arxcards

Some good coffee up in Eden as well. Enjoy your day.

You are correct if you are taking an Australian based cruise with $AU account aboard (P&O, Princess, Carnival). It is also true for $US Royal Caribbean, Celebrity and likely NCL, where those service charges are built into your fare at the time of booking on a AU/NZ site. So yes, if these are inbuilt into your fare or prepaid, there will be nothing added to your account each day, nor will there be an expectation to tip.

This year or next? Are you looking at one of the newer ships for NCL or Princess? I can see that Sun Princess is out of Ft Lauderdale next year, and Norwegian Viva out of Miami this year. For me, cruising from Florida is a bit like a who's who of new glitzy cruise ships that may never make it down here.

When travelling afar, it is a nice idea to cover most of your onboard account with a prepaid drink package. Elite priority will take care of some laundry and lighten your luggage a bit. Princess $US cruises requires a daily gratuity to be charged to your onboard account. For the US passengers, the premier package includes daily grats. This does not apply to Australians - we get a discounted version of premier that doesn't include grats. However, it will be possible to prepay them, but they won't be included in your advertised fare. When booking NCL in Australia, much like Royal & Celebrity too, they don't trust us to leave them on, so they are added during the booking process. NCL will often have promos with a varied combo of OBC, tour credit, prepaid grats, internet, specialty dining, drinks packages. We have cruised US with Celebrity, Princess & NCL. All were great. Priority boarding & laundry on Princess were an added bonus, but not significant enough to make up our mind. We chose the itinerary that lined-up best.

If not already aware Chez, you should spot a few familiar faces on this one.

If the 10 days later means 20th December, you will depart OPT .... but return to White Bay on 2nd January.

That is my understanding of Australian weddings. In the US, the Captain has the authority to marry at sea. Even an Australian Captain who is a qualified celebrant would not have authority to marry Australians at sea. The P&O packages are mostly geared for pre-cruise. The wedding party boards and the ceremony is held by their celebrant while the ship is in port. Those that want to stay aboard to celebrate with the bride & groom will have already booked the honeymoon cruise. If done ashore, it could be done in any port of the cruise, but as far as I am aware it is only the departure port to have it on the ship. It could be different on other lines. The above links will be invaluable in finding what they will or won't do, and how much it will cost. In Australia, the Captain can "remarry you" at sea, aka do a renewal of vows ceremony. Another option is to get married on one of the islands, but you need to line that up with a church and/or celebrant first. Every guest will need to travel to get there, but not necessarily on the cruise. We have friends who were married in Port Vila several years ago. After the ceremony, the singer played a ukulele and sang Happy Wedding to You.

It also raises the stakes, knowing they will be the first to complain if something isn't perfect. We don't tip up front, but if we like the bar we will tip a few dollars with our bar service each day - much like when travelling the US, $1 per drink. Yes, I know that a service charge is added to the drink on a $US ship, but it really does change the level of service. Instead of being treated well, you are treated royally and never have to wait for service. Some would call it a bribe, but it is only a tiny amount of money, so it is like you have elevated the customer/server relationship.

Tax is muddy. If registered in Australia with Australian staff, we couldn't afford to cruise as local awards and taxes would apply. Correct, cash tips are hard to hide. Most hand them in for banking to their US accounts so they can send money home.

Not assume, but money does move in predictable patterns. It only gets complicated when we think of it in our own terms. On a ship, a crew member with sticky fingers will be outed by those around them. Loyalty to their employer, not really. When money leaves the auto-grats payroll bucket and cash tips don't replace it, the bucket isn't as full. That bucket is shared among much of the service crew so they are all penalised, while the one hanging onto the cash is double-dipping.

How do they get the right meals in front of you every day, know whether you like to dine fast or slow, know if you are waiting on ground pepper? I have no idea, it is just what they do.

Have a great time Chez & Andy. Yes, a beautiful day.

Correct. Use the recognition or made a difference cards which will bring appreciation and job opportunities from their employer. Or the best recognition of all - a smile, a thank you, you are doing a good job.

Breach of contract is how it works in practice, get caught, lose your job. Not too different to a cashier having their hand in the till. If the grats are taken off, it is their employers money and they know that. Watch in the dining room of a $US ship on the last night as cash and envelopes are being handed over. The waiters do not secretly slip it into their pocket, but will be seen placing them at a spot at their serving station in view of their head waiter. That is the other reason why your head waiter is so visible on the last night, as he is looking to see where the envelopes are. Harder to police with a steward, but also hard to keep secrets on a ship. I agree, more trouble than it is worth, most certainly in our culture. That is why we leave the auto-grats alone. It is also why we prefer to cruise on ships that have done away with their auto-gratuities.

Nice to see her here.

Correct. I am glad it was margarinely humourous. Your turn.

Where was I?

I just read it that you were saying no to Mic's answer of Canada, but there is a ? on the response, so maybe it wasn't a no afterall. Anyway, I butter find me another photo to post

Whether you choose to keep them on or take them off is totally up to you. US rules on auto-gratuities apply though. If you take them off, any cash tip you give requires the crew member to forward the cash back to the ship in lieu of the auto-gratuities you removed - just a lot of extra work for everyone. We keep ours on, and have always considered it part of the fare. If a crew member is particularly awesome, we will pay them some extra along the way - they get to keep it when the auto-gratuities haven't been removed.

The OPT as is has been upgraded so many times to keep it current. My point is that someone around 70 years ago decided that was a good spot to put an Opera House, which was way out of character to the surrounding buildings and the wharves that were taken out of service. We love it for what it has been for 50 years, but it wasn't there for the first 150 years of the settlement. From the pic, OPT's side of the quay has been modified significantly to provide a single flat edged wharf for bigger ships. Sections have been infilled, and additional piers have been sunk. On the eastern side, that bit filled-in would still fit the largest ships in the world, and have plenty of room to embark & provision them. Yes, in 1959, who would have thought there would ever be passenger ships that wouldn't fit under the bridge. Would it be nice to fill that bit in? Probably not, but there is next to no natural shoreline anywhere around the quay, and the tank stream flows in somewhere under ferry wharf 6.

Looks very Katherine Gorge like.

Part of our plans for our pre-cruise day in a couple of weeks.

And the contrast is the road across the front of the Quay with his name on it. Nice to see Bennalong Point being gentrified, but the Cahill expressway is definitely an opposite tack.

A valuable clue 🤣

Before police were able to investigate the "crime scene", the cabin had been cleaned, I believe in breach of maritime law. Keystone cops, yes, but who knows what they would have identified if they locked everyone out of the cabin.