I've booked a cruise!!!

[Tinks]

Awesome...that is extremely exciting news!!!!

I went on that exact cruise in February this year we had an absolute ball, the cabin was great,the service was great, the entertainment was awesome (so much to choose from), the bingo paid huge amounts of cash in prizes, everything about it was great. We meet so many wonderful people and really had a great holiday...just like you will.

Enjoy!!!!

Westy do you mind me asking how much you spent on board?

[Turkish Delight]

No worries Tinks. Glad that i could help out.

See, another reason we need to get together!

[human bean]

Woohoo - you will have a blast!! We did our first cruise with P&O earlier this year - 9 nights to the South Pacific and we absolutely loved it! We spent about $2000 all up on board, just DH and I, and that included a fair whack of alcohol and some terrific spa treatments for lucky me!! We also had several meals in the paid restuarants and that includes our shore tour costs.

As it's all cashless, and your cruise card is used for every transaction on board, it can be really easy to get carried away spending. We found that every day or two we asked for an account print out and that helped us keep check of how our budget was going.

What ship are you going on? Hopefully you'll go far enough out to hit international waters and then they can open the duty free

[Tinks]

Thank you so much for that info Human Bean. We're going on the Pacific Dawn. I think we go just into international waters and can buy duty free. Do you have to do the shore tours?

See, another reason we need to get together!

Sorry TD I've only just seen this YES we must meet up!! I'm still waiting on the new roster to come out grrrrrrr so will let you know when my days off are.

[human bean]

We went on the Pac Dawn too - we refer to it as 'our ship' now lol It's huge and alot of fun - most of the staff were brilliant too!

As for shore tours, once you're all paid up they send you all the magical blue folder with all the info in it and you can pick and choose the tours you want to do. Or you can wait until you get on board and book them then - but only if you want to (and if the popular ones aren't booked out) As you're hitting the Aussie coast you may just choose to use taxi's, buses or leg it and do your own sight seeing at each port. Or just chill out on the ship with half the crowd gone!

[fionas]

That sounds awesome Tinks!

Can I just hijack for a minute because we were also thinking of a cruise because it's hard to think of places that would be suitable for a teenager (DSD is 16) and a toddler and we figure that DSD would enjoy the freedom a cruise and not have to be stuck to our side all day and we would love the fact that it's all catered for so no cooking to worry about.

However, I've been told that under-18s aren't allowed to have their own cabin. Is that true? I'm not sure I'm comfortable with DSD having her own cabin TBH but I sure don't want to share with a teenager - I want my space/privacy and we'd have DD (2) in our room anyway.

[Tinks]

From what I understand no one under 18 is allowed to occupy a cabin alone. HOWEVER from age 16 they are allowed to be unattended (not have an adult with them at all times) so you could book 2 cabins - 1 with 3 and 1 with 1 person (both have 1 person over 18 per cabin) and allow DSD to be unattended in one of the cabins while you, DH and DD share the other one.

We had to book 2 cabins (next door to eachother) becuase we have 3 kids, so DH has a cabin of his own and I am sharing with the kids. I am not allowed to leave the kids unattended but the lady on the phone said that if, for example, they fell asleep waching a DVD and I didn't want to disturb them it would be ok to go into DH's cabin