mummsie

We did a Baltics cruise in May and it was hot in a few places.  We actually got sunburn.  As others mentioned, a showerproof coat and layers  - mummsie

I couldn't agree more.  Very annoyed we are docking at Cairns - must me some new construction as we were there for a week last year and the dock was in use.  Was hoping to spend the day wandering around - its a lovely city.  Not too worried about the extra sea day instead of Kiriwani as we weren't planning to go ashore that day anyway. 

Mummsie  

We are considering a World Cruise. Yikes!!! Just saying those words is daunting.

We cruised on the Grand and Royal class ships but never on a small ship like the Pacific Princess. We do love sea days and our longest cruise was 28 days to the South Pacific which we loved. We are considering the 2020 WC; my question is should we book the PP for a test run (hate the expense of this option) to see if she suits us or should we throw caution to the wind and book it.

If you would like to do a world cruise - I would suggest P&O Arcadia. The ship is built for rough seas and P&O have some great speakers that come on to give lectures. Because they specialise is longer cruises, they have huge amounts of entertainers that fly in every week or so so that the shows are always fresh. The only downside is they go from Southampton to Southampton. We are doing a longish cruise on her next year - taking in the segment from Sydney to Singapore via Japan, Hong Kong and Vietnam. mummsie

Packing cubes are the way to go. We also halve everything and put them in separate suitcases. I also put 1 spare set of everything in a zip log back and put in our carry on. If you are flying you never know if your bags are going to arrive with you or the next day. At least that way, you can have a shower and wear fresh clothes. We also have special packing containers for shirts. I do a mixture of rolling and folding depending on what it is. Having just come back from 5 weeks in the UK doing mostly driving with a short cruise at the end we found the packing cubes great. Means we didn't have to pack/unpack every day when checking in our hotels. I just put a few sets of underwear and the clothes we were wearing every day in the top of the case and they just lifted in and out. mummsie

My wife and l are about to take our first p&o [emoji636] Cruise, from Brisbane to Hong Kong. We have sailed previously on Cunard, however l was hoping to seek a little early clarification:

1. From what l have read l assume Ex Military OBC is not applicable for Australians?

2. You can bring onboard 1 litre of alcohol for cabin usage? What about soft drink?

3. Would anyone have a copy of a drinks package list?

4. I note we have four black tie evenings. If required l would bring these, but was wondering would an appropriate suit and tie, and not long gown for my wife be acceptable? We were simply hoping not to carry all the excess clothing for our onward journey.

Thank you all. [emoji3][emoji3]

 

 

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We are doing the Sydney to Singapore next year - we did a similar leg last year. My husband just takes a normal suit (lightweight) with 2 shirts and 1 tie and I just take 1 dress that will pass as a cocktail dress and a pair of long black trousers and a few nice tops. I just scroll through them each night. With baggage restrictions these days, its hard to pack for every type of scenario.

Can't help with the alcohol allowances and packages as we never bother. We have found P&O the cheapest of all the ships we have been on for alcohol.

mummsie

as the heading says, is it acceptable to wear the same dress a couple of nights, I have bought a lovely long black beaded dress and want to enjoy wearing it!!! I have three short cocktail dresses as well as dressy slacks and tops so will have enough to have something different each night but our cruise is the only time I'm going to get to wear it,

You can double up as much as you like. Who cares.!! You will never see these people again. When we fly from Australia to UK we don't have a log of luggage allowance. I just take one nice dress and a couple of pair of dressy black pants with a couple of different tops. I cycle through them. Mummsie

We recently returned from our cruise. We bought a drink package for the first time ever. I would never do it again. It would have been cheaper not to purchase it and we found we were drinking coffee 3-4 times a day just to make it worth it. We were also having extra drinks in the evening just to use up the $ value of the package.

At first we thought it good value because the cost of bottles of wine on Celebrity has gone way up since the last time we cruised with them about 3 years ago. But in hindsight it would have been cheaper just to buy the bottles of wine outright and the odd cocktail when we felt like it. just my opinion. mummsie

I agree. No chance. You will have to record it. Best show on BBC

Mummsie

I always buy my make up on my cruises as the prices are much much cheaper than in Australia. Clinic moisturiser on board is about a third of the price that I pay in the shops. They have a small range of estee lauder, Lancombe, Clinic and a few others. They don't have a huge range of colours but they do have a bit of everything. mummsie

Hi everyone

 

I wonder if you could help me out. My wife and I are about to take on the role of being guest speakers - 50's rock 'n' roll dance teaching - onboard a number of cruise lines via an agent. (The agent manages a number of cruise lines and we pick which individual cruises we'd like to be guest speakers on.

 

We are familiar with age groups on R.C. and P&O and that such classes work well in view of the age groups present. But we have never been on a Celebrity cruise. We have been told the age group tends to be older. Of course, I know the average age varies depending on the cruise length, etc. But I wonder, in your opinion, if we would find two things on board:

 

1. A good number of cruisers who would jump at the chance to participate in, specifically, rock 'n' roll dance classes; and

2. One or more multi-piece bands who play, among other things, some 50's rock 'n' roll.

 

Any help would be appreciated.

 

Regards,

Mark.

We too are dancers albeit retired ballroom. We have found over all the lines we have been on, there is always an enthusiastic bunch of people who love to give any sort of dancing a try. Most of the bands will do some sets of rock and roll. Celebrity seem to do much more than other lines we have tried. enjoy.

Hi, just booked a 14 night cruise to the Caribbean on the Azura for March 7th 2013, paid to upgrade flight to Premium, then find out P&O baggage allowance is only 23 Kgs!!!! How do they expect people to go to the Caribbean on a cruise with 5 formal nights and 5 informal nights with a 23 Kg allowance. They must have lost the plot! This will be the first and last P&O cruise we'll be going on! Even tried to pay for an increase to the baggage allowance, they won't have any of it...Anyone else got a problem with the allowance? Regards:mad:

We did a 25day San Francisco to Southampton early in the year flying too and from Australia to boot - so many formal nights - we had 2 cases - one was 14KG and the other 16KG. We managed perfectly fine. As others said you don't need a full change of formal wear for each night - I had 2 skirts and 4 tops that I cycled through. Nobody is going to care if you wear a different outfit every night. And at the end of the day, you are never going to see any of these people again. They are not going to say - gee I saw this person wear the same thing twice :D Mummsie

thanks for that - we've got chargers and cables for our phones / fitbits

we bought a US / NZ adaptor - but NZ is 240v and US is 110v?

so I'm confused if our USB chargers will actually work....

It will be fine. We are from OZ and have an adaptor that fits anything to anything. We just take one 240V charger that all the devices fit into. I even have a 3 in 1 cable that you can use with iphones and kindles so it cuts down on the tangle of cables. The phones/ipads/kindles will be fine - they are able to do some power conversion thing. Can't help with the fitbit - I had a garmin that didn't need charging until I broke it. mummsie

hello fellow cruisers! Help please. I'm flying into Sydney the day before my March 10 cruise and staying one day after as the flight leaves too early on debarkation day. Princess wants to charge me over $1200 for two nights. When I pull the hotel up on Expedia it's only in the $230 CAD range...I'm already paying more for the cruise being single but it looks like they are trying with the hotel. How difficult and expensive is it to get to hotel then ship, then hotel then airport? Thanks!

If you book into a hotel at Circular Quay where the ship docks - there are quite a few within spitting distance to where the ship pulls in, it may be a 5 minute walk. This is also where you catch the train to and from the airport so its very very easy to get to everywhere from there. We have stayed in a few hotels at Circular Quay prior to going on a cruise out of Sydney. We always fly in the day before. Its all very easy and convenient. Mummsie

We didn't notice much precaution during our last visit.

 

It's only a concern for those who are are pregnant or are likely to conceive within 6 months. Just catching Zika is not a big issue (as far as we know).

We spend about 8 days in that part of the world a couple of months back. Didn't see/hear one mozzie. We did put insect repellant on just in case though. As another poster said - most mozzies come out at dusk and by then you are normally back on the ship.

mummsie

Sorry should be Britannia - cant change title - great start:D

 

My last cruise was Celebrity, prior to that OV.

 

On those occasions I wore blazer and tie on formal evenings however on a cruise in a couple of weeks and have read that 90% are DJ's or tux.

 

I don't possess either but have no real issue with popping down to M&S but as this cruise may be our last for some time I'm struggling to justify the expense...or should I ?

 

We always adhere to dress code, just wondering , would blazer / smart trousers / tie etc be acceptable or would I be banished to the buffet.

My husband hasn't taken his dinner suit for years. Just take a dark suit and you will be fine. These days with baggage restrictions, its all but impossible to pack everything.

mummsie

As a previous poster mentioned - Gardens by the Bay is a fantastic place to visit. The domes are amazing. After going there, you can go for a short work to the Marina Bay Sands - they have quite a few amazing shops and eating places in there at ground level. But if you need to catch a Taxi - all the drivers are very honest and fares are really cheap compared to other countries we have been. Just remember though - they don't expect to be tipped - although we sometimes just round up to the next dollar. We have been to Singapore at least once a year for the last 12 or so year. I love the place. So easy to get around. mummsie

Aurora is a beautiful ship. Just a good size. We have been on her twice now and would be among my favourite ships in 19 cruises over 5 different lines.

If you enjoy dancing - Carmens lounge is for you. Nice sized dance floor and normally quite good music. We had dinner in the Beachouse twice in the last cruise - food was amazing.

mummsie

I'm another big fan of the Sapphire which will have a drydock in Shanghai before deploying to Europe for a summer 2018 season including our Norway cruise. :D

 

I know that the Sapphire's sister ship the Diamond was greatly renovated for the Asian market however the only change I am aware of on the Sapphire was adding flat panel HDTVs and the on-demand entertainment system.

Sapphire is a great ship. We are on her next year in May for a Norway cruise as well. Will be our third time on her. Big and beautiful.

mummsie

we were in C147 - there is a passageway just near there that staff use to take dirty linen through. There was no noise at all. Perfect position close to the lifts and stairs - Mummsie

On our recent cruise on P&O Aurora they did the change over at midday as well. It seemed to work ok. This was the yearly round the world so thought it was something just peculiar to that but obviously not :) We also had early sitting for dinner but that didn't really bother us. Mummsie

We love the Aurora and will be joining her in a little over a week. The ship is nothing like the ships you have cruised on locally in Oz. We did a Baltics cruise a few years ago on NCL - seas were calm in May but as you know this can change from day to day.

I would suggest you contact one of the specialist local cruise travel agents (Cruiseabout) to get you started. That's what we did for our first cruise on the Aurora - after that you can good deals when you book on board. Mummsie

they also have limited Clinic - I will be buying up big. We will be on in 4 weeks too :)

a few years ago we did a Baltics cruise and did a private tour through Red October. They were fantastic. Just a mini bus with about 12 people so we were able to zip in in front of the big busses. I would totally recommend them

no extra vaccinations required - we have been to all these spaces several times - however just remember it is hot humid with lots of mosquitoes. Take some bug repellent. mummsie

I think you were unlucky with your teachers. I am a very experienced ballroom dancer - and on our Aurora cruise last year, I went to the classes and helped with some of the beginner dancers. The teachers on the ship were excellent and went through very basic steps. They taught right up to advanced people. I couldn't get over how big the classes were and how well they managed in the small space on the dancefloor. I would give it another go. Mummsie