Bubbeh

I think that cruises out of Fremantle sell out quickly as they are few and far between. Unlike our lucky cousins in the eastern states who get many options to cruise from home ports. This may be the reason.

I'm so sorry for you loss. I'm also in awe of your choice to continue living well. Good for you! As others have suggested, keep busy. Go to the Trivia sessions and find yourself a Team, eat in the MDR in the evenings at least and as much as you possibly can, smile and act engaging. Go you good thing. 💗

When we first cruised in 2012 we were on a Royal Caribbean ship and the AUD had recently exceeded parity, we were getting $1.02 USD for our AUD. I was buying a Brandy Alexander for $0.45; I'm a girl that doesn't usually drink cocktails and I'd not had a BA for probably 35 years but crikey, I drank a bucket load of those on that circumnavigation trip.

While our favourite line is Princess, we very much like RCI too. We did one disastrous 35 day cruise from Fremantle to Rome with MSC and in all honesty if I won another cruise on that line I would find someone I disliked intensely and give it to them. I think it's about finding a cruise line that as far as possible meets expectations. I taken seriously advice from friends who have warned us off P & O and also Cunard. We're casual people, we never do formal nights and eat in the MDR once in a blue moon. We like to spend our sea days reading, engaging in any and every trivia session possible, attending destination lectures and generally relaxing either on our balcony or a less patronised deck. In the evenings we prefer to watch a movie and occasionally if the show looks particularly good we'll go the early performance. So, we're not party people or late night people and Princess / RCI suits us perfectly.

Not quite the same thing I know but a while ago on a cruise out of Singapore I splurged and bought myself a Mikimoto pearl necklace. The sales person assured me that I would receive certification from Mikimoto itself once I submitted a copy of the purchase invoice and that, as the ship had run out of forms, this could be done on-line from home. Well, that never happened did it? The company itself had never heard of such a practice and I'm left with the knowledge that as per usual, caveat emptor is a rule that cannot be ignored. As they say, every day's a school day!

Over time I've seen many threads about 'chair hogs' and the social faux pas of reserving a lounger for later use. However, in the decade I've been cruising (yes, I do know that makes me a 'newbie' in some peoples eyes) I've never come across this situation. Am I just incredibly lucky or is this maybe a matter which can get blown out of all proportion because, let's face it, there's not a lot to get upset about on a cruise ship?

Hmmm.... think I'd just be waving goodbye and denying all knowledge of the other person.

Thanks for drawing my attention to this Forum. I've had a quick squiz at the questions and responses from fellow travellers and all I can say is that I'm so grateful my next cruise is not until May 2024 when, hopefully, all these bugs and dramas will be sorted. 🤞 From what I can see so far, it might not be a bad idea to throw the entire concept overboard and go back to the way things were before when they actually worked. Mind you, that might require some futurists and a software engineer or two to accept they'd made a program which was unworkable for an awful lot of cruisers. Not sure I'd be putting my hand up to admit that! Imagine how many $M have been spent to develop the app in the first place? Not a good time to be costing the company money. Makes you wonder about the make up of the comparative testing group?

We did a cruise to NZ in February / March a few years ago and it was freezing. The only really nice, and by that I mean warm, weather we had was in Akaroa which was a beautiful sunny day but the temperature didn't reach much more than 20 degrees. The rest of the time I lived in jeans and a parker with gloves and a scalf. Mind you we did the UK in June / July (which they laughingly refer to as summer) and I froze then too. Did Tasmania in February / March and froze then. I'm not a fan of cold weather and find anything under about 23 degrees too cool. FYI, for what it's worth.

When in Sydney pre-cruise we usually stay at the Jamison Hotel - https://www.amorahotels.com/sydney . Its very conveniently located and just a lovely place to stay.

I don't know if the Hubby's hearing aids are cheap ones or not. He gets them through Veterans Affairs as his hearing problems are a result of his service and are therefore paid for by the Govt. How lucky was that? Getting your marble pulled out of the barrel and then 40 years later the grateful nation provides you with hearing aids and a very small pension. Yay for that! 😉 Anyway, all that aside, I am up for dining in the posh place so you never know, you just might find me at your table some day.

As far as I'm aware all vehicles registered in Australia have compulsory third party personal insurance. It a payment made during the registration process. Now, I'm not sure exactly if driving on an International Licence affects the owner / driver or third party property in terms of rental vehicles but I'll give you my two cents worth anyway. Whenever we've hired a vehicle in Australia (NSW / Vic / SA /Tas) we've always used a known company (Avis / Budget etc) and all their vehicles are already comprehensively insured. What you're not covered for is the Excess, which you may know as the Deductible. This can be a very significant cost, usually in the thousands. Our VISA card gives complimentary cover for the rental car Excess provided the entire rental cost is paid via the card. It may be well worth checking with your CC provider to see if they also offer complimentary cover for this.

For our first probably half a dozen cruises we ate all our meals in the buffet as my husband prefers this. Despite having hearing aids, he struggles to hear in noisy environments and finds the dining room very isolating and stressful. In addition, he doesn't like to 'dress up' and sit for over an hour making 'pleasant conversation'. I liked the idea of eating the occasional lunch / dinner in the dining room but I understood his predicament and agreed to eat at a table alone (wherever possible) in the buffet. We didn't realise that our decision was impacting on our fellow diners who must have felt disrespected every evening. It was our TA who pointed this out (in a very delicate and sensitive way) so once Anytime Dining became available, we always book this and from time to time we do go to the Dining Room now for the occasional breakfast and lunch and maybe once or twice a cruise for dinner but, never on a formal night. As I've gotten older I've become more confident and I am planning to take my glad rags with me on our next cruise and if I have to go alone to the Dining Room and sit with random singles then I'll be happy to give that a try. Always open to meeting new people.

Who is 'they'? Assuming it was the staff rather than the other diners, my next query would be 'who is the customer here?'. Bet you were on your best behaviour those nights. LOL!

This Medallion crap is doing my head in and I'm only checking it out and trying to work out how to use it - next cruise not until the May 2024 World Cruise. I'm so hopeful the bugs will have been worked out by then but in the mean time I'll check out the Princess Medallion chat. Ugh!!!!!

I think that, if the person dropping out has just changed their minds or other fairly minor reason for the no-show, they should still pay their share. Especially, if the others agreed to cruise based on a three way split.