sun-set

She is alongside Aotea Quay at the moment and its an absolutely fabulous Positively Wellington day today.

I have just had 2 messages from my brother, the first they were to sail at 7pm.

The second they have been informed they are staying for another day in Wellington, I presume due to continuing bad weather down south.

Just looked up the roll call for our trip in November and the same 2 people have registered, us and another pair from WA.

Now yesterday I looked up the vacancies for the ship and there was only a handfull. This to me says that Roll Calls are a waste of time even bothering to register.

That roll call you mentioned has just increased its number by 50%.

:)

.Port of Wellington schedule is showing her in town on Sat 3 Oct.

 

 

Diamond Princess AQ Sat 03 Oct 15 08.00 Sat 03 Oct 15 20:00 2670

It will have to lose a day at sea to arrive on the 3rd and looking at the cam it's getting pretty rough out there.

Also to rearrange the itinerary will be difficult.

I just noticed Diamond Princess Webcam is showing heading for Wellington instead of Milford Sound, it wasn't even supposed to be visiting Wellington on this cruise.

Does anyone have any more information ?

Sorry LuckiePuris....., I Cant reassure you here...

 

We went on the Carnival Legend in October 2014, and we where NOT very impressed with the ship (She is very dark and who every design the inside of the ship, must have been on dugs!!), the food (Got much better food on P&O and Princess!) or the service in the dinning room! (Some of the staff where very rude!) and just about everything you said.

 

We will most unlikely will every do another cruise on a Carnival Australia ship! (Unless the cruise is very cheep!)

 

(If you like the Carnival Spirit, then you may like the Legend, I have head the inside of the is Spirit is the same as the Legend or worse!)

We sailed on the Spirit in 2014 and said we would never sail on her again.

Then we heard my sister and adult family of five had booked a cruise on her.

The temptation to surprise them a day into the cruise was so great that we booked another cruise. They did spot us a couple of hours after boarding, but it was still a very very big surprise.

We enjoyed that cruise so much that we would now be happy to book another cruise on the Legend or Spirit, especially if it was reasonably priced.:)

Don't forget you can impress the family by showing off on the Green Thunder:D

I thought I should add we still prefer Princess and to a lesser extent P&O.

We are staying a week after our cruise in Sydney...there will be 4 of us and we are thinking of renting a car...what is a good rate and company to rent a car from? I have good and bad things about renting a car...any tips or suggestions would be appreciated

https://www.bayswatercarrental.com.au/

The car hire from the site above is from $25 a day, family visiting from England have used this company with no problems.

Although some roads do get congested especially at peak times in the city and arterial roads leading to the city, also at other busy centres, I believe Sydney is no worse than most cities,

I have driven in London and many major highways in Briton, which are far worse than Sydney and N.S.W.

Some of the drives near Sydney are wonderful in your own car, the Northern Beaches as far as Palm Beach, which includes Pittwater, the Central Coast, the Blue Mountains, the South Coast including the Royal National Park and coast drive, Ku-ring-gai National Park, including Bobbin Head, and Wonderful views from West Head. There are many picnic spots as you travel including free BBQS.

Yes I believe it is well worth hiring a car providing you are confident and remember to drive on the left on leaving those picnic spots or laybys, when driving back on the main roads, this is my biggest danger when driving in the U.S.A.

I hope you have a wonderful time in Sydney whatever you decide to do.

I just wish they would change the name from 'gratuities' to 'service charge' and then a lot of people wouldn't get so hung up about it.

I agree the extra charges are not tips or gratuities as most dictionary's will confirm.

They should give wonderful staff the wages they deserve and not make it look like charity:mad: and leave us to give that little extra as genuine tips for those that make our cruises extra special.:)

Due to missing The Bay of Islands the Sun princess is ahead of schedule and will be arriving in Sydney at 5pm today instead of tomorrow morning.

They also have a medical emergency aboard.

:confused:;):rolleyes:

March is usually a good time to visit Sydney the sea is still warm, but the hot humid conditions experienced in February have eased:) Usualy my favourite time in this wonderful city, unfortunately this year wasn't as good as usual.

Sea Princess sailing past Oosterdam .

Oosterdam docked first at Queens and Sea will dock at Princes.

 

Thanks David, a great picture and so early.

:)

Nice infomercial!

 

However it doesn't inspire me to book on Voyager, it just seems too big. The ratio of staff to passengers is poor - 1 staff member for every 4 passengers. Rhapsody was around 1 staff member to every 2.6 passengers and we noticed the difference to Sun Princess which was roughly 1 staff member to every 2 passengers. Service in the MDR for breakfast and lunch, and also drinks service in the various bars was much slower on Rhapsody where we often had to go to the bar to order a drink as there was few waiters circulating taking drinks orders.

The Channel 7 (infomercial!!) did make me feel I should try a cruise on the Voyager, but I didn't realise the staff to passenger ratio was so bad, I notice they didn't show any queuing for all the great facilities! perhaps we will stay with Princess, P&O and Carnival, well the Green Thunder is fun!!:)

I have always preferred to support the Lines that are willing to base themselves in Australia, using Australian currency, but more importantly accepting the far better Australian and New Zealand rules of no extra charges or false advertising.

Reading the reviews, someone was complaining about having seasickness on the Dawn Princess. They had been on the RCI ships before and said they never got sick. They made the Dawn Princess out to be terrible. They said they felt every movement on the ship. Now we are deciding who to go with for our first cruise, which happens to be to Tasmania from Sydney. Our choices are Dawn Princess in October or The Voyager of the Seas in November. It's hard when you've never cruised before. Can only read the reviews, but some really put you off. Would love to hear others thoughts on this. Thanks in advance.

I have sailed on 11 different ships including the Dawn, Sun, and Sea Princess and the Princess ships were the most stable.

I prefer to cruise on Australian based ships as they use Australian currency and do not have extra charges once you have paid the upfront fare, I have also heard fellow passengers complain about RCI ships, but I don't take much notice of any reviews, you will read reviews of a particular cruise differing so much that it is hard to believe they were on the same ship.

You may be lucky and never suffer with sea sickness, just take some tablets with you in case, but only take them if really necessary, I prefer some movement as it helps me sleep, so I always try to get a cabin up front.

It is not only the Line you cruise with that make a difference to the average age on board, but the length of the cruise, the longer the cruise the older the average age.

I'm confused :confused: did she mean for the passenger or the Entertainer?

She meant the passenger. I didn't believe they did make a charge or it would have been mentioned as another downside of getting back late and missing the boat!!

I can see the problems for the ships staff though, if someone just decides to travel overland without informing them.

A friend was told on the Carnival Legend by one of the entertainment staff, that if she chose to leave the ship at a port and travel overland to the next port of call there is quite a high reboarding fee and all lines charge this fee.

Does anyone know if there is any truth in this comment?

That would be about right.

When did the first Kentucky Fries or Mc Donalds open?

Before the food culture , ladies in white smocks used to stand behind a counter in restaurants and carve the cuts of roast meat and then ladel out huge helpings of mashed potatoes and boiled cabbage and carrots.:D

Surely you remember the boiled cabbage?

 

 

I believe the first Australian based Mc Donald's opened early 1970s, (perhaps 1973) at Bankstown, that's 42 years ago, so we do have quite long history of eating in upmarket restaurants.;)

Hi All. Have been reading quite a lengthy thread on the main US RCI forum concerning the decision by RCI to increase the automatic gratuity/service charge added to drinks etc from 15% to 18%.

 

On most drinks the increase is really only a matter of 20c to 70c but seems to have got a few US cruisers in an uproar.

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com.au/showthread.php?t=2171383

 

As it is customary on US ships to also tip staff, I was wondering what do most of us aussie cruisers tip over and above this service charge, if at all. For our next cruise we have pre-paid our gratuities due to having My Time Dining but will probably tip something extra to our cabin steward.

We usually tip the wonderful staff they seem to always be able too find, but only because we feel they do more than just the job they are employed to do.

The extra charges the cruise companies charge are just that, extra charges, for paying the crew a reasonable wage, not for the special staff that really make the cruise special and deserve extra.

We always add the extra charges to the upfront fare when comparing with Australian based ships.

I am aware of the fine policy of employees receiving decent wages, and that locals rarely if ever tip, or tip much.

 

So what about on a day tour? Do you tip the guide or driver, or not in tours of NZ and OZ?

At the end of a great tour in Wellington the driver who made the day so special said please don't to one of the passengers I don't like tipping. He added, sometimes Americans take offence, so as not to upset them it goes into that box for charity.

Yes, our waiter said they were changing back to charging per item after the Christmas cruise. It seemed to be reasonably popular at lunch times on our cruise - I didn't notice what it was like at dinner.

 

If I price out what we had:

Crab Margarita (yummy) $9pp x 2 = $18

Ahi Tuna Poke (also yummy) $9pp x 2 = $18

Assorted sashimi (poor quality) - prices range from $12 to $13.75 for 5 pieces. We had five types with 2-4 pieces of each type (22 total) so say around $54 on current prices.

Assorted sushi (poor quality), about 6 pieces so around $15.

Kaisen Udon (seafood seriously overcooked) $24pp x 2 = $48

Miso soup - free and we passed on the green tea ice-cream.

It would have totalled $153 agains $40 for the two of us for a mediocre Japanese meal.

 

We went for lunch and that was a bit too much food but even a more modest meal would be way to expensive for the quality of food provided, especially for dinner. I can see why people are staying away in droves.

That does sound expensive, especially when you have already paid for standard meals that are usually very good.

I wondered if they were hoping more might try having a single dish making the place look more inviting and some would be willing to spend more once started, I don't think it is working out that way though.

I hope you had a great Christmas cruise.:)

That's interesting. When we were on the ship in October, we were told (by someone we thought would know) the Sushi restaurant was going to be taken out when the ship reached Sydney.

 

We were also told that the Sun wouldn't go back to Japan this year, but I see the re-location in April is still scheduled. It looks like the person who gave us the information had the story wrong or things changed after that. :)

We were on the last cruise that arrived home on the 7th February, the Sushi restaurant was still there charging per item rather than a cover charge.

I made a point of checking if it was used, but the most I saw was three patrons one of them was a crew member, it used to be a place we often had a cup of coffee, when it was a café with comfortable seats.

The tables are popular for the use of laptops when the restaurant is closed, so it is not a complete waste of space.

Hello everyone

 

My husband and I are from the Gold Coast in Australia and starting to do a little research - well in advance of our Sept/Oct cruising plans in 2016 for possibly an Australian trip or South Pacific Islands...really open to suggestions at this stage.

 

I'd like to get some feedback to see which of the Ocean liners would be suitable for us as we are in our 50's and even though we know that we won't completely avoid kids/teenagers altogether, it would be nice to take a cruise where it's less likely that too many kids would be aboard or if there are kid free swimming pools etc.

 

We have both been on P&O in our past - the Pacific Dawn was nice, but my husband heard that Carnival has less of the "riff-raff".

 

We'd love to hear anyone's thoughts on these.

 

Thank you

If you are concerned about too many children on board do not even think of going on Carnival Spirit.

We have been on the Spirit twice making sure it was mid term, but we still had approx. 500 children on board both times, they were very well behaved and didn't really worry me, in fact it's great to see them enjoying themselves.

The only trouble is they do rather take over the pools etc. in fact the spas were jokingly referred to as kids soup.

Princess I think would be a good choice for you and the longer the cruise the older the passengers.:)

if they over book any cruise and they want your cabin you could get a phone call, you never know it could happen

We did get a phone call Bob, our New Zealand cruise was over booked and they offered us a deal that sounded okay, but it was less than a week before the cruise and we had already started packing, we turned it down.:p

Hi there

 

I just logged into my cruise personaliser, and it wants me to pre-pay for these?

 

I was under the impression that they don't charge you these on the Australia based ships.

 

The cruise I am on leaves Auckland on 28/02 on Dawn Princess.

 

Is this a mistake, or do they expect you to pay it?

They had to remove these extra charges on Australian and New Zealand based ships.

We have been on several cruises since and do tip some of the wonderful staff, but gratuities (tips) should be at your discretion.:)

Some of our tourist operators are not backwards in soliciting gifts/tips from their customers. I know of a bus driver who drove 42 overseas visitors around the country over a number of weeks. As one can expect all these people established a close relationship. The bus driver wanted a fancy container for his cassettes that he used for the audio system on board his bus. He carried his cassettes around in a plastic bag which often broke and behold at the end of the trip his passengers gave him a gift of a fancy cassette case. Another driver never wore a watch and kept asking his passengers the time. At the end of the trip yes you guessed it he was given a watch.

Unethical you bet but none the less effective.

We had a tour on a mini bus in Wellington, towards the end of a great day after seeing so much of this wonderful city the driver pointed out that he would not accept tips, he had in the past so as not to upset people from the U.S.A. but it went straight in a charity box and he suggested we give what we thought it worth straight to the charity of our choice to save him doing it.

Now that man did deserve something extra.

Tipping in NZ and Australia is a horrible practice that is gaining more and more traction. Because of greater influx of overseas tourists where tipping is the norm more and more of those involved in the "tourist" industry are expecting what was once a reward for extra special service to be the norm. More and more cafes for example are putting tip jars adjacent to the till.

The issue is compounded by the number of ANZACs who travel on US owned cruise ships where a 15% tip seems included on nearly every activity undertaken.

I prepay my gratuities on cruise ships and consider this as part of the overall cost. I am not averse to accepting a pre paid gratuities offer similar to the 123Go offers that Celebrity offer as an incentive to cruise.

I guess that the "gratuity" situation is part of the cost to lower up front cruising charges to attract the mass market.

It was very notable on our recent cruise out of Australia on the Celebrity Century the crew were more concerned about a favourable report on the end of cruise report which affects their future employment than a $10 - $20 tip

Both NZ and Australia have minimum wages far greater than many overseas countries. These minimum wages plus tax concessions are arguably sufficient for one to live on and thus a gratuity as a norm is not required.

It is interesting to observe that one will tip a waiter for bringing them a coffee which takes 5 minutes effort but wouldn't consider tipping a TV salesman in a department store who may spend up to an hour advising one on pros and cons of a particular brand and then help with after sales contracts and the like.

It reeks of double standards really.

Both people are on equal minimum salaries.

If some one offers special service then by all means reward them but if one only does what is expected then no extra gratuity is required.

I certainly agree with your comments,

On my first trip to New Zealand (1965) the government issued a leaflet pointing out that tipping was not practiced in New Zealand and many people would be offended by this demeaning practice. With so many tourists especially from the U S A the practice has crept in a little, but in both Australia and New Zealand everyone is payed adequately for the work they do, it would be a pity to have anyone relying on charity because awards were changed in the service industry to allow for charity (tips).

If someone goes out of there way and gives service well beyond what they are payed for a small thank you would be okay, but certainly not for what you have already payed for.:)

Can someone please explain what power outlets are available in the cabins of the Diamond Princess?

Thanks:)