arxcards

Awesome. Had to ask, as I thought the NJ might have been short for New Jersey. Get in before Oct 20th, as 99% sure it will be $40 from that date.

$US or $AU?

Usually within the first day, the ship will ping the card to make sure there is enough available balance to cover a few days worth of cruising, and update it throughout the cruise. That is a pre-authorisation, aka a hold on your funds. Then they settle (authorised payment) on the last night.

I do use it, but it is a bit of a data hog. The other one also includes satellite tracking, and is just cruise ships. Been preferring cruisemapper for the past 6 months or so, and it is first time it has gone down.

As mentioned above, some were able to prebook for $29 on Coral before she arrived. It would be nice if they had AU mentioned when booking though.

The cruisemapper site is broken. Pacific Explorer left Sydney yesterday afternoon, but is still showing just off Newcastle.

Aware of that, hence the wink. Yes, it needs to be identifiable to the credit/debit card network, and have an expiry date. The same problem used to arise for pre-paid visa cards. Back to the wink - people can identify as anything these days, so it would be nice if cards could also do the same. Apologies for being cryptic.

How many past cruisers lunches will they have on the world cruise?

How was the ploughman's lunch? Has the potential to be awesome or ordinary, or anywhere between.

Cool. I knew the public transport change was coming up, but not the cruise terminal. For 3 hours in a confined train carriage, I would rather wear my mask, but the more open expanses of cruise terminals are much less risk.

I can't be sure, as there is no US or AU prefix in front of the price. The current price in the US for US dollar cruises is $29US, but I don't know how your card will be charged if you pre-purchase. $AU29 would be a bonus if that is the case, and your best chance to snag a bargain if you are charged that way. I am not game to click one button to many to see if it shows differently in the shopping cart. I don't think the app has the ability to handle 2 different currencies, and the ship is currently operating on US currency, but I expect they will change to $AU40 when the ship arrives here and changes to our local currency onboard.

Just tell them your money card identifies as a credit card. 😉

I think the tracking site I use hasn't been updating. It shows Coral's position where you would likely have been at 9pm, and it looks like all ships are running late. Enjoy!!

Coming out of a Philly winter, you should be fine. Are you just interested in Queenstown itself, or looking to travel into fiordland from there?

Lol. You do realise this is a cruise forum?

I don't know if the ship tracking is up to date, but it looks like you had a late getaway.

Actually, I should qualify that - no gratuities added for Carnival, Princess, P&O Australia. Might not be the case for $US cruises on HAL and Cunard.

Being Australia, it is inclusive pricing - no gratuities added to any of the Carnival brands in Australia

Going by what Carnival had in 2018, they will stock the cellar heavily with Australian wines when they arrive here. Here is a recent list from Carnival in the US, but prices and choice will be different. Probably a better guide to go by the 2018 list and add 10 to 20 % to the price. https://help.carnival.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/1358/~/cruise-the-vineyards-wine-packages-program

I have no problem selecting our own cabin on Carnival - at least not for local departures on Splendor or Luminosa. You could also ring Carnival to book. Suss out the deck plans to decide where you want to be on the ship, then give them a call.

P&O did a few cruises that tendered to Mooloolaba, but yes, tendering was problematic. The larger ships make it even more challenging to get all passengers off and back. Not just the distance, but the time ashore. We could do Australia Zoo from Majestic next month - 3 hours on the road and just 4 hours at the zoo. Not us. If we were driving it from Brisbane, we would set off so we were there at opening time, and not have to leave until closing.

Pops has less than 1/2 the sodium of Berenberg. Not available everywhere, but it is readily available if you look for it.

I gather sodium is an issue for you. I believe this one is on the lower end for sodium, but is also awesome tomato sauce. Pops

No guarantees they will go to Hong Kong, and might have to seek an alternate port. As far as I can tell, the larger ships apart from QM2 hoping to call there during her world cruise in February, there is nothing for another year till Westerdam has a season scheduled. Seems that China doesn't want a covid boomerang, and that influence spreads to Hong Kong. It will frustrate the cruise lines, as they also have to deal with China sliding down the preferred destination pole - hopefully they don't drag HK down with them.

Beautiful. Another place we have on the list to get back to when we get a chance.