OzKiwiJJ

My worry would be that if major compensation was given certain people would claim to have a missing (imaginary) suitcase just to get the compo.

Yes, there were definitely cases among the crew. We heard of a few crew members thay we'd got to know over the five cruises that caught it. Mostly b) and c) I suspect judging by the amount of coughing in the theatre just before I went into iso. I agree with the previous comment - people who have only had the two vaccinations and no boosters are now no better off than someone who is unvaccinated as far as potentially catching and spreading the virus but may still retain enough immunity to lessen the severity of the illness. It's clear now that vaccinations don't stop people catching the virus so everyone on current cruises can still catch and spread it. Still I'd prefer to have less medical emergencies affecting my cruises - we saw experienced quite a few medivacs last year, and even one return to port which cost us about seven hours, put us right in the middle of a storm, and resulted in the cancellation of yet another port stop on that cruise.

Only If the cruise line was genuinely at fault ie the missing suitcase was "lost" in the service areas of the ship not in someone elses cabin. I haven't watched the TV piece but, seriously, anyone who can't find a basic replacement capsule wardrobe in a city the size of Christchurch is either being far too fussy or is incompetent. All she needed to do is ask someone where the nearest big shopping mall is - which would probably be Westfield Riccarton which has a Farmers department store, Kmart, a Bendon lingerie shop, a Hannahs Shoe shop, and probably a fair number of other clothing and shoe stores. I managed to pick up a very nice pair of black trousers in just a few minutes in an Auckland Farmers store and I'm a plus size.

I agree. We took reasonable precautions on the five cruises we did last year, wearing masks when moving about the ship, and in the theatre and at trivia, but not when seated in bars having a drink. I caught Covid during the second week of the last of those cruises, the long Round Australia cruise, and I'm 95% certain I caught it from someone standing right next to me in the Good Spirits bar while they talked to their friends seated behind me. They were coughing heavily with no mask on.

Princess seems to be making some unpopular decisions since the new CEO took over: - Removal of the coffee card - Increased price of Plus package with unpopular "premium desserts" and fitness classes added - which many people don't want and won't use. Increase of drinks limit countered by increase in drinks prices to the point where some wines are selling at ten times (1000%) the retail price. - Reduction of the use by date of FCDs to one year - no free internet any more for Platinum and Elites, just a 50% discount, although this is probably more to do with how the new MedallionNet works ie not feasible to track minute-based usage. - I saw a post elsewhere this morning where someone said they could not use their FCDs to book a cruise under a certain promo. To use the FCDs they would have to pay a higher fare. Possibly a mistake by a phone support person or maybe not. I'll be watching this closely in future.

Typically one bottle a day between us. Pre-Plus we would usually have 2-3 bottles on the go at any one time - a crisp white, sometimes a chardonnay, and a red. Yes, we may be able to buy wine at some ports but that's not always easy to do when you don't know the towns or the wines, and may not have time to explore if doing excursions However there are some decent wines available onboard, but not many by the glass, especially white wines. They had run out of two white wines by the bottle on our recent Grand cruise but luckily not our favourite. I'm hoping Princess may have improved it's wine list by then though.

Exactly.

Based on what I saw on my Round Australia cruise last year, where I caught Covid, I'd say most don't. The known Covid numbers jumped significantly while I was in iso and I reckon that was due to the WA government requiring all passengers to test before going ashore in Fremantle (days 5 & 6 since I developed symptoms). In our section of corridor, between the mid-ships and aft lifts there were two cabin in iso (including me) when I tested positive. When I came out of iso there were ten cabins. A passenger we sat next to at dinner one night said he walked the whole ship and counted 329 iso cabins.

Yes, so I've heard, but you can't do it online.

I'm trying to figure out how many cases of wine we'll need to take onboard for the world cruise next year. We did get the Plus fare at $40pp per day for that so will leave it in place for the internet, coffees, bottled water and cocktails, plus the 25% discount on some of the better wines by the bottle (there are a few), but we'll need to take some on with us.

It is possible that a passenger had the missing suitcase in their cabin, delivered there by mistake, and couldn't be bothered doing anything about it. Someone posted on another forum that something similar had happened to her and her friends sharing a cabin. Each thought the suitcase belonged to one of the others and it took a couple of days before they realised it wasn't anyone's in that cabin. But I still find it hard to believe that she couldn't find anything to wear in Christchurch, not even any new underwear.

Probably a combination of both. CovidLive reports the number of cases per week by state and those numbers have been increasing lately. However the cases reported are probably only the tip of the iceberg as many people probably don't report getting Covid, and some may be asymptomatic so don't even realise they've caught it.

I have read posts, both here and on other cruise forums, of Princess allowing one passenger in a cabin to book Plus and the other to book Standard but it did require a phone call to Princess.

The price of some wines have gone up to ridiculous levels. It really irritates me when it costs more than double the retail bottle price for a single glass of very vin ordinaire. I agree about the coffee package. We rarely drink sodas but like espresso coffees. Under the old coffee card system we even saved a tiny amount on those coffees so always bought coffee cards. Since the Plus package has increased in price it is now very borderline for us due to the poor quality of most of the wines offered under the package. We ended up buying four bottles of wine on our recent 10 night cruise even though we had the Plus package.

No-one is going to notice if you wear sneakers to dinner in the MDRs. I often see passengers with mobility issues wearing smart clothing with sneakers. In fact my new "shoe cheat" for nights when I don't feel like wearing my dressy shoes, or if the ship is bouncing around a bit, is a pair of black Skechers. I doubt anyone would notice me wearing them and even if they did so what? For all they know I might have a health issue that necessitates me wearing comfortable shoes. Yes, a mistake was made by the cruise line and perhaps there is a need for extra checks when dropping off baggage - perhaps luggage receipt tags like airlines and hotels use when storing bags. Yes, the passenger was inconvenienced but partly because of her own lack of forward planning. Whether you hand over your bags to an airline, a cruise line, or a hotel porter, there is always a risk that one will not be delivered. That's why it is always recommended that valuables and medications are put in carry-on bags, and sensible travellers also include a change of clothing - not only in case your luggage goes AWOL but in case of a mishap along the way that damages what you are wearing in some way or other. Also it's not a good idea to expect the airline/cruise line/hotel to replace missing or damaged items - that's what travel insurance is for. It's certainly nice when they do help out but it can't be taken for granted.

Tier 2 is over 3% of passengers and crew, so around 90 cases for Coral Princess. Tier 3 is over 10% of passengers and crew, so around 300 cases for Coral Princess. We reached tier 3 on Coral during the Round Australia cruise last year. Long cruises do tend to get high numbers of cases as far too many people refused to report symptoms as that would mean they have to isolate. Instead they carry on going to bars, restaurants, theatres, excursions etc, usually without even having the decency to wear masks.

I think it's worth visiting. The lake is lovely. The National Art Gallery often has significant major exhibitions. If you like wine there are some seriously good wineries near Canberra.

I bought some from Cruise Critic years ago, similar to these. They've been great. I also use them when flying - I just print out labels with destination addresses and contact phone and email. So far they've survived.

That would mean building a whole new pier and terminal. There is room for at least 3 cruise ships at a time at Station Pier, depending on size - few years ago I saw a Grand Class Princess ship on one side and Queen Elizabeth docked behind the Spirit of Tasmania. However they desperately need to upgrade the access, and possibly the terminals. I think the old vehicle ramps are still there from Spirit days. If they were removed that could perhaps offer an alternative access to the current historical entrance. I guess they'd have to retain the original buildings which might limit what they could do but if each terminal had separate entrances that would cut down the chaos when two ships are in port at once.

We were booked on a Sydney to Tokyo cruise until Covid wiped it out and had scored a very cheap one way business class airfare on China Airlines via Taiwan through Princess but, of course, never got to do it.

I wonder if Melbourne is going to upgrade its terminal facilities and is minimising the number of cruise ships there that season. Now that the Spirit of Tasmania no longer operates from there it would be a good opportunity to upgrade the facilities etc.

I never went out on the Promenade deck. Rolf did and there were some loungers there but he can't remember what type. He said it was comfortable though. Ring room service and they will swap out minibar items for you.

Unless it had just got dumped in a corner and no-one advised Guest Services that there was a stray bag.

I doubt it. It was a rather battered Samsonite two wheeled soft suitcase. It was years ago when Rolf was still working and doing a lot of overseas travel so our luggage tended to get a bit scruffy round the edges.

Our luggage has a very distinctive unique bright two colour logo painted on in three places on each bag. But even with that it didn't stop someone trying to make off with one of them from an airport carousel once. Luckily one of the airport security guys spotted us standing by the carousel with the matching bag and questioned the guy who'd taken the other one. He still swore it was his until we matched the tag number.