bazzaw

What is a CFAR?

That's a beginners mistake !! 🙂

We were booked on a long QE cruise out of Yokohama in May2020 - but you know what happened then!! 😞 We also were to stay at the Intercontinental on the night before sailing and were kind of looking forward to doing the same thing as I hate "unfinished business 🙂 " - but it does seem that we will sail from the new Tokyo International. Cunard are always a bit backwards in coming forwards with info .

I does say just "Tokyo"

I needn't have panicked - apparently it is all fixed. But I could see myself having to pay some big money for it to be fixed 😞

Last time we were to join QE in Tokyo was 2020 at Yokohama ( cancelled due Covid) . Have now just booked a QE cruise for 28 March (not too far away) and need to know where it departs from so I can book a nearby hotel - any ideas please ( and please dont tell me to ask Cunard else they would already have it in my Cruise Personaliser)

Went to a shopfront TA today - and organised with them to book a cruise around Japan - plus flights to and from Brisbane. Gave her our brand new Passports with our details. She sends me texts on my phone for me to peruse and approve - and also gets me to sign the docs in many places. I am very careful that all the dates and times of flights, etc are correct. BUT - when I get home I peruse all the paperwork I have been given and find that for the cruise my wife's given names of Christine Angela are correct , but on the flights she is named as Angela Christine!! I rang them immediately and of course could not talk to here ( on lunch) but I have not heard from her as yet. I can see on the paperwork that for these flights name changes are not permitted 😞

There are two ways to cruise - the cheap way and the expensive way. The expensive way is where you know exactly what where how and when you want - and select the ship, itinerary, cabin class, cabin location etc - the less expensive way is to be an opportunist and take good things when they pop up - you can wait for them to popup in your emails , or you can be a bit more organised about it and look wider. I prefer this latter approach. Hence my search for a better search engine.

In all our many years of cruising, I have never really be able to find a satisfactory Cruise search engine - They all leave something missing . For example I might be able to tell one search engine that I am looking for a cruise from say Brisbane to Singapore but it will want me to input what month? I don't know what month because I am available during any month. Another will allow me to do a year wide search but wants to know what ship I want - I don't know what ship I want until I know what's available and when. Anybody know what is the widest ranging cruise search engine??

Years ago, I had to pay P&O Australia some money on behalf of P&0 UK for some services pre-cruise on a P&O UK ship. The currency exchange rate that P&O Australia used was very different to the then current Bank rate. ( And I understand that we as retail customers never ever get the buy/sell Bank Exchange rates which are actually only for use between Banks. )

One thing to think about having been to Singapore many times including one extended stay. Singapore is basically 32C, day and night, Summer and Winter. If you are going to get around Singapore you will use the brilliant underground railway system - but you will not be wanting to walk too far from your hotel to get to the airconditioned subway station (wherever it is ). So look for a hotel no more than 300 metres from a station. BTW - the food courts in train stations in Singapore are great - not as good as the hawker centres - but airconditioned!!!!

Barry's Three Laws for Cruising in Australia -- 1. Never cruise north of Brisbane in Summer 2. Never cruise south of Brisbane in Winter. 3. Never cruise west from Melbourne at any time. These Laws were written by me during my time in the Australian Navy. Admittedly Naval Destroyers are a little a smaller than cruiseships but they weren't designed to operate as a floating block of apartments either.

NO NO!!! Go to the Yorkeys Knob Yacht Club for lunch!!!!!!!!! You might get to meet Yorkey - with his knob! - and go for a walk around the little town - there's nothing much there- but you might decide to come back and live there for the rest of your days!!

There is a great little Yacht Club in Yorkeys Knob - right at the tender jetty. Here in Oz - anybody can enjoy "clubs" like this without being a member. Lunch and a few Aussie beers might suit you?

Where's a good place to get Foreign Currency these days. It's been a long time since i had the need for any - but I am going to need a few hundred dollars of Japanese Yen for arrival into Japan soon. Looking mainly for convenience rather than exchange rates, etc.

IMO - and as far as I am concerned - "upgrade" isn't an upgrade unless it is out of your current category. eg Inside to Outside , Outside to Balcony, balcony to Suite , etc. The rest are just different Grades within your category.

That would be up to Celebrity

I would suggest that anybody who still suffers from the Covid Paranoia virus should not even consider going on a cruise - or to their local shopping centre. Stay at home!

No.

I think that difficulty is in the definition of the word "City" . In days long gone when it was claimed that "Brisbane" was the largest city in the World, it was because there was only one Brisbane City Council. Melbourne and Sydney had several "Council" areas. Sydney City Council covers quite a small area. London is a huge "city" - but the City of London is very small.

That has largely been my experience. The best one being -We once booked a "kind of" World Cruise with P&O UK (at least that was how it was "sold") - guarantee inside, 42 days Brisbane to Southampton on Oriana, 19 days in London with my son in London over Christmas, and another 42 days on Arcadia back to Brisbane. $12K per person. We didn't have a cabin allocation for the voyage to UK until only 3 days before departure - a "superior" outside dropped for us - the "superior" being that it was an outside cabin the same size as a normal balcony cabin , including the balcony area. It was VERY comfortable. Much the same thing happened for our return - got a huge disabled interior cabin about a 50 meter walk to the Theatre entrance ( made going home after the evening shows very convenient ) 🙂

We were so poor - I had a bicycle with only one pedal. My family were so ignorant that they had no idea how to get it fixed. 🙂 But I survived. Unfortunately any similarity between the Brisbane of the 50/60s and today is purely coincidental 😞

Dress code on Australian based ships in Australian waters is - casual to the point of indifference. Shoes are required on Formal nights.

I think that guarantee fares are a VERY important part of the cruiselines business model. Else why do they mostly/normally go to such lengths to make attractive "moveover" offers to passengers who have already paid full fares so that they can accommodate lesser paying guarantee bookings?? . Seems to me like this may become a bit of an unintended disaster and own goal for them?? How many people here now will have second thoughts about booking a guarantee fare? - and how will that doubt impact the cruislines bookings model??

I am surprised that Cunard have lasted here in Oz as long as they have. We have done 10 cruises with Cunard (only 2 of which were from Aussie ports) - and I have always thought that Cunard is not a good mix with the Aussie demographic. They thought it would be easy and profitable pickings here because we are very keen to try new things - but Covid came along and things changed. They are obviously now returning to their more traditional base.