karatemom2

Very true. Rates have gone up twice in the last few weeks for our Norway cruise. We have 8 port days and for most we have planned independent tours. We did book two through Princess only because both were things we really wanted to do and we couldn’t find a similar private tour. One has now gone up over $100 per person and another $50 per person since we booked them. In one port we have a small group that has arranged a private tour similar to a Princess excursion (actually better as there are only 15 of us and we are doing more) and the price for the individuals in our group is $150 less per person than the inferior Princess tour. It really is highway robbery what they charge for tours when you know they are probably getting massive discounts from the vendors for the volume of people they deliver. I’ve compared what other lines charge for the exact same tours and Princess always seems the most expensive. I think they count on the fact that new cruisers in particular may be nervous about booking independent tours.

I think the confusion stems from the fact there is actually a sticker on the balcony door indicating that direction. But as far as our experience goes and from all reports here that direction has never been enforced - just the keeping it dark at night part.

These are favorite cabins for us. We have been in these forward facing cabins on the Royal and Discovery, and we have one booked for the Sky this summer for our Norway cruise. The balcony size and expansive views are unbeatable. You can use your balcony any time you like - no need to keep the door locked. We even crack it open a bit at night if it’s not too windy - although you do need to keep the light off and curtains closed after dark. When you are on the open sea they can get a bit more wind then a side balcony and you will generally feel more ship movement in forward cabins. But overall they are really great cabins and the views are amazing!

She said her son is an adult but he may not be 21. If he can’t drink alcohol the package may not be the best investment. It would be a lot less expensive just to pay the $14.99 for one meal. Our adult son traveled with us recently and he made some friends on board and ended up eating with them on a few nights. Princess has meet ups for 18-21 year olds. Maybe he can connect with some other young people his age and enjoy a meal or two with them.

That may be the case on some departures but definitely not all. We waited over an hour in a hot, crowded and cranky line to pick ours up at the port in San Pedro for our recent cruise. It was not a fun way to start a relaxing vacation. My daughter and her husband had their medallions and basically walked right on the ship. They were already well into a relaxing lunch in the MDR by the time we managed to board. So no, it wasn’t 30 seconds, it was stressful and we missed our traditional MDR lunch on boarding which is how we love to start our cruise. I will always try to get it shipped in advance from now on.

Isn’t the alcohol sort of mitigated by the cooking process? There are lots of recipes that incorporate wine or liqueurs. If you really want to avoid it completely you could always request they substitute the standard French onion soup they serve every night in the MDR. It’s quite good as well.

Beautiful photos - thank you for sharing. I love Cabo. It’s such a pretty port!

Well I’m glad it worked for you! Our OBC is from our casino deposits and shareholders credit, so not sure if the type of OBC is limiting our options or if it’s just not loading for some reason even though it’s reflected on our summary.

I completely agree. Some of our best experiences in Alaska have involved just renting a car and exploring on our own, hiking and meeting local people. We have seen some of the most beautiful sights, and lots of wildlife including bears, moose, deer, porcupines, beaver and even a tiny little shrew! These are memories I will carry with me forever - and photos too! And we never broke the bank for any of it.

We did this tour and it was a lovely walk, but no bears. We also did a private Bear excursion in ISP on another trip and no bears. So just go into it knowing there is no guarantee. Ironically, the two times we saw bears in ISP were on a whale watching trip and a canoe excursion where we spotted them on the shoreline. Glacier Wind is a fantastic vendor. Highly recommend!

I tried but for some reason it’s not letting me? The OBC shows up on my cruise personalizer but not as an option for payment when I go to pay for the excursion. It’s worked in the past on other cruises but not this time. Don’t know if it’s a glitch in the system, if Princess has changed its policy on using the OBC in advance, or just an issue we are experiencing. But it just won’t work - I had to pay with a credit card.

The reality is that any reasonable person should be able to expect that a cruise line will deliver on the voyages it sells, barring some major malfunction or act of nature. Not all cruisers have the knowledge or insight that these boards provide. We were actually considering booking the inaugural Sun cruise - I thought it would be really exciting to be on the first sailing of a new ship. And I’m an experienced cruiser. It really didn’t cross my mind that a cruise line would not allow adequate buffer time prior to an inaugural voyage. But because I know to put questions like that to the test here at CC, I got a ton of responses warning against booking - very great advice but only because I am lucky enough to be aware of this resource. A lot of cruisers are not. There are others, like those poor newlyweds, who likely would not have imagined their dream honeymoon being yanked out from under them. And that Princess waited until just a few days before the cruise really makes it worse - basically virtually stranding passengers who had already traveled to Europe. It really stretches the bounds of credibility that they couldn’t make the decision sooner. I like Princess and understand things happen, but my sympathies are fully with all the people who have been impacted by this delay. They have every right to vent and no one should be shaming them for feeling massively upset with Princess.

True on the bus tours. We have booked those online at times and the numbers never change - just stays at 20. But on smaller tours it will show you the spots left. We just missed out on a horseback riding tour on one of our Mexico cruises. There was only one spot left and it wouldn’t book both me and my DH. We tried the waitlist route but no luck. Same thing with a small boat tour in Alaska we missed. We just weren’t able to get on. Right now for our Norway cruise the train excursion in Flaam is already completely full and I doubt that will open up unless people drop. There is only a finite amount of space for some smaller, more niche tours where with bus tours extra buses and guides can probably be added. In the instance of the Norway excursion I was watching there is clearly still plenty of availability so the price increase wasn’t related to capacity. I was sort of hoping to hold out and book onboard because we have a ton of OBC. But with the prices going up, it seems like waiting just ends up costing more.

That is an interesting thought, but I don’t think that is the reason as people are reporting these price increases on cruises from Alaska, to the UK, and in our case Norway. It appears they are raising prices across the spectrum, unrelated to the local currency.

Oh then yes, you should not have any problem. We get comped cruises through the casino department and are still able to add our Shareholder OBC. It doesn’t matter what special discount or even other onboard credit you have, your stock benefit still can be added. The only one I have ever heard about here that might not be compatible is adding both the military and stockholder OBC. But it’s never been an issue with any of our future cruise credits, travel agent credits or casino benefits.

Not exactly apples to apples, but we generally book through the casino department which requires full payment at reservation. We also qualify for the Shareholder OBC benefit, but have never been successful in applying it to the payment of our cruise fare. We are only are able to add it once the cruise is booked as an OBC and in the past it has only been able to be added within about 90 days of the cruise as they want a current stock statement, although recently it appears they are relaxing that as we have already been able to add it for our June cruise. But unfortunately we have never been able to apply it to our cruise fare payment.

Alaska is a great destination to find independent excursions or just explore on your own. Consider renting a car for some of your ports. Some of our best days in Alaska have just involved venturing out in our own vehicle and enjoying the natural beauty and spotting wildlife.

Yes we are definitely finding the prices steep in general. We are fortunate that several people on our roll call have set up private van tours and people have been keen to join. I organized a van transfer for a group of us for our day in Bruges. Thank goodness for Cruise Critic. I feel sorry for cruisers navigating on their own or thinking ship tours are the only option.

Yes, I noticed this as well for our Norway cruise this June. The prices went up significantly about two weeks ago. I had been monitoring capacity on an excursion we were interested in, but hadn’t decided on. Thankfully we have a great roll call with numerous private tour options but there are a couple of ports where I’m still considering Princess excursions. I went ahead and booked the one we really want but I was kicking myself for not doing it sooner before the price increase.

Try completing your check in process. Once you are in the green lane it should provide you the option to have your medallion shipped. The app can be a little tricky to navigate - we ended up just picking our medallion up at port for our New Year’s cruise as it was just not wanting to give us the option to ship. However, for our cruise this summer we have already completed check in, are in the green lane and have the medallions ordered with shipping paid. Hopefully it will work for you once you are fully checked in.

You had me at the title of the thread! 😂 That was a great read and very nice to see your comparison. We have friends who love Virgin cruises and have been encouraging us to give it a try so we are considering it now that we can travel kid free. We already are frequent flyers with them so might as well jump onboard. Thanks for the review!

We have disembarked in Southampton the last two years. First year we did a transfer to Heathrow through the cruise ship. Even though we were on a tour and not disembarking with our luggage, we still had to collect our bags from the designated zone before proceeding to the bus. This last year we had a private transfer with a tour to Hampton Court Palace. We walked off with our luggage and in doing so had to proceed right past the zones where people were collecting their luggage that had been offloaded by the ship. So really, you end up picking your luggage up before departing the terminal no matter what. There are porters and carts to help if needed. The only difference with walk off is that you have to be able to maneuver your luggage off the ship. We just had one rolling bag each with a carryon so it wasn’t that difficult and it allows you to leave the ship quite early which provides more time for a tour.

I’ve noticed Princess has really hiked the prices on shore excursions. It’s always in general been more expensive to book excursions through the ship than independently, but lately the excursion prices seem downright exorbitant. I guess any opportunity for a discount of any level is nice to see, especially if there is an excursion someone really wants or needs to do through Princess. The prices on excursions for our Norway trip this summer are ridiculously high, and just went up across the board recently. I’m grateful we have a great roll call with lots of choices for independent tours. But for those wanting Princess excursions, I guess the message is to take advantage of special offers like this and book early before they raise the prices.

I’m not familiar with the activities RCI offers but my guess is you may find Princess may have a bit less to offer in terms of onboard entertainment in the evenings. There are production shows, comedians, usually a good piano bar, live music and some dancing that may or may not draw a big crowd depending on the demographic of your sailing. There is karaoke and usually some theme parties during the cruise - 70s, 80s, country as examples. They will have some game shows like Marriage Match, Yes/No, etc. and movies on the outdoor screen. It’s not necessarily a big party atmosphere but there are fun things to do. And of course the casino.

This whole scenario has been quite eye opening. We got a great casino offer on the inaugural cruise scheduled for February 8 and seriously considered booking it, but just couldn't manage the time away from work at this time of year. I'm so glad we passed and I feel just terrible for the people affected by these cancellations. For those saying people should know that it is risky to book a new ship, I honestly would never have thought about it being a risk. I guess I would have assumed that Princess would schedule these initial cruises with a buffer for getting the ship operational and tested out with some executive or industry cruises before bringing on the first group of paying passengers. I just always thought that is how it worked with launching new ships. It sounds like that is how RCI approached the launch of Icon of the Seas. It does make me wonder why Princess would not build in that extra time as it would just make sense that things can get delayed. We were looking at booking one of the early cruises on Star Princess next August, but are having serious second thoughts. I love the idea of trying out a new ship and being one of the first to experience something new and innovative, but this debacle with the launch of Sun Princess has made me think twice. I wonder if they will be better prepared and planned with the launch of the second ship in this series?