Brisbane to Newcastle 2 night cruises - important information

[Skyrules]

Having just completed the 2night cruise from Newcastle to Brisbane, I thought I'd share some important tidbits about the cruise.

 

* the cruise is the first 2 days of a longer, international cruise some different rules apply to the passengers only doing the Newcastle to Brisbane "domestic" leg.

 

* passengers disembarking in Brisbane don't need passports and are considered to be "in transit" on the cruise (a bit like flying the Brisbane to Sydney leg of an inbound international flight on QANTAS). However, as with other non-international cruises they do prefer passports as ID as they just have to swipe them through the machine to get the details, they don't need to key in drivers licence numbers etc.

 

* passengers disembarking in Brisbane can only buy certain items from the shops and boutiques on board; eg logo wear/souveniers, disposables (eg toiletires, chocolates, on board drinks), photos.

 

* Brisbane passengers CAN NOT buy; duty free alochol/cigarettes, jewellery, perfume, brand name clothing (eg Rip Curl etc) and other items, allthough the shops will be open for the sale of everything except alcohol and tobacco. The shops will advise you of what can and can't be purchased.

 

* There's a dedicated line for checkin at the terminal in Newcastle.

 

* Passengers will be off the ship by 9am in Brisbane

 

* if you pre-register your credit card to pay your onboard account - the charge WILL NOT be made to your credit card until the completion of the full cruise (ie when the ship returns to Newcastle) - however the account is cancelled as soon as you 'ding off' on disembarking the ship in Brisbane, so you don't have to worry about further charges (eg autotipping) being made to the account after you disembark. They don't provide information about this directly - I found out because when we got our statement this morning it was missing the usual last transaction of 'payment by credit card, balance $0.00 and I went to the pursers desk and asked.

 

 

And notes generally about the cruises out of Newcastle (based on this first one);

 

* Duty free alcohol & tobacco is not put on sale for international passengers until after the ship leaves Brisbane.

 

* It seems that Immigration doesn't have the technology in Newcastle to do automatic processing of outgoing passengers based on a swipe of the passport and the ship's manifest - as all the passengers doing the full cruise were required to complete an Outgoing Passenger card, the same as you get at the Airport. This is the first time I've seen this for a cruise ship departure. Passengers doing the Newcastle/Brisbane leg were given a card with a big D in marker pen on it. We didn't need to complete it but it was needed by the immigration officials to tally departing passengers numbers against the ship manifest.