arxcards

You had me wondering about a secret handshake level, but they do top out at Diamond. Diamond Plus is a Royal Caribbean thing.

The free eggs benny at seaday brunch is delightful. 🤣

Midway through the last quarter, it looked as if the Giants had a sniff.

I reckon that is correct about how the loyalty programs will be handled, so that leaves no carrot for P&O cruisers to remain loyal to Carnival. They can just book Princess instead, and use the CC loyalty status they have already built instead of going back to square one with VIFP. It isn't so much about the perks as it is about being seen as a new cruiser. lol. I am aware you love Carnival. Also our friend in common is very much a Carnival girl these days too. At the other end of the scale, I have other Brisbane friends telling me that Carnival serve up dog food and have canned a small group cruise for late 2025 because it will be a Carnival Encounter. I think John has learned from past comments that loose lips may sink ships. When Spirit was taken away to cruise Alaska during the latter days of covid, John made the big announcement about how exciting it was to have an extra ship in Alaska. Wonderful, but that was 48hrs before Brisbane passengers were notified that their Spirit cruises had been cancelled. Nice to know there is more news to drip feed about Carnivoz, so I wait with bated breath and expect a media release which JH will recirculate. So far, the big soapbox news for Carnival has been the Hub app (P&O has an app) and they will be able to accrue VIFP points (instead of CC points).

Correct. P&O days haven't counted to Princess most cruised lunches for ages. Those of us who would still hold elite status after a change would get the best of both worlds. However, there would be even more of the predominately P&O cruiser group that would lose their black medallions, mini-bar and laundry if those changes were made. Still a win if they are happy to continue cruising with elevated status on Carnival, but a loss if they would rather be on Princess. Most of my P&O friends hate Carnival with a passion.

Just about balance. If they see Sydney as a 2 ship market during winter, it would be dumb to be catering it with two Carnival branded ships. Not all Princess ships are pinned to Alaska.

In the BC days, it was a bit more than Royal's annual aspirational thought bubble, with more substance than the Oasis class and year round ship bubbles. Since restart, it has all changed. Priorities have been shuffled and it is nowhere near the top of Royal's list. The Aussie office still wheels it out from time to time, but the money needs to come from head office. In short, nothing to update.

I do black my account number out, as I have the software to do it, but I don't think they can do anything much with that number. In the US, they handover that info instead of a statement. The questions aren't dumb. When you know, you know. Till then you can just wing it or ask away.

Season 1 is also available via streaming on Foxtel.

We used to have one of them here for much of the winter, and the ship also gave us Pacific Circle or Indian Circle cruises. I am on a short winter cruise on Splendor in a couple of weeks time to celebrate Barb's birthday, but it is 2nd prize. Our apparent full-time Princess ship will be Iceland at the time, so Splendor it is. Yes, it is brash and busy but we can handle it for short cruises. We also prefer Princess food to Carnival, but we don't mind the idea of 2 meals per day on Carnival - brunch & dinner, with an occasional lunch time snack. If we had a Princess winter option, it would be Carnival who? Fiji is noice at this time of year.

From the landing page after logging-in, on the top menu I click on Account, then select "Statements" from the dropdown. This opens to a page that says "Trading account statement". Beside that, you will see three other tabs - click on "Portfolio Report" You will see your current shareholdings, as well as the pdf and download button near the RH edge. There are a couple of other page options, but this has worked for me, both by email and now with stockperks. I hope that helps a bit more.

Next week - P&O Bedbugs doco.

Printing it out still makes it blurry, and they prefer electronic documents. On your smartphone, logon to your CMC account and navigate to the portfolio report screen. On the right side you will see "PDF" and a download button beside it. Click that and it downloads a pdf file to your phone. Alternatively you can download to your computer, but will need to email that file to your phone for it to be used in the app. Upload the pdf file to stockperks

The 200K isn't a deterrent. You have been paying it for years. That is a $46 per passenger tax that is built into the port fees and charges part of your fare. It was already $30pp (130K) in 2015. They could venture south for a few cruises out of Sydney too, but with more competition from Carnival. If they market it right and add even add Lelepa to itineraries, they can woo many of QLD's disaffected P&O cruisers away from Carnival.

https://www.princess.com/en-au/cruise-deals-promotions/double-the-love Unless they are adding another tier down the track, it means nought. We usually do a Princess cruise in October/November. Not this year, and we are not about to jump in to book one.

2 x 🥚 points = 🥚 points 🤣

The timing is right for Brisbane to hold onto Voyager (or surrogate) year round from 2026. With no more P&O in Brisbane, it should be a cakewalk. Royal is a more respected brand in QLD than Carnival.

Sort of a yeah nah. Yeah, they are killing-off P&O as a restructure to save on costs. We don't have a choice. Nah, they don't want their existing passengers to spill away from their brands. In Sydney it is very mixed, but not so in Brisbane. Going forward, Brisbane will have two Carnival ships, a summer of Royal Caribbean and a short Princess season. For Brisbane P&O cruisers, Royal Caribbean is already preferred ahead of Carnival. The board and management of Carnival care deeply enough to have us thinking we are on a winner, so that Bradbury of the Seas doesn't become Brisbane's year round ship. Over time, I think Carnival will adjust their brands to match our market - more Princess, less Carnival. If Princes offered winter cruises out of Sydney or Brisbane, I would have no reason to cruise on Carnival at all.

That would be a win for us, and something that will keep us doing occasional short cruises with them, as we did with P&O. Our hit & miss P&O history added to our short Carnival cruises would give us platinum VIFP. Not a big deal in the scheme of things, with some priority & token extras, but there is still a feeling of getting something for loyalty. But, this would be a sticking point. If you had to lose your P&O status towards Princess Captain Circle in order to get them credited for Carnival VIFP, there would be a riot. A definite carrot for you, I and others that would keep our elite status regardless, but what of those who have 15 P&O + 3 Princess cruises? One thing is almost 100% sure. Carnival operated "P&Oish" cruises from next April will no longer count towards Princess. Their PR soapbox was big on highlighting VIFP coming to the P&O ships, but they are not about to tell you it is replacing Captains Circle in the same sentence. Maybe they will let you choose how you apply your past P&O loyalty, but that all sounds a bit complicated.

At least the entitlements are less confusing on the app.

Uncertainty either way. Short term, I figure the cruise lines have a verbal assurance, but they need to sort out their 12 year old legislation for the speculation to go away. It would be nice if they let all the cruisers in on the secret a bit earlier than December.

You get more cherries 🍒 at Good Spirits, but I guess it is twice as good as Cherry Jubilee.

Crepes were nice enough, so I guess Suzette isn't exactly to my taste.

Piece of cake only needing to send evidence once oer year. Once accepted, you just need to select each cruise and request your OBC.

Current version for Android