mr walker

42 minutes ago, arxcards said:

On a longer cruise though, on a nice run of lazy sea days, sitting on a balcony with delivered cocktails and snacks would make it worthwhile.

Well, we have now booked 37N Grand Princess Fiji/Hawaii/Tahiti/Samoa/NI for Oct/Nov 2025 - plenty of seadays on that - delivered drinks & snacks on our balcony sounds attractive. 😁

20 hours ago, arxcards said:

Just to note, the Ocean Now ordering does work with standard fares as well, but you pay a $30 one-off activation fee.

 

Now we have just completed a cruise, I have switched to the new app. No issues at all.

Yes, I knew there was something about an activation fee, but didn't worry about it. We mostly have a drink at a table by the pool or in a bar lounge somewhere. There is always someone coming around taking orders & bringing the drinks to us, so no need to use the app. After a little time, we get to know the staff and they look after us.

Also, we noted a number of times that the waiter was wandering around the area calling out "Mary" or "John" trying to find the person who ordered the drinks 🙂 

Sorry to hear of Lynn’s mother’s passing - always hard losing family. Our condolences go out to you both - Neil & Tracey

Recently back from first cruise with Princess App - Majestic Princess 10-23rd Feb. With new app, had to log in with booking number (login wouldn't work) but app worked fine for us pre & during cruise. We only had standard fare so no use of app for 'extras' like ordering drinks for delivery to table etc, but boarding pass worked fine, the folio function was fine, checking the schedule for shows & activities and bookmarking events was all good & the 'find your travel partner function' was unexpectedly accurate. 

Shortly after disembarking the cruise details were gone & the new one (booked onboard) had replaced it - 600 days to embarkation was a surprise 🙂 

3 hours ago, MicCanberra said:

Yes, it is next week.

Enjoy your trip Mic & Rosie - stay safe.

About 10 years ago we opened a CBA Travel Money Card account & put US$ on it. We have lodged it for all our USD cruises (RC) to cover our onboard cruise account & the final payment taken out by the ship has always been exactly our final invoice amount without us having to do a thing.

We have also used it for restaurant bills etc when in US, again with no additional charges.

Note: in the 10 years we have had to top up the amount in our account once or twice 🙂  

On 2/20/2024 at 8:02 PM, arxcards said:

Once upon a time we used to spend long weekends travelling with friends. A map of NSW was taped to the wall, and one of us threw a dart. We had lots of great times in places we wouldn't have given a 2nd look. 

This reminded me of when our kids were young we went on what we called a "dice tour" that we made up loosely based on a TV show we had seen. We spent a week travelling around by car based on directions decided by rolling a dice that decided in which direction we were to go. From home it was no point in heading E (not far to ocean from Penrith 🙂 ), so first roll was 1 or 2 was N, 3 or 4 was W etc & we would use the same process each morning, leaving out of the options the direction we had travelled from the day before. We made up rules like we couldn't stay the night in the same place we had lunch. We travelled down the NSW Sth Coast & across to Canberra and then back home, following the dice directions. Tracey & I really enjoyed it - the boys not so much. At one point they insisted a rule mod to 1,2,3,4,5 or 6 would send us home 🙂 We still talk of this today.

BOT, yes, I share the frustrations of the options available to search for cruises.

Just off Majestic Princess (13N Sth Pacific 10-23rd) yesterday. No cyclones for us but a persistent low pressure system around Fiji caused some poor weather for our cruise. A bit bumpy & windy, with a fair amount of rain, in transit to & fro and around Fiji.

Very wet for the Suva port stop, rain late in day in Lautoka and Dravuni Is cancelled due to swell. Vila was nice day and lovely day in Noumea on Tuesday.

3 hours ago, Chiliburn said:

I’m thinking virgin and Disney are taking some business off Royal Caribbean and that’s one of the reasons we only have two ships next season.

New competition is surely one reason , but I think the decisions were made before Disney or VV had a chance to make too much difference. Overall competition, priorities in other markets, falling $A, environmental pressures & lack of Sydney wharf capacity would all likely be part of it.

I'm hoping for a 5-6N roundtrip from Sydney in 1st half Dec '25 - don't really care where it goes. 

9 hours ago, MicCanberra said:

Drinks? Shorex?

Oh, we will be sure to have a few drinks 🙂 We likely will be just local cruising in Aus, so wouldn't normally use ship excursions for port visits. Maybe a ship logo shirt or two to add to the collection 🙂 

1 hour ago, lyndarra said:

Made by Arnotts.

Featured in recent TV commercial - bloke under car saying "I don't really care". Can't remember what it was about, insurance? Probably not screened in NZ.

 

That's become my favourite ad, as the guy in the ad reminded me so much of a good mate Brian who we called Bruce (same name as the ad). And our mate Bruce passed away late Nov after a battle with cancer 😪

I was telling someone about the ad & the iced vovo's and couldn't even remember that the ad was for insurance😮

I brought a pack in Bruce's honour and was disappointed to see that the biscuits seemed to have shrunk since the last time I had them some years past now.

We ignored the original hype, including the TV 'doco' & expected that Virgin Voyages would not be something we would do.

My sister & BIL recently did a Mel-Burnie-Hobart-Mel cruise and raved about the whole cruise experience - they have done several cruises on various lines. So taken with the experience, she called me from the ship saying that she just bought a FCC (or whatever Virgin call it) for US$300 (A$450) which counts as deposit on future cruise, a US$300 discount on the fare & US$600 OBC. She said she can get one for us - same deal.

We bit the bullet and said go ahead - another sister & BIL also did the same. You only live once, right?

So, we have invested A$450 & now have to try and find a cruise that suits before end-Jan '26 & we will then become 'sailors' - ahoy, matey. Our placeholder cruise shows as departing Miami 1st Jan 2050 😮 One thing I need to understand is that it seems pretty much all is included in the fare, so how do we spend $600 OBC on a 3-4-5 night cruise??

Let's see how this all goes!!!!

6 hours ago, MicCanberra said:

Virgin sailors don't read apparently.

well not books anyway 🙂 

Hopefully they are revising the itineraries to make them more roundtrip than different start/end points and a little longer.

We have a FCC (or whatever they call it) to be used within 2 years and am looking for a Syd/Syd cruise for maybe 7 days.

It is interesting to read all your stories on accents - it has something I have long had an interest in.

I once worked here in Sydney with a couple who were from England who had worked as entertainers at the old English holiday camps like Butlins. The guy claimed to be able to identify people to the village of their origin in England just from a few words. It was his party trick & he said that each person he met would have a different local accent & he had a very high strike rate in correctly identifying their origin.

Another elderly guy I worked with had a very broad Scottish accent, making it very difficult to understand at all. We thought he must have come to Australia late in life to have such a broad accent. Imagine our surprise to learn he moved to Australia at the age of 6, more than 60 years earlier! We theorised he must have practised his accent each day to keep it intact 🙂 

57 minutes ago, NSWP said:

I cannot handle tennis. Cricket and golf for me, always. But rain at the Gabba, so doubt any play today.

It might fine up in Brisvegas later for the test Les 🤞

Our Australia Day lunch 😁🍺

HAPPY AUSTRALIA DAY 2024!!!!!!

Family BBQ today with 3 generations here to celebrate our great country. Steak, sausages & chicken kebabs 🙂 Oh and some salad 🙂 A few cold beers to keep us hydrated - it's forecast for 40C here in Penrith today.

Enjoy you day!!! Cheers

10 minutes ago, MicCanberra said:

Wish they don't  go bigger than Radiance but most likely will be Ovation size or larger.

 

Us too - Radiance class is the best for us, or Voyager as second choice -any bigger just doesn't suit as well for us.

4 hours ago, MicCanberra said:

The cyclone is expected to possibly hit maybe around Townsville but it may further north or south or east or west they are guessing.

Maybe they need to calibrate their ouija board??

2 hours ago, cruiser3775 said:

If you take an official ship shore excursion that visits wineries, most lines will allow you to bring back one or more bottles and not confiscate them until disembarkation. 

I don't see how that would work. Returning to a ship we have never seen a skerrik of interest by the crew scanning our bags & collecting our belongings (if required) of where we may have been and whether we went on a 'ship-tour' or whatever.

26 minutes ago, arxcards said:

 

I normally wouldn't borrow, nor mention the source, but since one of their writers likes to copy/paste comments from this forum without attribution, it is only fair. The time was 3:45pm.

 

👍😁

36 minutes ago, yes!yes!yes! said:

there's an 80s theme tonight

 

 

for our Majestic cruise in a few weeks (10 Feb), there are a number of "Party" nights showing on the schedule including ABBA, Motown, C&W, 80's.

On Princess do people typically dress up 'in theme' for these nights like on other cruiselines, or is the dress-up more for the entertainment crew? On P&O, Carnival & RC etc, many passengers dress-up for the evening & photos are a big part of it.

View from yacht club at Airlie, having lunch & a couple of beers - well worth the tender ride in.

Note: photo used zoom on camera & the ship is further away than it looks in the photo.

We had done the aquaduck tour prior to having lunch - not sure if it still operates as I saw it was up for sale a couple of years back.