tetleytea

Then you'll be glad that I don't drink. I just paid for a Free at Sea package, and I'm stuck with virgin marys and virgin mojitos.

I'm sure a human arbitrates the multiple bids. Maximizing the revenue with a machine would be a hard software algorithm to write, and I doubt the cruise lines employ the top machine scientists. A human would probably look at the top bids for the top suites first, since the bid amounts would be the highest there. And then they would work their way down the cabin grades. Which would mean your top tier-level winning bid would be the one.

Not the same boat. Our max bids are not even close. But that is good information so I know whether we are getting a good deal. Evidently, you are being offered a better one than us.

Well if you're in the same boat, I'm not going to tell you. 😛 Really, though, I'm getting $1300 per person before my bid meter reaches yellow. And I don't think I'm willing to go up to $1300. Seems all the yellow are about 60% of full-price.

As it is, we have upcharges, and then there are upcharges after you purchase the upcharges, and then there are upcharges on the upcharges. Do we really want a week of trying not to succumb to marketing ploys?

I just got my upgrade offer email and I'm struggling with how much I am willing to pay to upgrade to Haven or Owners.

My particular ship's tour is during Juneau port, FYI.

I don't doubt that the small boat is much better than viewing from the cruise ship, but if I only wanted to do the small boat excursion once, would I be right to hold out for the 10-hour later?

I don't know if this would constitute a thread hijack or not, but the subject does say "Tracy Arm" and I had a different question about it: The Juneau Tracy Arm excursions. I see some that are 10 hours long, but my ship excursion is only 5 hours long because of our shorter time in port. For that reason, I decided to pass on Tracy Arm altogether and wait for another trip when we had a bigger block of time in Juneau. Did I do the right thing? Would I be selling myself short if I only did the 5-hour excursion and didn't particularly want to do the Tracy Arm excursion twice?

I've pretty much written off Princess customer service. Even after the long hold time, the chances of you actually getting anything done beyond the "We apologize for your inconvenience. I can understand your frustration" lip-service is about 50%.

MHO I think it's acceptable when that one type is vodka, under the circumstances.

My cruise out of NY is leaving same day as NYC Marathon! That is a brilliant idea! Makes you have to run fast or else you'll miss the ship.

Icy Strait Whale Adventures

I'm sailing on Norwegian and I went independent. The price was the same. What swayed me was that I was able to do a B2B tour with the same excursion company and combine a bear wildlife viewing with whale watching. Only this operator offered the two tours back-to-back, and if it were not so, we never would have been able to fit the two tours into the time window we are in port.

I wasn't going to say anything. If I did every time the stock swung a lot, this would be a long thread.

When you watch them act out Jaws (and who cares that I gave away the answer--it's obvious it is Jaws), you will be like, "Oh my gosh, what in the world did I just walk in to?" For Liar Liar, I will say this: the words "Pharmacist" and "Farm Assist" sound exactly the same.

I assume you will get the same cruise directors on the Caribbean Princess. Their highlights were the game show "Liar, Liar" in the Explorers Lounge, and the Movies Trivia night in Explorers on the last night of the cruise; featuring the cruise directors who act out the movie scenes.

They were good. I was just on the Caribbean. I would say they were kind of 90's themed, and they've got soul. They played the parties on the top deck, and they did a better job of partying than we, the passengers did. Of all the house bands and singers on board, they were the best. Arguably better than the Princess theater singers, too--they were stiff; Xtasea was not. Although...for the best instrumentalist, I have to go with the steel drums guy. It's the Caribbean Princess. That guy needed more bands behind him and stuff.

My TA told me the $50 credit is on the stateroom and that is just a technicality. Did I entirely believe her? Not really. But I thought I'd ask. I'm Bronze, and I want my perks, man. I think I get a free brochure.

Can you book the excursion in the first person's name (to get the $50), and then the second person goes on the tour?

For now, I'm looking at taking the bus line up to the Raptor Center and then working my way back into town.

My party of 2 shared tables throughout our B2B cruise, and we shared tables with parties of 4 very regularly. We sat multiple times with the same party of 6 on an 8-person table. I think the private-table-for-4 part might be the schtick. It's possible your odds improve if you're willing to share with another party of 2--whom you will outnumber, anyway.

Originally I was going to book an MX balcony and the Free At Sea price was >$300 more, but then the same sailing had an MA balcony where the Free At Sea was essentially the same price. So I booked the MA. I don't know how that works.

I would be pretty furious. You said you weren't trying to be funny, and actually you had a perfectly plausible answer. You had an alien in your car. She was sitting right there.

Sometimes I have underdressed and I just buy one of those cheap $5 t-shirts in the shops. Wear two T-shirts.