MelbTone

I did the Jan NZ 12-night cruise on Grand Princess and we had daily reminders that wearing a mask in public areas except when seated to eat and drink was required, not a request, and my perception was that this was largely obeyed. There were a number of coded messages suggesting a degree of Covid on board. As to discriminatory, ships are private property not public transport and they make the rules. No argument that mask wearing does reduce one's enjoyment.

To reply to my own post, on reflection perhaps the key thing is that what might be offered is 100% FCC, not a refund (under the standard T&C they can skip ports with no compensation), and given that this is only a three-night cruise, the chances are that the FCC will either not be used or used against a longer and more expensive cruise. Perhaps a cleverer response to a potential problem than I first thought.

I'm booked on this weekend's 3-night QE cruise from Melbourne <> Burnie (Tasmania) and got this email this morning:

... It is our ambition to complete the required hull cleaning in advance of our port of call to Burnie on 13 February, with no impact to your itinerary.

There is however, a small chance that the cleaning operation takes longer than expected, and this could mean we’d be unable to visit Burnie as part of your voyage. Should this happen, we would instead spend an additional day at sea.

We understand that not calling into Burnie would be a significant alteration to your short voyage, and should this happen, as a gesture of goodwill we would add $150 USD per person on board credit to your on board account. As an additional gesture we would also issue you with a Future Cruise Credit (FCC) to the value of 100% of your current voyage fare paid(excluding taxes and port fees). ...

It looks like Cunard are making absolutely sure that their Feb 14th New Zealand cruise has no issues, after previous troubles, but I am somewhat surprised at their 'generosity' in offering 100% FCC should Burnie which, with apologies to its residents, is not exactly Milford Sound is skipped. I realise that all the provisioning is in place so the cost of food is zero but with A$210 OBC they're not going to make much money from on board spending. 

Does your schedule allow time to take the train? It runs twice a day (day or overnight) and costs ~A$140 first class (and saves airport transfers). Baggage limit 2 x 20kg. https://transportnsw.info/regional/regional-train-coach-facilities/xpt-regional-trains

Note that I've not done it myself. I'm booked to take it in March out to Sydney for a Celebrity cruise then home afterwards. 

Helicopter evacuation pending (1230)

Sea isn't rough but I succumbed to sea sickness and spent the day in my cabin. Hopefully I will be ok tomorrow. 

I can't decide whether his comments re curtailing planned activities were to precondition us for a decision that has already been made or just urging everyone to do the right thing to stop the numbers growing. We will soon know.

The rib of beef (I'm on this cruise too)

1 hour ago, yes!yes!yes! said:

Today everyone has to do a covid test in their room.

 

Yes - strangely though the instructions are to report it to your cabin steward if positive, bin it otherwise. There doesn't appear to be any check on some testing positive and binning the wrapped test.

44 minutes ago, Cruise till you drop said:

I’ve been searching high and low and need help.

You can't have looked very hard: Princess CruiseHealth FAQ

I've never even been remotely tempted by the works on offer. But if I was on QM2 and they were offering prints of Stephen Card's Cunard ship paintings, I'd be seriously tempted. But as a substitute I have got the book Cunarder which contains lots of them.

2023 New Zealand cruise, 13 nights. I booked when it first went on sale A$8,566 (solo, mini-suite). Just  a handful left, one a few doors from me, A$11,892 

1 hour ago, highriding said:

I would love to know why there is an accelerated number of cruise ships stopping at Eden? 

Interesting question. In Feb I am doing a Sydney-Barrier Reef-Sydney cruise whose first port of call is Eden, ~500km in the wrong direction - but no visit to Brisbane (perhaps for capacity reasons?). 

Sunny 32C (90F) Christmas Day here in Melbourne (Aus). I was great to go back to my normal pre-Covid Christmas: living on my own and having no family here, I was at church in the morning, then the lunchtime 'orphans picnic' held in one of our parks, then hosted my 'open house' - 15 came; it was like the United Nations, not one of us born in Australia. So good to be able to do this.

Next weekend I start my self-imposed semi isolation before my first cruise in three years. I probably ought to go on a week's fast too: diet-wise I have been pretty tough on myself since a heart attack but all rules are suspended while at sea! Two to follow (2021 and 2022's cruises cancelled and rebooked) so I will get to compare Princess, Cunard and Celebrity in quick succession. Third cruise on the QE; traded my longer cruise cancellation FCC for a three-nighter in PG.

Yes, reported by Emma on her Emma Cruises FB page https://www.facebook.com/emmacruisesFB/ . 

I'm booked on a Celebrity Eclipse behind the scenes tour next March

For me the answer would be "No, but I have a shortlist", in my case Celebrity, Cunard, HAL, Princess.

Assuming that cruise line is 100% honest in distributing the money, one plus of crew appreciation is that if it's a really full cruise the crew members know they'll be getting a bit extra in their pay. 

Grand Princess leaves Melbourne this afternoon for a round New Zealand cruise. If I'm reading the PoM schedule correctly, this is the first post-Covid cruise originating from Melbourne. Bit fuzzy as I took the pic from Webb Dock lookout.

Station Pier, Port Melbourne

Great to see the ships back. 

How about 'karaoke' lectures? The cruise line makes a suitable space available for guests who volunteer to give a pre-prepared talk. Submit your proposal beforehand and they put together a list of those they think will have some appeal.

Some while back I gave a illustrated talk on the port of Melbourne to our local history group. I'm no expert so am definitely not in the guest lecturer category but it would probably be of interest to some on my Fremantle-Melbourne cruise. I'm sure that on most cruises there are 5-10 people who would like to share their knowledge/experience in a smaller setting and many more who would find this of interest.

7 hours ago, XBGuy said:

While he will, generally, offer a complimentary comment, we all know that he is inspecting the wine to make sure that the corkage fee has been paid.

Out of idle curiosity, how does he know? Do they put a 'corkage paid' sticker on the bottle?

No, I stand by my original comment. The saving to the cruise company of having a single occupant in a double cabin is minimal. They lose what the second person would be spending - huge areas of ship real estate would not be given over to shops, casino, art gallery, speciality dining etc if these things weren't significant revenue generators.

20 hours ago, FenixRising said:

A fair single supplement is 0%. Anything more is punishing people for traveling solo. Making people pay for non-existent passengers is ridiculous

No, it makes perfect sense. Cruise lines are in business to make money and solo travellers occupying double cabins saves the cruise line very little (only food really: ~$30 per day?) but halves the onboard and excursion spends which are key revenue generators for the cruise line. Would the cruise line rather have me paying $3000 for my cruise, or a couple paying $3000? The latter, I'm sure.