arxcards

I gather this isn't 4 queens together in Southampton or New York, but a bundle that allows you to hop between all 4 ships over a 2 month period. Looks awesome. We could happily find a dozen things to do in Seattle over 3 nights. Those would be the things we didn't get time to do on either of our last two visits there. I would love to do another trip on QM2, but the other 3 don't hold the same attraction. I think we would rather 1 long cruise on QM2 vs 4 cruises on 4 ships. Great concept, but I gather it isn't very El Cheapo?

Yes, they do. Not as cheap as they should be, but at least they do have them.

Try it. You don't even need cash as you can just write it on the slip. Pick your favourite bar, and for a few stray dollars here and there, you will be amazed at how well you are looked after. As for the question, $AU will be fine. If you have leftover US dollars from a previous trip, that would also be fine. For me, I will \just have it added to our drink charge which will just go onto our folio.

Does it show blue when you go to the profile page?

That is a general ship thing, and I wonder if they subscribe to those regional naming laws. Lots of ships offer a glass of "champagne" on arrival which is just cheap bubbles in a bottle and not a pinch on Chandon. So, no French champagne at all? No Dom or Veuve Clicquot? They have been readily available on Solstice cruises we have done.

If you are taking the lift Phil, I am taking the stairs.

Welcome back. Beautiful photos. Thanks for your live thread.

That is the other side. People don't buy anything because of the prices. Your $US18 Bulleit & Coke would have cost me $AU13.50 a couple of weeks ago if I didn't have a package. That way I could have bought two of them on my cruise and still been one of the last of the great spenders. All of the blame of the value of the $AU, yet our dollar could be at parity and drink prices would still be OTT. We disembarked our last cruise on 29th Feb with a zero bill, after burning our $50 non-refundable credit in the casino on the last night. I booked a cheap cruise while you were cruising Phil, but it is on Luminosa.

There were some great deals going a couple of years ago. We booked Celebrity Edge - this very cruise. It was a good deal, attractive at a time that cruising was still paused. It needed to be that sweet a deal way to get passengers aboard. You can't compare it with current pricing. However, we did not look for discounted packages. We could have booked an "upgrade" with a package, but it would have turned our refundable deposit into a non-refundable one. We had a couple too many cruises booked, and when the pricing of specialty restaurants and drinks was being announced as double+ that of pre-pandemic, we pulled the pin and had our deposit refunded. We love Celebrity, having enjoyed a couple of great cruises on Solstice. You can compare cruises with land holidays for price, but you can also compare them with other cruise lines. That is the comparison that has us abandoning Celebrity for now. When it comes to booking something today for next year, there is much better value out there. I can afford it, but there is a principle to saying no if I think pricing is OTT.

Princess does complicate things in Brisbane, and this looks to be the case with dual porting of Crown Princess next March. While your cruise may end in Brisbane and others will embark, for a majority of the passengers Brisbane will only be a day in port. Those passengers will be out and about and doing tours, only to return to the ship and set sail for Sydney where they will disembark a few days later. This would apply in Brisbane on 17th March, which is also day 9 of a 12 night Syd - Syd cruise. If that is the case for you, lower numbers disembarking makes it harder for them to fill disembarkation tours to the airport.

That is the carrot Bob. The usual way to get a cheap balcony via a casino offer is via high turnover in the casino.

Yep. Certainly a dud for corkage. Personally, I am not so much concerned with the specialty restaurants though, as a quality Aussie steak is pretty much double the US equivalent. Our local charge also has an inbuilt gratuity as well. It is a lot easier to go dollar for dollar when ours is above 80 cents US. Over the past couple of years, our dollar has been at the lowest level since Princess has been based here.

CDaze is much more of a Carnival candidate than I am. I didn't realise this was a selective offer. Maybe my history on other Carnival brands plays a part, but we aren't big spenders or casino goers. Sorry for those not getting the offer. I would rate it as somewhat unfair.

Disembarked Coral on 29th Feb. No bags.

Check your inbox/junk box as well. I received an email on this promo from Carnival yesterday.

Interesting about the "new to Princess" issue with the app. It might be the reason we received no elite amenities on our recent cruise. In a suite, but only one lot of mini-bar, no wine tasting invite, no enhanced bathroom amenity. All in our stride but might be why it seems our loyalty status was ignored.

BTW, ding-dong the old app is dead. Good news. I just opened the new app again and all of our voyages now show in my profile. I no longer need to fill out a "shoreside" credit card to get a tick for check-in. So awesome, we are fully checked in for our next cruise on 10th Feb 2025. For our following cruise I am unable to do the passage contract bit yet, so there are still some outstanding issues.

It is not like an airport shuttle. They don't wait for the seats to fill up. Passengers pre-book the transfer and are allocated a group luggage tag/slot and a designated disembarkation lounge. Those passengers are disembarked together and guided to the transfer coach. They do sometimes have to wait on a straggler though, which would be frustrating if you were running late for a flight. I haven't yet been able to locate the disembark schedule when we last booked one of these transfers. I am pretty sure they had an early and a later transfer. All the same, if I had a pre-noon flight, I would prefer to be going by cab

Half of the difference is that the Aussie dollar has tanked since it was $42, which was the price 2 years ago. The US price is currently $39 plus gratuity, which is much more stable. In comparison, Chops Grill on Royal is over $100, and I know which I would rather have. Salt Grill on P&O is around $70. I get it, it is more expensive. I am glad more passengers are opting against dining there. At $42 and at $50, it was too popular and difficult to get a booking. Food in the MDR is more than adequate, but we are happy to pay the current charge for a special occasion.

I stood there for 20 minutes, but thought it was all too boring ...

or even Swiss cheese.

Welcome back. Even when in the right, a post explaining why something has disappeared can be seen to be commenting on a moderation decision and outside the rules. It is likely that it wasn't even your post that was being reported but was spotted in a wider net. For next time, this might come in handy:

Yes, this is common when cruising from Australia. The menu pricing is increased to include the service charge as part of drink price.

If you are getting caught on camera, you would have to be glad it wasn't on Symphony of the Seas.

Brilliance is done in QLD, and I don't know why she was at Yorkeys on her previous call. Perhaps it costs more money to dock. I don't know why Serenade isn't docking either. It has shown as being docked on the tracking sites, but has been showing as Yorkeys on the QLD ports pages for some months now. I can't recall if she was initially booked to dock or not. Extreme tides would be the only physical restriction.