Sparky74

7 minutes ago, ceeceeDee said:

On our last cruise we were talking to a couple who scored a free room for a 7 day cruise via the players' club. I don't think that particular cruise was undersold as it appeared to be 'sold out' around a month or six weeks prior to sailing. Either way, a free room is pretty impressive.🙂

I often wonder how much these "free rooms" actually end up costing them. I’m sure that neither the cruiseline nor the casino will be loosing money on them. 💸

41 minutes ago, MMDown Under said:

it is cheap because it involves a one way flight and hotel accommodation for a night.  Hotels are often dearer on Saturday nights.  

22 minutes ago, arxcards said:

Or two flights for anyone out of reach of Brisbane or Cairns.

But if you were looking at spending a week in Cairns anyway, it could be a bargain add on at the end of your holiday. 

11 minutes ago, shireboi said:

Compared to a hotel city stay where you are sometimes getting slugged $200++ for just a room per night.

 

I hear you; cruising is still the best valued holiday for DW and me. 

13 minutes ago, possum52 said:

Our friend and her daughter do. In fact, they are booked on a RCCL cruise next month for which my friend paid more for travel insurance than the cost of the cruise.

38 minutes ago, MMDown Under said:

A price too good to resist is a Casino Price!  Was just reading roll calls where Americans were saying "Casino offer on cruise to Australia" too good to resist.  Do many Australians get bargain Casino offers?  

32 minutes ago, arxcards said:

Yes.

You need a history of playing in casinos though. There are various players clubs linked to many of the cruise lines. the cheap offers are usually only for cruises that are being undersold.

Last year there were lots of Americans who were offered casino deals on our trans-Pacific on the Carnival Splendor. So many had on the Roll Call taken up the offer of a very cheap cruise, in some cases paying only port fees and taxes, only to be shocked to learn that they had to get a passport and a visa. More than a few cancelled when they researched the price of a flight home to the USA. 
 

I'm not always a good sleeper and I was surprised to see people still hard at it in front of the pokies (“slot machines") when I wandered through the casino at 4am. 

@Hogbay My in-laws live in Coffs and we’re at Grafton. 

4 minutes ago, arxcards said:

...if you reach elite on a segment of a multi-leg cruise, you will be get elite benefits for the following segments.

Even if you booked it as one cruise rather than individual segments?

I'd like to think so. Then again I'd like to think that they'd give you shareholder OBC credit for each segment but apparently that's not the case if you book it as one cruise.

After being loyal to Royal (and X) for the first seven years of cruising, we jumped ship and booked B2B on Carnival Spirit in October 2017. I must admit that this was not without a certain amount of fear and trembling, probably because of the negative things I'd read. (Since then we've also cruised with Princess, P&O, and Holland America.)

We determined not to spend all our time comparing Carnival to RCL but were pleasantly surprised. We found that the two lines had more in common than differences.

We've only done one Carnival cruise post-pandemic. Unfortunately it didn't meet our expectations. Part of that may have been due to to the inevitable cutbacks but it was also a trans-Pacific (Seattle to Sydney) and was run as an American cruise rather than an Australian cruise. We weren't the only Aussies who were a little disappointed but I kept reminding myself (and DW) that we got it for a bargain price. 

We've not cruised on the Carnival Luminosa yet but most of the ships in the fleet have over the top garish interior decorations. Just be ready for the visual onslaught.

Take your PMA (Positive Mental Attitude) with you and you'll be fine.

Happy sailing!

4 hours ago, arxcards said:

Yes, booking them separately is $160 dearer, so not worth it for the extra $50 of OBC. Both Barb and I have the same Captains Circle number with a different letter on the end so I don't think I would try to pull the wool over their eyes.

I wonder if it would be worth booking segments separately if one of the earlier segments would qualify you to become an Elite member of the Captain's Circle. My understanding is that you need to have spent 150 days onboard or have completed 15 cruises to gain Elite status. 

My TA has applied for the OBC for us and it's been applied to our upcoming Princess cruise. I'm not sure how to check if it's been applied to our P&O cruises yet but they're not until next year. 

Here's the cheapest cruise I've seen in a while. It's part of P&O's current Flash Sale.

X426 - Classic Short Break Cruise

Sat 1st June 2024

3 nights

Pacific Explorer

Cairns to Brisbane (one way)

Interior $199/person (that's less then $67/person/day!)

Oceanview $269/person

Balcony $299/person

32 minutes ago, Jean C said:

Wow, that's a lot. We can take or leave alcohol, I'm such a lightweight that I doubt I could stay upright after 2 drinks, I no longer work so I don't need to stay connected to the office so don't need internet, so the standard fare works best for us.

 

We like the Ilikai, we get a marina ocean view room - a stunning view - and it's very reasonably priced, by comparison, for what we get.

I think that’s where we stayed back in 2013. 

15 hours ago, hallijan said:

It looks like Coral is repositioning back to the USA at the end of 2024 being replaced by Crown & Diamond in Australia

I see that the Diamond Princess will be home porting in Brisbane.
I wonder how she compares to the Crown Princess. 

OK, so this is a "how long is a piece of string" question but what do YOU consider to be a good price for a cruise NOW. 

DW & I don’t have kids and still work full time for modest incomes. (I'm nearly 50.) Pre-C we’d search for inside guarantee cabins for less than $100/person/night. We now typically spend more than that but everything’s gone up in price. Fortunately our income has also. 😁
I prefer to pay a bit extra for oceanview if the cruise is more than a couple of days. And in the last 18 months we’ve sprung for balconies when the price difference hasn’t been excessive. 😱
 

What are YOUR magic numbers? What do YOU consider a good deal? 

15 nights on Celebrity Solstice to Singapore ex Sydney

Inside cabin $1563

The catch? It sails next Thursday. 
And, of course, you’d have to fly home from Singapore. 

10 minutes ago, OzKiwiJJ said:

…Recently my Princess Planner contacted me about a price drop on a 2015 cruise we have booked…

Don’t you just love those time travel cruises. 🤣🤣🤣

Lately it seems that cruiseline sales and special deals are little more than gimmicks. 

Take P&O's current "Splash our Cash Sale" for example. They offer OBC but only on the more expensive Value and Value Plus fares. 
DW is keen on cruising to Norfolk Island next year so I priced V446 Bounty Adventure ex Sydney in October 2024. 

For an Oceanview cabin, the difference between the Go fare (guarantee cabin) and the Value fare (specify which cabin) is $338/person. The Value fare gets you $150/person OBC, and reduced deposit under the current promotion. 
We really don’t mind where on the ship our cabin is, so why would we spend an extra $676 for $300 OBC?

Princess"s "Landmark Sale" is similar in that it doesn't apply to the base lead-in fare for guarantee cabins and the price difference to the next fare is more than the OBC offered. 

I usually park in P2. The price for three nights would be $57.04. 
According to the Portside website, they will charge $125. 
Ouch!

Yeah, not a huge amount of money in the grand scheme of things but still and all it's double what Wilson's charges for on-site. 🤷‍♂️

Yesterday we managed to pick up a good deal for a weekend cruise (3 nights) on the Coral Princess out of Brisbane at the beginning of December. 😁

Unfortunately Wilson's is fully booked. 😱☹️
Is Portside the next best alternative?

Yes, you can still sail for less than $100/person/day!

The lowest priced Australian round trip cruise I can find at the moment is:

9 nights to the South Pacific on Carnival Splendor, sailing out of Sydney on 19/5/24. 
$817/person for an inside cabin. That’s just over $90/day! 😱

2 hours ago, arxcards said:

…Times have changed. When accepting cards, you used to have to ring for authorisations and had to check the naughty list for invalid cards…

Yep! I’m old enough to have done this back when I used to use a "click-clack” credit card imprinter. 😱

We are looking at a 3 night Princess cruise because why not?! 😁

This will be our first cruise since I bought the company, well a tiny part of it in the form of 100 shares. 
Is there any onboard credit for shareholders on such a short cruise?

On 9/14/2023 at 8:13 PM, arxcards said:

…those paying with cash are subsidising those paying by card…

Not necessarily. There are expenses associated with accepting cash also. 
Someone has to count cash at the end of the day and someone has to take it to the bank. This means paying wages. 
There's also capital tied up in a cash float for the till. And the expense of a safe.

Just imagine if all onboard purchases were made in cash rather than being charged to your folio. 😱

 

38 minutes ago, 2022cruisey said:

You can use a credit card just about everywhere…

…You would only need cash for some markets.

And these days even most market stall holders accept credit card. Not all of them but more and more of them do. 

8 hours ago, Aus Traveller said:

I have an idea the OP is a 'she' but it might be a 'they'. 😁

 

I wonder is the mariners in olden times referred to their ships as 'she' because they were at sea without any females in sight. This could start a whole new conversation. 🤣

I love the idea of smaller (<3,000 pax) ships. But I’m guessing it will mean higher fares as we lose economy of scale. 
It also flys in the face of "bigger is better" which tends to be a philosophy of American companies including cruise lines.