mr walker

Lots of interesting stories on this thread.

During the last 20+ years of my working career (I retired 2 years ago) I travelled a lot, domestically and OS. Those travels, plus holidays on land & on cruises, amounted to close to 100 nights per year not sleeping in my own bed.

Not once did I ever had occasion to think, I wish I had brought my pillow from home 😮

15 hours ago, JohnGc said:

Love to do more cruising but when you are over 80 yrs old insurance companies price you out, I guess you are too much of a risk. Got our cruise from Singapore coming up but I think that will be our last one where a long flight is involved. We have a cruise to New Zealand booked in early 2026 from Sydney and then we will see how we are health wise from there. As sad as it is but being realistic we do not want to book too far ahead. We have had a fantastic time cruising and are grateful for all the good memories. Never have had holidays to a regular place every year but when we have had the need to relax and get away from it all we found Rainbow Beach, Sunshine coast Qld was ideal.

 

Cheers John

Many more happy travel days ahead for you I trust. Cheers

20 hours ago, NSWP said:

Mogo pies on Princes Hwy, south of Batemans Bay, present the 'Burger pie' beef patties and cheese in a pie.   Yes Uncle Les is stll alive and recovering from a broken shoulder and arm, now in a Riverside villa at Moruya Illawarra Retirement Trust. No more high rise. Best wishes to all.

 

G'day Les. Glad to hear you're on the improve mate. Hope your new place is working for you & that there is a happy hour there.

We were planning a trip down to Merimbula next month, joining friends in house-sitting for their daughter who is off to UK. Unfortunately my mate has to have an op soon & will be out of action for a few weeks, so trip is off. Our plan was to try & catch up with you then, but we'll have to wait for next trip.

Take care & stay safe. Cheers, Neil & Tracey

13 hours ago, aussielozzie18 said:

We are supposed to have big cats in the Blue Mountains…not sure if there is any truth to it though.

Yes many reported sightings over the years. Nothing has ever been confirmed, so nobody knows for sure if fact or fiction. Many locals in the mountains swear the story is true.

Many stories of the origin of the mysterious Blue Mountains panther(s), from a US military mascot released by it's company, to an escapee from the Warragamba wildlife park or a travelling circus, to the creature being an escape by a panther used as a game day promotion for the mighty Penrith Panthers Rugby League team back in late 1960's.

Not sure we will ever know.

When we travelled the Canadian Rockies by car in 2014, we saw lots of signs warning of bears, but never did see a bear 🙂 

1 hour ago, arxcards said:

There was a business card on the bed on the last day, suggesting we could buy a bed just like that one - I tossed it in the bin.

The card or the bed?? 😮

Where is the money? or perhaps more aptly, where does the money go? is a huge issue in Vanautu.

Apart from Geoff's points above, I am aware of the situation with the Convention Centre, opened in 2016 built with Chinese money (USD$16M reportedly). Local tourist operators will drive you by, saying that you can not go in, as the country does not have enough money to pay for the electricity to turn on the lights.

Apparently, the deal for the Centre was tied in with the building of new Offices of the Prime Minister's Department.😮

I'm up for a CC working bee!!

30 minutes ago, arxcards said:

It also confirms why sailaway party doesn't start close to White Bay terminal - a $12,100 "good neighbour" charge that is rebated if they comply with noise restrictions.

Amazing!!!

On 6/13/2024 at 11:57 AM, Mycruiseobsession said:

Yes my opinion is that we are currently  experiencing an advertising technique that is based on FOMO

 

(Fear of missing out)

 

"Everyone's booking and it's so popular!!"

 

OR

 

"Closing down, last chance!"

 

Either way it's catering to the impulsive urge to either be in with the crowd or not wanting to miss out on that last opportunity.

Yes, but where are the "60-80% OFF" signs normally associated with closing down sales?? 🙂

2 hours ago, cruiser3775 said:

OK, I'll bite. I'm not a gambler at all, don't even know how to play a poker machine.  How little can I gamble on a ship's casino in order to get free drinks?

I don't know but I am sure it's a lot more than people let on. I had a work colleague who often got a 'free' P&O cruise (3/4N) courtesy of casino play. They always downplayed their donations to the machines, but I know they were not putting just the odd $20 in 🙂 

We have used CBA travel money cards for OS travel for 10 years, for purchases and taking cash from ATMs. The main use has been to pay our onboard account on RC cruises, using pre-loaded US$.

We were advised that 'money-cards' can be used on cruises as long as they have a name on them.

Advice at the time was that the pre-bought 'anonymous' money cards bought from retail outlets would not be accepted onboard. We have never tried so I can't comment on that.

We have registered our cards on-line ahead of the cruise each time, just like we would an A$ regular credit card, and have never had a problem.

Our Princess Captain's Circle & P&O Cruiseling Codes numbers are the same. We did nothing to make this happen, so it must be somehow 'automatic'. 

Our Carnival VIFP # is different.

5 hours ago, Badatz2 said:

Sorry but I am not clear with your comment.  If I want to see local animals, kangaroos, koala, wombats penguins etc.  which of the three zoos should I go to.  I am not interested in lions, tigers and bears etc.

To clarify, my suggestion to focus on Australian animals is Featherdale, if that fits with your plans. Featherdale is located at Doonside in Sydney's west, and is best visited as part of a trip to Blue Mountains to make the best of your time. The most convenient way to do this is as a day trip with one of the Tour operators, which are not cheap, but you will see everything to see. It is possible to take the train to Blacktown to visit Featherdale, taking a bus from Blacktown.

Good find Chill. I'd been looking for a good price Celebrity cruise to try it out - we had one booked for 2021 that didn’t happen.

Unfortunately can’t do this one as already booked on Ovation to NZ at that time. It will get us to D+ on RC, so Elite+ on Celebrity on the new match deal
 

12 minutes ago, NSWP said:

still in sling, but pain is less. don't want a reconstruction and dr not keen on it, given my age, 76, other conditions. battling on, thank you all for your comments. go back to ortho in a couple of weeks.

take care mate. Cheers Neil & Tracey

For a number of years we relied on our CBA CC complimentary travel insurance. It's worth was never tested as we never made a claim. Later my employer's insurance included 'personal' travel for me & my family for travel on the same trip, so I changed my CC to a cheaper one without the included TI.

As I retired in 2022, I no longer have the business travel insurance as part of my job, and have been paying for travel insurance, which seems to be getting more & more expensive. I am about to start application for a new CC with included TI. One I have seen has no monthly fees if I use the card for charges $2-4,000 per month, which should be fine, at least until we run out of money 🙂 

What ship & what are the dates for this cruise please.

Cheers

Oh, I now see 11June was in the thread title 😞

32 minutes ago, BuzzBuzzen said:

I really think Bigpond.com is not much good anymore . Time to change to another email provider.

Cheers, Buzz.

I'm sure I recall that a long time ago (20+ years) someone suggested to me to have an email account that was not an internet provider account eg bigpond, optus etc. "What happens if you change providers?" was the question.

I chose to have a 'yahoo' one, & still have today. I have a lot of contacts who use gmail.

I had a work colleague who had a bipond address & he always seemed to have issues, and at one point had to start again with a different bigpond account, losing all his history.

Good luck to all.

2 hours ago, Aussieflyer said:

And on a different topic - Happy Birthday mr walker 😃

Cheers 🍻 

3 hours ago, Chiliburn said:

I think the airport has a $18 surcharge mr walker but a tight ass mate showed me the best way to get around that .
And that’s to get off at Mascot and there’s a bus stop about 30 metres away that goes to both airports.

Some say Wolli creek station but it’s a good 30-40 minutes walk,no bus and people do it with luggage.

Yes I have heard of some dodging the surcharge that way  - seems like hard work to me. I’ve also read of people driving to near the airport, like Tempe, parking their car in residential street & taking a taxi the short ride to airport. Works for some I guess😳

43 minutes ago, Ozwoody said:

 

I think the person who said that to you may have got it back to front.

 

Some people actually purchase OBC, (don't know why?), but there is an option to do so.

 

I'm sure you're right & they have it back to front or 'a#se about' as my Dad would have said. 

Purchasing OBC can make sense if the onboard charges are not in $A. For example RC, with charges in USD, it can make sense to buy ahead, depending on Fx rate being offered. They don't seem to change the going rate offered too often, so you can come out ahead.

For ones that are in $A, it doesn't make sense to me, except perhaps for those who consider that anything they pre-paid is somehow monopoly money, & they are not paying anything for their purchases, as they already paid 😉

1 hour ago, ilikeanswers said:

I haven't been to Featherdale in years so can't speak to their facilities but the big difference with Taronga is they are focused on native animals.... 

We have always taken OS visitors to Featherdale for that very reason. Most want to see our unique fauna, up close and personal, not so much elephants, lions & tigers etc that can be just like any zoo in the world.

Taronga is great, and the location makes visiting from Sydney CBD easy, but it is the location and the views that presents that makes it great more than the 'locals' that everyone wants to see. 

1 hour ago, Bubbeh said:

We have a Seniors Gold Opal which we load up when in Sydney.  It's not as good as our Seniors Smartrider but is certainly worth having.  The Opal costs travel at (from memory) $2.50 a trip while the Smartrider gives us free travel between 9am-3:30pm & 7pm till last train on weekdays, free travel all weekends and public holidays as well.  All public transport travel is free for everyone who has a Smartrider on Sundays.

Like Chilli, I'm not familiar with Smartrider.

We have Gold Opal cards & they give us unlimited travel within the Greater Sydney transport network (trains, buses, ferries, light rail) for a maximum of $2.50 per day, every day of the week. Great value. Of course, the special 'airport line' fee is not included. Still, less than $20 each way from Penrith to/from airport is still good value.

The most important thing to remember when driving in a place which is opposite to what you are used to is that, no matter where you are driving, YOU, as the driver, should always be closer to the centre of the road than your passenger.

Learnt to drive in a manual & my first car was manual - manuals were cheaper than automatics in those days. Tracey learnt in a automatic so changed to auto & been that way for almost 50 years 😳

Have driven a few manuals (rentals & borrows) over the years, but modern cities make automatic a more sensible choice.

Euro cars with reversed blinkers & wiper controls are always interesting.

51 minutes ago, Elorac123 said:

Agree just checked mine and Iam a week short of 6 months on our New Guinea cruise later this year.

Cheers Carole

Yes it was pretty much the same for us last year, so just went ahead & renewed. At the time there was warnings of long delays - it took 1 week 😳