SinbadThePorter

People have been spoilt by the OPT. The BICT is not as blessed as the OPT in anything other than the ability to supply and load cruise ships. To me that makes up for all sorts of failings. If there is a comparison, maybe it should be to ports like Adelaide or Wellington, rather than to what is probably one of the three best ports in the world.

It's an outlet from the sewerage works. I don't know what comes out, I assume it's very well treated.

There are plenty of private operators on the river who could step in, but I think the main problem would be having a place near the BICT to offload passengers. It wouldn't be possible for home porting cruise ships, but I've wondered if it would possible to have water shuttles come and pick up directly from the ship, like in Airlie Beach.

There is a 303 bus that picks up within a few hundred meters of the terminal gates. I've caught it, but it runs at times inconvenient for most cruisers since it's there to pick up workers in the early morning and late afternoon from the engineering places along the perimeter of the airport. I don't know of any other cruise terminal whose planning has included new public transport options. The OPT has public transport because it's near Circular Quay, which would still be a transport hub even if the OPT didn't exist. The idea of a ferry to the BICT is attractive, but there is the question of where the receiving jetty would go. At the moment cruise ships dock hard against Port North, which is a fuel offloading facility. There are certain drawbacks to having passengers loading and unloading from small vessels while fuel is being transferred. The disused train line from Doomben only goes as far as Bulwer Island, which is still about 5km short of the BICT. The cost of running new train tracks to the BICT over what is basically reclaimed swamp would be prohibitive.

You should have seen it before they fixed it up. 😱 They actually did spend several million on fixing up and widening the road just before covid hit. Anyway the BICT is where it is because it was the only suitable riverside land left, and it was the only land left because nobody else wanted it. The government can't just tell all the businesses and industries along the road to pack up and get out because cruisers would like a better view. 🤑

But that's not where tipping culture finishes up. It ends up as it does in the US where the idea of excellence amounts to saying ""have a nice day" as the hand is extended for a mandatory 20%.

But they are not in the US on a group tour, they are in a completely different country with different employment standards and a different (for now) culture. Tipping culture is washing over Australia like the tide over King Canute. It's completely unnecessary, yet seems completely inevitable. My advice is to tip as much or as little as you like, but not to pretend you are doing it for anyone other than yourself.

The same Curious-Snail that rubbished the BICT as a white elephant all through covid, now suggests we need more capacity. 🤥 I don't know where it could be sited. The obvious answer (if the C-M is not just trolling) would be to expand the existing BICT upstream, where Port North is now. That would require moving the fuel offloading facilities that feed the storage tanks on Bulwer Island. I don't really see that happening.

Overpaying is the part of the full Disney experience that they are missing out on.

I hope they are charging them full fare.

Port Chalmers? There are actually three, but I don't think the third one gets used by cruise ships. The Beach Street Wharf is the one next to the shed. Then there is the Container Berth opposite, which was where I got stuck, and a multi-purpose berth further along the same side.

Yes, it has all the atmosphere of a school lecture hall. 😵‍💫 For trivia, give me Club Fusion every time.

I was referring to the the local bus trips from each town. There are two wharves at Port Chalmers. The closer one can be walked off, but the further one requires you to be escorted off. I was once held up on board there for over 3 hours waiting for a minibus to travel the hundred meters or so to the main shed.

No only Majestic. Which put me off the Royal class. I hesitate to describe Majestic as a cruise ship since to me they seem to have deliberately designed her to make the sea an afterthought. She floats, but has almost no nautical spirit.

We are next in Lyttelton on Jan 3rd. At least now we won't have the dubious pleasure of trying to catch the local bus to Christchurch ever again. Dog eat dog doesn't even begin to describe it. What was easy and simple in Port Chalmers was anything but in Lyttelton. All we wanted to do was to stop at the gondola and do a little shopping at a New World. I'd have thought that a simpler option might have been to put on some extra public buses on the local route on cruise days, rather than rustle up some free shuttles and effectively ban cruisers from the town of Lyttelton. By the way, I've never seen anyone mention it, but NZ supermarkets just leave the Oz ones in the shade. The fresh food section at New World is a marvel to behold and they sell some of the best meat pies I've ever tasted. 🥳

If I disliked Majestic, what are the odds of my liking Discovery?

You could say that about the whole system of tipping on cruise ships. The process is almost completely opaque to those who are providing the cash. Essentially we are trusting the cruise lines to do the right thing by their staff, and we all know how eager multinational corporations are to do the right thing. 🥸 I just go with the flow.

If the cruise line offers automatic gratuities, take advantage of it. You are on holiday, you don't need to be wasting time working out who deserves what and then chasing them around on the last day trying to hand over envelopes of cash.

Even so, a mini-suite at $99/day is tempting.

P&O have been trying hard to sell cruises out of Cairns for years now. They always end up discounting them to rock bottom. It's like the dream of cruising out of Darwin, until the airlines come to the party with cheap airfares it ain't gonna happen.

The train is an excellent way to get to your hotel. Just be aware that there is a surcharge on the fare from the airport train station which for two or more people makes the cost nearly as much as a taxi. You can use your credit card to pay fares on Sydney public transport.

I've been on Coral six times since June last year and just never noticed more than one or two couples in there. But I have to say while I didn't make a habit out of checking out the Sanctuary, it just always seemed nearly empty whenever I looked.

Increasing the price would turn it into even more of a ghost town. I've never yet seen much demand for the Sanctuary in Australian waters.

Covid couldn't kill the cruise business, but that could. 😜

He couldn't get along with crooks and psychos like Fletcher Christian and John Macarthur. 😁