F1guynz

The train station is about 400 metres (437 yards) from the passenger terminal. It costs just under $18 AUD and runs on a regular time table. It is on the first floor of the Circular Quay station which you can use lifts to get to. The trip to the airport is direct and takes about 20 minutes. Having luggage is no problem as there is plenty of room. we have a prepurchased Opal card which means we don’t have to buy tickets for the train trip, we can just swipe on and off. To make things easy I would suggest buying an Opal card at the airport when you land We would normally get off the ship at 8:15 and are in the airport lounge not long after 9am.

Normally we get off cruises in Sydney and take the train to the airport for our 11:10 am flight with no issues. I think a 10:15 am flight would be very risky and I would not do it are there is no margin for error.

Are you looking at 2 different cruises to cover Australia/NZ?

Looks like you need cruise on Voyager once she has been amp’d. A trip to the South Pacific will cover that 😊

I agree with others here, on small ship this extra cost not worth it, unless you think $1100 for “free” drinks between 4:30pm - 8pm are worth it to you. The extra space in a GS is nice but Junior Suites have plenty of room so I would go with that.

We tip in either Australian or US dollars when we cruise out of Sydney, it just depends what currency we have with us.

Yes, it’s only usable on Royal. they sent me a jpeg and the email address I can use to apply it. it is not available to use on Easter or Christmas sailings either but is good for 2 years. i am just going to apply it to the September cruise that I rebooked.

This is the entire content of the web page you get directed to so you have to draw your own conclusions but I certain it is per cabin and in Australian dollars.

I can’t believe it, for the first time ever I have received a Royal Insider CAS Quarterly News email i have heard such a thing existed but this is the first time I have ever received one. it is mainly just links to salesand promotions but also has some useful information on CAS benefits. One thing I found interesting was the Suite and balcony discounts. The numbers in here don’t match up with the discounts received. The link goes to the AUS website but does not specify whether these are NZ or AU dollars. I am sure they do this to confuse me. Still I just happy they finally found me on their mailing list.

I got my FCC today for $200 which is valid for 2 years. My request for the policy clarification has also been forwarded to the team that looks after the website and repricing. At present the disclaimer is still on the website for bookings made in NZD so hopefully it will still be there when making a future booking. i will make sure I grab a screenshot before finalising any booking.

I asked RCI about this the other day on their Facebook feed and this is the response I got. It makes it hard to know what the right thing to do is because if the cruise goes up in price you end up paying an extra cost ($563 on a cruise I was looking at) because it won’t convert to the original NRD at the time of booking.

I guess those people not in a Suite would just book refundable deposit and pay a higher price.

I have a friend who sails on Princess and you can cancel and rebook for no penalty. Typically the deposit would be 10% of the cruise. The Travel Agents here do not work the same way as the U.S as they will also add on their fee for cancelling. Where RCI want a $400 deposit the Travel Agent will want $500, $400 to pay RCI and $100 for them. They also don’t monitor price drops either. This is originally why I started booking RCI directly as before NRD the TA wanted $200 to cancel and RCI would do it for no charge. Like shares it’s hard to know the best time to book a cruise down here as prices go up and down. For our cruise in 2020 (before NRD was a thing) I cancelled and rebooked 3 times to get the best price and saved $1500. Our cruise in September this year never got cheaper since we booked early last year until the OS popped up cheaper than the GS last week. I have looked at booking our next cruise in 2021 through the US but the pricing is about $300 NZD more expensive than the local price. One anomaly I noticed was the 2 Bedroom Panoramic Suite is only $50USD than a JS. Here is $2500 more expensive so that would be worth booking. I also noticed we get a CAS discount of $400 on the cabin but the US booking did not have any CAS discount available. Hopefully next up we will have 30% off sale with OBC which might be the best deal to get.

You can’t upgrade or downgrade in this region without cancelling your booking. Annoying but I have had this discussion a few times with RCI. I suggested they review their policy but I’m not holding my breath.

Hi, it depends where you are located. We are in the Asia /Pacific region have recently had this problem when there a price drop on our UK Cruise. In this region It is not possible to reprice a cruise without cancelling your existing booking. You lose your deposit so need to make sure the price drop covers this. In this region you are not entitled to a FCC but I managed to obtain one when I found a screen on the website that said we should get one. I am waiting for this to be processed. The policy is different in the USA where you can repri for no penalty if it is before the final payment date. if you are in the USA and you do cancel I think you will lose $200 and get a $400 FCC that must be used within 12 months. Sorry,I just saw you are booking from Australia. This is my thread on this. I also found the NZD is different from the AUD booking which is why I was able to get the FCC.