triple7tahoe

WE have used EZAir as well as self booking. One very bad experience with EZ Air made me a little more cautious. I had a booked, paid for and confirmed reservation through EZAir for a flight to LHR. Confirmed with seats confirmed at least three months ahead of flight. The week before our scheduled flight I was checking schedules only to see that our flight and airline had been changed. We were now scheduled on a multistop flight leaving over three hours earlier on a totally different airline. If I had not checked we would have missed our flight and possibly, our cruise. We had not received any notification from EZAir/Airline/Princess. I called and was told they (EZAir) had cancelled our flight and put on an available flight. Airline (Delta) did not cancel our flight and it flew as scheduled. We lost our FF status and miles as well as access to airline clubs. I have not heard from Princess/EZAir yet as to why that happened On another note, I booked an upcoming flight with my airline because EZAir would not offer the flight on their schedule--I gave them flight numbers and connections as listed by Delta and EZAir would not even try to book it--Booking through Delta was over $400 less pp. I usually use EZAir for foreign travel and my airline for domestic. I am certainly checking all flights in the future.

Drank the full menu during first week and again during second- Got a T shirt and one for my wife-She likes the Cartagena Cool. She won't wear her T shirt and I have offered it to others on following cruises; Guess maybe I had better keep it as a potential investment 🙂 Also have all the cards including the full menu card. Have to try again on the Ruby next week 🙂

We recently returned from the Emerald. Mid cruise they added the under the cabinet and overhead motion lights. On our last night the overhead light refused to go off. At 11PM, I went to the Passenger Service Desk to ask them to turn it off. I was hoping to get some sleep before getting up at 0530 for early disembarkation. At Midnight we still had the light and no response from the folks needed to fix. I returned to the front desk and asked that they send someone right away. Security person came and removed the bulb from the light by taking the whole unit apart. Not what I expected but got some sleep 🙂

At one point I worked as shoreside person at the San Francisco pier. On some days I would be allowed to take wheelchair passengers aboard. It is not unusual for ship folks to also get this duty but normally they only bring off disembarking passengers--You will see them with the blue vests and wheelchair emblem. Sometimes they will also take embarking passengers as well. Those are the ones that deserve the bigger tips!! I can't speak for any other shoreside person, but I felt I was fairly compensated for doing my job and did not expect a tip. On the other hand; please don't get me started on the porters: They are doing a job that is one of the most highly sought after in the union and make more than any one else working outside. They will try and intimidate folks into believing that they are the only ones that handle our luggage until it shows up in our room. Totally wrong-They put it on that cart, take it inside to a conveyor belt where it is run through xray and then loaded into cage. That cage is then lifted by a hoist onto the ship. Look on your luggage tag and you will see a separate number i.e. A 10--When that cage gets inside the ship the luggage is sent to the correct floor and the room stewards move it to your cabin.

We were on two earlier cruises on the Discovery with another coming up--DW and I were talking about the wine selection today-Since there is no Vines, they seem to have gotten rid of any real wine choices. Our word would be pathetic! Only one or two white and a couple of red.

Interesting that you mentioned Starbucks-I am a retired SBUX partner and just received an update from them. The new CEO wants to make the SBUX experience more about convenience rather than the "third place' (home, work and SBUX) theme. Else where in this thread I saw someone mention each L&E Manager doing things in their own way--We got off the Emerald 10 days ago-That L&E Manager, somehow decided that my DW had more days that counted towards MTG than I do. Since I started with Princess about 20 years before my wife that does not sound possible. At the beginning of this year, I was nearing 1750 days and she had around 1300 days. She now has 1200 and I have 1150-No explanation but weird 🙂

I will be the first (NOT) that EZ Air can cause problems. We booked our EZAir flights for an upcoming cruise about 9 months ago when we booked the cruise. Among the notifications we got, there was an "air confirmation" showing flights as booked, which came one month before scheduled flight-3 PM from Seattle to London, non stop. Just as I had booked. Two weeks before our scheduled departure I just happened to check our booking and found that the air portion had completely changed with a new airline and 10 AM departure time. NO NOTIFICATION from anybody. I thought the original flight had been cancelled but it had not--Still going at same time and route. I contacted EZAir and they have not been able to explain it to me. I booked the first flight on an airline that I have status with-New airline not really. And new flight contained a plane change in Salt Lake City which we almost didn't make and our luggage did not make. Caused an extra 4 hour delay waiting for our luggage in Heathrow and hence missed our connection to Southampton. We are now back from the trip but I am still unable to get an answer from EZAir. What if I had not checked the flights two weeks before first flight? We would have missed our flight to LHR. I am very leery of using EZAir.

Please take a look at the Royal Princess for September 25, 2023. It is offering a 7 day cruise to Hawaii that stops in Seatle on September 26. It is also being offered as a longer cruise either to NZ or Australia. There is also a one day Sept 24 from Seattle to Vancouver and I am aware I could not take Seattle to VAncouver and then on to Hawaii. I just wondered if I could stay on until NZ. By taking the one day I would avoid having to get a hotel in VAncouver (I would never arrive in a city more than 50 miles away on the day of a cruise.

I am getting different answers each time I ask Princess so thought I would throw this out for further thoughts. I am aware that it is not possible to take a repositioning cruise; say from Seattle to Vancouver (1 day) and then stay on the same ship for a cruise back to the United States. I am guessing that I could not take the one day cruise from Seattle to Vancouver and then stay on the same ship as it goes to Hawaii,; Yes there is a one way cruise from Vancouver ending in Hawaii with a stop in Seattle. My question--Could I take that one day to Vancouver and then stay on the same ship as it goes on to Hawaii and then Australia/New Zealand? I have heard yes/no and I have no idea in my conversations with Princess. Anybody want to weigh in?

We have found that using Uber/Lyft works as well as most others and has been less expensive for two of us. The down side is; these folks will raise their prices as demand increases. Maybe by walking off, you can get ahead of the "increased demand"?

On all of our Princess cruises (more than 100) we have taken a THERMOSTATICALLY controlled kettle. I think, if you read the fine print, the restriction of NON thermostatically controlled. That being said, we just took 5 Princess cruises out of Southampton and only the Island Princess did not provide a kettle in our stateroom. I am guessing that was because of a lack of 220 Volt outlets on the Island?

We just got off the Emerald Princess and had a price increase mid cruise. We usually get the drink package and one of the wines that my DW likes happens to be a bit more expensive than the $12 allowed so she usually get charged the extra ($3). Part way through the cruise we noticed a different charge on our bill. $4.72 mostly--We went to the bar where we were getting most of our drinks. The bartender looked it up and the price had gone up one dollar.. Back to the first bar and the price had not gone up. It turns out they have two systems, depending on which the bartender uses. (The different tablets vs stand up computer). Ok, so now one wonders how the "old" system charges $3 while the updated system charges $4 plus the 18% service charge to get to the $4.72? Why is the 18% service not added to the old $3.00 Aw the sweet mysteries of life 🙂

We just got off the Emerald (Sept. 18). We only went to the MDR for one lunch and that was on the last sea day. (BTW, this was the last of 5 cruises since July and, again the only time we went to lunch). Not mentioned in the patter but all of the usual "Pub lunch" items were on the menu; to include sch favorites as mushy peas and ploughmans lunch. I thought it was interesting at the time but from this conversation it looks like it may the thing of the future?

On a semi recent (Feb-March) TA on the Regal, many folks were going to be late due to weather in the North East. They held the ship for 4 hours but still about 50 folks missed the ship. One member of our travelling party is in a wheelchair and uses a service dog. He was travelling with his Mother (coming from a different state so she was aboard.) Princess flew him, and his dog to our first stop in the Azores. Put him up in a hotel and paid for his mother to go to the hotel in a private car. I would say that was a benefit of using EZAir.

For the record, I emailed one of these folks regarding a totally messed up Princess Air arrangement on Friday for a flight leaving this Thursday. Less than a week out--I received a phone call from one of them as I was on my way to dinner tonight (July 4th) and although I cannot say they solved anything, the person did say "I wasn't going to be happy but there wasn't anything she could do this late (close to flight). I won't bore you with the details or the rest of the 35 minute conversation but emails do get answered.

LIke many on here, we are A and B with same numbers. Ours was probably a little harder since one of us had cruised many times before meeting the other. Started with P&O before Captain Circle (and Princess for that matter) and many cruises with Sitmar and P&O were combined. It now appears that P&O cruises taken after 2012 are not counted-All well and good as we had given up on them 🙂 They did not encourage "Yanks" to cruise with them-On one Iceland cruise, we were the only Yanks and one Canadian couple out of 2,000 passengers.

We are to leave in 4 days for London. One month ago I had a "confirmation for Delta Air with times and seats". After returning from a short cruise last week, I checked my air for upcoming trip. Somehow, the time and airline had been changed to a 4 hour earlier flight; no notification from anybody, If we had gone at scheduled time we would have missed our and possibly the cruise. Calls to Princess have not provided any reason (Original flight is still going and our premium seats are gone). I have to wonder if they will do the same on our return (3 months away). Could be interesting.

I have tried without success to find a list of present Captains on Princess ships-I know there used to be one that was getting quite long so wonder if it got removed; if so I hope another one could be started

I don't have the Eticket but I do have the flight confirmation from the airline. Still waiting to see if I will hear from EZAir-It is long past the 5-7 days I was told and I have resigned myself to working on details that would include the flight time change- Hotels and transfer are #1 concern at the moment.

We booked, paid for and were confirmed on our outbound flight about 6 months ago. Received confirmation email showing flight confirmation about a month ago. Flight is next week. In checking Cruise Personalizer two weeks ago, I found that I now had a new airline, new flight time and had lost non stop flight with NO notice from EZAir. I wonder what would of happened if we had shown up at original flight time/ original airline since new flight is 3 hours earlier? Anyhow, after spending over six hours on chat and phone with EZAir I was told questions would be answered within 5-7 business days. That was three weeks ago and no answer yet. Also was told that air department is only working on flights within 7 days. I am sure that I have lost any chance of getting seats back that had been confirmed (and paid for) but sure would like to know how they can change airline and time without notifying me? I am told that when they do answer it will be by EMail so no chance for conversation. Extremely disappointed in EZAir

Offers come in at least forms- If you have gambled during the cruise and reach various levels of play you will get offers, usually on the last night, to "come back and play". Offer in those cases is based on the amount of money you put through the machines--Not amount of win/lose. They use a point system that gives one point for each $3 played. The award depends on the length of the cruise so is an average per day. The other form that I have received is either in the form of a snail mail or email. Those offers usually are for inside cabins with various amounts of OBC (actually Casino Credit). Those require you pay taxes and fees plus a $200 refundable deposit. You can upgrade to higher cabins for an additional fee. If you are lucky enough to be on the casino list, your TA can get a possible 35% discount on normal cruise fares. In the surrounding 12 months we will take 16 cruises with 10/11 being casino cruises. Love it 🙂

Some of the "offerings" are for VIP Ultimate Cruises only (Usually one or two posted as such) and must be booked through Casino Folks. We have taken many Casion cruises, either as regular offers or as Casino offerings. Somehow we managed to book one of the VIP cruises, without knowing it was one, and asked if we could be included since we had used a casino rate. We were invited to welcome aboard party while they investigated; upon investigation they found we had not booked it as a VIP cruise and we were left out of the rest of the festivities 🙂

On our recent VIP cruise the gifts were almost daily. The drinks in the casino are free; they had a drawing for prizes ranging from $500 free play up to $1600 or a free TV. A random draw of cards with only one top prize in the batch. They actually had to do at least two of these but I only got to attend one. After the first round, they put all the cards back in the "draw", so possibly two TVs were given out. Daily prize consisted of sun glasses, beach mat (plastic) a couple other "cheap" items, all beach related. Welcome aboard party was limited to small group because of Covid. We did get a bottle of bubbly and chocolate covered strawberries. Basically, underwhelming and not up to the standards of previous ones. I now have an invite for another one and the offerings look even less inviting. 😞

Interesting-We are Delta frequent flyers and booked an upcoming cruise from Southampton with the intention of flying Delta. One of the trips was to be on Delta while the other was on Virgin Atlantic. Code share airlines but if I booked the Virgin Air leg as a Delta flight (same flight with different number) it would have cost me almost $100 more for each of us. As Delta premium members we were able to book seats on the Delta flight using Delta app, but could not book seats on the Virgin flight. Now waiting to see what happens with "premium" seats that I have paid Princess for? I do not believe Princess (EZAir) has paid the airline? 🙂

I have had it in less than 24 hours and as long as two weeks. Recently, I was told that the staff doing the entering has been reduced to one person. That being said, I decided to submit mine late on a Sunday night hoping that it would come up first on Monday. Seemed to work as it was in my folder on Tuesday morning.