reeves35

Rudesheim was fun. I went to the Music Museum with fairly low expectations but it was OK and only went for 30 minutes anyway. The only issue we had was that it was a hot day and the place is not air conditioned. After the museum we wandered around the town and came across a summer wine festival in the town square which sated the thirst nicely. The included tours are, by their nature, only a brief introduction to the town or city. Ideally, if time allowed, we went on the tour in the morning and in the afternoon went out by ourselves and explored a bit further and at a gentler pace that allowed for a wine or beer along the way as well as some shopping. The brevity of the tour is obviously more of an issue in cities where you only see a fraction of what the city has to offer and we came away from places like Vienna, Amsterdam and Budapest wishing we had had more time.

Not sure about the laws in Canada but, in Australia, consumer law says $ means AUD. If suppliers mean USD, they have to say USD.

Other cruise lines had a range of specials as part of Black Friday/Cyber Monday sales across a variety of onboard things including internet, drinks packages etc. All Cunard offered was highly conditional special pricing on selected sailings and, even then, restricted it to US customers only. Maybe they'll be a bit more involved this year but, if their app (or lack of app) is any indication, I'm not hopeful of Cunard being particularly innovative.

Does this low roofed theatre design match with other HAL Pinnacle class ships?

That seems to tally with the Australian advice also which is a maximum of 10 standard drinks per week and no more than 4 drinks in a single day.

Drinks packages are rarely great value; cruise lines offer them because they are good for them not for you!! They only make sense if you plan on drinking 8+ alcoholic drinks per day including shore days when you may only be on the ship in the evening. For most people 8+ per day every day is a lot. We are on Cunard next year on a cruise similar (or same??) as you and will probably go for the soda package and I may take the hot drinks option for premium coffees if it is able to be had for just one person but won't bother if I have to buy it for both people in the cabin as my wife only drinks tea which you can get for free in the buffet etc.

Looking at a single cruise during school holidays is not really representative of what demand looks like during winter. I cruised on Spirit on the equivalent cruise in 2013 and it was also full with lots of families but it really isn't the best time to cruise out of Sydney. The first sea-day and the last are very likely to be too cool to be outside and Australians aren't really attracted to cruising when you can't be outside. (I can't see P&O Australia ever attempting to copy P&O UK with winter cruising to cold weather ports across winter.) I'm sure if we looked at all cruises out of Sydney across winter, we would see demand remains seasonally low and discounting is rife. Obviously cruising out of Brisbane over winter largely overcomes the weather issue but the value equation drops off as travellers from the 2 major population centres now have to either add airfares or incur higher airfares.

I wonder if these are unique itineraries or just unique packages for UK travellers. On our Travelmarvel cruise last year, most travellers were Australians and New Zealanders doing the classic 14 night Amsterdam to Budapest itinerary but nearly all the UK travellers were doing 7 night itineraries of Amsterdam - Nuremberg or Nuremberg - Budapest. These itineraries were not really advertised to Australian travellers and a lot of them were last minute type deals with no single supplements etc. They also seemed to miss out on things like Travelmarvel backpacks and nametags.

AUD9.50 for a coffee is ridiculous.

You've come a long way; you may as well stay the extra day. Lots to see in AKL. I'd definitely recommend Kelly Tarlton's which is a Antarctic Seaworld type experience. We were there last year and also spent a half day at the Auckland Museum which was really good. We stayed at the Holiday Inn Express which was new and very comfortable. The Voco is right next door is you want something a bit more upmarket. Both are only a 15 minute walk from the ship.

So assuming Celebrity get a bulk discount, it is likely their unit purchase cost is around USD9 or so!!!

So, in addition to a drinks package you pay another AUD9 - AUD12 for a drink and then there will probably be an 18% service charge (AUD1.50 - AUD2.20) added on top of that.....you'd want it to be a nice wine!!!

They are ridiculous. So Celebrity force you to spend USD89 per day for a drinks package and you'll need another for your spouse so USD1246 (~AUD1900) for a 7 day cruise or you can spend around AUD35 per glass. Either way, that is bonkers!! I realise you can often get drinks packages for less than the headline price but, either way, these prices really affect your overall holiday cost. Cunard is often accused of being expensive for drinks but their per drink prices are nothing like those you have shown for Celebrity.

Those wine prices are scary!!! Is that USD??

I hope not. I'm booked on a 14 Eastern Med cruise from Rome from 12/5/25. If Cunard are going to cancel, they'd better let us know sooner rather than later. Travel from AU is expensive so I don't want to have to fiddle airfares late in the piece.