arxcards

As said, hit and miss. The service is unreliable for phone calls, but you will have some OK spots near some of the coastal towns as well as the Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast into Moreton Bay. For text messages, they will show up among the short bits of reception, so if he can live with those messages (like many do these days) he should be OK. Critical to not have global roaming unless he can work out a suitable plan with his provider. Cellular at Sea network is only cellular from the phone to the ships communication mast, then satellite from there.

Actually, scrub that thought - would only be an extra day or two, and both are suitable transit hubs. No idea, just speculation 🤣

Not a usual thing. Also possible to drop off non-essential staff to head into rotation holidays a few days early.

The only way the lines with service charges/auto-gratuities don't take care of their crew is when passengers take away the daily charge that is intended for them. Congrats on Virgin Voyages, it isn't a new trend, but another company that does it the other way.. When I book, I look at the fare + daily service charge/gratuity + price of things we would buy aboard and compare it to an inclusive fare. We pay a GST on most things we buy, as well as other taxes and excises and it is all bundled into the price tag. The sum of all the parts isn't always cheaper, and it has long sat with me that a top meal + taxes + tip is usually cheaper in Las Vegas than an equivalent top meal including GST and no tip in Sydney. Prices are still comparable while our dollar is on the floor.

A point that isn't lost on me. All the talk is about P&O Australia having old hand-me downs. With Voyager of the Seas in Brisbane, Pacific Encounter isn't the old ship in town. Voyager and Quantum are different, and I don't mind that. But it is also 15 years different, and Royal must have a cunning plan hidden somewhere. Maybe it is that the Voyager class are being displaced by Freedom & above, yet Voyager doesn't fit into places that would squeeze a vision class ship into retirement. In this case though, Voyager isn't squeezing an older and smaller ship. If there isn't a cunning plan, it is a downgrade. Previously, they pulled the pin when they prematurely withdrew Legend from Brisbane, citing poor bookings.

With Quantum displaced out of Brisbane, where is she likely to be headed?

I will go with Fraser Island

I do wonder though if the $19 per RAT includes a service fee for the nurse tickling your brain with the swab.

Oooooo! I think you are on to something there Les! 🤣

Correct. Also much harder to remove when they have been bundled into the fare at the time of booking. For anyone who doesn't like their service charged being added separately, just stick to the local $AU cruises and miss out on the variety.

Possible it started that way, but it took a few weeks to build. We had some belly bugs getting around prior to Grand Princess arriving here, so it would be hard to pin it on the ships. Covid though, it seems that so many contributors here managed to make it through the winter months without covid, only to catch on their first cruise of the season.

I am not too sure of that. The grey card would have been out of sight. A bit like at breakfast on Princess, and you used to spot people with black cards polishing the bottom right corner as if to draw attention to it (the bit that used to show the number of qualifying cruises).

Priority tendering goes to those in full suites, so that is a clue. There was talk of a small private lounge being retrofitted to Explorer, which has far less suites. I don't know if this has happened though. If P&O was going to provide something for loyalty, they would be yelling it at the top of their lungs. There are many on this board that have done at least double that mentioned in post 1 - and beyond.

As much as it sounds like a perfect day, I will call yeah-nah on that. If Royal has definitive plans to base a ship here in winter, they would be out there talking it up.

Lots of possibilities - but not Sydney.

Well spotted 99. I didn't even notice anything different till I put my reading glasses on.

I was happy to sit back while others road-tested the app. Well done!!

A nice grilled Rueben with chips, a pint, sport on the TV and good company. The pubs on Royal & QM2 are great, but the all day menu sets NCL apart.

Absolutely Phil, but I think the numbers are just a generic stab in the dark. The solution is to have a ship that will fit at Mission Wharf - for sure. To talk-up Lelepa like it is already in play is pretty funny though. Imagine that line-up to get on the Ferris Wheel at Lelepa, or even worse, to get the tender back to the ship before the rhino beetles attack. 😉 It is a modern-day cruise dilemma. Upgrade infrastructure to stretch your facilities to accommodate the ships of the day, then as soon as you turn your back, the ships are too big again. Qld coastals have long had that issue, and I will only ever do them if I can jump the queue to get off the ship. Off early means we can beat most of the queue coming back as well.

I love the bit about Lelepa at the bottom of the article. But yes, that is a serious reason to be docking. Especially when you consider that tendering is the only possibility for all the other NQ ports.

Sometimes the "free" grats is part of the promo, this time they aren't. Maybe next time.

Go with the one that suits your calendar best. Some say that an early morning arrival into Milford Sound is better than doing it in the afternoon. That would point to Sydney to Auckland being marginally better.

I am surprised they accommodate us for our local cruises as is. In principle, we are taking holidays aboard floating US resorts. Whether paid in the fare or as a per day service charge, it is just the way it is being presented.

That all seems so much easier than emailing a screen capture. 😉

Peter Pan - lol. It is clever marketing. If people start talking it up, it is cheaper than an advertising campaign. He is very clever, and very strategic.