sewgood

We stayed there for three nights in October 2019. It was clean and the food in the restaurant was fine, nothing too exciting though but as I thought at the time we are going to have lovely meals on the ship soon. It was very close to the main shopping centre but you did have to cross a busy road. We were able to walk to the train station (about ten minutes) to take a day trip. The hotel was rather under whelming upon arrival in the car park and I thought what have I done and the room was smaller than I would have wished. I couldn't remember any road noise in our room so it couldn't have been too bad and we had a room close to the busy road. There was something weird in the layout of the bathroom but I can't remember what, we just had a basic room and it might not be in all room levels. If you want a special or wow hotel don't book this one but if you want a cheaper, clean and mostly comfortable hotel this will do the job for a night or two. I do remember thinking I'm glad I didn't pay too much for this hotel stay.

We also did the 35 day Hawaii /Tahiti cruise in an inside and we would easily do it again, as it is a fantastic cruise. We still are a few years off retirement and can't spend all our money yet. 😄 In our trivia team we had never discussed what cabin we were in until a few days till the end of the cruise when one of the other team members spoke about the inside cabin trash hogging all the chairs in the international cafe as they don't have anywhere to sit in their rooms. It was funny to see their faces when I told them we were in an inside cabin and by the way, ocean view and balcony cabins didn't have tub chairs anymore either. Turns out they were in a minisuite.

We had french cut, rack of lamb one night as our extra on the Coral recently. Very nice. Oyster steak was offered on another night and the steak mignon was turned into turf and surf on yet another. I didn't try these ones. Lunch time was usually an extra pasta offering.

There is no easy answer for me. For a more restful trip I would prefer to sail back as no flights at the end but in terms of packing I would prefer to sail over and use my medical and my cosmetics/hair supplies up on the longer journey so I had more room for purchases on the flight back home. In terms of the clocks going foward or back I would rather sail back from the States so I get an hours sleep in on some days. 😀

We have been "upgraded" two times on Princess from a C category to an A within the same type of cabin so just a very small upgrade. The passengers who seemed to get the big upgrades have mostly been first time cruisers with Princess who were moved from an oceanview or inside to a balcony. But my best loved cabin change was with P&O from a mini-suite to a free oceanview. 😁

I wonder if the production staff will put on the Hollywood Hiccups Show for the crew in the Universe Lounge. We watched it from the top level and there were about ten white uniformed staff (guys and gals) viewing it from up there and having a great laugh at the antics of the cruise directors staff, especially when Kevin had his shirt off and when the cows and chickens were bowing down. I'm trying not to give anything away for those who haven't watched it. But it is so bad it's good. ( $22 budget was the budget, so Kevin told the audience) The home made/ make do costumes are charming and make you laugh. So it will be good for all the crew to be able to see it.

I remember Kevin the cruise director saying that the Universal Lounge was going to be closed for this cruise and it would be used for crew fun activities such as a wine and cheese night and some production/game shows that would be put on for the crew. I hope the crew enjoy the seven days of lower passenger numbers after all their hard work.

Well done in asking Princess about it and that's really good of Princess to give the credits to you as they didn't have to. Enjoy the extra spending money.🙂

Thanks Julie, I found it in the app following your directions. You're spot on, 12:30-1pm.

Thanks Julie, I'll check it out.

Do you have a boarding time yet? All we have for our cruise on Friday is boarding group D but no time.

As it gets closer you might be able to snag that unbeatable deal. Fortunately it's out of school holiday time so you might just be in luck.

Sounds lovely to me. I hope we don't have a full ship on Friday when we board.

There was no international cafe the last time we sailed on her about 7 years ago, a long time ago now. It did have a pastry tray from which you served yourself cookies or small snacks down in the atrium where you got your coffee. The tray was just left out on the bar with a clear plastic cover over it and a pair of tongs and some napkins. The Diamond was a lovely ship to sail on but we did miss the international cafe.

Thanks for all the great infomation in this thread. We'll listen out for the canons at 1pm when we are in town. We'll also take along our Opal cards to catch the light rail. We grew up in the Hunter Valley and haven't been to into Newcastle city for over 30 years so very much looking foward to it.

Good to know, I will be ready on deck with my life jacket on! 😁

I was on the cruise and I didn't notice or hear rumours about people testing positive for covid. I only heard a few people coughing in the whole 8 days. About 90% of the people wore masks around the ship and in the theatre.

On youtube today it showed that on the 12th of July Princess is releasing a video for new Majestic and Coral cruises. I clicked on the notify me button as a reminder and thought nothing else of it until reading this thread. I did check this morning for cruises either side of our August cruise on the Coral and there was plenty of cabins available. There is no way all those cruises are now sold out. Thanks Losfp for letting us know as I will now hold off booking my flights and hotel for our Brisbane in August after getting a little bit caught out with our shortened Explorer cruise.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-06-05/cruise-ships-pacific-tourism-pollution-environment/101080764?utm_campaign=abc_news_web&utm_content=link&utm_medium=content_shared&utm_source=abc_news_web There is some information about discusions going on between the cruise lines and Vanuatu in the article and what Vanuatu is asking for. The article is from the 5th of June.

I hope it's not the flu.

I think it was left over from the travel agent cruise.

Sounds like a lot of hungry people there. I'll bring along some snacks for next Tuesday. I hope that it's not too much longer for you before boarding, it would be be very frustrating being so close yet so far. Enjoy your cruise once you're on the ship. 🙂

My husband and I found that we became really seasick and were unable to eat or get out of bed in rough seas but following the above advice with seasick tablets we haven't had any problems. We also wear wrist bands for sea sickness (buy at chemists) when there are whitecaps in the water, though we don't know if this helps or not. If you like ginger take along a ginger product (naked or crystallised) it is suppose to help as well as the skins of green apples.

It has always been Waitangi for us on the Princess ships. Tendering can of course be hard to predict what time you will be onshore.

Ah, we have to spend our OBC from our reduced cruise some how.