Aus Traveller

One of our sons and his family will also be on the Pacific Encounter on Saturday for the three-night cruise.

They will see plenty of lava from previous eruptions.

We always book for 5.40pm also. I hope we can do this in future.

Does everyone have to start at 5pm? Or it is a 'staggered' early dining with several time slots every 10 or 20 minutes with the first at 5pm?

I haven't heard of any visitors to Luganville being mugged by a taxi driver so I wouldn't worry about that. Don't try to get taxis 'as you go' - hire one for your whole visit. Plan your day and outline what you want to do when you are negotiating the price. Do this before you sit in the cab so the driver knows he doesn't have passengers until he comes up with a good price. Don't worry about the cost of waiting time - it would be negligible.

A friend I met on the Princess World Cruise last year has very restrictive food requirements (from choice). Every day one of the head waiters discussed with her what she would like the next day and they literally cooked the agreed dish specially for her. This wasn't a modified version of something on the menu but a totally off-menu item.

In my opinion, US$122 seems far too high. I suggest you check on line for an estimate of the taxi fare to the car rental agency. I am sure it will be only a fraction of AUD$190 (estimate on currency exchange).

Some travel insurance companies advise that an international policy is required for (for instance) a cruise from Brisbane to Cairns including Willis Island where a passport isn't required. The reasoning is that the doctors on board are not registered with Medicare so any medical treatment would be at the passenger's own expense. In addition, I would want to be covered for medivac. However, for the Queensland cruise mentioned, I would be covered because I am a Q'ld resident and entitled to free ambulance transport. In a case I know of personally, a helicopter evac was treated as free ambulance transport for a Q'ld resident.

What is classified as a 'domestic' cruise? Would this be a cruise (for instance) on the Murray River? Would a cruise on an international ship from Sydney to Hobart and return be classified as international or domestic? Previously the advice is that international coverage would be required for the Sydney-Hobart-Sydney cruise.

The cruise I was commenting on is out of Melbourne on the Diamond Princess.🙂 However, I am pretty sure that passengers on cruises in other parts of the world can also remove the gratuities from their on-board account. I will add, that in my opinion, it is better to pay the gratuities on cruises where gratuities are automatically charged to everyone and the crew rely on gratuities to make a reasonable wage. This isn't the case on cruises out of Australia where the crew are paid a much higher set remuneration.

Princess ships operating out of Australia are not part of Princess' fleet-wide tips pool. On Australian-based cruises the crew are paid at a much higher rate that takes the 'loss' of gratuities into account. Gratuities that are added to accounts of people who book in other parts of world (such as yourselves), are sent to the fleet-wide pool, not distributed on board your ship. If you wish, you can remove the gratuities by going to the Passenger Services Desk, then hand money directly to your cabin steward, dining room waiter etc. They will be permitted to keep it.

As the ship operates in AUD, my guess is that the extra charge to up-grade to Plus, would be in AUD. I doubt very much that a booking through a UK travel agent would include gratuities unless you book the Plus fare through the TA. You would be charged gratuities daily.

Carole, where did you see the info '$65 plus 18% service charge'? Another way to check is to have a look at the relevant prices for the cruise you have booked - the 'standard' price and the 'plus fare'. That will indicate if the difference is a flat $65 per day.

Is the 'Plus fare' different from the 'Plus beverage package'? I understood that the Plus fare costing $65 pp pd (no service charge on top) includes alcohol, unlimited coffee, wifi, desserts etc. etc. Could the '$65 plus 18% service charge' be the US price that also includes gratuities??? There have been comments that the alcohol package alone costs more than the Plus fare but I haven't checked into this thoroughly.

I have talked to countless people on Princess ships who were charged for drinks even though they had the Plus or Premium package. 😁 It was easy to get the charge reversed, but it was a PITA. They were having more trouble than I was and I don't buy the package.

You can take as much water as you like onto a Princess cruise and I think the same applies to soft drinks. We don't drink a lot so the package isn't cost-effective for us. We would rather pay as we go and the cost of our drinks comes off our on-board credit. I have seen people on the Plus package commenting that they have a lot of on-board credit to use up on stuff (or tours) they don't really want.

Princess have killed their milestone programme, at least for us here in Australia. ☹️

I didn't find it easy either but I finally got there.

Te Papa in Wellington is great. There is a free shuttle into the centre of the city, but it drops passengers a couple of kilometres from Te Papa. There used to be a drop-off point only a few hundred metres from Te Papa, but they didn't use that stop when we were there this year. There was only one stop this time. It is fairly close to Parliament House. You will need to have a map. Alternatively, walk out to the harbour from where the shuttle drops you off, and walk to the right. You will eventually get to Te Papa.🙂 Another suggestion would be to go on the free tour of Parliament House. It is surprisingly interesting, particularly the part where they show visitors how they earthquake-proofed the enormous historic building. People I have suggested this to have also enjoyed the tour.

Me too. If my P&O history was transferred to Carnival I would also be Diamond plus, but, I agree, I don't think this will happen.

I also bought my shares through ANZ Share trading, now CMC. I accessed my account and took a screenshot. I up-loaded this onto the Stockperks site. The share statement didn't have a date, but maybe the screenshot showed a date. Anyway, they accepted it.

You were obviously 'quicker' than me. It took me much more than a few seconds to try scrolling after clicking didn't work. 😁

I agree with that.

There would be an easy way for Carnival to 'grab' these P&O cruisers and maybe even keep them. They could amalgamate our P&O cruises into the Carnival loyalty programme.😁

I am pretty sure I tried the Carnival email address and was told I had to use Stockperks. Unfortunately while I was waiting for a reply to my email, then emailed them again appealing for help and waiting for a reply again, I was getting close to the deadline to apply for the OBC. Anyway, I managed to register on Stockperks. I had some difficulty entering the date for my cruise until I realised the date (day, month etc) set-up that they have is like the numbers on a combination lock. You have to scroll up and down on the numbers.