arxcards

Genius

And that's why we have a local office to dot the T's 😉

Getting in early for the cancellation credits? 😉

For those looking forward to sliding down a chute into a raft, it would only be in a dire emergency mostly when not all the life boats could be used. Correct, there isn't enough life boats for everyone aboard, but on most ships there are enough for every passenger plus assigned crew manning each lifeboat. Most of the crew get to practice drills getting into life rafts, as that is where most of them will be huddled if the ship has to be abandoned. For the newer ships, you will see a letter like this in your cabin: You would think bigger ships would need to provide more lifeboats, but it becomes an issue of how quickly you can get passengers into all of them. The life raft system allows for a more rapid evacuation of the ship. In the event of an evacuation at sea, I would be following this bloke to find the quickest way off the ship.

I have a fair bit of a family trace from Northumberland, but definitely not the Campbell clan. By some connection, I live in Northumberland County (the early pre-council pastoral & parish boundaries). Have a fair bit of my ancestry from around Hadrian's Wall

Yes, I always believed that was how it should be too. Just noting how confusing it can be when the Princess brochure doesn't match reality.

The pre-assign happens on embarkation morning. They will look at their bookings and adjust if required prior to sending to vouchers to cabin. Until then, unless pre-paid, it is just a reservation. A pre-assign can include changing an existing booking. It has happened to us, per my previous post. By the time the suite vouchers and premier vouchers are assigned, particularly on short cruises, these restaurants are already oversold prior to embarkation. This is certainly true for Coral Princess in Australia, where the ship only has Bayou and Sabatini's. If you are on a newer ship for 7 nights or longer, you are not likely to have any bookings changed. There will be heaps of capacity over 7 nights to satisfy everyone's dining credits.

If booked & pre-paid with credit card, no. With premier package dining credits, yes. They = Princess, and this is listed in the Plus/Premier packages T&C. I wont bother to link the Australian version I have pasted from. Specialty Dining – two Specialty Dining meals are available per each Princess Premier guest. Each specialty dining meal consumed by a guest in a stateroom with this package will have the meal credited against the entire stateroom. It is recommended that guests make the Specialty Dining reservations pre-cruise using Princess® App. Princess Cruises reserves the right to pre-assign Specialty Dining times and location. The Specialty Dining included in Princess Premier does not include items with extra charges on the menus. Availability of Specialty Dining might be limited on certain cruises. Restaurants vary by ship. So, as explained to me, if everyone wants Crown Grill and it is booked out, you will not be guaranteed to be able to use both of your Premier package bookings there just because you got in first.

That is true, but it feels like they are sitting on a street corner with a cardboard sign. Ten years ago, CLIA was respected and constructive as they were lobbying to open-up Australian ports to offer more variety for cruise lines to sell to their overseas markets. As with this past week of Royal's "new" offerings, passenger lament is about the lack of anything new, not the cost of port charges. We will still cruise domestically to keep our toes wet and escape for a few days. As for Australians have not just returned to cruising, they’ve come back with enormous enthusiasm and at a faster pace than in other markets worldwide, it could have something to do with being shut down longer with massive credits in our pockets that needed to be redeemed in 2023. With less ships here next summer, it would seem that we are now losing enthusiasm at just as fast a pace. Not the fault of the cruise lines or CLIA, but we are now in a spend-less economy. Grudgingly, I might accept that booking cruises may not be essential spending.

Nothing seeping from the usual cracks. It must be quiet in PCP land.

We have encountered this issue on short cruises. At one stage, you could pre-book your restaurants via the app with your dining credit, but we have even had those bookings cancelled without notice. Premier seems to be more popular with shorter voyages, as the price premium is not large for the per cruise items such as dining & photos. Princess oversells the premier packages, and there are large numbers of passengers with two specialty dining credits on a 3 or 4 night cruise. They now say they can assign your dining at their discretion for day, time & restaurant. On an occasion we had a booking cancelled due to overbookings, we were given an alternative to use the credit for surf & turf in the MDR. I don't know if this is regularly offered, or was just an on-the-spot solution for us from the maitre D. Since then, I just don't bother with a premier package. Now I will just go with Plus, and use my credit card to pre-book a confirmed specialty restaurant booking at the time and place of our choosing.

Yep, shorter cruises equals more cruises equals more passengers. A couple of extra players in 2023 helped that along a bit too. CLIA are good for a stat. They used to pump the climbing numbers of Aussie passengers, and us being the most cruised per capita in the world. Now they have found a different stat to push, which is great for 2023, but will fall away in 2024. The key reason for pumping a stat is all detailed in the last paragraph - the industry lobby is lobbying for better facilities (I applaud) and cheaper port charges. Costs for all land based tourism in Australia are going through the roof, yet the cruise line association wants to lower costs for cruise lines.

I still see $100pp per night inside as a line in the sand. For insides on Luminosa, I am seeing 3 & 4 night cruises for around $150pp per night, but that is offset by $500 of OBC (VIFP offer) which looks like it gives a nice discount, but OBC is money spent, not a cheaper fare. P&O is also around $150pp per night for non-refundable deposit fares. No OBC. They have more consistent prices with their balconies, but they are still not offering bargain basement pricing. I went looking for some cheap pricing that was around for Pacific Explorer departing Cairns to PNG, as well as end of season relocations back to Brisbane & Sydney. No bargains to be found, as it looks like P&O has pulled the pin on them sometime in the past couple of weeks and added some Explorer cruises into Brisbane. Brisbane to Sydney 2 nights on Explorer in July is $198pp, so you can get a sub $100pp per night domestic cruise, albeit in winter, coming up to final payment, on the oldest ship, it is P&O, and an airfare to be added.

It is an altered one way itinerary that sails in less than two weeks. It is an anomaly that you won't get within double that price on any other Princess cruise.

Kookaburra swims in an old chip fryer, Flapping up and down with his butt on fire. Laugh, Kookaburra, laugh. How hot your beak must be.