Hi Lia,

We have completed our email survey of our cruise which will have been received by whoever. We had a wonderful experience from the moment we boarded Dawn Princess to the time we had to leave her. Everything was great aboard but disembarking at White Bay was appalling.

• We were advised well ahead that there were no taxi facilities at the White Bay Terminal and to avoid problems associated with this (walking, carrying baggage etc) it was necessary to pay for "City Transfer" at $15 each to Central Railway. We did this.
• Our car was parked with relatives on the north shore of Sydney and it had been very expensive to taxi to the ship before embarking. However we were forearmed for this - no complaints. In fact the Wharf 8 Darling Harbour embarkation was exceptionally well done.
• Having been in the shipping industry for many years (cargo ships mainly) I was more than dismayed to find the ship was to berth at this unsuitable terminal for offloading 2000 passengers and loading 2000 passengers. I imagine Princess Lines would also be upset.
• The effect to us was having to wait until 10am to leave the ship, paying $30 to travel south to Central, getting a taxi then to go north for our car and then driving for 6 hours to get to where we live.
• As it turned out when we finally collected our baggage at the terminal we were immediately able to get a taxi, there were plenty of them, enabling us to pick up our car northside much earlier than earlier anticipated.
• In retrospect we would have thought the local agents could have given more up to date accurate information to the ship to obviate the need to asking a lot of passengers pay an extra $15 each to travel to Central Railway when it wasn't convenient or necessary. As a shipping agent at times in my past years to a number of international shipping lines including Royal Viking Line (passengers) we would have been in big trouble with the relevant principals had we nelected this basic information service for ship and passengers.

I feel we are entitled to a $30 refund on the "City Transfer". It is a crying shame to see such a wonderful experience provided by "Dawn Princess" shot to pieces by shoreside bungling.

Thank you Lia for all you have done,

Tom & Fay