SinbadThePorter

With Splendor you get sail out and sail in to Sydney Harbour and docking at Circular Quay opposite the Opera House, which is always a bonus. Enjoy. 😁 I notice in April she has a NZ cruise followed by a Queensland cruise. Either would be very good, both would be excellent.

I haven't been on Splendor, but I'd hate to think it was worse than Luminosa. Not my favourite ship. In fact, it's my least favourite of the ships I've travelled on in Australia, and that includes the Pacific Explorer. To the OP, I would suggest that unless there is a compelling reason to prefer Carnival, then either Princess or Royal Caribbean would be preferable. It's a long way to come to sail on a very ordinary vessel.

Which cruises are they? Are they local Australia/NZ or Transpacifics? If you are going to NZ, April is generally better than September weather wise. Your Fall (Autumn) is our Spring and visa versa.

I booked that Majestic 27th Nov cruise as a solo. It was too good to pass up. But I've got to wonder, didn't Princess just finish telling us that from now on they were never going to cut fares at the last minute.?

I suppose you could, but it sounds messy. 😱

Nope.

In what city?

November in the North Atlantic is not for wimps. 🥶

At the base of Mt Cootha are the Botanic Gardens and Planetarium.

The trick to using a TA is to find a good one. Unfortunately that is a very big trick.

Do you mean that US tipping culture is infecting other countries, who have completely different employment conditions? I'd agree. Very few people will turn down free money, especially if it is offered over and over again.

I can assure you that that line is there for American tourists. If you are willing to give away money, nobody will stop you.

Train, but only if you have very light luggage. Otherwise taxi.

I had to look up the Foveaux Strait as it's not actually an itinerary as far as I know. If you cruise between the fjords and Dunedin, which almost every cruise ship in that region does, you will necessarily go through the Foveaux Strait. Having done it several times I can tell you that the strait is wide but without many distinguishing features. The fjords should not be missed.

The Mt Maunangui bakery for some delicious meat pies. 🤠

This one is not quite my thing, but I thought it looked interesting. Seabourn Odyssey, Dep Sydney Fri 8th Dec, Arr Auckland Sat 23rd Dec, 15 nights. $5748 for Single SV guarantee suite.

On the Queensland cruises, for anything water related it's generally better to take a ship excursion rather than try to organise anything on shore as the timing just doesn't work out. When in Cairns, the larger cruise ships will anchor offshore at Yorkey's Knob and tender in, while the smaller ships will dock in Cairns itself. By smaller I mean less than about 290 meters. If you are contemplating a cruise that touches Cairns I would strongly recommend being on one that docks in the city, as Yorkey's Knob is a long way out of town and the tendering is very inconvenient. The zoo you are visiting in Sydney sounds like Taronga Zoo. You get there by ferry from Circular Quay (key) where your ship will be docked. Ferries are the best way to get around in Sydney. The two best sights are Watson's Bay for the cliff walk and Manly for the beach. Both places have plenty of pubs and eateries. I think that native mammals in NZ are limited to a couple of types of bats. They have plenty of birds, but if you want to see furry creatures you'll need to visit Oz. However, Milford Sound is worth a trip to NZ on it's own.

As a VV virgin I've been wondering about trivia. When is it on? Generally I wanted to work my restaurant bookings around trivia times.

I know, I've caught the train there. The station dates back to 1907. Good luck trying to get something like that built for a new cruise terminal. Anyway I was talking about the looks. Most cruise terminals are in pretty unappealing locations, the OPT happens to be one that's in a nice scenic spot, between the Opera House and the Bridge. If the BICT is not good enough as is, where would you like them to move it to?

People have been spoilt by the OPT. The BICT is not as blessed as the OPT in anything other than the ability to supply and load cruise ships. To me that makes up for all sorts of failings. If there is a comparison, maybe it should be to ports like Adelaide or Wellington, rather than to what is probably one of the three best ports in the world.

It's an outlet from the sewerage works. I don't know what comes out, I assume it's very well treated.

There are plenty of private operators on the river who could step in, but I think the main problem would be having a place near the BICT to offload passengers. It wouldn't be possible for home porting cruise ships, but I've wondered if it would possible to have water shuttles come and pick up directly from the ship, like in Airlie Beach.

There is a 303 bus that picks up within a few hundred meters of the terminal gates. I've caught it, but it runs at times inconvenient for most cruisers since it's there to pick up workers in the early morning and late afternoon from the engineering places along the perimeter of the airport. I don't know of any other cruise terminal whose planning has included new public transport options. The OPT has public transport because it's near Circular Quay, which would still be a transport hub even if the OPT didn't exist. The idea of a ferry to the BICT is attractive, but there is the question of where the receiving jetty would go. At the moment cruise ships dock hard against Port North, which is a fuel offloading facility. There are certain drawbacks to having passengers loading and unloading from small vessels while fuel is being transferred. The disused train line from Doomben only goes as far as Bulwer Island, which is still about 5km short of the BICT. The cost of running new train tracks to the BICT over what is basically reclaimed swamp would be prohibitive.

You should have seen it before they fixed it up. 😱 They actually did spend several million on fixing up and widening the road just before covid hit. Anyway the BICT is where it is because it was the only suitable riverside land left, and it was the only land left because nobody else wanted it. The government can't just tell all the businesses and industries along the road to pack up and get out because cruisers would like a better view. 🤑