arxcards

It is a worldwide issue. Those with a job in hospitality or tourism are all open arms to tourists. For most other locals, they would rather you stay of their lawn.

I am sure DW deserves cabin 8320.

They are still talking about a transition period, as many who had already booked were expecting a P&O cruise and they are trying to keep both camps pleased so they don't have to offer refunds. I don't know if the drink packages will change straight away, or will be kept in the same format until 2026. For now, there is no mention of Carnival Adventure or Carnival Encounter on Carnival.com and no links to book from there either. Correct, Carnival's doesn't include coffee. However, Carnival will make most similar drinks in the price cap, where P&O's is pretty much just drinks listed on the menu (off menu drinks are priced by the sum of the parts). Carnival has some binge savings with 3 litre beer tubes and fishbowl cocktails.

Good old microfibre and polyester..

We find it is easier to dry inside your cabin, as long as your aircon is working correctly. Dry air beats humidity, and hanging them up near the aircon adds a bit of breeze. First we wring out as much water as possible, then wrap them tightly inside a dry towel, then hang them up in the cabin.

I am not a fan of Vancouver cruise terminal. Very tight on space, making it hard to get in & out. We have had a 90 minute wait to get out of terminal onto our Rockies tour coach, as the terminal scheduling is so damned tight and falls over when one coach is not where it is meant to be.

Not this year, at least not in the main. It is too late to pull a ship and successfully resell it somewhere else. The only way they would pull ships is if they can't fill them, and they have already forecast that and reduced ships to match. If a hull is dirty and fails inspection, there will be an unlucky cruise that would have a diverted itinerary to have the cleaning done. There are a lot of negatives out there, with New Caledonia another issue for the pile. Yes, also NZ biosecurity, port fees, Coastal Trading Act, cost of living, no Red Sea transits, repetitive itineraries and possibly others. The cruise industry is rattling their chains for some of those issues via CLIA. There is nervousness & negativity running down through the T/A networks, travel publications & social media. This negativity is industry driven due to a drop in sales, which despite all of these other issues, is a consequence of the cost of living and also the root cause for the reduced number of ships in 2024/5 and 2025/6. We had a really stable economy for the best part of 20 years, which supported strong growth in cruising. The current drop in cruise sales is also reflected by a drop in our domestic tourism. As cruisers, I think we need to be careful what we wish for and try to look for the positives. These issues give a greater push to Royal's Lelepa and I am hearing that Carnival is looking at their own version. Then there are those rarely used stops like Wala & Champagne Bay that just need a bit of infrastructure to be more viable.

After last months incident on Carnival Paradise, all chairs are being closely monitored.

With Lifou, Noumea, Mare, IOP all out of action, there are only so many ships that can call at Mystery Island, Vila, Luganville in a single day. No issues till October, but then it gets a whole lot more complex after that.

I left the bed for the next poor person, and they have it for heaps more nights than us.

I had a choice between Pac Advenure and Splendor - same itinerary three days apart. I am more than happy with the choice we made, despite loving the old Golden Princess layout.

Only because they are left over from their Princess days, and nobody has threatened to sue P&O after stubbing their toes on them. 🤣

Winter, cold & wet, latte sipping weather. There were some, but Princess has more of them drinking x15 with their fare each day. No chairs were harmed during this cruise but are few were load-tested in the buffet.

No complaints on the wine from us either. We tried a bottle of something different, and also had the wine pairings with dinner in 555. Even for a short winter holiday cruise, most of it stacked up really well. It was only a couple of quirky ***** moments, like a shortage of chilled glasses, watered-down apple juice, and a lack of screening entrants into the dining room at breakfast & lunch. The rest comes down to the demographic these cruises are pitched to - most of whom will be missing from your cruise. In the end, we spent too much money for 4 nights of cruising. On that note, Princess Plus suits us better, and we can ignore the wine in favour of spirits, martinis & cocktails. My preferred drink is $16.50 on Princess, $22 on Carnival (identical ingredients). We can do without internet on a short cruise, but not for anything more than a week. Princess plus includes it; Carnival is $25.50 per day for whole of cruise. Throw in mini bar, priority boarding & tendering, laundry etc. Splendor is perfectly OK to cruise on, and Carnival in general, but our personal circumstances land us with Princess - for now at least. As for a winter cruise from Sydney, that isn't an option I have a good friend on the Singapore - Sydney cruise. I suspect it was a cheap casino offering. The ship is in a generally OK condition but the carpets at the lift foyers have needed replacing for a year, and the mattress in our cabin was lumpier than a camp bed There was a business card on the bed on the last day, suggesting we could buy a bed just like that one - I tossed it in the bin.

Well worth looking at "Faster to the Fun" packages if tendering is important. Otherwise you need to be platinum, diamond or in a suite to get priority boarding/tendering. For a QLD coastal, it would be reasonable value.

Stunning, serene, majestic! Thank you.

I guess that after a few months in hibernation, things may need to be loosened-up a bit. Good to know that it helps a bear sh!t in the woods.

4 nighter. Not a whole lot of rowdy party goers on this one. Certainly lots of 1st timers, and it feels more like a pub than the P&O RSL. I expect Carnival Splendor is a bit more conservative on a 7-to-10-night cruise, but I am not sure I will find out for myself any time soon.

That is what my wife has been advised similar info as well. She was advised they lose around 4 percent potency/effectiveness per year. As someone who has diverticular issues, antibiotics are an essential packing item for her. While pretty much sorted these days following surgery, it is still one of the first things packed.

The ship is fine. It is only marginally over the top with styling in the public areas. The cabins are quite tastefully fitted, and I love the nostalgic poster art wallpaper in the corridors. It lacks the faux timber of Princess and the muted tones of P&O, but your eyes will adjust soon enough. They do offer sensory packs for those that may be a bit anxious to their new surroundings. Food is subjective. This time, the dining room meals were excellent and full of taste. I could eat eggs benny every morning (no eggstra charge), and they had a couple of other varied egg dishes such as shakshuka. In the main, dining room service was slick. The dinner menus change each night, with plenty of choice. The app worked well for reserving your table as you were heading for the dining room, but they need to find a way of educating new cruisers with it. Some would book a table as if it were the buffet, and others assumed their assigned early/late dinner table was also their breakfast & lunch table. It is a bit strange when a Karen is accusing someone of stealing their table. On day 3, we had run out of pineapple juice (maybe someone told that Demo joke), and the apple juice was watered-down to stretch it out. It was ghastly. As for the buffet, burgers, pizza etc - the queues are long. For Guy's burgers, there was a line of passengers 15mins before opening. Maybe there were plenty of first-time cruisers and they didn't know any different - it just looked weird to me. 555 steakhouse was top notch. Drinks are expensive, and the bars are not as slick as I would expect. Great service, but they ran out of some basic spirits, and certain types of glasses. It was really weird drinking a martini from a wine glass, but that was the only chilled glasses they had. Embark/disembark went without a hitch. In general, I find the ship to be very busy/noisy. OK, we were on a short cruise, in winter, in ordinary weather, in school hols. The rainy weather would have placed a higher number of passengers indoors than would be the norm and there were plenty of those ingredients that could have made it horrible, but it was far from it. In many ways it is on par with what P&O used to be. Can't be unseen. Ahh, the adult retreat at sailaway. The great view of the aft decks with a backdrop of the harbour bridge. Look down a little, and it was rub-a-dub-dub, 6 mullets in the spa tub. Happily drinking away and given a wide berth by every female in the area.

September would have been a best case scenario. I am a little bit optimistic that Lifou could become available by Christmas, but Noumea could still be a year away.

Splendor. Carnival can't afford Rhino beetles. Bit like Lelepa though - so near, yet so far away.

1 - Arrived and had breakfast in the dining room, got ready to go ashore, 2 - Captain announced it wasn't safe to tender, 3 - Anchor was raised and off we went, 4 - Watched a rainbow 🌈 form in front of us while we were departing, 5 - Laughed at the masses sitting at their favourite pokies for 90mins awaiting the opening of the casino. Apart from a partial miss of Tracy Arm fiord because of excess ice, this is our first port miss, so we are pretty thankful for the $100 OBC and future cruise credit.

https://www.tga.gov.au/products/unapproved-therapeutic-goods/vaping-hub/vapes-information-patients-and-consumers#:~:text=Bringing vapes into Australia&text=The maximum allowable quantity is,vape substance in liquid form.

JH is not supposed to announce changes before official announcements are made. He may well know, but not be allowed to communicate beyond the repetitive - more exciting announcements to come. Case in point, when Spirit returned to service in Alaska, JH broke the great news. Exciting news for everyone, except those with active Brisbane bookings that weren't officially notified until 3 days later. Loose lips can sink ships. However, they have already announced that P&O cruises beyond next March will be part of VIFP. At a certain point, these future cruises will disappear from Princess Captains circle - as future cruises, no points are being lost.