Mobile phones, Lanyards..the small questions

[Breathless4]

Do mobile phones work on board, I am going to put global roaming on my phone of course, but just wanted to know if there is reception on board?

Also heard the P&O lanyards for your cruise cards are $7 each, are they kidding? I thought for sure they would be complimentary.

 

We are early risers and my husband is aghast that there isnt coffee making facilities in our room. I have read that you can order a continental breakfast (whatever that is) to your room, is it an extra cost? and would they charge for a glass of milk for our daughter?

 

Another question...water...do they supply bottled water for free or do we have to buy it on board?

 

Thanks for answering my qu's.

 

We are leaving on our first ever cruise in 7 days!

 

I want to thank everyone on this board who answered my sometimes lame questions, and to all those other wonderful posters for asking great questions and giving very informative answers.

 

We have decided for our tours that we will take the Le Petit train in Noumea, and do the jet boat in Port Vila, something we would never usually do. Snorkelling etc for the other islands, Ouvea and Lamen Bay.

 

And I will definitely give a review of our cruise on the Pacific Sun N609 as soon as we get back. I love reading what people did on board and on the islands.

 

Bon Voyage to me....:D

Breathless

[luvvin_u_2]

heyya, in vila and noumea i know it works if u have global roaming

you can make coffee up on lido deck near the outback grill its nescafe mum loves it.. theres no charge for the continental breakfast but the glass of milk im unsure about.. you have to buy water but u can always get ice water from the bars for free its safe 2 drink.. bottled tastes better though

i really hope u have a good time on the cruise.. look out for a tall indian man named rish hes skinny too.. hes great the nicest man.. i did tree to tree in noumea its great fun:)

[girl05]

Hi Breathless,

 

I didn't get any reception on board at all.

I'm not sure exactly how much the laynards cost but I heard it was around $6 or $7 dollars. I bought mine before I went on my cruise and it cost me $6 and it ended up breaking, next time I'm just going to buy a p&o laynard.

 

Not sure about the continental breakfasts sorry.

No they do not supply bottled water for free, but if you order a glass of water they don't charge you for it.

 

Enjoy your cruise:) I just came back from my first cruise and had the time of my life! it was fantastic! :)Can't wait to go cruising again!

 

cheers girl05

[aussiedisneyfan]

As the others said you only get reception when at ports that offer reception. On you cruise, Noumea and Vila. Lamen Bay doesn't have it and I doub Ouvea would. Sometimes you may have blackspots on the ship. We couldn't get reception in our room somewhere but could in other places.

 

We bought a lanyard from a $2 type shop and they were fine. My daughter had a more expensive bratz lanyard and it broke.

 

Breakfast to your room is free and delivered from 7am onwards. I am sure you can get a glass of milk. If you want the same thing every day same time then write daily in the date space.

 

Haven't done the petit train but have done the horse drawn carriage. Similar type of thing, was cool and the train certainly looks like fun. My friends and daughter did the jetboating and really enjoyed it.

[smurfette]

Forget the mobile phone - I must say it was lovely not to hear them going bleep every two seconds - and yet everyone survived.................lol

 

We did Petit train it was great and the pastries they offer are divine. The 4 wheel drive showed a differedt side to Noumea as well.

[mummsie]

mobile phones will only work while in port. As soon as you sail from land reception will be lost. I always take mine and leave it switched off until we get to a port. My kids keep in touch via sms when we go away. The only way you will get mobile coverage in the middle of the ocean is if you have a sattelite phone which cost upwards of $2000.

Not everybody has a lanyard - some people prefer just to stick the card in their pocket.

Water - we always take one bottle with us to refill when we go off the ship for the day. Bottled water is expensive on the ship. The water out of the tap is fine to drink - I actually prefer it to Brisbane water :D

Excursions - never done one. We just prefer to wander around and do our own thing. Saves money too. Mummsie

[cruiselover96]

Hi Breathless, on the Sky you can get a coffee from the room stewards at anytime you want so I would imagine it would be the same of the Sun. This is all part of their service and where your tipping would be appreciated!! lol

 

Kerri

[Whoey]

The only readily available free water is from the Outback Bar and Grill area. It is the same water served at Dinner in the restaurant and I expect it is the same as what comes out of the tap in your bathroom, just cooled. There is a free ice machine as well. There is a message in the black folder information booklet thing in each Cabin, which states the tap water is drinkable.

 

Personally, we thought the water tasted aweful and mostly drank the bottled stuff. Its $3.50 for a 2 litre large bottle, can be bought off your cabin steward. Also they sell a 600ml version for $2 at all the bars.

 

When departing via tender or gangway there is usually a small desk setup selling water and or soft drinks for a few dollars.

 

Once you taste the onboard free water believe me you will probably want to buy the better stuff.

 

We mostly purchased the larger bottle, it might be 1.5 litres I cant remember for $3.50 as that is reasonable value and easy to get just find your cabin steward and fill in a three line form (cabin number, name and signature).

 

We did drink a lot of the free orange juice at kids dinner (5 - 5:30) at Outback bar and grill, it tasted much better then the free water.

 

Also the Pacific Sun lanyards are $6.96 from the onboard shops. We took our own as you can easily find stronger lanyards from shops here and there.

 

Official Pacific Sun souveniers like a cap $24.95 and little teddy bear $15.95 were quite expensive. They had about 100 Pacific Sky caps on sale, obviously running them out at $4.95, last day only, we bought 5 of them ! they looked to be the same quality caps as the Pacific Sun ones.

 

Pacific Sun t-shirts start at $20 (sale price) and are usually $30 - $35.

 

Hope that helps.

[Whoey]

We had quite humid days and you tend to sweat a lot, be careful you don't dehydrate.

 

For $3.50 a large bottle is worth it in my opinion. We bought one each port day.

[maxx]

I've been told to wait to buy things on board until the last few days of the cruise, this is when the sales start. Is this true?

[NARELLE]

yes the last few days they tend to have stalls outside the front theatre with items discounted.

 

we always take our own drinking bottles with us and always filled them up before leaving the ship in the outback grill. As I have to be careful about dehydration in the humid weather I also took my own powerade and made it up in our bottles before we left the ship. On most islands they have cold water cylinders set up with paper cups for you to drink when you are embarking or disembarking from the tenders. We have never had a problem with the drinking water on the ship.

[maxx]

Thanks Narelle

I am going to take the filter water bottles as well. We drink stacks of water so I want to make sure it's ok. Good idea to take Powerade, I never thought of that.

[Whoey]

I took 4 powerade/gatorade drinks, went through them quick as in the heat. They do setup large orange drink containers at the end of the jetty's when you use tenders.

 

All I am saying about the water is if you are a fussy water drinker, like I am, you might be dissapointed with the flavour of the free stuff and $3.50 a day is not a lot to pay for a large bottle of decent water.

 

We also waited for the sales over the last two sea days. We were dissapointed as most of it was junky stuff and nothing was authentic Pacific Sun souveniers. Everything was other things, like watches, Pacific Sky caps (still worth buying in my opinion) and shirts with other info on them like LIONS TOUR 2005 - whatever or whoever the LIONS are. The jewellery on sale was good prices and my wife bought a nice wristband thingy. Don't expect much from the sales.

[Whoey]

We also took a large 24 pack of Diet Coke cans as my wife drinks a lot of Diet Coke.

[maxx]

All good tips, thanks. I agree $3.50 a day isn't much. I will be taking powerade, diet coke for me & tonic water for his lordship.

[davoni]

Forget the mobile phone - I must say it was lovely not to hear them going bleep every two seconds - and yet everyone survived.................lol

 

Agree with Smurfette....It was great not to have to hear everyone talking on their mobile phones - especially on the pool deck where people were reading or dozing...I think a ship is one of the last 'mobile phone free' zones left. Reception was available in Noumea and Vila for those who want to catch up with family and friends....especially to tell them what a great time we're having.:D

[karmac]

We also took a large 24 pack of Diet Coke cans as my wife drinks a lot of Diet Coke.

 

Did you just carry it on in the carton? Or did you put it in your luggage (& hope that it didn't leak)? My DH only drinks bundaberg ginger beer & they don't sell it on board. P & O have told me we can take our own but it comes in glass bottles. Any ideas?

 

Karen

[Whoey]

We put the carboard packaged slab of cans through as part of our luggage. simply added one of those P&O labels to it with out room number and it arrived, slightly damaged. One corner was smashed in. One can was severly dented (but didnt leak!).

 

If the ginger beer is in glass bottles I recommend you carry it through customs onboard and simply explain that you didn't want the glass to break as it is obviously fragile. They will probably make you put them through the xray machine and or open one to check it is legit.. I dunno.

 

I wouldn't risk it as luggage as our coke pack was damaged.