Plant

I didn't read all the post's here, but I can say that I'd never switch cabin's with someone who just knocked on my door:eek:! If the cruise line asked, and moved us to a comparable cabin, maybe. Like other's, I spend time picking the cabin I want. I'm not going to just give it up because someone didn't plan.

I don't like it either! One thing I can't find is my Saved Cruises area. I also can't find a way to save a cruise. Do I have to go through Search every time I want to check out a cruise??

For some of us who are "of a certain age" it's very hard to see the info on the photos. I liked the list much better. As someone else said "KISS"!

We are on the Spirit in February for the NZ itinerary. I definitely felt the same frustrations with the website, having used both. I've grown to not hate it--but it is absolutely inferior and maddening.

We made out with the exchange rate and feel we got a good deal on the sailing.

 

The flight on the other hand. DW insisted on business class since we are touring immediately upon arrival in Sydney and want to get at least a little sleep. She's absolutely right, but I could have (literally) bought a brand new Ford Fiesta for what we spent.

I'm glad to know its not just me! I still don't understand why the sites don't work the same, but I guess it's not for me to know... . I can sympathize with you on the air, and we fly coach :(.

Hi Larry and Pat, from what we've found, the EZ Check is sometimes available and sometimes not :). I think it depends on the airline and the port. We've never been able to find out until almost the end of our cruise whether it's available or not. It would be great to know we could use it every cruise, wouldn't it?

I booked our trip trough a TA and even now, options are limited once you sign in to just completing your check in paperwork, etc...couldn't pull up anything with my American logon until I had a confirmation # for the Australia cruise though. I believe the AU site is just a lot less user friendly than the American site.

Not sure what you mean by save a cruise, so I guess we don't have that feature! I just bookmark cruises that I've shortlisted and am keeping an eye on for price drops etc, if that's what the purpose is?

 

The Carnival AU site is pretty basic, ability to sign in and have a proper account for frequent users would be useful. We have to go to the US site to even sign into our VIFP account. And even then nothing inside such as the discount links is valid for us.

Thanks! That's pretty much what I wanted to know. I don't understand why the Carnival AU site would be so different from the Carnival US site, but I guess the "beard's" know :D ! I'll continue to ask my TA for info instead of looking at the Carnival AU site.

Thanks again,

Fern

Shogun, I agree with you, too. We're recently off Coral Princess doing a very long cruise and I found myself comparing it to Carnival-not favorably :(.

Our Room Steward's (we had several since Princess was "not able" to book us into the same cabin for any of our B2B's, although we booked over a year ago.) were overworked and not as "caring" as they used to be.

The food was just okay and the show's were tired. We had a gift of a dinner in the steak house and didn't find it to be any better than what we could get in the dining room.

The best part of the cruise was Crooner's Bar, which we've found to be excellent on every Princess cruise.

But for the $$ we're going back to Carnival for longer cruise's and their "normal, what we expect" service.

P.S. Calling Coral Caribe 202 an 'Obstructed Mini-Suite" is a joke! It's "obstructed" by a WALL and a small window.

I don't find any way to sign in or save a cruise on the AU website. Do I have to live in Australia to do so, or are those options not available to anyone? I'd really like to save the cruise so I don't have to go through the "search" every time!

 

Thanks for your help,

Fern

Thanks, Sarah, but I still wonder if Australian's can sign in or save a cruise on the Carnival AU site??

Anyone??

Thanks,

Fern

We're reserved on a Royal cruise from Galveston in February '16. Trying to figure out transport from IAH too. Probably best bet to reserve transfer through the cruise lines, but what if we want to fly in a day early to IAH? Would Royal still allow us to return to IAH on our sail date to transfer - or would we need to have a flight arriving ON the sail date?

 

It would seem to be poor business if Royal would "force" a customer to rent a car just because they want to fly to the port a day early.

We always fly in a day ahead and usually stay at an airport hotel that has a shuttle to and from the airport. We take the shuttle back to the airport on sailing day and take the cruise transfer to the ship. We used to have to put in a "fake" arrival time on the sailing date, but we haven't had to do that recently. We haven't sailed RCI, but I don't think they'd be different.

Have a great cruise!

Maybe, I will then stick to Princess so I don't have to go through all that. Shame, I really wanted to do this port privately----I'd like to hear from people that booked private excursions at Bar Harbor and how that worked out for them with the tender tickets.

I haven't booked a private excursion at this port, but generally, the people who do these excursions should know when you may get off the ship and adjust their schedule. I'd check with them to see what their policy is, if you really want to do their tour.

JMO,

This is so much a better card for generic travel. 2 points on every purchase for any travel, not just carnival.

FYI, there's an $89.00 fee after the first year. If you charge a lot it might be worth it, but I try to avoid any cards with fees. YMMV :).

IMHO, Crooner's is probably the quietest bar on Princess ship's. It's our favorite bar on all Princess ship's because we can actually hear what other people are saying! The music will be piano bar type, not loud.

I wouldn't worry :).

We're looking at a cruise from Hawaii to Sydney and it only shows up on the Carnival AU website, not on the US website even though it starts in Hawaii.

I don't find any way to sign in or save a cruise on the AU website. Do I have to live in Australia to do so, or are those options not available to anyone? I'd really like to save the cruise so I don't have to go through the "search" every time!

Thanks for your help,

Fern

I'm confused but I believe the OP is talking about just Princess.

Patty' date=' I'm confused, too :confused:. The Crown Princess [i']is[/i] a Princess ship.

OP, I think I'd go ahead and get the FCC for yourself. You don't have to book a specific cruise and can get your money back if you don't use it within two years.

Good luck with your shoulder :),

Hi all, we are gearing up for our first Princess cruise and had a few questions that we are having a hard time finding by searching...

 

- Any where have dinner menus posted? We are foodies and love to look at that kind of stuff :)

 

- From what I've gathered just by bits and pieces, I'm assuming that lunch at Princess Cay's is not an additional charge, is this correct?

 

- What are any tips or tricks we should know? The other lines we have sailed on, we have found ample pages and pages of tips, secrets, etc., but I'm not having much luck so far with this on Princess.

 

- When booking an excursion, do you have to pay for it in advance or is it just added to your tab while onboard? DCL was just added to your tab, but CCL you had to prepay.

 

TIA and I'll gladly take any thing you have to offer (info wise) of course! :)

Hi Beth, Google Princess Menu's and you'll get an idea of what's available. You're right about Princess Cays.

You CAN prepay excursion's, but we like to wait until we take them.

Formal night's have really changed since we started cruising. I wear a nice skirt or pants and blouse and DH wears a long sleeved shirt and nice dark slacks. You may still see tuxes and "bridesmaid's" dresses, but not so much since the airline's luggage fees were instituted.

Either Coral or Island. They're sister ship's (although they're not the same now :(.), but both are wonderful for Alaska!

The Coral will be in dry dock next January so things should be updated. Sorry, don't know about the Island's dry dock :(.

Our cruise has been sold out for months! What are my chances of being offered an upgrade or an upsell?

I think you're more likely to receive a "downsell". You may be asked to change your cabin and get some OBC in order to accommodate families.

Slim and None are definitely going on this cruise!

I think a Brand Ambassador for Princess would be great! Unfortunately, I don't think it's possible :(.

I also think that John Heald, with Carnival is "one of a kind". I don't think that Princess (or any other line) could find someone with his qualities to be Brand Ambassador.

You'd have to have started as a "lowly" bar waiter and work your way up to Cruise Director to even have a chance to be in John's place. It's unique.

JMO,

What concerns me is that none of us will complain (or stand in line) to have a small, incorrect charge taken off of our statement the last night or morning. We were over charged by $7.00. It's not worth it to try to get it back. BUT, if everyone (or even half the cruiser's) are charged an extra $7.00 that they don't object to, the cruise line has now made some big bucks! 2000 passenger's time's $7.00??

Have just booked D725 on the Island Princess for Fall 2016.. After the Spring 2015 Dry Dock, it seems major changes have been made to the aft of the ship..We've sailed on the Coral in a similar cabin and I'm wondering if anyone has sailed in that cabin or seen the area recently and could give me a little insight..

As the others have said, the cabin itself should be fine. What's different is that they've ruined (our favorite ship) the Island by getting rid of the stern decks and putting in more cabins :(. We loved being able to watch Alaska from the stern. Now we're booked on Coral Princess and I'm guessing they'll make the same mistake (IMO) with her when she's in dry dock and add more cabin's :( for more $$.

Here's what I found on the Princess website: "The Sanctuary is located on upper decks, near the Lotus Spa. Half-day passes for The Sanctuary are available for $20 per person, for 8 am to 12:30 pm or 1 pm to 5:30 pm or later. Guests choosing to indulge with an outdoor massage may also enjoy an hour’s use of The Sanctuary area after their treatment. The Sanctuary is featured onboard Caribbean Princess, Coral Princess, Crown Princess, Dawn Princess, Diamond Princess, Emerald Princess, Golden Princess, Grand Princess, Island Princess, Regal Princess, Royal Princess, Ruby Princess, Sapphire Princess, Sea Princess, Star Princess and Sun Princess."

Here's where I found this info:http://www.princess.com/news/backgrounders_and_fact_sheets/factsheet/The-Sanctuary-An-Ocean-of-Calm-on-Princess-Ships.html?zoom_highlight=sanctuary#.VcqXJWfbIqQ

Hope this is helpful :)!

I'd like to know this, too. We're waiting, not so patiently, for a cabin assignment. I keep checking daily and keep getting TBA. I know we'll be on the ship, somewhere :) but I'd like to know where.

We've been to Whittier several times. We enjoy walking from the ship to the "town". There are several souvenir store's, including one with a reindeer (which may or may not be on site). Across the way is the "high rise" where most people live.

The most important place here is a Chinese restaurant which is very quickly filled by every worker on the ship who is off for lunch and dinner!

We booked about a year ago and had to book an MY guarantee(obstructed view mini). From what I've seen the MY cabin's are very far forward (I think there are 4 on the Coral). Not a problem for us., but...

I'd rather have a balcony cabin than a mini-no balcony cabin.

I recently redeemed a LOT of points for OBC on our next cruise's. I did print out what I did (that really doesn't mean anything to the Purser's office on board), but I'm a little bit concerned about the OBC showing up :(. Hopefully, I have nothing to worry about!

What I'm concerned about is that the Purser's staff can only add OBC that they're informed of. If Barclay's doesn't give them the info we're SOL :eek:!

Hoping for thing's to go right, expecting SNAFU !

Fern

What they did change:

o Changed the Universe Lounge into cabins

o Changed the rear viewing platforms into cabins

o Added additional cabins where part of the casino was

o Eliminated the aft part of the outside promenade walkway

o Reduced the size of the library

 

What they did not change:

o No International Cafe added

o No additional public space or dining room space for the additional passengers

Island used to be our favorite ship. We loved the aft viewing platforms. Now they've used this space for more cabins :mad:. We hope that the Coral Princess won't be changed in this way!!