arxcards

I can't offer much detail. Our Honolulu departures have been late night, and midnight departures are common. Yes, general information for the day in port is 7am till 11pm, so 10:30pm would be the all aboard time. We board much earlier, so I can't be certain of how long the terminal is staffed. Normally there will be some staff to handle the later arrivals, but I can be nowhere near sure about that. I would agree with the earlier comment, and wonder if it is possible to drop luggage early and pick-up their tour from the wharf instead of the hotel. I guess that would mean they would be carting their carry-on around on their tour. Alternatively, they could use @Jean C as their luggage mule and have a carefree day. 😁

I believe that cruises departing Vancouver are handled as two separate B2B cruises. Those doing the full trip can essentially treat Honolulu as a day in port, but are doing it as "transit" passengers. Princess sell it both as two separate cruises and as a full crossing.

The bedbugs can't afford to cruise on Royal at present. No pizza is free - It is included as part of your fare or it isn't.

There is a big bad bedbug story on ACA tonight.

Thanks for all the great photos and words that have brought back many happy memories for me - the gardens, pickle boats, Barb's, Tim Horton's, harbour seals and some great walks between them.

I love the Pickle Boats.

That is a strange place to keep a pastie. 🤔

I had a sensational beef, cheese & bacon servo pie for breakfast this morning - you have to get in early before the crust dries out. It appeared to be a local Newcastle area pie from Thompsons bakery at Charlestown.

Enough bad news circulating without searching out more of it. I am happy to stick to viewing bad news on a need-to-know basis. Much more fun searching for new McMop memes today.

There are known issues with sending emails to Bigpond addresses. This has been going on to some degree for over 6 months. It is complicated, but in short, Bigpond is rejecting the emails with their SPAM settings.on their servers. Cunard can adjust their settings to overcome this, if they choose to. Otherwise, just use a hotmail or gmail address for your Cunard emails.

Plenty of news here on the Oz brothers and their US friend. Another cautionary tale. When we were last in San Diego, it was a day-to-day proposition on whether it was safe to cross the border and go to Tijuana. Travel can come with plenty of adventure, not always positive.

Some of the cruise lines run a "cheapish" bus shuttle around to a beach just a few km away. Kudos also to those who market the alternate names for Inyeug and West Molle Islands.

Often ends in tears.

In downtown Luganville today. Champagne Bay was just a pipe dream.

Thanks. Haiti is a bit far away. I was aware of Labadee being dropped from schedules due to unrest, but nothing more than that. I guess if I was planning to be on a cruise there that I might have sought more detail. Lots more ships have been getting back to cruising to Mexico. I guess that will be next.

It has been in our news cycle, but also much has been unreported until we sent some planes to repatriate Australian citizens. The world is going mad it seems. The New Caledonia issue has flared over the past two weeks, but there has been an underlying issue for decades. Taking New Caledonia out of our cruise scheduled drops 4 ports, although two of those have been closed since covid anyway. We can handle having Fiji & Vanuatu ports and still getting a decent South Pacific cruise, but when the summer season starts, there will be more ships than ports. Anyway, I don't know if you have caught up on the topic here

You would be lucky to get a lounge pass out of them.

Waking up crying in the middle of the night is bad enough, buy the nappy rash is a killer.

Especially if still going to Airds of Lochinvar to shop for an Akubra.

Because this was a Qantas "operations" decision, the ball is in their court. Insurance covers for out of pocket with missed connections and delays for a stack of reasons, but this isn't one of them.

If you are entitled to a priority disembarkation, it will help. Otherwise, you will need to cart your own luggage from ship to shore. The plus is that there should be no onerous protocols that will delay the ship from being cleared by Australian & local authorities. Your cruise originates in Australia, so it is easier to get a tick from authorities when you return to disembark. As long as nothing delays you into port, you can make it to Sydney Airport by 8am. On most days, it will be easy enough. There is a risk, and probably/mostly/usually is never 100%

Important to note. What you consider to be P&O groups on social media are mostly unlinked to P&O Australia. Most of those passenger groups are fan clubs, of which there are several that will defend any negativity against their favourite ship or cruise line. P&O has just one official account, and they do not personally attack anyone. OK, they do have pretty lame responses on their account, and defer you to DM them. They are also unlikely to moderate personal attacks made by others. Your personal experience fits one of the reasons why I am not a member of any of the dozens of those groups.

I believe that would be true. It would be easier if you could walk on water, but for a traveller it would mean you would be traveling in a foreign country with an expired passport. You could be living overseas as a resident, but still an Australian citizen with an expired passport. I would expect some level of paperwork would be needed to hitch a lift home. Early 2026 for us, and likely another price rise between now & then

Price. Penthouse suites were Penthose suites on Dawn Princess, aft facing. The SA suites were originally graded as aft facing mini suites on Dawn Princess, but Princess re-graded them to base level suites sometime around 2010. The difference is the Penthouse suites are just a bit bigger. Both have much the same amenities. We have cruised in an aft corner (SA) on Pac Explorer a couple of times. Nice layout and plenty of space, and I couldn't see any value in the price jump to a Penthouse suite. P&O tend to price the Pacific Explorer suites up a bit, as there are so few of them. Normally, they sell out pretty quick too.

That is true. You can return into Australia on the day your passport expires, providing that the carrier (air or sea) will allow you to board their plane/ship. Countries require you to have enough time left on your passport in case of pretty much any kind of emergency. Cruise lines are in the same boat, somewhat. They also don't want to risk being denied entry to a port because there is someone aboard with an expired passport.