competition and Consumer Act 2010 came into effect on the 1st January 2011. The ACCC initiated action in Federal Court against Jetstar and Virgin for "price dripping" in 2014, successfully fining Virgin in 2016 and Jetstar in 2017. The cruise lines removed gratuities between 2010 and 2016. The two timelines are highly coincident, so it's no wonder people make the assumption that they are related. I tend to think that the 2010 Act and subsequent legal actions informed the decision to remove gratuities, even if it wasn't the only factor. Of course that is only my opinion. What the legislation definitely did do was remove the option of separate mandatory gratuities, which were not included in the advertised fare, for the cruise lines. If Australians prior to 2010 were removing grats and the cruise lines wanted in future to require grats, then their only legal option was to advertise cruise fares which included grats. Those lines that do not include grats in their fares are required to ensure that the grats are removable. Otherwise they are in breach of consumer law.

If transiting Brisbane, stay near the airport. If shopping before boarding, stay at the Skygate Novotel. If sightseeing in Brisbane, stay in the CBD or South Bank.

Hate be a downer, but these guys cannot make money at those prices. The next time we hear about them will be a news story about a boat full of passengers sold into slavery on the Skeleton Coast. 🥸

To my understanding, gratuities are only included in the fare on cruises purchased within Australia and NZ for some Carnival Corp lines. If you buy in the US, then grats are charged as they would be in the US even if in AUD.

If you are happy on RCI, then that is probably the way to go, although I think Princess tends to be the more popular cruise line locally. From Sydney there are four main cruise regions. The Queensland coast and Great Barrier Reef. The islands of the South Pacific, including New Caledonia, Vanuatu and Fiji. New Zealand. Southern Australia, including Melbourne, Hobart, Adelaide and Kangaroo Island. As well, there are the very popular cruises that circumnavigate Australia. This takes about four weeks and is mostly done by Princess. This would be my personal choice, but you need to have the time for it. The best two week cruise would be New Zealand. Culturally NZ is very familiar to Australians, but scenically it's a whole different ball game. Milford Sound is definitely worth a look. If you want to do some warm weather cruising while here, I would favour the South Pacific islands over the Great Barrier Reef. The coral is more accessible and the ports are more exotic.

NIB via Qantas.

The 10 day next leg from Honolulu to Vancouver is only $A1239pp for a guarantee balcony. The direct Air Canada fight back from Vancouver to Brisbane is a bit cheaper than the Jetstar flight from Honolulu to Sydney. It's a lot of sea days, but it bears thinking about.

Any company that would do this, won't get me on board. ☹️

Lautoka itself is not very interesting or attractive. If the ship departure time works, you could catch a half hour taxi ride to Port Denarau, from where you can get day trips out to one of the many resorts in the Mamanucas Islands.

With two young kids in tow, definitely the Fiji cruise. PNG is a fascinating place, but I don't think it's going to be of much interest to the young ones. PNG is just not oriented towards tourism like the South Pacific islands are. They are both Christmas cruises in the middle of the summer school holidays. So there should be plenty of other kids on board, especially to Fiji. The Fiji cruise goes to Mystery Island (no mystery there, it's just that most people can't pronounce the actual name), Suva, Lautoka and Lifou. Mystery Island is a small undeveloped island in the very south of Vanuatu. Nobody lives on it, but locals will cross over to it from the main island to sell stuff to cruising tourists. It's a very good spot for snorkeling, but not much else. Suva and Lautoka are large towns in Fiji. Basically they are not worth visiting, except to get day trips to the fabulous islands offshore. From Lautoka you can get a half hour taxi ride to Port Denarau, where there are several tourist boats to take you out to various islands on regular schedules. Lifou is a large island in New Caledonia. It used to be popular for the snorkeling in Jinek Bay, but I hear that is now closed. There are usually excursions available for purchase on shore, but you can also just snorkel around the tender jetty or walk up the hill to the church for a very scenic view. If you do choose PNG remember to bring along some Kina, the local currency, for any purchases. Preferably in small notes. The locals away from the large towns have great difficulty in exchanging currency.

I can't remember how this was arranged for me, but your P&O Cruisling number and your Princess Captain's Circle number need to be the same. Then when you cruise on P&O, it automatically updates your Captain's Circle level. I think it might take a call to Princess to sort out.

Yes, the incentive is to sail with Princess.

The South Australian state flag features a representation of the state bird, an Australian Magpie against a yellow disk representing the sun. Denizens of other states scurrilously suggest that it is actually a crow on a plate. Hence crow eaters.

P&O do have a loyalty program, it's just that it's a Princess loyalty program. 😁

I'd guess that list dates from the 70s. Some words like bonza or yakka are only used ironically now. Durry for cigarette I haven't ever heard at all, except in pieces about WW2. The way to pick out Kiwis is to get them to count to ten ... four, five, sex, siven, et, nine, tin ....

When I have a look the P&O site tells me that balconies for the June cruise are sold out. P&O are perennial discounters. I would wait for the next Flash Sale, which should be along any time now. Your cruise will definitely be cheaper then. I've been on a couple of P&O PNG cruises and they don't seem to me to be any more popular than their other cruises. You need to be careful with P&O pricing. For instance you may get $100 OBC per person with a Value Fare, but the Go Fare could be $270 per person cheaper than that. I don't know about price drops. With P&O I always buy late from Flash Sales and never saw a price drop from that.

I've got one with NIB via Qantas that covers both.

Who's Will, and what has he done to upset everyone?

The relevant legislation is the Australian Competition and Consumer Act (2010), which came into effect on the 1st January 2011. Under the legislation all businesses in Australia must display the total price of a product or service as a single figure. This price must be the minimum total cost, the lowest amount a customer could pay, including any taxes, duties and unavoidable or pre-selected extra fees. If the pre-selected fee is avoidable, e.g. voluntary gratuities, then it doesn't need to be shown as part of the advertised total cost. So the only legally permissible gratuities in Australia are those folded into the total cruise cost, or those that can be removed at the discretion of the customer. Mandatory gratuities not shown as part of the total cruise cost at the time of purchase are not allowed. Were those gratuities refundable on request? Otherwise, if this was booked in Australia and the advertising did not include the gratuities in the total cost for that Celebrity cruise, then it would appear on the face of it to be contrary to the Act. But as any lawyer will tell you (and I'm not one), it ain't illegal until a court says it's illegal.

Why not just ask the room steward for them?

Also German, French and Spanish. I don't know why they don't just make one announcement in Esperanto.

Naturally! 😁