Brisbane41

On 6/26/2019 at 2:56 AM, K D cruiser said:

We're going on the Ruby to Alaska and I canceled a shore excursion in Victoria.  It's not showing up on my Princess Visa as a credit.  When I called Princess, I was told it would show up as OBC on the folio when I boarded the ship.  Why isn't it refunded on my credit card?  They're really quick to charge when you book an excursion, but I have to wait months to get it credited as OBC?  Has anyone had a problem getting the credit as OBC?  Thanks for any info.

I have had this issue before.

It is not refunded to your credit card.

You will not see it appear as a credit on the statement the ship prints for you at the desk or on final departure.

However when you contact Princess directly they will show it hidden from view on another financial statement they use to settle the account on your card.

It is all very confusing as it is not clear you are actually getting your money back at all. The charge on the credit card does reflect the change though but it does not reflect it on your statement.

I have spend a total of 104 nights on the Aurora and it is one of my favourite ships. It is definitely a far superior ship to anything P&O Australia has and much more modern. I have sailed on a few P&O Australia ships that were with Princess before they shifted over.

The Aurora is a well designed large ship with spacious cabins (slightly larger than the Sun class ship) with more storage spaces and a better functioning bathroom with opening mirror shelves for storage and handheld shower nozzle. There are about four cupboards in the main cabin on entrance with safe in one. There is usually a lounge chair in each cabin with table, desk and chair. The rest of the ship is very well laid out with easy access to the open decks. There is a large spacious terrace deck aft which is good for viewing sailaways or scenic cruising.

The Aurora and Oriana were specifically designed to cater to passengers taking longer cruises like world voyages so the ships generally are better equipped than those designed for shorter cruises.

On 7/13/2019 at 9:15 AM, Aus Traveller said:

The OP said their ship will be docking at the Grain Terminal, not Portside. The Grain Terminal in a long way down the river from Portside - it takes a cruise ship nearly an hour to cover that distance. The ferries (CityCat) don't go far past Portside. The OP could get a taxi from the Grain Terminal to a ferry stop at Bulimba, then go by ferry, but that would be slow. If there are four people in the taxi, I suggest it would be better to take the taxi all the way to the city.

That was my intended suggestion. For a tourist the ferry ride into Brisbane is more impressive than going in by car in my opinion and may be worth the hour long ferry ride. You get good views from the river. A taxi to the nearest ferry terminal would speed things up a bit. It would all depend on what one wants to do in Brisbane that determines their method of transport. It is much like the tourists using the Manly ferry for sightseeing.

Check if the ferries go that far up the river or get a taxi to the nearest ferry wharf and collect the telephone number to order a taxi from the same wharf on return. I was in Brisbane in March for a few days after swapping from the Sea Princess to the Sun Princess and used the ferry.

I would avoid the shuttles arranged by the cruise line. They are making a massive profit on them and only making passengers slower by cramming them in and congesting it.

The ferry is much better. You can even pay on board.

15 hours ago, The_Big_M said:

 

Literal? Nice deflection, since your statement is far from accurate. 

 

There are many cities that are worse, and Sydney is nowhere near the worst. It may not be the best, but given that most people follow the laws, which are sensibly applied, our congestion is nowhere near other places, it means that for someone unfamiliar it's far easier to fit in than other countries where you have no idea what to expect, or to fit in how the locals do. 

 

As for the grass is greener syndrome, sure, the US has more multi road ways - but it also has a great lack of alternatives so good luck to you if you wanted any other way to travel. Public transport is much poorer on the whole also than many other countries. You can't just lament something without looking at the overall picture - nowhere is perfect, and the only reason the roads are so good there is an expectation that everybody drives. It's essential. Other countries aren't so overly reliant so they don't have the same need to dedicate all resources to one thing.

 

Japan conversely has a population 5 times ours - in an area less than a 20th the size of ours. So of course density is much greater so from necessity you need to duplicate infrastructure. And when you have much higher density that's not only sensible but economic. Who's going to pay the trillions needed to do the same here to cover only a 5th of the population over an area 20 times larger? You, Mr deep pockets? 

Its not a deflection but reality. Sydney is a poor choice of city to hire a car. I have been to America. LA for example the CBD is enormous, Sydney on the other hand the CBD is tiny yet we still have a highly densely populated city. There are actually reports that suggest due to the small size of Sydney' CBD it could be more dense than the larger cities in the USA for example. When you look at the map you could easily fit the Sydney CBD into a 1 square kilometre radius.

That aside, no matter how you compare it to other worldwide cities you can still come to the same conclusion that it is totally an inappropriate place to hire a car for a day drip on a holiday.

You want to talk about Japan? They have a phenomenal train network that connects their country. In Australia 85% of our population live on the coast. We have an antiquated train network inferior to the old steam trains. I am not lying here when I tell you the old steam trains could do a journey from Sydney to Newcastle quicker than what the miserable s- shakers we have in service today can do. The Sydney to Newcastle train is looking at a 2:40 minute journey. Japanese trains could do the same distance in 40 minutes. Even driving between the two cities is a hassle enough. One day Australia is going to have a massive population with no infrastructure to support it. At least other countries have invested in their future transport plans unlike ours.

On 6/28/2019 at 12:15 AM, The_Big_M said:

 

Love those sweeping generalisations. So New York is better to hire a car in? Rome? Paris?? Or further afield, Casablanca? Moscow? 

 

I know which city I'd rather rent a car in...

I cant see what the bid deal is when it clearly expresses how bad it is for car hire. People think Sydney is easy but it is not. Far from it. People from major international cities with populations that eclipse Sydney think that hiring a car will be a breeze, when in fact it is far from it. In reality it could well be the worst city in the world to hire a car. I have been fortunate enough to see some of the roads in the USA and we certainly do not have multiple road lanes like them. Its quite embarrassing for our country to have predominately duel lane highways when the rest of the world has much more. In fact Japan has multiple story roads on top of each other.

You should not take things so literally.

I have done them on different ships and they are definitely worth while. Being ex-Navy I am interested in the inner workings of a ship and find them interesting. For the price it is good value for money which includes many extras and benefits along the way. You are often given shower robes, aprons and souvenir photos as well as food and drinks at a private bar on completion. They will also hand out personalised stationary like notepads with your name and cabin number written on each sheet. Simple stuff but still interesting. Personally for me the bridge visit is the highlight. I have been on hundreds of ships bridges through my life and always like visiting them. Typically the bridge is not a sensitive area on a Naval ship as it holds no sensitive or security information. It is nothing more than an area for navigation.

It is only different for Australian and New Zealand citizens who book cruises via the Australian office. The reason it is different is because far too many Australians refused to accept the auto-payment of gratuities linked to on board account and as such the cruise line responded by abolishing it. If Australians were paying gratuities then it would have remained the same. Clearly it changed. For us prices have increased as it is factored into the fare and the crew still get paid.

When Australians do cruises based out of any other country then the gratuity rules apply. If you took a poll you would probably find more Australians payed up front opposed to having it linked to their account. It is something very uncommon in this country and most people realise it is a payment for the crew and pay up front to get it out of the way. It is what I do. Personally I would not tolerate having those charges on my account daily so I pay up front.

worst city in the world to hire a car for a holiday. You will just stress yourself out. Our trains are antiquated but are far better than the car for the Blue Mountains. First you have to get out of the city, deal with the congestion, tolls and then find a park, pay for parking, not to mention the formalities of pick up and drop off. The Blue Mountains is a major tourist destination and well connected with public transport. Far better to use the trains and buses and cheaper as well. The car rental will only prolong stress and will make the day more miserable.

That is one of the reasons I will not use a travel agent for a cruise. They have done it to me before and the results for them were not good. Whatever reason they do it I do not appreciate that level of trust being broken. I know they do it so can confirm that from past experience.

On 6/4/2019 at 11:27 AM, NSWP said:

Young Tony....Might I say if you are 'personally against gratuities' then why pay them?   After all at the end of the day they are a 'wage subsidy.'

I view them as part of the fare. The last thing I would want is my name on the "blacklist" that crew get to see of those who have not paid. As I see it paying up front when I pay the fare is not a condescending way of saying "do the right thing or you wont get a tip" (I hate that attitude), in fact what I am doing is factoring it into the fare, paying up front and when I board I will not pay anything more or take anything back. I expect the service to be as advertised in the sales brochures or website.

Unless it is a condition of using that travel agent you do not have to pre-pay. I do prepay mine just to get them out of the way and consider it as part of the cruise fare. I wait until final payment is due and pay at the same time. As I see it I am personally against gratuities but if I prepay it then it is out of the way and not a problem because I have paid for it regardless of what service I get. I am not like some people who withhold tips based on service. I just prepay the things and get it out of the way much like the service charges added to hotel fares in Asia.

I did receive an email from Princess recently about a price increase and advising to avoid the gratuity increase it is advisable to prepay all gratuities for existing bookings after the date of the gratuity increase to lock in the cheaper gratuities and avoid paying the higher rates when they are introduced.

To be 100% honest I am really glad they started this new system of upselling. It gives booked passengers the chance to take an upgrade at a reduced cost of what the upgraded cabin would have been and at the same time avoid the burden of suffering from an unwanted upgrade to an inferior cabin which would really be considered a downgrade.

I have benefited from full suite upgrades thanks to this system at prices I could afford but would not have ever paid full fare for.

It should not matter how safe the wharfs are. The ship should have crew on the bridge 24/7 regardless if it is in port or not and a crew on standby to cut the lines should the ship come lose of the wharf collapse. The ship should have enough power ready to manoeuvre at moments notice for such events. At least this is how it was meant to be in the Navy.

The problem you will have with sim cards is the phone has to be completely unlocked to accept the sim card otherwise it will not recognise it.

I always hire a wifi pack as it is much better value for money and you can charge it up in the morning and take it with you all day for wi-fi. There is pick up at the major airports and drop off as well. Several companies offer this and you just have to search for wifi hire in Japan to find many companies.

You might find it difficult hooking up to wifi hotspots unless it is a hotel opposed to a public place.

36 minutes ago, diane.in.ny said:

 

 

Why would anyone pay more for a smaller cabin?  Am I reading you wrong? Doesn't make sense

You are reading me right. People are paying more for a smaller cabin. Take a look at P&O Cruises UK who used to own Princess. They operate some Grand class ships pretty much identical to the Crown, Ruby and Emerald Princess. What you want to do is look at the single cabins on Azura. When you find the prices for them on cruises and correspond to the equal grade of twin cabin you will find that the singles are paying more for the single cabin with only a single bed and half the size of a twin than it would cost them to fork out the money for sole occupancy of a twin.

5 hours ago, DDG 41 said:

Why not 200%? You are taking up a Cabin space which is usually split between 2 people so you pay what the cabin is worth so for it will be half as two people are using the cabin. IF you don't want to pay twice you need to book a solo cabin which can't be split between 2. If you have a problem or don't like reality, Don't Cruise.

Don't be ridiculous. The fare includes port taxes and charges included in the fare. What a single pays should be what the entire price is for the designated cabin minus the fees and taxes that would be imposed on the other person should they take up the space.

Cruise lines benefit from singles as they even out the passenger numbers by making the ship less crowded and enabling more 3 and 4 berths to be sold. The singles use less food, water and often pay more for excursions than what a couple would who go on their own opposed to organised trips in some cases. Compared to the times a few years ago when strangers would do a friendly share cabin which have thankfully been abolished singles used to pay 160% of the fare before it reverted to full price. 

What you fail to understand is that there are many elderly people who cruise and some of them are widows or widowers and cruising was a good way for these people to maintain quality of life with social interaction and stimulate their mental health by keeping them happy and motivated because of a holiday. There were always a great number of these sorts of passengers on cruise ships. The high single supplements are only penalising the likes of them. Whether you like it or not it is the people who add to the enjoyment of a cruise and it takes all sorts to make up the passenger mix. No matter where you go in the world you are always going to find singles and cruise lines do benefit from their business. If the single supplement is too high then what we will see is a return to social networking where strangers book a cabin together and we have no end of problems with strangers not getting on and fighting and the ship having to resolve the issues. Twenty years go when this was a policy to mix strangers with strangers you could walk out onto the promenade deck at night and see endless bodies covered in blankets on the deck chairs sleeping because they could not get on with their cabin partner. I do not want to see a return to this era on cruise ships.

7 hours ago, diane.in.ny said:

I was just wondering if anyone besides me thinks it would be great if Princess added solo cabins to their new builds? And not charge 2x single rate!

Bad idea! P&O UK already have single cabins on some of their newer ships and they are half the size of regular cabins at twice the price which is ridiculous. With what P&O are charging for a single cabin you are better off paying full single occupancy for a regular cabin and get more space.

The only thing Princess would do is make the cabins smaller and charge more. The system is fine as it is right now.

I would not ever risk disconnecting the battery. It is too risky and probably not a good idea at all. I have been away for over 3 months many times and have never had a problem starting the car on return. I think 6 months is the longest it has been without starting it.

That is one thing I can never understand about cruise ships and why they need different colour carpet or lifts facing forward for people to know where they are. For my it has always been natural. I have never gotten lost on a ship and have a memory of sorts that I only need to look at the deck plans before I go and study them for a few minutes and I know exactly where I am on the ship at any time and exactly where to go. Even when on the ship I always know which way is forward and aft no matter if I am blindfolded or not.

4 hours ago, cr8tiv1 said:

 

   6 hours ago,  Fat Albert said: 

 The harbor pilot claimed "they take over the ship" No Captain surrenders control and authority of his ship to a harbor pilot. The harbor pilot NEVER touches any controls at all. I have been on the bridge with the Captain in Command and the harbor pilot present and observed the duties.  The harbor pilot is for the harbor traffic, sea and weather conditions and they report to the Captain . 

Not true on Panama Canal Transit.  Captain gives up ship to pilot or it doesn't go through the locks.  (disclaimer:  not sure if pilot has hands on controls, but does have complete control of ship.)

Unless of course the Panama Canal pilot decides to simply fall asleep on the Captains chair and leave it to them to take care of for the day as I have heard happens a bit.

Looks like the pilots have just gotten used to new technology like the azipods. This technology is still new and was only being used by a few ships decades ago and even them some had problems with breakdowns. I believe Princess picked the tradition propulsion for reliability and has not changed for a while. Unlike the past liners of yesteryear ships with traditional propulsion do have bow and stern thrusters these days which changes things significantly.  When you look at all the older liners that did the Atlantic crossing it was all traditional propulsion. They would have had a much harder time berthing back then and needed tug boats to dock. Azipods have made work a lot easier. All the Alaska pilots are doing is stating the obvious. There is nothing wrong with the propulsion Princess ships use and it does what it is designed to do. Besides that there is more to berthing than the propulsion units the ships have. Even if the ship does have azipods and can manoeuvre with enough high winds facing a large ships profile it could be enough to push it off the wharf as well so it is probably a moot point.  

Honestly the article could be a beat up of some stroppy pilots just unhappy they have to work with technology they are not used to or have to use tug boats to assist.

They are actually the "same class" of ship except one ship the Emerald Princess has an extra deck full of passengers with no extra public space. The biggest difference is the congestion on Emerald Princess and lack of congestion on the Sapphire Princess.

You will also find a lot of dead ends on Emerald Princess and areas that are blocked of which is quite bizarre. One example is the Skywalkers on Sapphire you can walk out the back doors and have access to the entire balcony at the back of the nightclub which is good fore viewing and fresh air. On the Emerald Princess these doors are blocked and it is labelled as an emergency exit only. There is a part railing and deck on the back of Skywalkers on Emerald but it is completely barricaded off for some unknown reason. I say this is bizarre as there is no logical explanation as they share the same aft design.

Like the above there are just other minor niggling issues that made Emerald more blocked off and closed than Sapphire Princess. The ships are the same width but the outside promenade area on Sapphire has more width and Emerald has more width inside. Just a minor difference and probably no big drama.

Personally I prefer the Sapphire Princess over Emerald Princess any day.

1 hour ago, DDG 41 said:

Wait. Why is the price double when the terminal will have less capabilities?

Its called corruption. Who cares what the government gives you when you can skim from the top "fees and charges" and double the price and walk home rich by just being connected to the right people.

That will be really bad for the city of Newcastle. At least when Baird was premier it had a better chance of being done as he was more interested in regional projects getting done just as important as Sydney. It is a shame his children were so bullied at school because he was the premier that he gave it all up just for them.

Newcastle could have had a big opportunity with the funding for a terminal. It is close to Sydney and has an airport and major hotels in close proximity.

Newcastle has always been somewhat of a backward city compared to the rest of Australia. It is the country town attitude that has not realised that it has grown up and become a major city and we still have people living in Newcastle that constantly say "no, no, no we cant have that" to all new and exciting things. Even driving in Newcastle you realise the people are thinking backwards not forwards. Unlike driving in Sydney where you are at a red traffic light and it goes green there is an urgency to get around before it goes red and also to give the people behind you a sporting chance. In a city like Newcastle when you are sitting at a red light and it goes green it might take 3 seconds for the front car to decide it wants to move and before you know it they cars keep pumping their breaks around the corner doing a stop start dance. Much like the decision making with the cruise terminal the just sat and sat for too long, did nothing and lost the chance.