Live from Majestic Princess - 20th October 2022

[Pushka]

2 hours ago, buchhalm said:

1 pm.

Lots of highly confused old people wandering around Circular Quay. Already waiting to board. 

I read that it might be delayed as staff are doing a deep clean which makes perfect sense. 

[Korlad]

8 hours ago, arxcards said:

They love a number.

As with channel 9, I couldn't find much to argue about. Even the "covid riddled" phrase isn't exaggerated in this case. Still, their first coverage said "we are hearing 800", but subsequent reports are quoting 800. Someone on social media has quoted that number, so they will run with it, and it is monkey see, monkey do between all of the news outlets.

 

I get the feeling someone has done the tables in corridor maths and about 400 tables has become about 800 infections, but it isn't that simple. It is extremely unlikely that Majestic will have announced an actual number.

 

Still, not to get hung-up with the number, the ship has gone from being healthy to tier 3 in a matter of 11 days, and that spells having little control over the spread of the virus aboard. Officers aboard need to be able to see what is happening with passenger hygiene, because blind Freddy can. To just assume there is no covid until a few passengers have tested positive is very short-sighted, and then the horse has bolted. I look around on the previous cruise, and so many just don't give a rats about the health of those around them, and way too hard to be bothered covering a cough or a sneeze. The Aussie media are not the problem.

From the Sydney Morning Herald they have a quote from Carnival affirming the 800 number- "Speaking to reporters shortly before 9am, Carnival Australia president Marguerite Fitzgerald confirmed that in the “vicinity” of 800 COVID-19 cases had been recorded on the New Zealand voyage, and the majority were among guests, plus a small number of crew members."

[OzKiwiJJ]

As I understand it they were only Tier 2 yesterday morning which would mean less than 495 passengers and crew. However that was high enough to require all passengers have to do a RAT which identified another 300 passengers with Covid. OK, some of those passengers would have been asymptomatic so would not have realised they had Covid but I suspect many of them had symptoms but had not reported them because they didn't want to have to isolate on the last day(s) of their cruise. 🤔🙄😡

 

I wonder how many more people have contracted the disease in the last day or so. 

 

It's a shame the media doesn't report the real facts behind Covid outbreaks on ships instead of bad-mouthing the cruise lines.

[Aus Traveller]

On 11/9/2022 at 3:18 PM, buchhalm said:

Hi there 

Are you aware that the tap water on cruise ships is totally fine and safe to drink? They use it in the bars, dining rooms, buffets.. 

🙂😉

We have always drunk the tap water on every cruise line we have been on since we started cruising in 1983. BUT, on our cruise on Pacific Encounter in Aug-Sept I found that the water had a dramatic effect on my digestive system. So much so, that on our cruise that ended today, I bought six 1.2 litre bottles of water for the first time ever. I was fine until I had a limited amount of water at the dining table. After that, I took my bottled water to the dining room and everything returned to normal. That was a great relief.

[Sea Hag]

On 11/11/2022 at 3:21 AM, yes!yes!yes! said:

I'll have the agnolotti and the apple torte thanks.

You will be very happy with the apple torte!

[NSWP]

Well Carnival Australia boss quoted 800 pax, she would know. I can guarantee many of those infected pax caught the trains or buses from Circular Quay, even though they were allegedly told not to.😬

[alirat153]

I was on the Majestic but disembarked at Auckland after I tested positive. I was on Dolphin deck an to begin with there was a quarantine area on Dolphin that was sealed off. By Tuesday (8/11/22) there were the tables and dirty dished outside a lot more cabins. By this stage I had started to feel unwell so did a RAT test at 5am.  I think it spread farily quickly. I only attended 1 show on about the 6th and people were coughing all over the place. That's the day the Captain advised everyone to wear masks in public places.

 

I think Princess did the best they could, but a lot of passengers went maskless. The staff were all masked up from about day 2 and most of them were masked the whole time.  The washing of handrails was continuous.

 

I was initially quite ill but seem to be getting better quite quickly so that’s good.

[timtam2]

Carnival needs to be sensible and fully reinstate the mask mandate otherwise every cruise longer than a week is going to end up like this. You cannot trust people to do the right thing. And it's always those with the hacking coughs that don't cover up. 

[NSWP]

1 minute ago, timtam2 said:

Carnival needs to be sensible and fully reinstate the mask mandate otherwise every cruise longer than a week is going to end up like this. You cannot trust people to do the right thing. And it's always those with the hacking coughs that don't cover up. 

Exactly and enforce it.

Edited November 13, 2022 by NSWP

[caribill]

The quote from https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/13/australia/australia-covid-majestic-princess-cruise-passengers-intl-hnk/index.html

 

"After mass testing 3,300 passengers, around 800 tested positive for Covid-19, as did a small number of crew, Fitzgerald said."

 

So about a 1 in 4 chance of leaving the ship knowing to have Covid plus an unknown number of passengers who had Covid at levels to low to be detected when tested on boatd.

[arxcards]

5 hours ago, timtam2 said:

Carnival needs to be sensible and fully reinstate the mask mandate otherwise every cruise longer than a week is going to end up like this. You cannot trust people to do the right thing. And it's always those with the hacking coughs that don't cover up. 

Bear in mind that 2 weeks into Coral's around Australia cruise, they also hit tier 3, despite masks being required from the start of the cruise.

 

The classic is those with a hacking cough that lower their mask to let it out, generally without muffling it into their forearm.

[arxcards]

On 11/12/2022 at 4:47 PM, Pushka said:

I read that it might be delayed as staff are doing a deep clean which makes perfect sense. 

Much of the delays stemmed from the delayed disembarking, both from interaction with borderforce and NSW health, then the pragmatic disembarking of infected passengers. The deep cleaning is ongoing, but there is a fogging of cabins of infected passengers - quite a lot of cabins to take care of.

[windsor26]

Crown Grill (specialty) was once again the highlight of our dining. We both agree that our previous cruise grill meal on Coral was a bit better. Perhaps I had leftover US steak bit I can't be sure of that. Everything was suitably wonderful, but had less flavour than for our previous cruise.

 

Still Sounds great  How much was this meal please  

Edited December 15, 2022 by windsor26

[arxcards]

1 hour ago, windsor26 said:

Crown Grill (specialty) was once again the highlight of our dining. We both agree that our previous cruise grill meal on Coral was a bit better. Perhaps I had leftover US steak bit I can't be sure of that. Everything was suitably wonderful, but had less flavour than for our previous cruise.

 

Still Sounds great  How much was this meal please  

$40pp.

We will be there again in February.

[windsor26]

3 hours ago, arxcards said:

$40pp.

We will be there again in February.

Thanks  I had hoped it was $28 as I saw this on the Princess site but probably US$

[MMDown Under]

12 hours ago, arxcards said:

$40pp.

We will be there again in February.

If someone prepurchased a celebratory meal at a restaurant for you, how would you feel if that restaurant then asked you for an extra $80 per couple?  That is how I feel about the extra charges being charged at some restaurants on cruise ships.  This is no longer a token amount.  We can eat well at a restaurant for $80!!  

[Ozwoody]

1 hour ago, MMDown Under said:

If someone prepurchased a celebratory meal at a restaurant for you, how would you feel if that restaurant then asked you for an extra $80 per couple?  That is how I feel about the extra charges being charged at some restaurants on cruise ships.  This is no longer a token amount.  We can eat well at a restaurant for $80!!  

Well if it was a eat what ever from a standard menu, then when I got their found out I could go to a chefs dinner section for a more up market meal, and I was willing to pay it, probably OK.

Would be my choice.😁

[MMDown Under]

31 minutes ago, Ozwoody said:

Well if it was a eat what ever from a standard menu, then when I got their found out I could go to a chefs dinner section for a more up market meal, and I was willing to pay it, probably OK.

Would be my choice.😁

I agree with that and have paid extra.  However on ships, there is not just one specialty restaurant.  They have devalued the product.  

[NSWP]

2 hours ago, MMDown Under said:

If someone prepurchased a celebratory meal at a restaurant for you, how would you feel if that restaurant then asked you for an extra $80 per couple?  That is how I feel about the extra charges being charged at some restaurants on cruise ships.  This is no longer a token amount.  We can eat well at a restaurant for $80!!  

Speciality eateries on ship are just a money spinner for the cruise lines.

[Ozwoody]

9 minutes ago, NSWP said:

Speciality eateries on ship are just a money spinner for the cruise lines.

Don't disagree with that.

But that's the nature of business, to try to make a profit were opportunity presents it's self.🤔

 

[windsor26]

1 hour ago, NSWP said:

Speciality eateries on ship are just a money spinner for the cruise lines.

Not really  the meat is of a much better quality and cut an the sides and service are excellent   I know you would pay twice this in Sydney for a 2 course meal and the speciality restaurant is a 3 course one

[windsor26]

Just gone into dine my way to book this on 27th Feb to see that the price offered is $52.60 per adult    when did this happen   Is this perhaps why I could not book it yesterday?

[Aus Traveller]

Just now, windsor26 said:

Just gone into dine my way to book this on 27th Feb to see that the price offered is $52.60 per adult    when did this happen   Is this perhaps why I could not book it yesterday?

They might have difficulty selling places at the specialty restaurant at $52.60pp.

[windsor26]

6 minutes ago, Aus Traveller said:

They might have difficulty selling places at the specialty restaurant at $52.60pp.

I would say so  It has changed my mind  the difference on each is the cost of a bottle of wine so needs thinking about   Keep safe Evon

[Ozwoody]

2 hours ago, windsor26 said:

I would say so  It has changed my mind  the difference on each is the cost of a bottle of wine so needs thinking about   Keep safe Evon

It does seem like costs are jumping at an astonishing rate, maybe their trying to put people off, so they can close them? Must admit that its getting hard to justify a special night out on a cruise.😞