karatemom2

We were on Discovery over New Year's and didn't see any mention of the Ultimate Ship Tour. It seems they have not brought that back post-COVID - or at least not that we have seen on any of our Princess cruises in the past couple of years. However, I would highly recommend the 360 Experience if that holds any interest for you. We splurged and purchased it for the family for New Year's Eve and found it worth every cent.

I would rule out the NCL choice completely - they just don't do a great job with Alaska cruises in terms of their odd port times and distant port at Ward Cove in Ketchikan. Princess definitely is the superior option for Alaska. If you are set on doing the one way itinerary with time on land before your cruise - the Grand definitely offers the better itinerary with Skagway and the potential of doing the true inside passage to Vancouver. However, you need to understand that Grand is the oldest ship in the Princess fleet and given some of the priorities you mention in terms of your preferences for onboard experience, you may find her disappointing. Royal is much newer, more bells and whistles, and probably more to your liking in terms of the onboard amenities and entertainment. We have sailed on both in Alaska, but the last time we were on the Grand was 6 years ago and she was really showing her age even then. You might need to adjust your onboard expectations if you choose that option but what you get with that choice in return, however, is a really great and immersive Alaska itinerary. In my estimation, that might take priority over everything else if this is going to be your only trip to Alaska. The Ruby is also a great ship, probably my favorite of the three, and offers a really good itinerary and option if you decide against the land portion of your trip. There is a thread on the Princess board right now asking for thoughts on the Grand from those who have sailed recently that you might want to review:

We have found if you aren't abusing the privilege by bringing a whole group along, but just one or two people who are in your traveling party they are fine with it and allow them to join you in the Elite tendering lounge and depart the ship together. We were just on the Discovery over New Year's and my daughter's new husband who is not elite had no problem getting a ticket to go off with her and the rest of us who are elite. Same on all of our other cruises with a couple of friends or family members we have had join us. As Steelers pointed out, if you ask nicely and it is just a couple of people, I imagine you will find they are very accommodating.

This is very true. And really, even the WiFi minutes haven't been taken away - you can still get your half price on WiFi if you are traveling without a package so that option is still available. One can complain that the price has gone up - but no benefit has been taken away from Elite passengers. It is still a savings if you want to use it. I feel really sorry for people on the Sun who are having a less than promised experience related to things they should have expected to have - like the entertainment and park. And certainly it is really awful for the poor people who had flooded cabins. But equating any of those issues with the idea that anything is being taken away from Elite guests, or any passengers for that matter, makes no sense really - specialty dining charges, packages, wifi charges, etc. are the norm across the industry now.

Have any of the ladies been to these ports before? How independent and mobile are they? If they are new to these ports or have any health or mobility issues, I would encourage them to consider a Princess excursion. There are many options they might enjoy, including an excursion to a nice beach resort with a day pass in each port. Normally I encourage people to consider private tours as alternatives to cruise ship tours, but in the case of a group of ladies of their awesome age traveling in Mexico, if it were my Mom, I would feel safer and more secure with a ship tour. And shore excursions in Mexico tend to be more reasonably priced. We have been to these Mexican Riviera ports many times and if you stick to tourist areas and attractions, they are not inherently dangerous and have much to offer. However, they can feel a bit overwhelming to the uninitiated and there are some pitfalls you need to avoid. They should be able to enjoy their port days worry free - the best way to do that would be on a safe, well managed and vetted Princess tour.

When I first heard of this phenomenon I will be honest - I thought it was a little silly. But then we found a couple of cute little ducks on a cruise and I was so excited. It was an unexpectedly fun surprise. My son found one that accompanied him back to law school and became a little mascot on his desk. He said just looking at it reduced his stress on hard days. So really, something that is innocent fun and brings a little joy - what could be bad about that! I found some destination related theme ducks for our cruise this summer and decided to order a few to hide. Why not join in the fun? 🦆

Thank you for this information - I will look into finding a reliable CVP then. We generally upgrade our offer so this is very helpful!

Can a CVP book casino offers? We have not pursued getting one because we were under the impression only the casino department could book with casino benefits, but I would love the enhanced service a CVP could provide. In general, we have had decent experience with the casino sales reps we have talked with, but even that has not been as satisfactory for our most recent bookings. They seem to know less and less. Our most recent casino booking we just did ourselves online. It was easier.

Wow! Absolutely misleading. I'd say verging on false advertisement. I'm sure many new cruisers in particular who might not have done the research will be very disappointed when they realize they are not actually going into Glacier Bay.

We took one cruise with HAL and did the Unlimited Laundry package and I didn't notice any discernable difference between the quality of the laundry or turnaround time compared to what we experience on Princess - the only difference I noted was the fact I was paying for it. We have had nothing but great experience with our Elite laundry service on Princess and I'm so grateful for that perk. It is one of the things that keeps us loyal and is such a benefit on long cruises. We have never had any item lost or damaged and generally if we get our laundry bag to our steward before 9 a.m., we get our items back by the late afternoon or evening of the following day - I find this quite reasonable. I do think it is a nice benefit when the cruise line offers an unlimited laundry package, or on NCL we have paid by the bag. But, selfishly, I'm a little glad Princess does not as that would probably slow my turnaround time down! Regardless, you will never find me complaining about the Elite laundry benefit and I hope it never goes away. That would be a sad day indeed!

An air mattress is another good thought. There was an entire thread about that just in the last week from someone planning to bring an air mattress and wondering if it would fit because they didn't want to use the sofa bed. So an additional option for the OP to consider.

Priority tendering, in my estimation, is still one of the biggest benefits of being Elite, right behind laundry. I really appreciate not having to stand in long lines to collect tender tickets and potentially wait for hours for a group to be called. I really don’t mind the new process of having Elite passengers go to a separate lounge to collect tickets and then be called out in groups. This has been the case on all 5 of our cruises since COVID, and it seems to work well - very organized and efficient. We have never waited more than 15 to 20 minutes once we get our ticket to head off to a tender. It’s still much faster and any difference in the time between doing it this way and just walking off ourselves like we used to is negligible. Many ships sail with a lot of Elite passengers these days and I can understand that Princess needs to manage the flow of traffic to the tenders. I would much rather they do that by having a separate, but still fast and easy, Elite tendering lounge, then take the benefit away.

Do you have a trusted family member who can assist? When I run into tech issues I usually ask my kids for an assist! It really is so quick and easy once you have the app and upload your information. We got our confirmation of our OBC the next morning. Might be worth giving it a try instead of trying to make it work through a method Princess no longer supports which might result in more time, effort, and frustration.

That could definitely work if you don’t mind sleeping on the floor. You can always ask for an extra comforter for more padding. The advantage with this plan is that the bedding can all go back in the bunk and get put up during the day so it’s out of the way. You may have solved your problem!

You can charge your play to your account which goes to your credit card on file, you can put cash on your account, or if you are playing table games you can exchange cash at the table for chips or charge them to your account. Just be sure you cash out your account or cash in your chips before the casino closes on the last night of your cruise. We are actually looking at a cruise on Celebrity Summit this fall. Never been on Celebrity but we have always wanted to try it out. I know it’s one of the older ships but we are thinking of giving it a go. You will enjoy the Enchanted - beautiful ship!

We had a similar layover on one of our returns to Vancouver prior to our flight. We rented a car at the port and used it to tour on our own to some of the local sites, including Stanley Park and then turned it in at the airport. This was several years ago so you would have to see what companies are located at the port, but as I recall there were a few major carriers who also had locations at the airport and allowed you to return the car there. Just another option to consider as it removes the concern about your bags and also gives you control of your day.

The balcony cabins don't have loungers - just chairs. I am being sincere when I tell you that you might find that the pull down bed may work well for you. My son is 6'7" - he was well over 6 feet tall by the time he was in middle school. We have been traveling with Princess for years and for most of those cruises he has slept in a bunk, even now as an adult at his height and weighing over 200 pounds. He has never had an issue and as I said in my earlier post, actually finds them more comfortable than the pull out sofas. What I would suggest is that you try the pull down bunk out and see if it works for you. If not, you can always request the rollaway. The only problem with those is that they take up a great deal of space in the room, even when they are folded so you kind of have to work around them. Once the bunk goes up - out of sight and out of mind! You might actually find the pull down bunk is perfectly comfortable and suits you fine once you give it a try.

We have definitely done a few cruises when our kids were small with those beds that folded out from the wall and it wasn't ideal design. We made it work, but the drop down bunks from the ceiling are much better.

For what it is worth, I will share that our adult son says he finds the comfort level of the mattress on the drop down bunks far superior to the pull out sofas. He just shared a room with us on our family New Year's Eve cruise on Discovery and frankly was pretty miserable on the sofa bed despite our room steward doing his best to add some padding with a foam cushion. Another huge disadvantage of the sofa beds in a balcony cabin is that they really block balcony access when they are pulled out, while the pull downs does not impede ability to navigate in the cabin. So, if that is all that is available, it is not necessarily unworkable. Three adults in a cabin are cozy no matter how you slice it - whether the bed folds out or comes down from the ceiling. But it is manageable.

My DH is not interested in wine tasting, so my daughter’s fiancé was able to take his place. DH scanned in and then asked the staff member at the door if he could take his place and they were totally fine with that. That was on the Royal in 2022. Skip ahead to last year. Daughter and now new husband were on honeymoon on Enchanted and daughter is Elite and husband is not. They went to the wine tasting and even though they would have paid for his space, they just let him join her as a guest. I share this not as any guarantee - just as examples that often there is some situational flexibility on these things that may be handled differently from ship to ship, or even at discretion of staff at the door. So, you likely won’t find a definitive answer to your question - other than “maybe”. It will probably only be something you will find out in the moment when you are on the ship and ask.

Honestly, both ships are great and we have cruised on both. However, I would give the edge to Sapphire for a few reasons. First, if you are getting a balcony cabin (which is a good idea for AK if you can), the balconies on Sapphire are slightly larger and more comfortable. The Royal class standard balconies are notoriously skimpy. You will want to spend a lot of time enjoying the scenery so it’s nice to have more space. Along those same lines, Sapphire offers more comfortable outdoor viewing space onboard - particularly the promenade deck. And, one big factor for me would be that on Sapphire you have a strong chance of actually cruising the inside route to and from Vancouver. I don’t know if it will - but I know it can as we took the inside route in her sister ship, Diamond, on a B2B cruise out of Vancouver many years ago. The scenic viewing and wildlife viewing opportunities on the true inside route are excellent. The Royal, due to its size, will always go the outside route in open ocean. It’s definitely not as scenic. We did a round trip cruise from Vancouver on the Royal in 2022 and it was wonderful - but there were aspects of a smaller ship cruise in Alaska I missed. Given our experience on many Alaska cruises, I don’t think a one week departure difference will be a significant factor so I would probably choose the Sapphire over the Royal. Either way though, you will no doubt have a great experience and will love Alaska!!

Yes, that’s what we do as well - usually upgrade to a balcony or mini suite. But the number of offers have really dried up over the last week. Much fewer showing $0 for us anymore. We had our eye on three we were thinking of booking for Fall 2024 and in 2025 including one of the early Star sailings. But the paying in full at booking and potential to lose our $400 deposit had us dragging our feet. Now we regret waiting. At this point we are not booking anything until we see what offers materialize after our Norway cruise in June. Guess DH is going to have to “show them the money”. 😎

Makes me quite nostalgic to see her. Golden was our favorite and still the ship on which we have the most days.

Well if it is the Golden Princess that is a VERY old photo since that ship was sold to P & O in 2022, which still makes me sad. We spent a lot of great days aboard and I miss that ship!!

DH is still getting the free interiors as the standard. The only times he is usually offered a free balcony is as a Come Back offer at the end of a cruise - and not all the time. He plays Craps, not slots, so maybe more subjective? He got a free balcony offer on both of our Southampton cruises where he likely stood out more as there weren’t many Craps players and the host took notice of him and his play. On our LA cruises there are TONS of Craps players - he is one of many. So even though they are logging his playing time and investment at the table, his play is not remarkable by comparison. Slots are much easier to track and reward. It’s very straightforward. But we have definitely noted the offers getting stingier and casino cash less. It will be interesting to see what offer he gets after our Norway cruise out of Southampton this summer as I anticipate he will once again be among a small group of gamblers on that itinerary.