Relaxing Robbies

We just applied for shareholder OBC for our b2b cruises commencing late November. The credits were applied today and we received new booking confirmations and copies of the passage contract for the two cruises. The passage contracts show the current date, and the original booking date. Clause 24 on page 9 of that document still states that the corkage fee is $15 per bottle. I have printed it out and will be testing it to see if they comply with their contract which states that it is a legally binding agreement. I will report back to you after the cruise.

Masala Tiger does very good Indian food. That was our choice for embarkation day lunch.

I also got the survey and completed it. The questions didn’t really give me a chance to tell them what I would like them to know. Who cares about ambassadors?

Carnival Splendor

No annual account fee. We use ours to make purchases overseas. We used to make fee free withdrawals from overseas ATMs with our ING debit card, but they no longer rebate the overseas ATM fee. Not sure what we will use for cash in the future. We are ok for our next cruise to New Zealand because we still have some cash left after our cruise last year.

We are on Deck 8, which is above some noisy public areas. After looking at the deck plans I decided that there were some areas that should not be very noisy late at night. I rejected a few directly above the Arcade and a few noisy bars, before accepting one that I thought should be ok.

Can Bar Tab be used to pay for basic beers, including the 5 for $5 off deal? Somewhere it mentioned using it to pay for premium drinks, so I wondered if they are included.

We finally got someone at Virgin Cruises to agree to help us find out our missing Access Key. Only took about two hours after the first phone rep somehow disconnected our call. Finally we are booked on a 6 night Melbourne Sydney Hobart cruise. We are not all that happy with our cabin location, but at least we finally got a booking on our preferred cruise.

We are still waiting for a replacement email with a valid AccessKey. Called Virgin Voyages, waited on hold for nearly an hour to speak to someone. They advised that everyone got an initial email with a blank access key and that a replacement email will be sent sometime. When I told them that I knew that other people had received theirs and had already made bookings they told me that I had to wait and it might take up to 5 business days. They said that there was nothing that they could do to help me before next Saturday, they did not even have a contact for the relevant team. I have also emailed a query this morning and have not yet received a reply. I did let them know that I am not happy that other people are making bookings and we will probably miss out on our choice of cruises. So far I am not at all impressed. Who knows what the onboard experience will be like, but I am not holding high hopes. Yes I have checked my junk emails.

Our email also arrived without an Access Key. We have not yet received a replacement email. Have you managed to book the cruise you wanted once your code arrived?

Thanks for this. We didn’t get the email. We just transferred some flybuys points which arrived in velocity immediately, so have bought one access pass. We are hoping to book a cruise toTassie from Melbourne.

When we fly to Broome to visit family members they know it is time to go to the airport and pick us up when they see, hear and feel the plane flying over their homes.

There are no legal problems with cruises embarking Australia or New Zealand and disembarking in the other country. Although Carnival do not offer these one way cruises, several other cruiselines including Princess and Holland America do offer some. I imagine that getting approval from Carnival may depend on the port where you wish to disembark. These one way cruises normally start or terminate in Auckland, so getting immigration or customs clearance there would probably not present a problem. Hopefully your last port is not Bay of Islands, which is a tender port and a small place where customs/immigration would not normally be available.

Very sad news indeed. RIP Mr Gut.

Last year in Tauranga we returned to the ship 10 minutes before the cutoff time. We were surprised to find that they knew what our names are. They told us we were the last passengers and pulled up the gangplank as we boarded! In Manila back in 2017 we did have a bit of a scare. We did a private excursion out to the countryside and on the freeway back into Manila the traffic was horrendous. We were actually stationary for 45 minutes, and we started to worry when we realised that there were vendors walking up and down the freeway selling bottles of water. Fortunately we had told the driver we had to be back at the ship an hour earlier than the required time. We were supposed to see some of the city sights, but instead we insisted that our driver return us straight to the ship once traffic finally started moving slowly again. It was an interesting race to the ship, but we made it with a bit of time to spare, thank god.

When we cruised Fremantle to Sydney on Coral in March we carried 12 bottles onboard. They recorded each of our 10 extra bottles and it took quite some time for them to write down the details of each bottle, even recording the year of vintage. They then carefully applied the stickers. We were surprised because our previous experiences had been as you described. The funny thing is that no corkage charges ever appeared on our onboard account.

Princess wine prices are very expensive. They charge $10 - $12 more per bottle than Carnival do for the same wine. I imagine P&O prices are more like Carnival, but I am just guessing, I do not know that from experience.

It will be AUD onboard.All Princess cruises departing from and returning to Australia use AUD.

Were you able to go inside Carbisdale Castle? It used to be a Scottish YHA youth hostel and I remember well staying there in the early 1980s. It had a great art collection and was an amazing place to stay for very few dollars.

Good luck trying to buy a bottle of wine on Princess for $42. If I remember correctly the cheap bottles of cask wine equivalent stuff are now over $50. You can buy a bottle of something drinkable you like at Dan Murphys for $15, carry it onboard and pay $30 per bottle corkage. That $45 total is cheaper than buying wine onboard, and you get better quality wine, but you have to cart it onboard yourself and wait while they record the details of every individual bottle and put a sticker on it.

https://www.princess.com/ships-and-experience/food-and-dining/beverages/ I checked my onboard account printout for that cruise and yes it was AUD $23.00 per day. The website linked above quotes USD $14.99 plus gratuities, so that seems right. I do not drink coffee so I did not price the package that included coffees. The website linked above quotes USD $29.99 plus 18% gratuities for the Zero Alcohol package. I guess that would probably be AUD $46 per day.

I was on Coral Princess in March and purchased the Classic Soda package onboard for $23 per day. That package included sodas, mocktails and some juices,but not coffees. I drank lots of lemon lime bitters during the cruise and enjoyed them, along with zero mojitos and zero pina coladas. With the mocktails you are not limited to what is on the menu. They will make up lots of drinks alcohol free. I did not try any juices other than the normal free breakfast juices.

We were on Splendor for her 31 July cruise to North Qld. We missed Port Douglas due to bad weather and did not receive any refund of port fees. When we missed that port, Carnival also decided to skip Willis Island and head down to Bundaberg and clean the hull. Unfortunately when we arrived in Bundaberg the divers said it was too rough to do the clean. It looks like they are going to make another attempt during your cruise. At least you are being offered some compensation. We were given nothing.

If you check the conditions for the 651 visa it only applies to visitors with passports from listed European countries. The OP lives in Vancouver so is probably Canadian? if so, they would need the 601.

We were in Hong Kong in 2017 and watched the light show from Tsim Sha Tsui because we were told that you could not really view it from the cruise ship.