kernow

Really enjoyed your review, I've never thought much about Hawaii but after seeing all your beautiful pics it's now somewhere I want to visit. Safe travels for the rest of the journey.

I hope so, it seems to work well on both MSC and P and O who have both switched over to it in the last few years.

I think the difference between Australia and the UK is that Australians have the gratuities included in their cruise price whereas we in the UK don't so many choose to opt out. Surely on the ships that sail from Australia the crew are paid just as they would be if everyone paid the gratuities because in effect they have.

Southampton , we can drive there, easy parking and never had much of a queue. Barcelona, fairly short flight, terminal right in the city with lots of hotel choices and always well organised. Dubai, like everything else there very efficient and easy to board. Maybe we have just been unlucky but we've always found the US ports more chaotic than those in many other parts of the world.

I always feel slightly ashamed to be British when I see queues of people on the Southampton cruises waiting to remove their tips. I wish Royal would just include them in the price on UK bookings like they do in Australia.

No problem, thanks for asking. I've really enjoyed following along, hope you enjoy the rest of your time in Hawaii, a TP crossing is on our bucket list.

Ah, just checked and it changed in 2019, we all need a visa and to pay the conservation tax for NZ now.

Did you go recently? I think it's changed fairly recently and thought everyone except Aussies now had to pay.

Thanks for another great review, I enjoyed following along.

We're British and had to get both Australian and New Zealand E visa plus pay for the NZ conservation tax.

We're going in Nov, you can do it all online and it comes through quickly. Lots of good info on the Australia/New Zealand board and some very helpful people. I'm planning to do a live thread for our two cruises for anyone who has questions.

Nice to see you back cruising always enjoy your reviews, looking forward to this one. Hope you both have a fab time.

Enjoying your updates so far. Is there any chance you could try to find out what capacity the ship will be sailing at on the Sydney cruises. We are on the 16th Nov cruise for a b2b, check in opened yesterday but still no covid protocols announced. Thanks, hope you continue to have a lovely time.

I don't think it's worthless at all. We have a booking for next year where we got 5+5% and 50 obc pp. This is for YC where the prices only ever seem to go up as you get closer to the sailing so worth booking early. We also really enjoy the free speciality meal. I agree we don't get as much as on some other lines(I think RCL is the best) but still nice things to have especially as we did status match in 2017 for our first MSC cruise.