Astro Flyer

Thanks Aus Traveller…this will be our second attempt at the Princess Around Australia itinerary after the pandemic cancelled our first attempt & we have a lot of research to do on the ports. Our only other time in Australia was in 2009 sailing from Sydney to LA & we had a few days pre-cruise to do some touring around the Sydney area. We booked our future cruise roundtrip Brisbane because it was 1/3 cheaper than from Sydney which had more cabins allotted to boarding there. The savings should pay for our airfare & will also arrive in Brisbane early to explore some of that area…and to recover from the long flight Downunder in steerage class.

Thanks OzKiwiJJ for sharing that helpful info. There is an option to prepay tips however it’s US $16/pp/day for our OV cabin which currently is US $14.50. Hopefully our TA can clarify how much our tips will be in AUD. Neither their Plus nor Premier packages are close to being cost effective for our style of cruising.

We just booked a future Princess cruise from the US (paid in USD) that circumnavigates Australia & our US $750 of onboard credits are now in AUD. Our travel agent communicated with her Princess sales rep & was told that sailing around Australia all onboard spending is in AUD. Since our normal US $750 will be changed to A$750 our purchasing power is reduced by 1/3 due to the current exchange rate…A$1 is US $0.67. Does anyone know if AUD prices onboard are the same as in USD? Wonder if US $14.50 tips are the same amount in AUD although that might be unknown because as I recall booking cruises in Australia includes tips, is that correct? If prices are not the same then our OBC purchasing power is devalued from US $750 to only US $500. It’s too early to price tours to book in advance which are in AUD however all other advance purchases are in USD. When cruising to other locations around the world all onboard spending on Princess has been in USD. However based on the information provided by Princess our Australian cruise will have purchases in AUD. If anyone has any insights to share we’d greatly appreciate any information to learn what we can expect during our Australia cruise...thanks. 🙂

What time zone? If Eastern guess that would be 9:01 Pacific?

Thanks…we’re also at the Elite level so we’re also eligible to immediately make DMW reservations when booking a cruise.

That’s encouraging however I’m still having problems with my DMW reservations. Yesterday I booked a 2025 cruise (28 days) & used the app’s option to make the same nightly reservation. Day one was correct but the other 27 days were wrong so I had to manually edit each night. That’s a step backwards from our most recent Princess cruise a year ago which correctly reserved the same location, time & table size although once onboard all of them were changed & unable to have them restored. When cruising Celebrity for the first time in December their app was troublefree including our nightly standing dinner reservations.

Guessing you emailed the required info & shareholder statement from your current brokerage statement, correct? That’s what we did & SOBC was quickly issued & have never received an email acknowledgment.

This morning I emailed a request at 0800 and by noon our SOBC was added to our reservation...great customer service. 👍

Great savings for you also! 😃 I’ve read that Crown’s last work was done in April 2018 at Freeport, Bahamas for 10 days so the ship should have another servicing before March 2025…even with the pause that’s a long time.

We booked the same cruise & there were no offers here in the US either. Our TA attempted to get group space but none was available on this very popular itinerary. I only checked interior & obstructed view cabins and very few were available even before opening bookings to non Elite level passengers on 4/5.

I didn’t read the email announcing the Australian cruises until this afternoon (4/4). After some frustration was able to put a hold on a cabin we liked & to have our TA book it. Like Geoffa30 we noticed that the same 28 day Around Oz cruise sailing from Brisbane was a third cheaper for us than sailing from Sydney but as he stated there were fewer available cabins. From Brisbane our category of cabin had only a couple available however from Sydney there were several more available cabins…at the much higher price. We had this itinerary booked in 2020 & are looking forward this bucket list cruise. 😊

Thanks however I don’t see a Jacques on our 2 booked ships…Regatta & Sirena.

Thanks…booked on O for the first time & gathering as much info about Regatta & Sirena as possible before our first two O cruises.

Where do we go to request additional specialty dinner reservations?

Royal-class obstructed view balcony cabins on Emerald deck (8) have varying amount of obstructions with those in midship having no obstruction looking out & have slightly larger balconies. This website has photos submitted by passengers showing views looking out from obstructed view balcony cabins on Royal-class ships. https://www.cruisedeckplans.com/DP/deckplans/ov.php?ship=Regal-Princess&cabins=E101-E230

Try this link to access it which I got when logged in to my Cruise Personalizer’s Check-In option. https://oceanready-personalinfo-ui.prod.ocean.com/linkBooking

Of course Sue is correct ☺️

On some Royal-class ships after 1800 the Trident Grill had their version of BBQ. No flames are used in their smokehouse-style BBQ so didn’t find them to be tasty. When I went saw the meat boiled before adding a rub & putting them under an electric broiler…not even BBQ sauce when I tried it.

I found some of my favorite Italian wines with good prices at Civitavecchia’s Elite Supermercati which is less than a mile from the port’s entrance. It’s not an enoteca with a large selection but had plenty for us to enjoy. I’ve checked a few other markets which mostly had wines priced likeTwo Buck Chuck. https://www.bing.com/maps/?q=Elite+Supermercati&ypid=YN1354x8054481372322776248&cp=42.09119415283203~11.799406051635742&ppois=42.09119415283203_11.799406051635742_Elite+Supermercati

All of our DMW reservations made immediately after a cruise was eligible to be booked were there until boarding when all of them were changed. On our most recent experience on Discovery’s first two sailings which were to celebrate our 50th anniversary all of our reservations were changed. They said they were sorry however no tables were available for anything close to our original DMW reservations. I don’t blame the crew but once again Princess management for dictating unworkable procedures & expecting crew to somehow make it work as promoted…not for us. Our DMW reservations made on the first booking day are still displayed for Discovery’s TSE although that doesn’t guarantee anything as all of our other DMW reservations changed upon boarding. Nearly 2 years after DMW was implemented it’s still an unreliable mess.

Here’s a CC article from 3/10 about their tour of Sun Princess: https://www.cruisecritic.com/news/7293/

In this example they charge an extra $100 to select a cabin & to make the deposit refundable…I’ve never seen Princess charge more to select a cabin.

Yes…they definitely increased our cruise fare. Our lower cruise fare with the now expired 20th anniversary sale SBC (same amount as Ultimate) was our best option. It’s a CA Coastal cruise with the basic tours & basic beer/wine at lunch & dinner package so nothing of great interest to us for the additional cost. This will be our first O cruise with a drive to the Port of LA so will bring our allowable amount of alcohol onboard & use their BOGO drink option for any mixed drinks we desire.

When crunching the numbers to get Ultimate added to my existing reservation by rebooking my cost would greatly increase. While it might be beneficial for some passengers for my reservation it was not cost effective to add Ultimate.

In December during my first X cruise I didn’t miss the Medallion & app and the X app provided necessary info and was much, much easier to use both pre & during the cruise unlike the too many Medallion class system problems. Using the X app was trouble-free unlike all of the Medallion app glitches I’ve repeatedly experienced on my primary cruise line’s Medallion class system. Even though there has been improvement too often it’s not as advertised…very disappointing after years of being a work in progress system.