Honolulu Blue

Sorry for not posting much here lately. I'll have some news to report in a few days. Please be patient. Thank you.

I was on the Magic in November. I thought she was in good shape inside and out. The food was just fine (by Carnival standards). I have a LIVE thread from that cruise, which anyone is welcome to look up if they're interested in more details. But the TL,DR is that I liked the Magic and wouldn't mind booking her again if she was running a route I was interested in sailing.

Correct, but I recommend NOT opening the container until you get back onboard. YMMV with bringing on open containers of food - even pseudo food like chips.

I decided not to choose and booked a back-to-back with both voyages. Here's a thread with a long story of my reasoning: TL,DR: I'm heading to St. Vincent instead of Dominica. I haven't been to St. Vincent before and am somewhat looking forward to visiting for the first time. I've been to all of the other islands before. They each have their charms and places worth visiting. I'd lean a tiny bit toward your option 1, but you really can't go wrong with either. Enjoy your cruise.

I found this in the newsletter from day 3 of my cruise on the Millie about a year and a half ago: '' So Celebrity DID solicit comments mid-cruise as others have told me they routinely do. I missed it and I apologize for that. I still feel that mid-cruise is far too early to leave comments of any kind, unless it's an immediate action item. If something or someone is exceptional, I'm not likely to forget. And then I'll note it in the post-cruise survey. Also, I'm not a big fill-out-surveys kind of person and on vacation besides that, so something would really have to be extraordinary for me to bother doing something like this. Never say never, but I can't see doing too much of this in the future. Sorry. 🙃☹️

Interesting. Thanks. I'll have to go through my old newsletters to see if they solicited me. It's very possible I missed these.

It's extraordinary to me because I've never, ever received a mid-cruise survey on any of my cruises. Though, in thinking about things more thoroughly, I've only done two "regular" cruises on Celebrity and three charters. Perhaps the survey request process is different on the charters. Thanks for the feedback. Perhaps if and when I get back on a Celebrity ship, I'll be deemed worthy of giving my views mid-cruise. 🤷‍♀️

I'm curious... how do you do this? I've never received a cruise line survey any earlier than the morning of disembarkation. Do you go down to Guest Services or the Hotel Director's office and demand a review be given or sent to you then and there, or do you verbally give your compliments to someone in charge? Either way it seems extraordinary and I can't think of too many cruise ship crew members who would have deserved that sort of effort from me. Thanks in advance for the enlightenment. 👍

I can confirm this. Source: Someone who has done several of these. 🙂

I booked this exact B2B yesterday as separate cruises. Again, this is of more use to me than anyone else, but I didn't want to establish a new thread here or in the roll call. I'll do the roll call thing later, if I have to. I looked through a few different cabin classes on a few different decks. Hardly any were booked. This apparently is far different than that solar eclipse cruise that went on sale at about the same time. No one had booked any of the obstructed OVs I decided to favor for this trip. So, I booked a couple - the same one for both cruises. This is another solo trip for me, so I paid the full single tax For some reason, I didn't get the $99 deposit. My deposit was $250 for each cruise. Not a big deal. They're fully refundable and I figure I'll have to pay up eventually anyway if things go well. I didn't buy any add-ons at this time. I'll evaluate them later. Don't expect me to add a full package. So far I'm not seeing any of these cruises it in the two online agencies that I know about

None of the round-trip sailings from San Juan go to Bonaire.

Bookings look to be available for these cruises out of San Juan. The rest of this post is probably of more use to me than anyone else: The 14-day cruise that's of most interest to me has the following itinerary (December 7-21): Day 1 - depart SJ at 7 pm Day 2 - St. Croix, 8-6 Day 3 - St. Kitts, 7-5 Day 4 - St. Lucia, 9-7 Day 5 - St. Vincent, 8-6 Day 6 - Barbados, 7-7 Day 7 - at sea Day 8 - San Juan, 6-7 Day 9 - St. Thomas, 8-6 Day 10 - Sint Maarten, 8-6 Day 11 - Antigua, 8-6 Day 12 - Dominica, 8-6 Day 13 - Barbados, 7-7 Day 14 - at sea Day 15 - arrive SJ at 6 am I've been to all these islands except St. Vincent. One of the reasons why I highlighted this route is that it goes there. Guadeloupe and Martinique shows up on other itineraries. I've been to Martinique before; it's all right, but I don't want to hurry back. I haven't been to Guadeloupe. I'd rather go to St. Vincent. A notable island that's skipped on this journey is Grenada. I'm pretty sure it's picked up on other cruises from Princess. As expected, only Barbados is a repeat port on this cruise - not counting San Juan. The 7 PM departure time is interesting. They could leave even later if they wanted, but perhaps they want to keep us on schedule as much as possible. Carnival (10 PM) and Celebrity (8:30) left later on their ships out of SJ. This is not a cruise for people who love sea days, nor for those who dislike the charms of the Eastern Caribbean. I don't expect this group of cruises to sell to quickly, so I have lots of time to do my due diligence and figure out exactly what I want to do.

I don't know about Royal, but Carnival had special concerts in their main theaters under the Carnival LIVE banner. Those were extra cost for all shows (with ticket costs that varied similar to concerts on land), but they had more mainstream acts and presumably put on a better and more professional show.

I have not, but I've heard of such. Also, I have contacted cruise lines (not Celebrity) via letter not related to any survey and received responses by letter, e-mail, and phone.

Both

A couple of years ago I went cruising on my birthday, not on Carnival, and their loyalty club gave me a card and a magnet. That was a nice touch. I've outgrown parties and don't think I'd like to be picked on in any way on my B-day. I can always pick out an extra slice of cake at the trough if I had a taste for such. But everyone should celebrate their special days in ways that make them the happiest. 🥳

I've done almost 30 cruises on several cruise lines over the past decade, including several on Celebrity. The one and only time I received an envelope in the cabin was this year on Royal Caribbean. It was a charter cruise, with slightly different "mandatory" gratuity rules, but still... To me it was a reminder of the not-so-good old days of the cruising when the gratuity rules were much murkier - part of the reason why I wasn't cruising then. Sorry for the distraction. I'm sure you have some more stories to tell about this trip. Please tell them! I've found it all to be a very fun ride.

They used to have a midnight buffet on Journeys cruises. I know because I tried to attend one way back in 2016. It was jammed with passengers. Not a good experience. I haven't tried to go there since then. They may have gotten rid of it. They don't advertise it anymore. P.S. I'm a big fan of the horse races!

I've found that it's not unusual for terminals at ports of call to look like warehouses. ALL the ones in Hawaii when I went there in 2018 looked like that, even Honolulu. They may or may not have improved things these days. And some of the terminals in embarkation ports are nicer than others. San Pedro always struck me as being sparse and out of date. Galveston isn't much better - at least the terminal that Princess and Carnival use. I'm sure Royal's new terminal is far nicer. Probably not, but I DO select itineraries (and their cruise ships, and cruise lines) based on where they sail from. All else equal, I prefer to sail from ports with better terminals.

You bring up some good, interesting points. The responses have been interesting also. I'll put my two cents in and apologize in advance for not acknowledging those who commented earlier with similar notes: It's much less expensive to provide Internet access on land than at sea I rely less on Wi-Fi access on land these days with very fast 5G access almost everywhere All cruise lines that I'm aware of DO provide free WiFi access these days - mostly to power their apps. Some offer very limited access to the Net for free (mostly their own sites). Virgin Voyages provides free Internet on their cruises. Yes, I know they're small compared to other mainstream lines, but they're part of the scene. Some cruise lines offer packages that include Internet, among other things I'm sure corporate headquarters at all the cruise lines are monitoring Internet use, costs, and revenue closely. At the point where they think they can make more $$$ by providing Internet access for free to all customers than by doing what they do now, they will make the switch. It might be different at different cruise lines.

Welcome to Cruise Critic! I've done some music themed cruises in the past and have more scheduled. None are electronic music themed, but some of them have an artist or two that favor the synthesizers. They were great! Lots of the music that I like and enough of everything else to make it all worthwhile. I hope you can find a cruise or two that suits your interests so you can have as much fun as I did.

Thanks everyone! There's a lot of good information here. I'll study it in more detail later, when I'm ready to book my B2B.

Only when the cashier is open. Unless... I know Carnival and NCL have kiosks where you can break bills. I don't remember any on Princess that perform this function. Do they have them? I didn't spend much time in the casinos on any Princess ship I've been on, so I certainly could have missed them.

It's OK. I apologize for confusing Elite with Diamond.

I'm considering taking a B2B on Princess and have a few questions about the experience: 1. The B2Bs I'm considering consist of two cruises of seven days each. They are (will be) listed both separately and as single cruises. Can some of you summarize the advantages and disadvantages of booking both as a single cruise booking # and as two separate cruises? 2. Let's say that I'll have 12 cruise credits by the time I sail on this B2B. I'll be sailing solo, so that means I'll get 2 credits for each cruise - if I book them separately. Or will I get all 4 credits if I book the B2B as one cruise?? 3. Assuming that I will have 16 credits at the end of the second cruise, when will I get my Diamond status? On my next Princess cruise? On the second cruise? Or on boarding the first cruise? 4. How easy is it to link these cruises if I book them online separately? 5. As a CCL shareholder, I would get $100 in OBC for each of the 7-day cruises, but $250 for a 14-day cruise. Can I tell whoever handles the OBC shareholder credit these days that I'm really on a 14-day cruise when I have these two 7-day cruises? 6. What perks and bennies is Princess offering to B2B sailors these days? Thanks in advance for your kind and informative responses.