LindaMc

Waynetor:  Thank you! That is very helpful info. Appreciate it. 

MicCanberra.....thank you! I panicked for a moment. 🙂 I got everything else done so early and then thought I had missed something important! 

Does anyone know how things work when you have a port of call (Melbourne) but at the same time it is the embarkation for a lot of other cruise passengers? We have a 20 night cruise round trip from Adelaide, Australia. We stop off at Melbourne twice during this cruise, and both times passengers will be embarking (or disembarking) the ship.  There are only two tours offered in Melbourne with Princess and those are for people who are disembarking and going to the airport. We plan to leave the ship and explore Melbourne. But, does anyone know the procedure for cruisers leaving the ship and coming back on the same day new passengers are arriving? I know I can ask when board, but I am trying to make a few plans and if anyone has done this please let me know. I'm most interested in how early we will be able to walk off the ship. I called Princess but the call taker didn't understand my question.   Thank you! 

EDIT:  Just saw on the Fiji consulate site that if from the US you don't need a visa even for longer airport transit. So we are good to go. 🙂

Hello! We are flying to Sydney from the US on 12/28. We have the required NZ and Australia travel 
authority passes/visas and have them since June. I never once thought of needing something for 
our time for our layover in Fiji. We fly to Nadi and then have a 3 hour and 45 minute layover at the 
airport in Nadi before going to Sydney. I just now decided to check and it looks like we may need 
an airport transit visa in Nadi since we will be at the airport over 3 hours (looks like less than 3 
hours you don't need it). Has anyone gotten this recently? I am going to start researching it more
in depth now but if anyone has a link as to how I get this I would appreciate it. Thank you. 
 

Thank you everyone. I appreciate the info.  Patch nine: I'm sorry you both got covid. We both got our booster shots recently and we are going to try to do whatever we can to not get sick since this is such a big trip for us.  We do have a few tender ports, so will take your advice on that. 

Hello Cruisers, 
I am wondering for those of you who recently sailed in Australia, did you need to have a negative 
covid test prior to you boarding the ship? We sail on Jan 4 on the Grand Princess, and I am 
just wanting to figure out if we need to test in Adelaide before we sail.  Thank you! 

Linda 

Yes, I thought of turning it off too and putting it in the safe. Will likely use it for some photos while on board though, so that's why I wanted to make sure that airplane mode would be useful during the times I have my phone on, while on board.

Thank you everyone. I will have my phone in airplane mode while we are on the ship. There are very few sea days, so while we are at our many stops, I will have my phone on to receive texts and get any messages. Then will just remember to switch it back when we get back to the ship. Thanks again....I appreciate the info.

Hello! I just recently got my first smartphone (Iphone with T-Mobile service). With regards to using it while we are on our trip, I looked at posts on cc, and just want to make sure I've got this right, to avoid cellular at sea charges.

All I have to do is put the phone in airplane mode while on the ship and that will prevent any unwanted roaming charges, etc. Or do I have to change any settings on my phone as well?

Thank you!

Linda

All our ships have arrived in time and usually we get off the ship in good time. However, last year we flew out of Fort Lauderdale after leaving the ship. Because of all the other cruise ships also in port that day, the line for security was incredibly long. The line was so long it actually left one building, went into a walkway area, and into another building. Something to keep in mind. We were happy not to have an early flight.

Thank you! Good suggestions!

Hi,

We are currently traveling and I just found out that we will need to exchange some of our U.S. Dollars to Canadian dollars while we are on our cruise to Canada. Has anyone done that recently on any RCCL ship? Last year we were on a Princess ship and they had a machine that would do that and the machine was broken most of the time so people were having real troubles getting foreign currency.

Normally I would have done this with our credit union before the ship, but I didn't realize we would need Canada dollars for a specific tour we are doing. I am just hoping that RCCL doesn't have a machine, but still can issue the currency through guest services.

Thanks!

We drove through Matamata which looked like a nice town. :)

Patti: We went there from Auckland, which was a long drive. We love both the Lord of the Rings movies AND thermal features, so we wanted to see as much of the thermal stuff as we could and still see Hobbiton. As it was, our ship was docked in Auckland for two days, so we spent one day taking a tour to Hobbiton and the other spending the day in Auckland. The day we went to Hobbiton it poured rain in Auckland all day, so it ended up not being a bad day to be on a long bus ride. I think it took around 2 1/2 hours to get there. But, we had plenty of time at Hobbiton to see it all and it wasn't a bad ride there seeing the countryside and towns as we passed by.

If you google zealandiertours.com you will find the company that we went with. On their website, click on "cruise ship tours" and it lists all the options. They were more affordable than the shore excursions from the ship and we did not go in a huge bus, but rather a shuttle bus for 12 or so. They have an option to do Hobbiton and one of the thermal areas of Rotorua. We did the option to do both thermal areas in Rotorua because we then planned to do Hobbiton when we were at another port in NZ. The prices on their tours are listed in NZ dollars, not US dollars. When I compared the ship tours with basically the same thing for their company tours, it ended up being about U.S. $60.00 less per person for the private company.

We loved Hobbiton, but we are big fans of the movies. It's a cute place, fun movie set, but if you have not seen the movies, I'm not sure how much you would like it. Maybe if you see The Hobbit before you leave, that will help you decide. Hobbiton is the location that is seen in the very first part of the film.

The thermal areas were cool. If you opt to go to both, at the first one you'll get to see the Lady Knox geyser erupt because they soap it at 10:00am every day. The second thermal area (Maori thermal area/village) was cool, and the guided walking tour throughout their village was way more interesting than I had thought it would be.

CJM66 & Cassmanda, Thank you for your advice. We will plan on a taxi for our transport to the airport. That sounds like the best plan for us.

-Linda

Hi everyone,

My husband and I will be sailing into Sydney in November and we are staying for 3 nights after the cruise ends. On Sunday, Nov 25th we have to be at the airport at around 6:30pm for our flight back to the States. We are staying at the Sofitel Wentworth hotel. Would the train be a good idea to take to get to the airport from there? And if we did take the train, how early should we get on board the train to make it to the airport by 6:30pm?

Thanks so much for the helpful suggestions on this post (and other posts). Appreciate it very much.

- Linda