abbydancer2003

Husband just informed me he wants to do a flightseeing/salmon bake in Juneau. I don't know if I can save money by going private, or if it it's only offered through the cruise line. If so, I might as well prepay the gratuities.

 

Over to the Alaska board I go.

Some OBC is considered non-refundable and some is considered refundable. Not sure what "thank you" OBC is (loyalty credit?, OBC from a TA, other), but the other two are non-refundable so unused amounts would be forfeited. You might want to check out the jewelry boutique on board.

 

A specialty restaurant meal for one is unusual for a perk. Are you sure the amenity is not for two?

 

Thank you is the loyalty, sorry about the mis-name. And the Specialty for 1 is part of the Sip and sail.

 

We might do an excursion, so maybe I'll prepay 1 and save 14.00 instead of 28.

 

Thanks!!!

Hmm, we have a 7 day Alaska in May in a mini-suite. I read this and thought I'd prepay, but the I realized that we might then have left over OBC. We get FCC, stockholder and 25.00 "thank you". We booked with sip and sail, so there is no outlay for drinks, which which most of what we buy on board, and only one 25.00 charge for a specialty restaurant (we get one meal included). What happens if we don't use the entire OBC?

I used the Messenger app on the Regal in April and was able to add my wife's and friends' code into the app's address book & add their names instead of having to remember their code. :)

 

Yeah, once I got the code, I was able to use their name. But I had to get the code before I could contact anyone but my husband.

Did you message with other passengers whilst onboard -- which is

the primary purpose of the app?

 

We just used it on the Caribbean Princess. I was able to message my husband a few times, to arrange lunch when we were in different places. It didn't do a sound or a buzz, so I had to remember to check it. I was able to find him by name. However, a friend and I couldn't figure it out for a while. I think that you can get to your cabin mate by name, but others require you to get their "messenger Id" which is a roughly 5 or 6 digit number (maybe with letters) that is on the app.

 

It was somewhat useful.

Good question. However, NCL would fight that tooth and nail to protect their one exclusive non-PVSA ship that sails around Hawaii. A few years ago, they were willing to cost CA, WA, AK, NY and FL millions of jobs and mega-millions in revenue to protect three of their ships. They were unsuccessful. And then you get into the definition of what a "cruise ship" is... is it any ship carrying passengers? It's complicated.

 

I remember their unsuccessful attempt. The Hawaii senator introduced a bill that would require ships to spend 50% of their time in foreign ports. That would essentially kill the cruise market in Alaska from San Francisco and Seattle. It would also kill the RT LA trips to Hawaii.

 

I'm not sure about the East Coast, are there New England cruises that spend most of their port stops in the US? And I don't know about Florida - aren't those mostly foreign stops anyway?

 

In any case, the CA and WA senators got the bill defeated.

No need to be emarrassed....as the OP, with less than zero knowledge of the topc, I'm very appreciative of everyone that's tried to simplify this for me. It sounds like we are ok based on what I'm hearing, and we can look forward to our B2B. I would like to think that Princess has some IT process in place that would "flag" our plans if an issue, but I have no idea on that, doubtful my TA would necessarily catch it either, but I will probably ask her to validate the collective wisdom expressed here. Thanks to everyone for the help.

 

From what I've read here, if it was a violation (say SEA-Vancouver-LA) and you booked it, within a few days, you'd get a call from Princess (or your TA would) asking which one you wanted to cancel. I've never heard of it getting to the denial of boarding point.

Anyone know what ship Hector (singing head waiter) is on? We have sailed with him several times, most recently 07/2014 on the Caribbean Princess, he has a wonderful voice. Would love to sail with him again.

 

He's still on the Caribbean Princess, in the Palm dining room. (As of Sunday night)

 

I figure on his next break home, he'll go win The Voice in Mexico.

Just got caught up sitting in a Starbucks in Halifax. It's great to see the cruise through your perspective. We walked into the Effy store today. Some beautiful pieces but pricy.

Hey Bob. The thread is great and you were missed at dinner. I hope we'll see you tonight.

 

We are sitting at a restaurant in Bergen enjoying a coffee and internet.

 

 

We'd purchased tickets for a bus to the Grieg museum with a tour and concert. The bus left before we arrived so we took a cab to the museum and caught part of the concert and saw his house.

 

Apparently 21 people missed the bus.

Pushback from the gate at LAX. Heathrow here we come......:):):)

 

Bob

 

Have a great flight

 

Yes' date=' it is the Eurostar that I was referring to. It is a great ride. [/size']

 

We took it a few years ago - great way to get directly from London to Paris.

[quote name='sherryf']Not so. There was a BVE on our most recent cruise (saw people with stickers) and we did not have the London Broil menu. We had the same menu we have always had, which I posted about a year ago on this thread.[/QUOTE]

Oh - Ok - every one I'd been on, the London Broil menu was only offered with BVE, but maybe it's something else. It could also be that the vast majority of my recent cruise have been Coastals where they offer BVE. (And our recent Alaska cruise we got there too late for lunch).

I believe the menu differences are whether or not the ship is offering BVE. If they are, you get the London Broil menu, and if not the other one.

Very, very sad. We had booked a floatplane on our 2007 cruise, but after two incidents that summer we canceled, thinking there could be a systemic probably.

 

We cruised Alaska again last September. We did the Misty Fjords floatplane and had a great time. I'm not sure I'd do it again.

I think people are too into these tiers for the status and recognition not the perks. Just give me my internet and mini bar and skip the publicity.

 

Agree!

That could involve a lot of time to save a few bucks. A taxi or private car would run about $70 including the tip and would take them from the hotel to the pier without making any stops in between or circling the airport looking for more fares. My time, especially my vacation time, is worth the $40-50 difference, which is a rounding error in the cost of many vacations.

 

That's our logic, too.

We were in an Aft on the Star to Antarctica in 2010 and that was the only time we ever got seasick. The weather and seas were not the worst we've ever seen, but rough seas combined with vibration did it. The quesyness lasted about a day.

 

We're in another aft in our transatlantic, but this time we will bring Dramamine.

We've used GO Sedan for our transfers. It's the private car portion of Prime Time I think. We've been very happy with transfers to the ship.

Glad it worked out for you. I can imagine how upset you all were.

 

We were coming back from a coastal cruise - Vancouver to LA. In LA one guy ahead of us handed his drivers license to the the Immigration official. He was told it wasn't good enough, but he said that was all he had. They did let him through after a few minutes.

 

We couldn't understand how he a) got into Canada in the first place, and b) how he got on the ship.

Book the Seattle to Vancouver. Stay a night (or two?) there. Book the Vancouver to LA. Two separate cruises and credit for two. Is this a possibility?

 

We've done that a couple of times. Golden from Seattle to Vancouver, overnight and then the Star back to SF.

Yes - the one day counts towards number of cruises (also gives you one day towards number of days).

[quote name='Sincity']From what I remember, that rumor has been going on for about a year or two.[/QUOTE]

At least.

[quote name='MicCanberra']Only grandfathering in the Elites will not make too many people happy. :(
They need to grandfather people at whatever level they are currently at (like X did) and even then a lot of people left the brand due to feeling ripped.[/QUOTE]

Yeah. If this is in fact happening - I think they should grandfather in everyone who is gold or above to the requirements they started with and make any new requirements apply to new cruisers only. If I had 14 cruises and discovered I had to cruise another 110 days (pretty much making this up) I'd be pretty upset.

[quote name='AE_Collector']When we started cruising, doing mainly 7 day cruises, 150 days being equivalent of 15 cruises seemed somewhat unfair as 15 - 7 day cruises was only 105 days, not 150. Now that 3, 4 & 5 day cruises are becoming a big part of the schedule, maybe they should consider making 100 days the equivalent of 15 cruises OR bumping the 15 cruises to 20 cruises. They could also change 3, 4 and 5 day cruises to "half credit" cruises.



Terry[/QUOTE]

I noticed that too. It seemed to me that the current system is good for people who can do the short cruises, and those who can do 10+ day cruises. The hypothetical family that can only do 1 7 day cruise a year got nothing from the change.