Sparky74

Yes, one of today’s antisocial media "memories" was that two years ago we were at Airlie Beach on that cruise. Today, we are again at Airlie Beach with Auntie. It’s her 80th birthday on Monday.

When? We’re doing 3 nights on Pacific Encounter from next Saturday. It’s Auntie's 80th birthday on Monday so everyone is flying to Airlie Beach to celebrate. DW & I decided we’d need a short cruise to recover. 🤷‍♂️ No visit from the upgrade fairy for this cruise yet.

I’ve found Adrian's YouTube videos to be quite informative.

As I recall they’d stuffed me around with the booking for this cruise. I can’t remember the details but I remember getting really cranky when someone assured me they'd ring me back with a solution to my issue and then failed to do so. I did wonder at the time if the upgrade was a sort of apology, or sweetener, or bribe… It was a bit of a strange cabin, an aft balcony with a pillar in the middle of in. That was on Brillance OTS. We also received a complimentary upgrade on our first ever cruise, 4 nights on Legend OTS out of Hong Kong. Three of us: DW, a friend, and myself shared a cabin and were upgraded from an inferior to an oceanview. The ship was sailing at about ¾ capacity. We were so green! LOL. We learnt a lot about cruising on that trip and have learnt a lot more since.

A friend is doing the World Cruise on the Crown Princess next year. He says that he’s continually receiving emails trying to sell him the Plus or Premier package.

This "memory" popped up on my antisocial media today. From the days before bidding on a cabin upgrade was a thing.

If only it was that easy. 🤣

This thread has piqued my interest as we are considering cruising on BOTH the Westerdam AND the Crown Princess next year. 😱 We've only cruised once with HAL so far (Alaska in 2022) and thoroughly enjoyed it. We sailed with Princess three times so far and enjoyed those cruises also. This doesn’t help answer your question, though. 🤷‍♂️

You may also like to check out the Oceanliner Designs channel on YouTube. Lots of videos about the Titanic. Lots of videos about other maritime disasters. Lots of videos about ocean liners (as opposed to cruise ships). Presented by an Australian, Mike Brady. https://youtube.com/@oceanlinerdesigns?si=A-Bxu276jiRrihkL

The Plus package isn’t worth it for us. We don’t drink alcohol. We're not big coffee drinkers. DW doesn’t touch the stuff. 🤣 DW will have 1 or 2 soft drinks/day on a cruise. I try to steer clear of them. It’s nice to disconnect when on holidays so I’m happy not to have wifi. We used to buy the soda package on RCI, back when I drank softdrink but I’d get to the end of the day (especially on port days) and realise I hadn’t had 3 drinks which is what I needed to have to be ahead. So we gave that away and DW just buys a drink whenever she wants one. 🤷‍♂️ It works for us. Now we have Diamond status on RCI, so 4 drink vouchers/day. And shareholder OBC when sailing on Carnival Corp lines. Free laundry would be nice but I’m not chasing status. I can do a lot of laundry for $65/person/day. Heck, I might even start up a freelance laundry service on our next cruise, undercutting the cruise line. 🤣🤣🤣

I wonder if they’d give me double points if I bought Eggs Benedict every morning on P&O. 🤔🤣

I wanted to take a screenshot (of something else) on my laptop the the other day and realised there was no PTR SCR button. Goggle to the rescue! The Windows logo button + SHIFT + S takes a screen shot and puts it on the clipboard. You can then paste it into an email or wherever. It worked for me, but this wasn’t in relation to shares or OBC. YMMV

Perhaps like me you mainly stay on this board on CC. If so, you may not have heard the latest from Princess. I haven’t received an email so I wonder if this is happening I down here or only in the US? 🤷‍♂️ Apparently Princess is give double Captain's Circle points to people cruising between August and December 2024 if they purchase the Princess Plus or Princess Premier package. As always, there will be winners and losers. I haven’t read 8 pages of comments on the Princess board but I reckon you might want to bring your own popcorn. 🍿 🤣

Perhaps the sensible thing to do would be for the government to grant an exemption until 2030 (say) but reserve the right to withdraw the exemption and/or change/amend the Act to anytime. This would give the cruiselines and the industry some level of certainty while still giving the government an "out".

It’s a little sad that it wasn’t heritage listed as culturally significant but we can’t keep everything. 🤷‍♂️

Look at moi.

And let’s not forget that cruiselines are in business for one reason and one reason only. And it’s the same reason why the supermarkets, the banks, the lawn mowing service, and your Internet provider are in business. And it’s the same reason many get out of bed each morning and go to work. Cruiselines are in business to make money! And investors naturally want to see a return on their investment. I think many of us are surprised to learn how slim the profit margins are. It’s no wonder that they just haemorrhaged money and took on huge debt during the lockdown.

Glad to hear that your daughter is OK, Irene. I’m sure there was lots of prayer in addition to the chemo and surgery. We're hoping to rely on the complimentary Westpac insurance for our next few cruises but I need to delve into the T&Cs. It’s good to hear some positive feedback on it.

The trouble with insurance is that you don’t know how good it is until you have to make a claim.

Sorry, that’s an intentional malapropism. 🤷‍♂️ I start the cruise with barking day and finish with disembowelling day. I make sure we complete our mustard drill and if I have any problems I go and talk to them at guess-who services. DW reckons I’m not right in the head. 🤪

I don’t remember chocolates but we started cruising in 2010 and stayed loyal to Royal for a number of years. I remember towel animals every night, spectacular carved fruit displays in the buffet, and ice carving demonstrations every cruise. Times change and I must admit that I join in with the moaning about cutbacks but in reality it’s either that or prices will increase even more. We are fortunate that (at the moment) we have a variety of cruise lines to choose from which offer different inclusions and different price points. DW & I celebrate our 15th wedding anniversary in November and have a week's leave up our sleeve. I’ve suggested a couple of different cruises as options but she wants to do something different for this special occasion. I’ve priced a few alternatives and I’m still convinced that cruising offers great value for money in spite of rising fares and diminishing inclusions. At the risk of going back "on topic" 🤣 we board the Pacific Encounter In three weeks. I wonder if the Waterfront will be open for lunch on barking day. 🤔

I have a mate who drives trains between Central and Lithgow (Blue Mts)/Bathurst.

And some people like to feel like they own part of the ship they’re sailing on. Come to think of it, over the years I’ve encountered quite a few passengers who act like they own the ship! 😱

True but you still own the shares. If they cost you $1,400 and could now sell them for $2,500, then you’ve made a "profit" (capital gain) of $1,100. Of course you can only realise this if you sell your shares.

I wonder how it would affect the share price if they dropped the free OBC for shareholders. 🤔 Maybe a bunch of "mum & dad" investors would sell, their shares thus sending the price down. On the other hand if they moved the goalposts and required you to have say 200 shares to get the perk, maybe that would send the price up. 🤷‍♂️