wallflower07

Thanks - New Zealand

What kind of outfit would most women be wearing on one of the dressy nights? I guess a sleeveless sundress is not formal enough? On normal days in the MDR is a plain tshirt and jeans appropriate or would most people be more dressed up?

We'll be on the Noordam in a few days time in an interior room. Will they have shampoo and conditioner and will it get replenished throughout the trip? Or should we pack our own / extras? Thanks

I've installed the Navigator app and am trying to add events to my itinerary (e.g. shows, gym classes). When I try I get an error message that says "there was a problem adding event to your itinerary". Is this because we haven't boarded the cruise yet or should we be able to add things now? Do we need to add them or can we just show up?

Thanks, so if the ship usually boards around midday - 1pm and we don't check in until 2.40pm we might be cutting it a bit fine? It sounded kind of late to me given I've heard you should be back on the boat at least an hour before departure at each port and I wasn't sure how long the check in process takes

Thanks, Sydney AU

Our first cruise is fast approaching and we're getting very excited! But, I do have a slightly foolish question. Say the "check-in time" that we've been emailed is 2:40pm and the cruise departs at 4pm. Are these local time or ship time? Does 2:40pm really mean 2:40pm or should we get there a bit earlier?

We have a port day in Auckland, 8am - 5pm, and we were wondering how plausible it is to squeeze in a day trip over to Rangitoto Island. The morning ferry leaves at 9.15am. Are we likely to make it? We've never done a cruise before so not sure if 8am means passengers can start disembarking at 8am or if thats when the ship pulls up and it usually takes an hour or so before people can start docking. If we don't book seats in advance just in case, is it likely to be sold out? Will be over the Xmas holidays. How long before departure should we try and be back on the ship? We were looking at the 2.20pm ferry back from Rangitoto. If we miss it the next one is 4pm so we would be stuffed.

Silly question but how do you check the port schedule to confirm if its White Bay or not? We're on the Noordam 10 days later.

We've booked our first cruise to NZ, and I'm on the NZ immigration website and I'm finding it a little vague. We're both AU citizens. First the website says, "if you do not have a visa you must have a NZeTA before you join your cruise". Further down the page it says, if you're an Australian citizen you don't need a visa or an NZeTA. I assume that means, we don't need one even if we're arriving by cruise ship? If we just rock up with our passport and other boarding docs will we be ok to get on?

Thanks all. We don't really drink alcohol so the have it all package wouldn't be a good deal for us. Just likely to consume a few specialty coffees and the odd soda here and there. How good is the exchange rate for prepaying grats? My card gives me the mastercard rate with no extra fees or conversion charges which I always thought was pretty good...I would have thought the cruise ships used an unfavourable rate for the conversion. Is it better than the mastercard / visa mid rate if you don't pay any extra fees?

Hi I'd read online that all prices on HAL are in USD even for sailings from Australia. Does anybody know if this is the case for drinks prices on board? Does anybody know roughly how much a soda / specialty coffee / mocktail is on board? It looks like if we buy a drinks package from the website before we sail, that might be in AUD, so I'm wondering if its a better deal than it looks. Thanks

We're first time cruisers travelling and looking at the port day tours offered through our cruise ship (Noordam) for Waitangi. Many of them are catamaran cruises around the islands or hole in the rock. I'm wondering if this is worth it or if we'll be able to see a few of the islands from the crows nest on the way in and we can then spend our day exploring on land? We were looking at an activity that isn't offered on the ship excursions list but I note there's a tender required to get to the port. If we book an externally offered excursion are we likely to have trouble getting onto a tender in time to make it? I imagine people on excursions booked through the ship get priority for tenders and then from there it might be done by room type and we're in an interior room...or do we just have to line up early? Thanks