Itchy&Scratchy

I too would say that I'd like to keep that information confidential. That's it. It's no one else's business and you, OP, shouldn't be going into any detail about your personal business.

Good grief.

I don't tell anyone any details about what I do for living. I just vaguely say - " am in marketing. Bean dip? "

It's because I don't really care to tell anyone about what I do, even if there is nothing to be embarrassed about.

Jamaica, Caymans, and everything south if Dominica is all in perfectly fine shape, minimal or zero affect from Irma..

I hate sea days on Princess. They are very boring if you have a kid and it's raining.

just occurred to me: since we are already in an inside cabin (always are), we can never expect a move over offer to downgrade. I am gonna go cry in the corner and cancel all my princess trips from now on!

Wow, 639 for a Princess cruise for 7 nights? What are the dates

thanksgiving 2017. I caught a sale in mid-July. Right now there aren't any inside rooms left, but balcony is $799 pp on Regal.

To say get over it is to me bad. I've booked over 6 months in advance paid top money as we are from the uk and I find out this sort of stuff happens.

you know, you'd be better off not knowing about the move over offers. Roll calls are evil!

See, my life is so simple - I never knew move over offers existed, so I don't envy anyone or seethe with rage over it. I will definitely NOT cancel my future business with any cruise line over someone else getting a move over or whatever offer...

my experience has left a bad taste in my mouth which has resulted in me cancelling all future Princess bookings and dismissing Princess for all my future cruises. I didn't know I had to grab it immediately so I feel like they offered me £1000 and took it back from me in 5 minutes saying "only joking". !

I would honestly call that a huge overreaction.

I would love to!

But Princess is much more expensive than Celebrity, Royal Carribean, Norwegian and Carnival.

How does Princess justify its higher price?

In what way are the shows, activities, food and entertainment better on Princess? Thanks

we actually found Princess to be more reasonably priced for cruises out of FLL than Royal Caribbean. You have to catch a sale.

During several recent years, I was never able to catch a good price on RC for either 1, 2 or 3rd passenger. All the RC cruises I priced, were $700+ pp for 1st and 2nd, and $800+ for the 3rd passenger in the room. Even during their "buy 1, get one 50% off" sale, the prices for a comparable (to Princess) cruise were $799+ pp.

For our upcoming Regal Princess cruise, I paid $639pp for 1st and 2nd passengers, and $99 for the 3rd. It would have been $599 pp for a double occupancy.

Plus, Princess gives about a $100pp discount to established cruisers.

That's their "Shtick". Formal dress codes. You'll find their ships to be packed as more pax are getting tired of the slovenly downslide to many cruise lines these days & going to where the dreams of true "Ocean Liner" travel are.

we personally don't like to dress up and only do it when it's required. I am not wearing jeans on a formal night, but I dislike dresses and am very self conscious about the way I look, so I put on slacks and a pretty top.

So, I appreciate a more relaxed "formal" requirement while still enjoying great food in MDR.

Or should we just fly to FLL with our carseat?

Unless you take a shuttle, you will need a car seat for the taxi. If you take a shuttle of some kind, then you won't need your car seat.

In any case, I just wanted to say - don't rent a car seat. EVER.

my friend's mom with T1 travels with us often. I think she does injections, because I've never seen a pump on her. She only gets one entrée at dinner, keeps it low carb by eyeballing it, and always gets a sugar free dessert.

She and her husband found Princess (they only go on Regal or Royal Princess) food to be much better that other cruise lines (Celebrity or Royal Caribbean).

Once you book a cruise, you can go into your personalizer and choose the Diabetes option in your Medical and Dietary requests. Here is what it says on Princess website once you chose it:

We offer items low in carbohydrates as well as the following items onboard: sugar-free applesauce, sugar-free jams and jellies, sugar-free syrup, Sweet & Low sugar substitute, Splenda sugar substitute, Equal sugar substitute, sugar-free pudding and a variety of sugar-free desserts.

Please contact your Head Waiter or Maitre d'Hotel once onboard to discuss your special dietary needs as they will be happy to assist you with making suitable selections from our standard menu.

also, check out the Disabled Travel board. They may have some additional tips.

I hand wash the actual diapers in the sink and we had no issues. I have also hand washed flats before

lol, I don't want to hand wash any diapers on any given day, and definitely not on vacation...

I think it's unreasonable to think that nobody else books inside. We always book inside only. Why would I want to pay more for a room we simply sleep in?

Not in words precisely like that - but I thank them for their effort - and frequently add to the tip jar,

McDonald's and Wendy's don't have tip jars.

They have donation jars - for Ronald McDonald House and an adoption fund.

I just made a final payment on our Thanksgiving cruise to Cozumel/Jamaica/Costa Maya. I am not cancelling even if they get hit by Irma or whichever one is coming next.

Was this a holiday cruise? They must have either waived the limit due to the holidays, not enforce the rule system wide, or we had an exceptionally large number of older teens or kids home from college over the holidays on ours who don't need kids club.

it was a spring break.

I accidently booked R522 on Regal for our upcoming cruise, not knowing what a sideways cabin was. I think I will not like it. Someone on CC was so kind to post a youtube link to that particular cabin's review and I hate the way the closet is split in half with a wall. We won't be able to stash a huge car seat and a large suitcase in it, like we were able in a regular cabin with a regular closet.

The lack of a hallway before you enter the sleeping area doesn't bother me as much.

I think they limit the number of 3/4 per cabin, but not minors.

 

I was on a Thanksgiving or Christmas cruise, don't remember which one, and while talking to a Casino employee on break he said business was really down because there were 1800 minors on this cruise and 1400 last week, or something similar, so if they do limit minors it's not until they're the majority of the ship.

Princess does limit minors. Last years we were unable to cruise with our friends because the 4-8 year old group on Regal has reached the limit. We had a 5 yo kid. They were also placed on a waiting list (they had a 10 yo and an 8 yo), and as soon as someone cancelled their reservation, they got booked. We went with a different ship.

We don't book trips a year ahead - more like 4-5 months. Both times we have booked cruises, TD was no longer an option, presumably because they had reached their capacity for that with other passengers. I'm ok with that, and we enjoyed ATD last time, but making a reservation for our group on a day-by-day basis would be beneficial for sure.

that's so strange. We've been on Regal and Caribbean, and they didn't take reservations for ATD at all.

We had a large group on Regal, and if we showed up at a certain time, there was no waiting. If we showed up a bit later, there was a 30-45 minute wait for a large table. On Caribbean there were only 3 of us, and we never said no to sharing a table, so we were always seated immediately.

We loved Freedom class ships on RC as well. We also loved all the physical activities because we were in our late 30s and either didn't have a kid yet or brought our young kid with us. There is a lot more to do for families and kids. We got tired of the same food though on all three ships we've been on, and took up our friends' offer to try Regal Princess. There are some plusses and minuses to both companies.

I think you should go with Royal or Regal Princess if you like great food and big (but not enormous) ship. The buffet on these two ships is by far better than any RC or smaller Princess ships (Caribbean Princess in particular). Regal and Royal Princesses are newer and cleaner. There are fewer physical activities for people to do, but since you are looking to relax and are in your mid-50s, you'd love the laid back atmosphere.

Out of curiosity - did RC refund all your money or did they keep it?

"Let us be thankful to each other for this good company and let us be grateful to those who grew this food and prepared this meal we are about to share."

But no, a 3 year old isn't going to have any true memories of the trip.

we took our son on his first cruise when he was 3. He absolutely fell in love with cruising and now asks to go cruising every year. He is 6. He is counting days till our next cruise this November. He also remembers Princess Cays as the place where his foot got sliced opened and that happened 1.5 years ago.

I remember some things from when I was 3 and even younger. Kids enjoy life as it's happening, while adults enjoy the memories. Even if the kids don't remember the trip a year or two or twenty later, they do enjoy it very much in the moment.

keep checking. We are going on Thanksgiving 2017, and two weeks ago all of them were sold out on Fri, and back on the market on Monday. Then two-person cabins were "sold out", and now a bunch of them are on the market. During the day I keep checking, and every time it's a different result.

Why make us feel inferior and that there is something fundamentally wrong with us because we choose to spend 90-120 minutes to ourselves, going back over what we did for the day???

We only had one bad experience, with an elderly lady that dominated the conversation at the table at a very high sound volume. She kept talking and talking and talking and talking only about herself and her past life, and didn't let anybody else utter a word. The next day everyone else obviously asked to be transferred to a different table, because she and her boyfriend were the only ones at the table.

Why be confrontational? While offering grace isn't considered good social etiquette by many, the person offering had everyone's best interest in mind. There are many ways to politely decline the offer. A positive response will set the tone for the rest of the meal.

 

Burt

not everyone's, but only their own, indeed.

The person offering grace wouldn't have my family's interests in mind at all. We can have a very positive meal without participating in any grace offering.