Australian family

Does anyone know if Sydney taxis have a luggage limitation or an extra charge for excess luggage? We are going to arrive in Sydney to start a long trip so will likely have 3-4 large suitcases, two small suitcases and two backpacks. I am assuming that there will be larger cars or vans that can fit all this but not sure if there is a policy about how much luggage they will take.

 

We arrived at Sydney airport last December as a family of four with lots of luggage. We just got a larger taxi, wasn't a problem. So yes you can fit it all into 1 vehicle, and as stated previously the Marshalls will direct you to the right taxis. How many people are there? It cost us approximately $45 to the Sydney Harbour Marriott.

 

After using a shuttle and taxi, I would highly recommend the taxi. Much quicker. And as a family works out about the same.

We saw one wine waiter on our last cruise just empty the wine buckets onto the floor. She was too lazy to empty the contents into a container to pour down the sink. Not very hygienic at all!

Where does the Spirit of Tasmania park?

 

Friends are on the Voyager of the Seas, I know they made it into the city as they posted photos on facebook.

We saw her in Sydney last December, very ugly looking ship with those balconies tacked onto the side.

[quote name='thied']nop one would not be that rude to do that. but did chat to her at the captain and the senior officers cock tail party in the Captains private lounge.


speaking of cock tail parties the one they for two cruises passengers that they have in the dome is no more, they have it in the show lounge, so you sit in the show lounge have a couple of drinks and Captain and zoltina come on stage the captain gives a two min speech and hands the mic to zoltins who gives away the first and sec prize for the most cruises, then you are told to please leave.

he still does the meet on the starboard side deck 7 on the way in like they go in the dome. must be cost cutting as they use to have more prizes lol


Have to say I liked it in the dome, yes the captain did his bit but after that he and the officers would go around and talk to the people and have pics taken[/QUOTE]

I wouldn't say that it is rude to get your photo with her. She would enjoy that.

Look forward to seeing your photos.

Just saw a story on Ten News and a Royal Caribbean spokesperson was on the Voyager of the Seas and saying that they would like to base a ship in Brisbane year round.

I am booked on the December 8 trip. Hoping they don't cancel it. :eek:

 

It would be highly unlikely that they would cancel the cruise now. Would have to be a major reason.

 

They cancelled ours last June.

Some of the lines have moved away from celebrating Christmas, to make it 'non-denominational'. Santa okay, Christmas, not so much.

 

It's the ideology of wanting to cater for all, rather than being seen as supporting any.

 

We thought that it was pretty clear that they didn't want to offend other religions, and the large amount of Jewish passengers on board.

 

But then on the other hand why do they promote the cruise as a Xmas cruise?

I did a Princess Cruise last year over Christmas. They had great activities. I loved the Gingerbread house making teams. They had something like 60 teams. Also they put on Christmas dinner. Had it snowing in the plaza. There were about 200 kids on board and Santa turned up to give them each a pressie.

 

Santa turned up in the morning, and the kids got a present from Santa, and that was a nice morning event. But after that they did nothing until the Christmas Dinner which was nice. But during the day it was just like a sea day.

 

The gingerbread house making team sounds great. And the snowing. Did they do anything else?

I booked some time back and paid about $7500 for two adults and a 16yo which is expensive but cheaper than if I'd waited until last minute.

 

That is expensive for 3 people! You must enjoy the HAL xmas cruises. We were only talking last night about last years cruise, and how we thought that Xmas was not fully celebrated on Xmas day. We thought they may have had a deck BBQ for lunch, but there was nothing. They may as well have pulled into a port. I don't know what the other cruise lines do for Xmas day.

 

The other thing that we noticed was that there wasn't even any cherries on the Xmas cruise. When we cruised on the Volendam 3 years early on the cruise before Xmas they had cherries.

Can i ask how much you paid?

 

When we cruised last Dec on the Oosterdam for xmas, we paid just under $7000 for a balcony for 4.

 

We were to the do the cruise before it last year, we had a balcony booked, and it was $4400 for the 4 of us, sailing to the South Pacific, they then cancelled it.

Maybe Thied will post some photos with himself and Ann Sherry. He should bump into her all the time, as he always books a suite.

Our favourite spot on the Sunshine Coast is Kings Beach and Caloundra, a beautiful area, with great walks and stunning coastline. If you look on http://www.wotif.com.au you should be able to find lots of accommodation for wherever your daughter intends to stay. The shuttle service for Australia Zoo also goes from Kings Beach and Caloundra.

 

The ships and cruise ships, go past Kings Beach on their way to Brisbane.

Just received this deal for next February 2014:

 

QUEEN VICTORIA Santiago to Brisbane or Sydney

21 or 23 nights FROM $1,415 - $68 PER NIGHT!

Fly/Stay/Cruise packages available.

 

The airfares are more than the cruise :(

:)

 

If they did most wouldn't have known think almost everyone left ship

to visit Pyramids, we did at some stage take on extra, quite a few, personnel of eastern european persuasion whether it was Alexandria or Jordan not sure. Provisions, captains description, a couple of men with their their tools of trade lol, were loaded in the middle of nowhere at sea day after Jordan, was so exciting... loved pirate drill and the nightly external curfews. We had a balcony cabin and one evening we came across our steward racing to our door phone in hand.... twas the bridge he ordering him to close our curtains properly... a slither of light was visible ... not our fault thankgoodness.. was a wakeup call for us that they take security seriously... men who loaded middle of nowhere also disembarked middle of nowhere......

 

That is very reassuring that the bridge had the steward going into your room to close your curtains. Do they turn off a lot of internal lights, eg in the public areas?

 

I like the comment tools of trade!

I really doubt that pirates would target a cruise ship. Far too many people onboard for them to be able to control them.

We did go through pirate waters on our last cruise through the Suez Canal and I can assure anyone that there was lots of security on the ship, some specially trained and came onto the ship just before we went though the pirate waters with water guns and lots more equipment in huge boxes specially for pirate trouble.

 

The pirates will target any ship they can. A cruise ship would be very desirable to attack, they want money!

 

Do you know if they took on arms for the trip through the Suez Canal?

I can't wait to see this movie, sounds interesting.

 

It is a great movie.

Just been to a preview screening of Captain Phillips tonight.

 

Oh my goodness what a movie, not only do you get motion sickness from watching it, but scares the hell out of you about cruising in pirate infested movies.

 

A very much action packed movie about Captain Phillips and his cargo ship hijacked by Somalian pirates.

 

 

 

Tom Hanks's new movie "Captain Phillips" is based on the story of merchant mariner Richard Phillips, captain of the MV Maersk Alabama. The Alabama was hijacked by Somali pirates in 2009.

 

 

While the movie depicts Phillips as heroic, many of the crew members of the MV Maersk Alabama say his actions were reckless. But is this another movie loosely based on a true story or is the real story as thrilling as the film?

 

Fact: The Somali pirates arrived while the Alabama's crew was doing an emergency drill.

 

According to crew members, Richard Phillips was a no-nonsense captain and made it a point to run several emergency drills. One drill got interrupted by pirates like in the film.

 

Fact: Phillips is kidnapped.

 

The Alabama crew tried to exchange the captain for a capture pirate like in the movie but once the pirate hostage was off the Alabama, the Somalis drove the lifeboat without letting the captain climb back to his ship.

 

 

 

Fact: Phillips faked a call to deter the pirates.

 

When Captain Phillips saw the pirate boats targeting the Alabama, he faked a radio communication to a U.S. Navy warship.

 

In the film, one ship and two speedboats are in hot pursuit of the Alabama but upon hearing the fake call, one of the speedboats back off.

 

Fact: The Navy SEALs got involved.

 

This is part fact, part fiction. While Phillips was on board the lifeboat, the Somali pirates planned to kill him. However, Phillips got so sick that a doctor from the Navy had to climb on board. This gave the SEALs an opening to attack.

 

Fiction: Captain Phillips took pity on one of the pirates.

 

Before the screening of "Captain Phillips", Richard Phillips said, "There was no Stockholm syndrome". In the film however, Tom Hanks says a few things that could be classified as sympathy.

 

The high seas drama starring veteran actor Tom Hanks may have slight changes but most of the events depicted in the film are true, according to Time Magazine.

Ah, it's P&O UK. How much is the inside without a shower?

:p

 

Do you mean that you have to bath on the deck with a bucket?:D

Sydney to Shanghai - Cruise/Fly*

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P&O Cruises

Aurora16th February 2014

16 NightsNo other dates. Inside with Shower

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The online travel agency that RCCI own here in Australia are advertising for more staff, maybe they are getting ready to expand further into the Australian market, time will tell!

[quote name='benjoon']I work in the mining industry. I'm at the start of the business where projects begin. It's been the toughest year to date. Since the mining tax was introduced new projects are few and far between. I am now been put on one day a week until things pickup. There are senior engineers and managers only working a couple days a week as well. I'm lucky that we can afford me working less but there are loads of people struggling.

Roll on Saturday[/QUOTE]

Yes it is horrible, what is happening and how people are losing their jobs. The mining tax has done a lot of harm to the mining industry. I don't think people realise the flow on affect this has with the economy, their is a huge amount of businesses involved in mining industry.

Yes I agree roll on Saturday!

Only if they work for benevolent institutions where salaries are below corporate rates. Full Salary sacrificing up to around $17,000 was introduced as compensation to them as the benevolent institutions could not afford to pay corporate rates to attract skilled staff.

 

I'm looking forward to Saturday. Especially Saturday night. As far as small businesses making a profit, those times have evaporated and many are either gone or just hanging in there.

 

Expecting a small business to move into a growth industry when their products don't align with that, shows a lack of understanding of what small businesses do and what they can afford to do. Especially with high penalty rates. They dont attract government support, that seems to go to manufacturing who have not moved with the times at all. They produce cars that no one wants. But continue to get tax payers money. And as for farmers and the duopoly, well, it's just sad.

 

I know of staff working for Qld Health who can salary sacrifice with all sorts of benefits.

 

That isn't correct. Salary cannot be sacrificed to e.g. household bills. Normal workers can only salary sacrifice to limited areas like superannuation, and self-employed have similar benefits for that.

 

Yes those who salary sacrifice can pay household bills, rent, rates, electricity, insurance etc.

Actually, Labor have been very kind to pensioners e.g. increasing pensions by more than the increased carbon tax, plus having extra increases granted outside the norm.

 

Fear not about the Liberal generosity though. They're going to cut:

1) superannuation payments for low income earners

2) the increase in superannuation guarantee payments for all workers

3) the schoolkids bonus

4) franked dividend payments for everyone! One of the worst, inequitable cuts announced.

 

As for splashing cash to the refugees, the Libs are going to be even more generous to people smugglers, with their 'buy back the boats' campaign!Only 750,000 boats to buy - who knows what they're going to do with them all, and the smugglers are surely going to find it a lucrative business to buy some more to onsell to us foolish Aussies if he comes in.

 

And the ALP cut any benefits to people running businesses. We set up a family trust, and any tax incentives were cut, and now we pay an extra $1000 per year for our accounting work. The ALP has given small business people no incentive to keep running a business, even though small business is the backbone of the country.

 

But on the other hand wage earners (whose employers allow it, eg govt employees) can salary sacrifice income and pay no tax on it to pay household bills, including mortgages. This income is not subject to tax.