yarramar

5 hours ago, hmcrn said:

 

Yes - unfortunately with the cruise ship arrival and departure times, we will not make the departure time of the Miramar boat, and the arrival time may be an issue as well, so don't dare book it. 

Then your next best option is to take a taxi or Uber. Uber will be around $70 for 4 or less passengers. Uber XL about $100. It's about a 30 minute drive.

@hmcrn and @Madson16

Have you checked out here

The 686 bus does stop at Scenic World as well as Echo Point, which is where the 3 Sisters lookout is. The HOHO bus is a separate service to the Sydney one and just drives around the Blue Mountains, the public bus is probably all you need but look up the HOHO to see if this interests you. https://www.explorerbus.com.au/

The Sydney HOHO is a waste of time. Everything you want to visit is near Circular Quay as well as the fabulous ferries which you should use to take you to Manly, the zoo or elsewhere in their network. Sydney itself is quite small and easily walkable, there is a light rail (tram) service as well. The HOHO will be stuck in gridlock traffic for half the time and if you want commentary there are plenty of apps you can download for that.

8 hours ago, hmcrn said:

Thanks, but we want to go to both the lookouts and Scenic world for the rides.  Are the entrances and/or lookouts near each other?  We have tickets to the HoHo bus in Sydney - is this a different bus?  Just for Katoomba?  Sorry, not familiar with that area.  

Leura for lunch sounds perfect. 

thank you!

Any card with the Visa or Mastercard logos on them will be accepted

Catch the train, it  goes every hour from Central station get off at Katoomba and take a bus. You could also take the HOHO (rip off) bus which goes around all the major attractions including Echo Point & Leura. Leura is a nice town for lunch.

Hope for their sake it wasn't just a "build it and they will come". Personally I can't see the demographics coming together in sufficient numbers to make profit.

Lots of good ideas and advice on the Trip Advisor forums. https://www.tripadvisor.com.au/ShowTopic-g255060-i122-k14763098-Day_trip_to_Blue_Mountains-Sydney_New_South_Wales.html

I wish I had read this topic earlier but I have never sailed on Cunard, so I skipped it till now.

My Bigpond account, which I have had for nearly 20 years suddenly stopped working on May 2nd, my last email was at 7.00pm. It said my password was incorrect and to reset it it would send  link to my email account (duh!). I went to a Telstra shop, and after an hour, they said I would have to call technical service 9-5 Mon-Fri. 

I called first thing Monday and after going through the usual procedures they couldn't fix it and it would be sent "back of house". This went on for the next 3 weeks, each week getting a text saying it was fixed and to rate my experience. I finally found a customer service person who studied the case notes last Friday and said that the "back of house" had never been instructed what to do properly and that my phone number was not attached to my account correctly so could not receive links to reset the password. Finally on Tuesday, 2 days ago I got my phone link. I spent Tuesday deleting 1200 spams as well as receiving important mail.

2 hours ago, mr walker said:

A number of years ago I decided to not comment on tips/tipping. I'm sticking to that 🙂 

Maybe not a comment, but still a political statement 😁

I agree that there should be "No tips" for anything.

However, as a young 20 something with a casual bar job, many years ago, it was nice splitting the jars which held the loose change thrown in by patrons at the end of the night.

This has recently been posted on the technology forum. Looks good & I may give it a trial for the next long haul. 

11 minutes ago, Sparky74 said:

Well, I’m not happy. I’m disinclined to cruise with them as they’re negatively impacting my CC experience. 
I think I'll write to them 

Same thing here. First thing I did was check to see that both my ad blockers were still turned on. They were, maybe I should upgrade to the paid model!

8 hours ago, PR-Texas said:

We're going on a cruisetour through Princess in November.  We would have tipped the tour director based on the info on the Princess website.  Now we won't based on the info in this thread so thanks for helping us respect the customs of the countries and saving us money to spend on a nice dinner or souvenirs since that will put money directly in the AU/NZ economies.  

If the tour guide does an exemplary job or goes above and beyond, the Aussie way is to gift him a 6 pack of beer (or a slab if exceptional)

On Boxing Day, the shops will be packed with bargain hunters, I would be heading for David Jones in Elizabeth St for a traditional Australian shopping experience

You can find reviews on the ship and cruise here Some will include excursion reviews or just research independent port excursion reviews by port name.

Your choices for dates and cruise lines are limited.

Depending on budget your choices may be limited even more. Out of the ones available, Viking, HAL, Princess, Oceania and Cunard, I would go with Oceania having more port stops and better onboard facilities.

There may be other lines that I missed but try a google search or search on a particular OTA that has a great search engine.

3 hours ago, cruiselvr04 said:

As an American, we found ordering and getting the check strange.  Most restaurants we went to used the QR code method.  Since DH has a food allergy he usually went up to the bar or wait stand to order, paid there.  It was weird for us to then just walk away when we were done. We also more then once had to go get our own water, condiments, silverware etc from a table set up in the restaurant. It’s not wrong if it’s customary in a country, we just didn’t know what to do, hadn’t read about this prior to our trip. We adjusted but it seemed to us that servers were there just to set your food down in front of you and that was it. They did not come back to see if you were happy or needed anything else. It’s not wrong, just different. 

What you have described seems to be what you would find in a hotel or licenced club dining room. Regular restaurants in Australia are fairly similar to regular restaurants in the States apart from the servers here are not usually in your face touting for tips. 

Our wait staff in a restaurant WILL occasionally ask if everything is all right or if you need anything but they do this as part of their job and don't expect a tip although are grateful if one is offered. 

9 hours ago, Cool Breeze Cruiser said:

My husband & I are booked on the Diamond Princess Sep 26th. This is our itinerary…

Puffing Billy can be easily done DIY from Melbourne without combining a tour to Healesville Sanctuary. Healesville is the best but given that you will be on Phillip Island and Kangaroo Island, it is probably superfluous to add extra native animals to your voyage.

to get to Puffing billy, just catch a train from Flinders St Station to Belgrave and then walk across to the Puffing Billy station. The train to Belgrave is about an hours journey.

For Phillip Island, a whole day will give you plenty of time for wildlife including koalas, kangaroos and pelican feeding. The penguin parade is a must but you will need transport to it and back to Cowes for your tender to return to the ship. The penguin parade finishes just after sunset which is about 6.30pm on Sept 29th. There are varying levels of penguin viewing, which can be found here. There is also lots to do on Phillip Island for the rest of your time there of which ideas can be found here.

You can book taxi's on the island to get you around but personally, I would hire a car for the day as it will be very worthwhile in getting around to all the different attractions. https://picarhire.com.au/ I would also do the same for Kangaroo Island. Both Hertz and Budget have agencies on KI.

10 hours ago, possum52 said:

Just a correction - Tassie, not Tazzie. Glad you enjoyed your holiday in Tasmania.

Many Americans were brought up on WB Loonie Tunes cartoons (and many Aussies) One character is Taz, the Tasmanian devil, quite understandable to extrapolate the diminutive of Tasmania as "Tazzie"

If you google "Adelaide shore excursions"a number of results appear. Look for individual tour guides, not consolidators. Bums on Seats is one which looked good to me.

1 hour ago, mauimary said:

I know this cruise is short and it looks like many are doing this as part of the chain of cruises before the New  Zealand one.  Just because it is four days does this mean that it is a party cruise.   We would never do a four day cruise out of Florida.   So that brings me to the question about a cruise between the Australian one and New Zealand one become a four day party cruise.  We have never done one this short. 

We are not allowed to link TAs on this board but an Australian TA is advertising a music cruise on this sailing. 
the ship has up to 3000 capacity so there would be different groups taking the short cruise for different reasons. 

As it is 4 days, many would be sailing for different reasons but groups of inebriated

Aussies would not be my idea of fun. 

The music component may be Ok if you like this type of music and can join in. “Join us to farewell Gill Delaney on her last Music Cruise before she retires. It will be a wonderful opportunity to cruise on the luxury Celebrity Edge, enjoy fantastic music/entertainment, and spend a day in beautiful Hobart. The cruise is fully escorted and includes fun-filled singalong sessions, and other special events, with Gill Delaney and John Howie.”

On 3/12/2024 at 10:52 PM, bbfgator said:

Hello - We leave on Celebrity Edge 10/22/24 on b2b2b cruises.  The middle cruise is 11/2-11/6/24 and is 3 sea days with 1 day in port at Hobart.

We are starting to question if perhaps we should cancel that cruise and just rent a car in Sydney and do a road trip for 3-4 days to return to Sydney on 11/6 to board Edge again for the New Zealand cruise.    We prefer not to stay in Sydney between cruises as we are flying over early and will have spent 5 days there already.  I'm thinking Melbourne might be too far for the time allowed.  Wondering if anyone has any ideas??  BTW, we are 70 and prefer, here in the USA, National Parks & State Parks to big cities.  We are not shoppers.  We enjoy outdoors/scenery, hikes in the 3miles and under variety and wildlife.  Thank you for any thoughts or ideas - Brenda

 

If you prefer national and state parks, 3 sea days extra doing nothing worthwhile would be, to me & my wife (also in her 70's) a royal PIA.

I would ditch the 4 day party cruise, which is what it will be, and do a road trip from Sydney down the south coast on the Grand Pacific Drive, through Royal National Park (second oldest national park in the world), Stanwell Tops and hug the coast until you reach Nowra. There are many beautiful places to stop along the way as well as historic towns. From Nowra, drive to and through Kangaroo Valley to the Southern Highlands, Bowral and back to Sydney on the inland route. This will give you a taste of some spectacular scenery and native wildlife in their natural environment. 4-5 days is a perfect amount of time for the trip. If you are interested in art, a visit to Bundanon is a must. The home of one of our most famous artists, Arthur Boyd who left his home and property to the Australian people

On 3/6/2024 at 1:32 AM, jennmaybe said:

We are getting ready to book our Australia/New Zealand cruise, and we will have to print anything we need because we do not even have the ability to download apps on our phones. Yes, we are in the minority of the world but we hate cell phones and we don’t know anything like that on our phones.  

The Australian ETA is $20 via the app and for most people takes minutes to receive. To do otherwise you must apply for a 600 visa which costs $190 and can take up to a month to process.

If you don't have a phone or tablet, you can ask a friend or family member to do it for you. You do not have to have your own phone or app to apply for the ETA.

For the technically minded without a phone, you could also download an Android emulator to your PC and obtain the app via that.

On 2/28/2024 at 8:58 AM, themnms said:

 Thank you so much. I did not want to offend anyone but do like to show my appreciation!

You can't tip "Greeters" In Australia or worldwide as their policy is "No tipping of any kind"

They do, though, encourage you to make a donation to the Greeters organization which will be explained after booking with them

8 hours ago, dandee2 said:

Hi all,

is there such a thing of 7-days New-Zealand cruise only? Without going to Australia?

I can't find any. Maybe NZ have its own cruise line. 

Thanks

Not 7 days but Ponant do a 9 day cruise, Azamara 14 days and Lindblad 21 days