I have been pleased that a number of AFFers agree with me about the enjoyment to be gained from cruising. There is much to like about cruising.
The specific feedback from the forum so far seems to favour the 4 night Adelaide to Melbourne cruise departing on 25/01/2018 on the Golden Princess. It leaves Adelaide at 9pm on Thursday, January 25th and arrives in Melbourne at 6am on Monday, January 29th. That is, over the long weekend. Current pricing for an internal cabin, twin share is $609 pp. For a balcony, the price is $949 pp twin share. Cruise prices fluctuate regularly. This cruise goes to Kangaroo Island and Port Lincoln, both of which are ports we visited recently.
Mr. s and I have just returned from a 13-night cruise on the Sun Princess, the oldest ship in the Princess fleet, visiting both Kangaroo Island and Port Lincoln amongst other ports. The cruise definitely exceeded our expectations. We had previously sailed on a 46-day Princess cruise around the Indian Ocean, taking the 30-day option and a 16-day Princess cruise in Asia. About 160 days at sea in total give us a little “street” cred. We sailed on the Queen Elizabeth earlier in the year and were upgraded to the Princess Grill suite category. This made comparisons with the Sun Princess a little difficult. But the SP did well.
I have an unusual diet (gluten free and vegan by choice) but was extremely well catered for, to the extent that the Head Waiter would bring me the next day’s lunch and dinner menus at the previous night’s dinner for me to choose what options would suit. He got to know my requirements so well that he eventually wrote out what he thought I would like and I always went with his choices. Mr. s is relatively normal and had no trouble finding many options from the menu each meal.
I was told by the Future Cruise Consultant to ring Princess if I had any queries about group bookings. She did offer one piece of information though. To be eligible for a group discount, the booking must be for at least 9 double occupancy cabins. I wasn’t offered any details regarding the scope of discounts.
One negative. Feedback from the Sun Princess staff was that the shorter cruises are known as booze cruises. Princess do not sell the unlimited drinks package on cruises shorter than 8 nights to overcome excessive drunkenness.
Kangaroo Island is a tender port with limited wheelchair access, tendering at a small country town called Penneshaw. The most favoured tour from KI included the seal colony. The locals ran a craft market a short distance from the boat; they also ran some alternative tours to the ship’s tours which can be rather pricey. It is about 50 – 60 km to the largest town on Kangaroo Island, Kingscote.
Cruise ships which dock at Port Lincoln do so at the wheat loading facility; the local community provided us with a shuttle service into the nearly township. The townspeople were out in force to welcome the tourists and many passengers found good reason to leave behind a little cash.
It seems to me that this cruise covers most of what would be required of an AFF Inaugural Cruise. Cruise line’s reputation, itinerary, suitable dates, starting and finishing at different ports and enjoyable catering.
But I am in no way offering to organise the event as I am an unknown quantity to all on the Forum and as such am not to be trusted with such an important task.
PS I tried to insert some photos but failed hopelessly.
