colourbird

3 minutes ago, arxcards said:

You will see Vegemite sachets in the dining room to put on your toast, but also among all the Smuckers grape jelly which is not native here. A local tip if you haven't tried Vegemite with toast yet. If it tastes strange, it just hasn't been spread thick enough. Two sachets per slice is a good ratio.

I find Americans always seem to underestimate how much is needed. Two sachets per slice is the bare minimum. I always have to tell them to pile it on!

When we were on a Princess cruise around Australia in 2023, we had a tour of the galley. They claimed that most of the food was flown in from America (including pretty much all the meat). We did have pies available though.

I was at my niece's wedding in November 2022 in the Botanical Gardens when Majestic Princess departed and played the love boat theme as she sailed past. 

We got our Royal luggage tags yesterday. On the web they were under Pay remaining balance. Hit View more details.

4 hours ago, arxcards said:

That's cool. Money isn't everything, although some do like to know what the most economical option is. In my plans, I am not tossing up whether to pay $19 or $47 each for our tickets. Two prices for the same seats, I will do the extra 5 minutes work to keep $50+ in my pocket.

 

However, I am tossing-up between paying $19 each for train tickets or paying extras to book a town car for door to door service. I will sometimes pay extra for a treat or white glove service, but I also have an eye on setting a retirement date too.

I've started my countdown to retirement and am getting used to spending rather than saving now. We are also into some of those luxury experiences. First class flights and suites are a relaxing way to start and end overseas holidays (and help use up savings).

22 minutes ago, arxcards said:

That is 4 times the price of Newcastle to Sydney return, which is a longer trip on a similar level of intercity service. As long as you are committed to the time and date, 20 pounds is a much better price and a comparable value to NSW intercity services.

That price would have bothered me before, but now, when I'm on holiday, it doesn't. That's why I book ship tours instead of private ones now.

11 minutes ago, arxcards said:

All advice I have been given by Londoners and my wife's English relos is to purchase advance tickets online and to avoid peak hour travel, for both price and comfort. They have a limited number of advance discount tickets for each off-peak train, usually available for purchase around 12 weeks in advance. Peak advance tickets can be more expensive than ticket window off peak pricing.

 

Apples with apples:

Today's price for the direct train service to Southampton, bought at Waterloo station is $AU47pp

Train for the same time on Thursday 28th Nov, advance purchase online is $AU19pp

It was very cheap in 2018. If there had been any benefit to buying tickets in advance, I would have done so, as I had prepurchased everything else except for that and the taxis.

50 pounds return today is not a bad price for that distance.

12 hours ago, arxcards said:

Much cheaper to pre-purchase.

When we were there in 2018 our return tickets were around half the price when purchased at the ticket window than if we had prepurchased them online.

On 10/8/2024 at 4:35 PM, Suzbluz said:

We have booked a cruise to Norway from Southhampton for April/May next year. This is our first cruise not departing from Australia. Would be grateful for any advice or tips. Thanks 

Several years ago, we took a similar cruise on the Sapphire Princess, and Norway was one of the best destinations we’ve ever visited. Alesund was the highlight for me.

Getting to the cruise ship was easy. We caught a train from Waterloo Station to Southampton, a journey of about two hours. From the station, it was a short taxi ride to the cruise terminal (taxis were plentiful). I bought the train tickets at Waterloo Station just minutes before our train left.

1 hour ago, Tranquility Base said:

How are you planning on travelling from BICT into the city ?

We are only going one way as we join Diamond Princess in Brisbane and end up in Sydney.

If we were heading the other way, we'd do the same. Just call an uber as it is roughly the same price.

There are three of us travelling to the BICT, so it would be more economical to take an UberXL from the city. Last time I checked, the cost was about $70.

16 minutes ago, possum52 said:

Ok, I read up on them. Still very expensive if you have to pay for them and so sweet. I would much prefer a soft serve ice cream as a treat through the day. But each to their own. I wonder how many people are eating them each day? 

We didn't eat any on our last Princess cruise as we didn't have any package, but we did see several people getting them whenever we got our soft serve, and some of them seemed to be a bit embarrassed being seen eating so much.

2 minutes ago, possum52 said:

I love desserts but these are just too sweet and are they worth $21 (if you have to pay for them)? I would much prefer the NY cheesecake or even icecream/gelati after a main course. We often just finish with a Baileys on ice which finishes dinner off well.

These are not for dessert after dinner, they are the entre before lunch.

1 minute ago, arxcards said:

I think I would prefer to stick to the crème Brule or the soufflé's in the dining room. With plus we do have the option, and maybe a "leaning tower" with a shot of Baileys and without all the extra lollies might be worth a try as a one-off.

We need to make the most of the Plus package, so these desserts would cover $21 of it. I doubt I could eat two per day. I do like the crème brules though.

34 minutes ago, Yaya_in_Oz said:

 

It's great that we can make substitutions for these desserts. Since I don't like chocolate and it’s included in all of them, I was worried I might not be able to eat any. I thought I’d just have to pick out the lollies and other bits not affected by the chocolate and leave the rest.

21 hours ago, ceeceeDee said:

Hi Dizzy. This link might help. It's targeted for Americans but I think it is the same for all Princess ships, with the exception that the medallions are not shipped to your address prior to sailing.

 

https://sometimessailing.com/understanding-princess-medallion-and-medallionclass-app/

We are expecting that by our February 2025 Diamond Princess cruise, the medallions will be shipped to Aussie addresses. Can't recall where I saw this, but they were going to start sending them to people on the plus packages in order to speed up boarding.

Excellent news, I will have to check it out once it has settled in a bit. 

It's strange the patters don't show which times Izumi is operating male / female clothing optional.

We were planning to make use of it during our February 2025 cruise.

A few years ago, we booked a cruise, and a week later, P&O launched a promotion offering a significant amount of onboard credit. When we tried to rebook to take advantage of it, we found the fare had increased by exactly the amount of the credit. Another cruise line had done something similar before, where the "free" inclusions from a promotion would have cost us more than the original fare without the inclusions. It seems like a common tactic among cruise lines to make us think we're getting extra benefits for free when we're not. They must be counting on us not checking prices closely.

Also, some cards have fees waived for certain account holders. Our Macquarie Bank black card normally costs $249 p/a with no international purchase fees; however, the annual fee is waived for us due to other products we have with the bank.

We changed to this bank four years ago and up till then always used our 28 degrees card overseas but had never needed to use it since.

I didn't get any notification about this.

Anyway I've just submitted a request to close my account. I haven't used the card on my last few overseas trips as my Macquarie Bank credit card doesn't charge international transaction fees. 

Our December 2023 cruise was on Celebrity Edge. It was our first Celebrity cruise and we loved it. We have cruised on many different cruise lines and found Celebrity was one of the best. We liked it so much we booked another Celebrity cruise whilst still on board.

We were in an infinite balcony cabin in Aqua class. I'm not sure how we ended up with a drinks package as we don't drink alcohol, but ended up with many really good coffees which we'd often take back to drink on our "balcony" which we used much more often than we use regular balconies.

Being in Aqua class, we had free access to the thermal suite which was very good, except it didn't have its own spa.

The food was great and the buffet had an extensive selection which varied from day to day.

I was hoping to book one of Edge's larger sisters (as there are supposed to be some improvements) but they are mainly sailing around the Caribbean .

4 minutes ago, OzKiwiJJ said:

I'm not sure they'd even know mine was there unless they saw me inflating it as I put it inside my tote bag.

They are always worried that any inflatable could get in the way of passengers trying to escape in an emergency.

56 minutes ago, Kristelle said:

hmmm, I think unlikely events are unlikely. 

 

Risk management - if you want to keep your seat belt on at all times that's good - but I do not think it is dangerous to take it off when you are allowed to take it off and I'm ok doing that when it is a long flight and trying to sleep.

 

 

 

 

Flying back to Australia last month we encountered a lot of turbulence during the lights-out phase of the flight. Some of it came on very suddenly. If it had been any worse, the passengers who weren't wearing seatbelts would have been the ones rushed to hospital and claiming compo (if they survived). Even up the front in my suite, I still kept my belt on at all times and it never bothered me. At least I didn't have to worry about other pax landing on me. 

2 hours ago, MicCanberra said:

I wouldn't get any sleep anyway, too many clubs to join.

Even with the beds, it is still almost impossible to sleep for any decent length of time if you do actually fall asleep.