Dcshener

During times when there is traffic, the train is much quicker as it is point to point and they run very regularly.

Hello. As has been said cards like Travelex have lost their utility as the fees crept up and their flexibility, once useful, stayed the same while others got better. The common solution in many forums for Australians, as has been mentioned, is the 28 degrees credit card and a citibank plus debit card. Neither have foreign currency conversion fees, use the Mastercard forex rates, no annual fees and have good online management systems. I do carry a visa card just in case the Mastercard system is playing up but have never needed to use it.

I don't begrudge the foreign atm their fee, just happy they are there. I just don't do small cash transactions so the fee is not a large proportion of the withdrawal. Some countries have fee free ATMs, they're just a bonus and life is too short to track them or pre plan looking for them. A few ATM transaction fees are just not enough to angst about considering the total cost of being wherever it is.

Locking in the exchange rate provides certainty though how would you feel about locking in a worse exchange rate?

If I have enough money to go on a holiday then I'm not worried about exchange ratess, and if I don't have enough money to on a holiday I'm also not worried about exchange rates.

David

Mostly the "hold" system works but you can see the potential for trouble.

For example, one cruise line says "Please note, some banks hold pre-authorisation funds for up to 30 days and this may appear as a double charge to your credit or debit card until your bank releases the hold. We strongly recommend you check your bank's authorisation process prior to embarkation."

I've had a three thousand dollar hold on a card from a hotel recently and when they did the final charge that showed separately and the bank didn't release the hold for about a week. So the hotel wasn't accessing the held funds but new ones. Potentially there might not have been enough new funds available because of their own hold. Another hotel, same brand, actually did a charge for potential incidentals, and then reversed it on departure so the released funds became available almost straight away - that worked well. They explained the process first. Next time I have a biggish hotel charge coming I'll get them to actually take the funds on check in and avoid the problem.

Same happened with Princess, the holds were still there after the final charge so they too were accessing new funds. Could have been a fun conversation. Sorry sir, your card has declined. Yes I say, that's because of your holds, just use those funds you have already reserved. To which they reply; security to the front desk please we have a deadbeat.

You're not gambling. The house is not gambling. You're buying entertainment. All of the activities have a house percentage. A relentless, merciless, house percentage. Imagine a closed room, nothing in and nothing out except the house takes 1% of every transaction. Inevitably the house ends up with the lot. Because the room is not closed, and new money is coming in and old money is temporarily going out this isn't obvious but it is still what is happening. People recall the wins and the losses just fade into the background. I will decide how much entertainment I am going to buy, don't kid myself that I have a system (cos, if there was one that worked the house would gave closed up shop long ago) and go a play black jack where your entertainment purchase lasts longer.

Now I see why we like Princess, we don't go to the shows and prefer the flexibility of the buffet and therefore miss out on the two apparently biggest source of complaints. And at the same time freeing up spots for other people. The world is such a wonderful place.

A tipping thread is always entertaining. We tip because (1) to reward good service, (2) their cheapskate employers underpay them, (3) I'm on holiday and it is a, relative to the overall cost, a small amount that does some good, (4) we choose to.

Ps. We are Australian.

Pps. on the odd occasion when we haven't had the right sort of money for a tip I have never been chased down the street or received poor service on return. Staff in places where tipping is customary seem to take the non tippers as an occupational hazard.

Hello. I use a four outlet power board that has a an extension cord as part of the setup. Also has USB outlets. As it is doing three things at once it makes it worth the little bit of extra weight.

I wish I could find one of those RAS I could rave about. We've tried to be patient but I bored with correcting her work and then being told "good pickup", waiting for a week for a reply, and pointing our to her the price she quoted for the hotel is cheaper on their own website. We have stuck with them because she gets better prices on a few things like car hire or offers an occasional discount. But thus time her quote is more than I can get directly from Princess. On our last cruise I needed to talk directly to princess about a few things and they were fine. We've been doing more and more on the Internet for the last few years just saving the big ticket items for the TA. But now's the time to just cut them loose.

Hello

On the Aussies drink a lot subject, according to the ever reliable be Wikipedia (don't forget to donate) Australia is equal 15th on the OECD per capita consumption list with the UK and even lower in the WHO list.

Hello. We were lucky enough to enjoy the breakfast team at Sabatinis on the Sapphire recently. We come from a non tipping culture. We did give a tip to each of the team and there was four of them working room. For a couple of reasons. They did their jobs really well.While that is not enough on its own usually we recognize that they are not at the high end of the pay scales. They went out of their way to have a chat to my partner who is not well when they ran into in other parts of the ship and she enjoyed that. Me, they just nodded at, cos I'm not the chatty type and they knew that! And, anything I gave them us just a fraction of what the holiday cost and it does no harm to share the happiness. Ps. We tipped at the specialty restaurants as well, about the amounts being talked about here. Ps. I'm happy to stare down an expectant tippee who didn't do their job.