JohnS43

If you like endless repeats of the same episodes of "The Love Boat," you'll just LOVE Princess.

OK, I've cruised several times, on several lines (not just the ones in my signature) and I've come to realize that I absolutely HATE staterooms that have showers with shower curtains. It doesn't matter if it's a stall shower or a tub-shower combo, the shower always blows in and clings to me. I absolutely hate it. And no amount of weighting or clipping seems to help. (On my last cruise, where I had a tub-shower combo, I left the curtain half-open and tried to do as much as I could in the open side of the tub.)

And I also much prefer having a hand-held shower, especially since some of the small stall showers combined with low water pressure, makes it sometimes difficult to rinse well in "those places." So, my question is: Is there a resource that lists what types of showers/tubs are in the various cabin types for each cruise line? Are there any cruise lines that do not use shower curtains at all? (So far the only times I've completely avoided them were in a family suite on NCL with a separate shower with a glass door and a full suite on Princess, with the same setup.)

I guess I've realized that this has become a real consideration for me in deciding which ships to book for future cruises, especially those longer than a week. Thanks for your help.

Semi-related comment/question: I was on the Island Princess cruise that ended on the day you departed (1/4.) I would be interested to find out how "ready" everything was for you when you boarded given that:

1. The crew had to take down all of the Christmas decorations (trees, lights, wreaths, etc.) throughout the ship.

2. They had to convert the ship over to the Club Class format. (Not sure quite how much that entails, but surely there was some extra work involved.), and

3. We were nearly an hour late in clearing Customs in San Pedro, and the disembarkation process was running MORE than an hour behind schedule (at least when I got off around 10:45 -- which was originally supposed to be at 9:35.)

If everything was ship-shape (literally) and ready to go when you boarded, I'd have to give them a round of applause.

Yes baggage claim.

Have you thought about renting from a company that supplies a ride to the port? The port and airport are so close together.

 

Gold Coast Car rentals is right in between FLL and the port.

We use http://goldcoastcruiseandflyparking.com/ and have for many years. They will take you and pick up from almost anywhere in Ft Lauderdale.

Thanks for the info about the pickup location. I wish I'd known about the rental car ride option before I booked my Princess transfer! I guess I should've done more research in advance. Next time!

I purchased a Princess transfer from FLL to the cruise terminal but I will not be flying into the airport that day, but rather returning a rental car. I gather that I need to take a shuttle from the rental car return area back to the airport terminals, but I don't know where to go for the Princess transfer. Is it in the baggage claim area? Does it matter which area or terminal?

Just booked the Island Princess from Fort Lauderdale to L.A. via the Panama Canal over the Christmas and New Year's holidays (departing 12/20/16.) Hope to find some other solos!

I haven't been to Florida in 15 years or more, so I figured it was time to do the theme park thing again. So I have a cruise departing from Ft. Lauderdale; my plan is to fly into FLL (coming from Calif.) about six or seven days before the cruise, renting a car, driving directly to Orlando, then returning the car to the airport as early as possible on the morning of the cruise. I know it's around a three-hour drive between the two locations, so this should be do-able, right? (The cruise ends in California, so I don't have any issues on that end.)

And, as I mentioned earlier, the geographical imbalance with respect to appointment availability is just getting worse. Now NEITHER of the two LA area appointment sites (LAX and the Port of Long Beach) has ANY available appointments at any time.

I guess there are not enough people making noise about this to their Congressional representatives so that this problem will ever be addressed.

As I mentioned upthread, I had E732 on the Emerald and was initially concerned about the Club Fusion noise because I'd read comments here about it. But it was really not an issue. Most of the very late night events on the ship took place at Skywalker's, not Club Fusion. I don't think I ever heard anything after 10PM or a bit later. And it wasn't ever horrendously noisy -- just some beat sounds.

One minor advantage to these rooms -- on Day 1 when you do the muster drill, you can exit your room and go away from the hallway toward the corner of the ship where there's an emergency stairwell that takes you down one flight and right into Club Fusion, which is your muster station. Since your little "private" hallway only has one other room on it, hardly anyone knows about or uses this exit route, so you don't have to deal with hordes of people on the main staircases.

The deposit would only be full fare if the cruise is after final payment. Before final payment, only a deposit is required, which would be non-refundable.

Maybe I misunderstood, but it seemed like they were demanding payment of the full cost of the cruise as the deposit (i.e., to hold/book the cruise). This was last week for a cruise that departs on 12/4/16. Does that sound right?

I was browsing the Princess website for a potential next cruise and came across one that piqued my interest. When I clicked on it, the "Sun Drenched Deals" banner appeared on the page-- a promotion I was unaware of, but which apparently involves somewhat lower fares or a discount of some sort.

Anyway, I did a partial booking to see what was available, but when I got to the payment information page, there was a big notice across the top of the page saying that deposits for this cruise were non-refundable under any circumstances. And since the cruise in question was for later this year, I believe the deposit was the FULL fare.

Well, I don't know about you, but I'm hesitant to commit to a large payment (more than $5K) if it's non-refundable under any circumstances. Does that mean there's no point in purchasing insurance or travel protection, at least from Princess? I would think that private (i.e., non-Princess) insurance would have to cover you, but I'm new to this.

Any thoughts or comments? Thanks for your advice.

If you're in a suite, there's an expanded room service menu for breakfast-- basically what is available in the main dining room every day. And you can even order it on debarkation day, when most other options (including the suite breakfast at Sabatini's/Crown Grill) are unavailable.

I was just on the Emerald Princess in E732 (The Ocho Rios Suite) which appears to be the twin/mirror image of E733 (The Montego Bay Suite.) There is a large beam on the balcony but the balcony is so large that it wasn't an issue. In E732, the beam was to the left side of the balcony, near the wall separating it from the adjoining balcony. In E733, it's probably on the right side. The balcony was set up with a round dining table and three chairs, as well as two lounge chairs. So there's plenty of unobstructed room.

People seem to be overlooking the fact that the $29 is a surcharge over what you've already paid in your cruise fare for the other free dining options that are available to you. So it's not the full price for the specialty restaurant meal.

The staffing/appointment availability disparities around the country are really ridiculous. I checked again today for LAX-- the first available appointment time is now on December 30! (I still have my 11/1 appointment that I made a while back.)

Thank you very much for the experience sharing, and I will seriously consider to book pre-cruise transfer from Princess leaving from Victoria Coach Station in London.

 

LaoZ.

A word of warning: I just did this. I spent a week in London pre-cruise, and arranged to have my hotel be located near the Victoria Coach Station specifically so I could use the Princess transfer service.

I was advised to show up at the station at around 9:45-10:00 AM and that the buses would start to depart for Southampton at that time. I dutifully showed up at the appointed time, and was immediately advised that, due to the fact that very few people had booked this particular transfer, they were only going to run one coach to Southampton, and it would not be departing until 11:30. So I had to cool my heels (and watch my luggage) at the Victoria Coach Station for nearly two hours.

The attendant at the coach station told me that they often had multiple buses making the run to Southampton for Princess cruises, but not this time. Apparently since my cruise was the first one scheduled after the British school holidays began, very few international travelers were going to be on board, and most of the UK passengers had other means of transportation to Southampton.

To make things even worse: because this was the first weekend after the end of the school term, and therefore many holiday travelers were on the road, the traffic from London to Southampton was terrible, and we didn't make it to the ship until nearly 3PM.

I have had the same issues with the DINE line. I just end up walking to the restaurant and speaking with the manager/hw.

How do you do that when the restaurant is closed most of the time?

I was on the cruise in question as well, so let me add my two cents. First, I was traveling solo in a suite, so my room was actually UNDER capacity. I hope that made up for some of the overcrowding elsewhere!

But as for dining-- I had anytime dining, and preferred to dine alone at a two-top. The first few times I tried this at popular dining times (say, after 7PM), there was a line in both the anytime dining rooms (one of them converts from Traditional to Anytime at 7:30, I think.) Twice, I had to use a pager, but was seated relatively promptly (under 15 minutes.) But later on in the cruise, I tried showing up at around 5:30 and was always seated immediately-- even having to pass through a line of unoccupied servers who all greeted me as I was shown to my table in an 80% vacant dining room. So really, it's no different from any restaurant-- if you show up at a popular time without a reservation, you're going to have to wait.

I will say that I DID experience a problem with the DINE line -- not with respect to anytime dining, but in trying to get a reservation at the Crown Grill on one of the formal nights. I called the number repeatedly for several hours in the morning and it was always busy or "no one present to answer." FINALLY, I got through one time when I called from a house phone instead of my room. (Supposedly suite passengers are provided with a dedicated person or line for dining reservations, but I never found out how to access this feature.) But when I got into the automated menu, which said to press "3" for the Crown Grill, it kept dumping me into an FAQ about Anytime Dining. I tried several times and finally ended up going to the front desk to see if they could get through (which they did, eventually.)

Let me add that the specialty restaurants (especially SHARE) seemed to be fairly empty most of the time. But when I called for my Crown Grill reservation, they only had very late seating times available, despite the fact that the restaurant was FAR from full when I got there at 9:30. Perhaps it was a staffing issue.

I'm on the Emerald right now. There seem to be about 90% Brits on this cruise and they really went all out on the first formal night. A HUGE majority of the men were in tuxes or dinner jackets (with a few kilts thrown in for good measure.)

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We can easily do without the nightly chocolates and towel animals.

I've been on Princess twice and never saw a towel animal. Carnival and NCL --yes, but not Princess. Do they do it on some ships or itineraries and not others?

I found Princess's instructions confusing as well. Apparently you have to create your own new account on Tripcase (annoying) to access the information. And you don't use the PRINCESS password anywhere that I could find. That said, I had no need for my e-ticket when I checked in using the kiosk at LAX (for an international flight.) I just scanned my passport and it found my reservation, let me print baggage tags and a boarding pass.

I'm visiting Europe right now. Notified all my cardholders that I would be traveling (they ask you to specify the countries you will be visiting.) That said, I've pretty much only used two cards: a Schwab debit card for ATMs (they reimburse any fees) and a Capital One Quicksilver VISA for all transactions in foreign currency (they don't charge a foreign transaction fee and give 1.5% back on all purchases worldwide.) I have other cards that give more cash back on categories like travel, but I only use them for US Dollar purchases (like the cruise itself and onboard charges) because otherwise the foreign transaction fee could possibly be more than any potential rebate.

One thing too be aware of with credit cards: Most of the rest of the world has gone to chip-and-PIN verification for credit cards. When you use your US chipped card, they will almost always ask you for a signature, since we don't use that system. This can be a problem at unstaffed locations.

Do they show pretty much the same movies fleet-wide? Is there a list of what's currently showing or coming soon? (Like airlines used to have.)

No app needed beforehand.

You have to wait to get on board to download it, but it's a free download via the ship's wi-fi. Here's the info about what the app provides: http://www.princess.com/ships-and-experience/onboard-experience/activities/princess-at-sea/