Aus Traveller

Because of the distances involved, I suggest you forget cruising. You could fly into Sydney, stay a few days, fly to Cairns (to see the Great Barrier Reef) and stay a few days. Then fly to Uluru for a couple of days. On this plan, you could fly to Hobart and stay a few days. In Tasmania the distances aren't great so you could see a fair bit in a few days. The drawback with flying is that you do spend time in airports and in the air, but it enables you to get from one part of this vast country to another in a few hours.

I don't know why you warned that people should be wary of credit card insurance. As with any travel insurance, you should check the terms and conditions. The main difference between credit card insurance and a policy you purchase, is the cost of it. No initial cost (except a small credit card fee), but there is an excess to pay when you claim. There are variations between different cards such as the amount to be paid for on the card and the age limit. We have relied on the credit card for decades and have saved countless thousands of dollars by not paying premiums. I have the impression from some people that they feel the credit card insurance is 'too good to be true' so they think there has to be a catch to it. If there is, we haven't encountered in in the several decades we have relied on it. Once when we had to make a sizeable claim, there was no problem getting our claim paid. Our son had a claim for $9,000 for hospitalization in Germany paid with no problems whatsoever.

Our last P&O cruise pre-COVID was January 2020 and the first one post-COVID was August 2022. We both felt that P&O has moved a bit up-market since they re-started cruising.

The buffet is open for dinner. From memory it closes at 11pm. In the Pacific Encounter balcony cabins, there is one 240 volt Aussie socket. We use a double adaptor to give us two points. We had bookings for the Waterfront Restaurant as well as Angelos and Dragon Lady. Food in the MDR is quite good. Angelos was superb both in decor and food/service, but the menu doesn't change every night. It changes half-way through a seven night cruise. We didn't go to Dragon Lady as we aren't very fond of Asian food. I have heard the comment that it is very dark and when people can't read the menu, they are given a torch! We bought a bottle of wine every evening and were pleased that it was more than $10 a bottle cheaper than a similar wine on Princess. Of course, you probably know that you can't take your own wine onto P&O ships.

The title of each document still has the word 'Unavailable' underneath. ☹️

That's what it shows for me also. 🙂

I agree. It is doable. I suggest that the OP should opt for self-disembark (the first passengers off the ship, probably 7.30 to 8am). I suggest getting a taxi from the cruise terminal to the airport. This would take around 30 minutes. Check in for the Uluru flight would probably close at 9.30am.

No. The Pacific Encounter was the Star Princess.🙂

You can take as much wine as you can carry (or wheel on). The cost of corkage was still AUD$15 per bottle a couple of weeks ago. You are allowed one bottle per person without the corkage charge. When you pay the corkage they put a sticker on the bottle. You can then take them to the dining room where they are treated the same as if you bought them on board. 😁 I'm not game to try checking in a case of wine with the checked luggage because Princess' terms state that the wine has to be taken on in hand luggage. I did check on our last cruise if we could take additional wine on at intermediate ports of calls. the answer was "Yes - one free but you have to pay corkage on any more than that".

There are a couple of threads here with up-to-date prices. Unfortunately, Princess prices are high, but not as high as some other cruise lines. P&O Aust has lower prices. We cruise a fair bit on Princess, but we take our own wine and pay the $15 corkage.

Congratulations on your 50th and what a way to celebrate it! We are a few years ahead of you but we didn't celebrate our 50th on a cruise. It was at our daughter's home with all our family.

Ahh yes. You are quite correct. Sorry. However I am sure you looked great for that yearbook photo. 😁

I think you looked better in your white dinner jacket. 😁

Try Carnival to see if they will allow you to make the swap. If not, try another solution. Check with the Aust on-line TA you mention to ensure that you will be allowed to swap to another cruise. If they confirm you can, then switch your booking from Carnival to that TA. After that do the cruise swap you want.

From what I have seen, Princess duty free alcohol prices are not much better than Dan Murphys. With all ships, there is also the issue of a limited range. The couple of times we went to Marlenes, I was quite disappointed. The prices shown on the shelf were OK, but they had hardly any stock. Their excuse was that there had been a couple of ships kin port. Wouldn't that always be the case??? Wouldn't they know ahead what the shipping schedule is???

All I can remember is that you walk up the left-hand side of Coconut Square, past the Town Museum. Turn left into the left street and Marlene's is on the next corner.

We haven't had our passports checked on returning from a cruise for years, but the cruises have all originated in Australia. I can recall one cruise a year or two pre-COVID when we had our passports in hand when we approached the officer who was taking the Incoming Passenger Cards. He said "No. We don't need those. It was all done from the ship." We took that to mean that the ship supplied Aust Border Force with the details of all the passengers on board. No further checking took place. When the Ruby Princess issue blew up, I was surprised that people were implying that the fact they didn't have their passports inspected was suspicious. It wasn't. It was normal procedure and had happened to us two weeks earlier.

Interesting. I am not surprised. The timing of the disembarkation from the Ruby Princess accorded with the usual and actually might have been slower than usual. I seem to recall that one of the guest entertainers said he was one of the last off and it was close to 11am.

Our cruise a few weeks ago was on the Coral Princess to NZ. There was no passport check when we returned to Brisbane. It was the same procedure on several other cruises, even pre-COVID. Our passports were checked before we got on the ship.

As the OP has mentioned a short driving tour in the North Island, I will focus on that. You make a good point that the ship is calling into the important cities in the north. However, with a visit to Hobbiton while you are in Tauranga, you would miss Rorotua and I feel that is very important. To visit it by road before or after you cruise, you would probably need two days whereas visiting while the ship is in Tauranga, would take just one port day. On the internet, I see it is possible to stay overnight at Hobbiton. If you are a fan, you might enjoy this, but obviously it would be something you would do on an independent driving tour. If you are driving presumably after picking a car up from Auckland, you could visit Rotorua, Hobbiton and the glow-worm caves at Waitomo in a three-day car hire. If you planned to do this, you could do something else when the ship calls into Tauranga.

We have been on three Princess and two P&O cruises from the BICT since cruising re-started. It was only on our June cruise that they looked at the screen on our phone to see if we were in the green lane. On the following four cruises, no-one looked at it.

I will check it out. Thanks.

You mention Post #207 on the Roll Call. Presumably you mean the Roll Call for the Pacific Encounter cruise from Singapore. There are only 50-odd posts in that Roll Call. Am I looking in the wrong place?

A few of us on the World Cruise are researching the Indonesian visa issue. Do you know the link you used to get your visa? One Indonesian website I have looked at refers to flying into the country. So far I haven't seen where people on a cruise ship can apply. Maybe you can help.