SinbadThePorter

Skipping Exmouth due to seas too rough for tendering.

If the question concerns $1 or $2 tips, the answer is that crew generally do not want coins. If I tip it is at the end of a cruise and either a $50 or $20 note depending on cruise length.

I missed that turn because we were inside doing trivia. At least we won. 😇

Merci. 😀

I'm onboard Explorer right now in Fremantle about to cast off. Weather is sunny, if a bit cool. The ship is looking surprisingly good. Coral Princess is tied up next door. The food is unsurprisingly poor, so far.

I've got an Explorer cruise on Sunday, but that's not winter. I find that winter in the islands or Cairns tend to be a bit tepid and just doesn't have that tropical feel. I'm saving my pennies for summer cruises.

This sounds interesting. Edit: Just looked at the pricing. $300/p/n for an Inside cabin makes it much less interesting.

It was said by Mark Twain, but he himself attributed it to Benjamin Disraeli. But Disraeli is not known to have ever said it. It seems to one of those sayings that appear out of nowhere that everyone thinks was said by someone famous.

We're onboard Explorer in two and a bit weeks. It's good to know the old girl is still floating. 😁 Last time on was in 2017, just after the move from Princess. So my expectations are being very well managed. That pool in the "Sanctuary" is only ankle deep. I'm not sure it's deep enough for the kiddies.

It used to be that Princess cruises to and from Asia were in $A and included grats and cruises to and from North America were not. That was pre-covid. I don't know the current rules.

I think RCL believe that they have hit the motherload in the form of three to four day cruises for young families out of Florida ports on gigantic ships going to their private islands. The demand seems to be there, so they are charging what this market will bear. At the moment that's a lot. There seems to be a flow through to all their markets, including ours. At this rate all that COVID debt is going to get paid off pretty damn quick. 🤑

Usually you can put your Drivers Licence number in there. There is no reason any cruise should require a passport for a domestic only cruise. If there is a problem with entering it, give them a call. At check-in they may ask for a passport, but they will accept a drivers licence.

She is 290m long. Many ships that length have already docked in Cairns.

Groucho Marx resigning from the Hollywood Friar's Club.

We can hope for the best, but the outrageous pricing at Coco Cay is not encouraging.

Did Yorkey's last month on Quantum. Completely hopeless getting 4000 people off and on by tender. Never again.

I can't see that any ship over 290m length has gotten onto Cairns wharf. Voyager is 311m.

There is a hazardous surf warning from BOM for the Hunter coast south on Friday and Saturday.

Diamond.

So do I now. I was once stopped and searched in customs on returning and to save space I had my medications in the foil strips they come in, but not in their original prescription boxes. I was told in no uncertain terms that this was inadequate and was asked to explain what each and every different pill was for. I was then told not to do it again.

That's appropriate since the passengers operate on ethanol.

Queensland Rail is not likely to setup a bus service just for the BICT. The buses are for use during track closures, stoppages and linking country towns. It would be impractical to have them unavailable for their actual purpose on cruise days. I don't understand this insistence that the BICT has to be another OPT, with the facilities that the OPT has. It would be much fairer to compare it to the White Bay Cruise Terminal. Or even more appropriately to the Grain Terminal wharf across the river. The OPT happens to be sited next to Circular Quay, the best public transport nexus in Sydney. Which was not built in order to service the OPT or even with the OPT in mind. The BICT is not and never will be the OPT. If someone wants to run a bus shuttle service to there, I'm sure that Port of Brisbane would oblige. In the meantime if I want to catch the public bus, I'll walk to it.

What's going to affect the cruise industry first is various ports mandating on shore power. New York City has just done this, although the details are yet to be worked out. In a few years, ships that don't have on shore power capability are going to be limited in their choice of ports.

The Brisbane bus and ferry network is owned and run by Brisbane City Council, not the rail service which is state owned.

I've done that walk. It's not particularly difficult.