arxcards

Another name from years gone by, and nice to read your post, In some ways ,P&O hasn't changed at all. The more I think about it though, some things are hard to recognise compared to the old P&O.

If the theatre looks busy, no way we will rush dinner to get there 1/2 hour early in the hope of getting a prime seat. If we had that package, we would be more likely to stroll up for one of the good seats.

Princess usually has two shows each night, so figured on 100 for early and 100 for late.

That is a strange allegation. They were put aside in case our employers needed proof for our leave entitlement, then forgotten about. They got binned last night.

I know people that own boats that fish once a year, or tow a caravan once per year for 2 weeks away. I agree though. Sydney is coping fine today. Three ships tied-up at wharves. The ship at anchor is a day visitor, and while it might be a bit of a bummer for those tendering, docking at Port Botany will not give them a better experience for their day in Sydney.

Four ships in Sydney today, which is a rarity. P&O had 5 ships in November 2015, but they were smaller ships, so today might be a record number of passengers in port. Viking Orion arrived yesterday, and is still berthed at White Bay Pacific Adventure is currently maneuvering into White Bay Celebrity Eclipse is in the harbour and preparing to dock at OPT Quantum of the Seas is off Sydney Heads and will soon be anchoring at Athol Buoy

A hat trick of ships. Celebrity Eclipse is arriving on time, but another day of tier 2 protocols to deal with at OPT.

Awesome. An enjoyable read so far, and lots of nodding. I will get to read through the latter half on my work breaks tomorrow. We will pretty much cruise on anything, but we do board P&O with a different set of expectations than we do for Princess - very different. We have cruised P&O mostly for specific itineraries/events or as part of large groups. Sadly the priced items are making it onto MDR menus on a lot of ships. Royal has had it for many years, usually for a specialty steak or surf & turf. Princess also has a paid surf and turf option now too. Angelo's and Dragon Lady debuted on Aria & Eden seven years ago. The menus are still the same, so for us they are not the attraction they were the first couple of times. I agree that The Pantry is still largely a buffet, or at least a shared area cafeteria. If you just want one thing, it would be a different experience, but it seems you need to go to 3 stations to put together a complimentary meal, but the stations on the newer Princess ships also require a bit of hopping from one section to the next. I do like that they are mostly not self-serve though. For you, what was Star Princess is now Pacific Encounter. They P&O style the public areas, but the cabins all remain the same except for some new carpet and bedding. We cruised in an aft mini on Dawn Princess 13 years ago, and it had a broken jet in the spa bath. We cruised in the same cabin on Pacific Explorer in May, and it still has the same broken jet in the tub.

I just looked at our post cruise RATs from 5 weeks ago. Mine is still negative, Barb's is still positive. An extra few minutes would have to be better than the same rat being photographed by everyone in the cabin.

When they launched premier, one of the pluses was 2 specialty meals. That is all wonderful, and we have made use of that in October. On the down side, the specialty restaurants on the shorter cruises are sold-out before boarding, filled with premier package bookings and the first night suite package. If you have 40 or 50 reserved seats in the theatre, that isn't a big restriction on other passengers. Some of these cruises are having over 100 cabins booked on premier, so losing 100 seats per show will place a significant squeeze on seating. It is nothing new though, as Royal's suites have had various reserved spots for some of their shows for some time.

Before the price rise, the current deal for Premier package only prices OK for us when compared to the plus package for up to 4 nights. We generally only get an embark photo, but went with a premier fare in October for our anniversary to get the value from specialty meals and portraits. Getting 3 prints each plus downloads of all photos as well as 2 specialty meals each put us way in front on a 3-nighter. Many of these benefits are per cruise, so the price difference between plus and premier gets bigger for each extra night. To top things off, half our package price was refunded due to the door prize thingy, which they were no longer able to have on domestic cruises. Plus will still be good value for us - 4 drinks and 2 coffees to break even instead of 3 drinks and a coffee.

I wonder if they were b2b and covid positive, and asked to disembark? Some passengers seem to be able to stay aboard in isolation b2b, but if others have to break isolation to go through customs screening, they are being disembarked - they can't re-board as covid positive, but they can remain in iso if they don't need to leave the ship. I would understand that finer point would not go down well with any passenger in that situation, and it would cause quite a stand-off.

Is anyone aboard yet?

Medallion resistance is futile. You will be assimilated. 😂

Why even a photo. Just showing a negative strip to your steward shouldn't be a health issue.

It will be. If you want the $50 version, you still have up to December 14th to book, then it changes to the $65 version beyond that.

Sounds like some bumpy days ahead, and not a wave in sight. Take care Les, 1 step at a time.

That package has been $50 for a few months. Essentially, this is just another price rise, as with everything else that is going up in price. They are just bloating it to make it seem like a good idea for some. We have $50 plus and $70ish premier booked for cruises next year. We will not be paying to upgrade those to the new format, as we will be too busy drinking to eat ice cream.

These are really weird. It is essentially a drinks package, so increasing the price of a drink package discourages passengers from having that add-on. Pairing these decadent ice cream based desserts with fitness classes is also a weird combo.

It is all a mess Karon, and some proper communication would be useful. It doesn't seem to matter what level of infections are on the ship, borderforce and NSW health send the same number of staff and don't provide any extra resources to expedite what is a slow and painful process when there are a number of cases aboard. I don't expect they will be able to announce what they don't know, as it is all out of the ship's hands until the officials have cleared the ship. All the same, they should be able to set expectations the day before by advising what delays are likely, and even allowing passengers to hang in their cabins a bit longer. Even then, the walk-off queues will start to form when the ship is tying up. With expected delays, there are plenty that have to rush-off to the airport etc, so more people hang on to their luggage and all want to be among the first off. Even if they know the queue is 2 hours long, they will still stand in it, much like they do for embarkation.

If you get a 2 1/2hr delay at the end of the cruise, they will be 1/2 making it up to them.

True, but Australia doesn't get to go home at the end of the week and reset to zero like a ship does. It has taken Australia around 9 weeks to increase from tier 1 to tier 2, but some ships can manage that in a week, go back near to zero and do it all over again with a new crowd the following week.

Currently $15.33 per day

I wondered the same. Not just hanging around strangers in bars, but how 11 days on a drink package might contribute toward dulling your general immunity.

It also won't sit well with others that feel OK, yet could be asymptomatic and sitting at the next table at dinner tomorrow night. I haven't heard of whether this is Princess only, Majestic only or for cruises over a certain length. I am guessing Princess only. Interesting that Ovation arrives into Sydney as tier 2 this morning, yet hardly a whimper from the media. I think Majestic won't be so fortunate tomorrow, so they need to take extra steps if they want to overcome the bias.