Honolulu Blue

Rule #1 of cruise ship cabin pricing: There's ALWAYS a sale. Rule #2 of cruise ship cabin pricing: Most sales just tinker around the edges of pricing, offering small savings for some and no savings for most. Enjoy your search for better pricing and enjoy your upcoming cruise.

@mrell345: thanks for continuing to share these newsletters. A few random comments about your day to come: Cartagena is an interesting city. I've been there twice and will be heading there in a few weeks (not on Princess) Nice to know the Emerald has a library, board games and specific hours for gaming. I'll be on the Emerald in a few months. I don't recall any future cruise presentations on my past cruises on Princess. The ones I attended on Carnival were mostly packed. The night's theme seems very clear 90s music trivia doesn't seem to fit the crowd that I would expect on a cruise line this. But I suspect I'd like it. I won a 90s music trivia contest some years ago - again, not on Princess I can't recall seeing a seeing eye dog notice on any of my cruises. I wonder what brought this on? Sorry for the distraction. Enjoy the rest of your cruise!

Not likely. Carnival has lots of the ships in the Caribbean year round. Does HAL have any ships there from April to October?

Carnival currently has capacity for around 4 million cruisers a year. Assuming they sail 100% full, this would mean that, on average, everyone purchases at least one 12 pack. I certainly do not, so someone must be taking my place. I honestly don't know how many people purchase water pre cruise. I'd like to ask someone sometime, but I'm afraid of not getting a straight answer.

IIRC, the 12-pack of bottled water started at $2.95 about 5 years ago when they stopped allowing passengers to bring bottled drinks (except wine) onboard.

I don't have much advice to give. I just want to wish you luck with whatever you decide to do. I have a 19-day cruise planned for next year (not on Princess), so I will have some of the same issues and I've been taking notes about the advice you've already been given.

Small details about and from the latest newsletter: No newsletter next week; the next one will be on January 6 There will be "live" newsletters from the cruises in 2024, starting with TJC on January 20 Botti at Sea's 2025 date and ship were announced. Here is the calendar of '25 cruises as listed: Other details of Botti at Sea '25 will be announced no later than January 8 Artist hosted events can only be signed up for once onboard. Former partner ECP does their events differently; theirs were made available roughly 10 days ago for booking and prepayment. The longer story is in my thread in this forum on my musical adventures that I'm too lazy to link. Absolutely nothing about the McDonald LaBelle Cruise in this newsletter. ☹️ We'll see what there is to say in two weeks.

Thanks for sharing and satisfying my curiosity. My last cruise was a very short one (5 days) on the Ruby in April. We were given the number of people on our sailing (full with some extras), the number of those who were new to princess (about two-thirds), and the number of Platinums and Elites (about 430 total, about 15% of those sailing). They also give the sail days for the three most sailed cruisers onboard.

I'm curious about who told you about the percentage of passengers with drink packages. Cruise director? Captain?? Guest Services rep? Friendly barkeep? I went to my first Platinum party and they gave other demographic items about our fellow cruisers, but not this.

Dan Politzer, Wells Fargo Securities analyst, asked about the financial impact of what happened to the Panorama. This is what the Carnival Corporation's CEO and CFO said in response to that: Josh Weinstein -- Chief Executive Officer You know, in the grand scheme of things, it's probably a couple of pennies. David Bernstein -- Chief Financial Officer Between like maybe one penny in the fourth quarter and a couple in the first. A couple of quick notes of explanation - the 4th quarter ended November 30 and there are 1.27 billion shares outstanding. Two cents per share is about $25 million total and three cents is about $38 million. I think this understates things a little, but those are the guys who would know since they have access to the data. I'll take their word for it. $38 million is quite a hit. I'm sure they rather it didn't happen and are happy to see the Panorama back in action.

You are correct, highlighting and bookmarking are both available on Kindles. I don't use the bookmarks very much as 1) I don't fully understand how to use them, 2) I usually start reading where I stopped reading before, which is mostly what I used bookmarks for with physical books but are mostly unnecessary on Kindles, and 3) I usually just go to the table of contents to find where I need to go. Highlighting I use a lot and prefer it to the old fashioned highlighting. The smell of highlighters can make me dizzy if it's strong enough and I hate ruining a perfectly good book.

I consider myself a voracious reader and I disagree with both you and your daughter and agree with @AZjohn. Once I started using my Kindle, the amount of physical books I bought dropped to near zero and the amount of time I spent with my physical books (of which I had - and have - many) also dropped to near zero. I think Kindles and the apps attached to them are the bomb. 🤩

The second sentence is absolutely correct, of course. RCL and NCLH are similarly indebted to CCL, and they haven't stopped ordering new builds. The first sentence, I'm not so sure about. Weinstein & Bernstein have both been insistent about no new builds in 2026 on their earnings calls and in public statements throughout this year. They have another earnings call later this morning, so maybe things might have changed. Still, I think it's slightly more likely they won't have any new ships on order by the end of '24 than that they will.

An interesting question, probably outside the scope of this thread, but I'll give my best guess. I'm single and I travel solo on all my cruises, including the three I've done on Princess so far (with one booked). Princess doesn't have any dedicated solo cabins. My guess is that on my Princess cruises, fewer than 5% of the passengers were solo or single. Keep in mind that not all solo travelers are single, and not all singletons travel solo.

Both Cozumel and Costa Maya are in the Mexican state of Quintana Roo, which is on Eastern Standard Time all year. During the fall and winter, local time matches the eastern US. During the rest of the year, it matches the central US (at least the parts that use DST). I know that Galveston is in the Central Time Zone; therefore, it will be an hour behind both ports. I'm pretty sure the Jubilee will be on Galveston time throughout its shorter cruises. Plan accordingly.

Thanks. It must be a recent development. I hope it's just a replacement cycle.

@Super27: Thank you for your review. As someone who took 10 Carnival cruises before embarking on Celebrity for the first time, I can relate to your perspective. I do have some notes: * On Carnival, Platinum and Diamond passengers are allowed to go to their cabins and drop off carried on luggage before they officially open. This has been true fir several years. * I haven't witnessed guest bad behavior of any significance on Carnival or Celebrity. Perhaps this says more about where I like to hang out and when than about the type of customers that typically sail on these cruise lines. * I'm pretty sure the Summit has video poker. Certainly her near twin the Millennium did when I sailed in her last year: * I didn't think the Summit's casino was notably small by cruise ship standards P.S. I'll be on the Summit in March, so I'll be sure to check out the video poker, or lack of VP, when I get there.

I don't have any experience with Tokyo, but I do have experience with late embark action times. Last year, I arrived in San Juan at 4:30 pm for an 8:30 pm departure. I raced through check in as there was barely anyone else in line in front of me. Some years ago, I had another scheduled departure (not on Celebrity) out of sunny San Juan that was even later - 10 pm. I got to the terminal at 7 and breezed right through right in time for dinner and an old fashioned muster drill. Definitely check with Celebrity on how late you can arrive, but I generally approve of your plan to arrive late. 👍

No moralizing from this quarter, just info from Princess's FAQs: Alcoholic beverages that are purchased duty free from The Shops of Princess, or at ports of call, will be collected for safekeeping and delivered to the guest's stateroom on the last day of the cruise. A member of the ship's staff will be at the gangway to assist guests with the storage of their shoreside alcoholic purchases while The Shops of Princess staff will assist guests with shipboard alcoholic purchases. (emphasis mine) This is what the OFFICIAL, PUBLISHED rules say, but I too wonder about its enforcement. I've heard that other cruise lines allow alcohol purchases in port to be taken directly to the cabin.

It is possible to read for pleasure on a phone. I do it sometimes (though I prefer my tablet). BTW, I'm not a kid - despite the way that I act and talk sometimes. 🙃 As for the homeless on the Internet, that's been a trend for a long time around here at least. The library nearest me was one of the first places with public Internet terminals for free.

These are two of the Princess ships that I've sailed on. I liked the Ruby's library - a fair amount of both books and games. I didn't see the Regal's library.

Thanks for sharing. Soul Train's '25 lineup wasn't out when I checked yesterday. There sure is a lot of overlap with the UDC - they share Shalamar, The Brothers Johnson, UGO, and Original Stone City Band. That said, I'm breathing a sigh of relief. It's not, IMHO, as good a lineup as the UDC '25 or TNC '25 - or indeed, either of the last two Soul Train lineups. I'm sure they'll fill it out some, but I feel comfortable with the choice I made of those two cruises over this one. And besides, its price is creeping up - solo cabins are up to $3800 for the week, which is about $300 more than I'm paying for R&R next year. Good luck getting that Soul Train cabin, but if you decide to go slumming with us on the UDC in 2025, let me know. I'm sure it will be great to meet up and swap stories about the music themed cruises we've been on and other things. 😃

I spent some time reviewing the Country Music Cruise tentative schedule. I noticed that the main theater headliners on each show perform two shows each day. That's different than what I found for the next Soul Train Cruise (only Boyz II Men are scheduled for the double) and my adventures on the UDC (some did a double, but most did not). I wonder about each performers' preference for such things. Would they rather perform their two sets on the same day and get it over with, or would they rather have the sets separated by a day or more? I assume that some prefer the former, some the latter, and some don't care.

I'm so sorry you're not feeling well. Get well soon. 🙏 P.S. I enjoyed your report.

Thanks for sharing this. I'd been looking for these schedules (especially the Soul Train one) for a couple of weeks. Thanks for connecting the dots about Boyz II Men. Clearly they're not doing any cruising on the ship for whatever reason. I'm looking forward to Soul Train's lineup also. I hope it's not TOO good, because I have The 90s Cruise scheduled on its dates.