rj59

I'm Elite on Princess and have been on 30 cruises. That said, Celebrity Apex, a previous itineration of the Beyond, was the most wonderful ship I've ever been on. There's so much more to do on Beyond, especially entertainment, with two production casts and incredible shows both in the main theater and later shows in Eden. You get the multiple dining rooms with themed decor and menus, the Eden cafe for lunch and breakfast, and the magic carpet, which is incredible for tender ports (and their debarkation area is very roomy and quick). The rooftop garden is wonderful, with the two-level walking track going through it. The only thing you don't get on Beyond is the big movie screen dominating the pool deck, but I get sick on Princess of concerts and sports and movies blaring all day and evening on a screen--it's kind of sad for people to go on vacation and stare at screens, even a big one. And the pizza is better on Princess, although the Celebrity buffet one on Beyond will be better, especially if you catch it right out of the oven. But all the people here have their own biases, such as those who love bingo and game shows (big on Princess) or a central piazza where they can sit and watch ballroom dancers or music (the Beyond atrium area is a lively martini bar, with coffee shop and other bars on higher levels). So I'd watch some YouTube tours and reviews of each ship. I'd particularly recommend "Which Premium cruise line is on top of their game right now" by Gary Bembridge on Tips for Travelers, the top-rated cruise review channel, with in-depth comparison of Princess, HAL, and Celebrity and who each is right for. Like me, he's a little burned out on the sameness of Princess ships and finds the Edge-class on Celebrity more innovative. That might change with Sun Princess, but then one of his criticisms is that Princess ships are getting too big for comfort, which I have found to be true on Royal-class ships, now that ships are full again (Beyond is about 500 fewer passengers at full occupancy).

If your bid isn't accepted, you can always try the front desk when you board, and then maybe after the ship leaves, in case they have a no-show or someone else moves cabins. That way you can ask to see a cabin and evaluate location. If you have some noise or other issue with a cabin, that might also be an option. The bid process will probably be more difficult now, with fuller ships, though. Last-minute bids might also be a good option, since you can see with a pretend booking which cabins have the most availability, if at all. So for Island Princess next week, balconies are sold out but there a number of obstructed Oceanview cabins that people probably don't want for a Mediterranean cruise, and the $20-80 bid range reflects it, so that's what I'm aiming for. How much you paid might also give you some preference--my sister was upgraded on our cruise from inside to the obstructed balcony for free, but she paid for Plus, whereas I'm Elite but didn't spring for Plus and wasn't upgraded.

You get the discounted rate now either way. The other advantage of waiting. until on board is that you don't need to buy for the entire cruise, and can either do 24 hours or rest of voyage, which I do so I don't spend all my cruise staring at screens. I'll be on Island for 14 days next week, and instead of buying wifi onboard, I bought a $13 3GB eSIM Europe plan for the 10 or so port days, since it's more valuable in foreign countries to have data in ports, for things like maps and train schedules.

Just be sure not to get tempted by cheaper fares in summer, because the crowds and temperatures will be unbearable, with long waits to get on the cable car in Santorini and a possibility of not being allowed into the Parthenon because of new crowd limits. If you're not tied to the RCL brands, Princess and HAL have long Greek Islands cruises--I'm leaving on Tuesday for 14 nights on Island Princess, which I got for $590 for an inside. Celebrity Infinity is doing Greek cruises throughout this winter too, rerouted from Israel cruises, and I remember seeing some good itineraries in Spring that go to Greek islands and include Istanbul.

Celebrity has very good-size interiors on their ships, with usually a loveseat or big chair. I've been on many on deck 7-8 and that's my favorite spot, since on Decks 2-3 you get noise from atrium music (you can also get it if an upper-level cabin is near the atrium). Eclipse going from Barcelona-FLL on Oct 30 2025 is actually $400 or so, $30/nt for an inside, so I booked that last night, as well as going from FLL-London in March 2025 for $35/nt. I'm going solo, and they actually were giving a rare reduced single supplement, so it ended up $650-750 for the cruises. What I like about Celebrity transatlantic cruises, apart from the Sky lounge and protected Solarium, is the shorter itineraries with fewer consecutive sea days, usually 4-5 max between stops.

Yeah, nothing that I see, and if they refuse to lower fares going forward or drop the single supplement to fill ships, it's going to be bleak, after so many great solo deals since restart. I'm leaving on Island for 14 nights in the Mediterranean for $560 for a solo inside, and I'm afraid I might not see such deals again on Princess.

The $175 back goes until 2/15, so plenty of time for a new booking. And since they're committed to never reducing cruise prices, you could book any 2024-2025 cruise now and get the best price, absolutely guaranteed (for 72 hours after booking that is). I've also added $300 off $1000 for HAL and $200 off $1000 for NCL, both good until the end of 2023. If you don't see the Princess one on your card, I find that adding and sometimes redeeming travel offers will get them to aim more travel ones my way, even on my no-fee Blue Cash Everyday card.

What I would advise is flying into SeaTac and taking a cheap, quick Alaska or Delta flight to Vancouver. Then get a hotel anywhere you like. A budget option would be to fly Southwest into Bellingham, my town, and take a bus or train to the cruise terminal.

I"m booked in June 2025 going from Florida to Montreal.

No, not like Princess, who give a $50/$250 OBC for veterans. Royal/Celebrity just give an initial small discount. HAL currently gives a $100 OBC for veterans for all cruises also. You're better off just waiting for one of the many sales that give standard OBC for booking, which I've used to get the same OBC I'd get from shareholder/military on Princess.

I'd ask and say it's for religious reasons, and they'll do their best to satisfy you. I know most lines are happy to do Indian meals, so I imagine Filipino chefs would be handy with Chinese food also. A cinema in Seattle has a Christmas Day tradition of showing "Fiddler on the Roof" with catered Chinese food.

I did Ovation to Alaskan in September, with a delayed return to severe storms, which is a risk of going out of Seattle. The ifly was closed due to bad weather, so I'd advise booking your free minute for an Alaskan port day. The other disadvantage of Quantum/Ovation is that it usually is too big to fit in the narrow turn that will get you close to the rather small Dawe's glacier, since it's often blocked by chunks of ice (they'll happily sell you an excursion on a smaller boat that will get close to the glacier). Royal/Celebrity also don't have access to Glacier Bay, but the N/S Royal ships visit Hubbard Glacier, which is the most impressive one.

50% off sale is a gimmick, because none of the cruises I monitor regularly have gone down in price, and several have gone up. If they stick to their 'we won't lower prices' promise, then they can't really have a sale on prices, only false assertions, because almost any cruise fare is going to be a discount from some price. The Mexican cruises are the highest I've ever seen, as are Seattle-based Alaska ones, and future European ones. The only relative bargains are some of the Regal out of Galveston, and the N/S ones in Alaska, since they have so many ships there. I'm going on Island for two weeks this month for $600 or so for a solo inside, which will be my last one with Princess for some time, if current prices are maintained and no dropping of the single supplement occurs. As another poster said, I'm not that attached to cruising to overpay to be on a packed ship and degraded experience. My three favorite lines have alienated me: Princess, by dropping Alfredos access, HAL by dropping all production shows, and Celebrity by charging solo passengers more than twice as much as two people in a cabin. So I'll explore options on cruise lines that aren't lashed to stock prices and heavy pandemic debt--Azamara, Virgin, and maybe MSC. Otherwise I'll just pack some Rick Steves books and explore more of Europe on my own.

I would strongly advise against taking the transfer from Hobby airport, since there are so few flights arriving, they wait up to 2 hours to fill a bus halfway. An Uber or Lyft will be about $50 for two people, and you won't have to wait for a bus to fill, or load/unload. When I finally arrived at the port, a port rep came onto the bus and said the porters expect at least $5/bag or something like that, which felt like a shakedown. The same goes on the outgoing end--I did walk-off and got on a shuttle before 7:30, while none of the transfer buses had filled to either airport. There are several local companies who will get you there quicker, for cheaper, with things like senior/military discounts and r/t discounts. I think I used Island Express, but there are others. There are several articles comparing the cost of various kinds of transportation, and none of them recommend a ship transfer.

The cruise lines didn't go under when the war in Ukraine cut out Baltic cruises with stops in St. Petersburg, they just redeployed and moved around. I'm going on a Princess cruise in a few weeks that was supposed to spend 2 nights in Israel and one in Malta, but they simply adjusted the itinerary to other Italian/Greek ports. A Celebrity ship in the Med year-round is replacing winter Israel stops with Canary Islands stops or Morocco. Current cruise prices would seem to indicate historically high demand for cruising, including on NCL, and the plus-100% occupancy rates don't signal dire times anytime soon, both for older people lines full of people trying to blow off their wealth and see as much as possible while still alive, and family/young people likes for people who want the experiences of the big NCL/RC ships, and those on Carnival looking to do sail-by shootings of ships showing the wrong gang colors, or carry off a heist of priceless Parks West art. I have 100 shares of Carnival, for the OBC, so ignore the laughably poor performance. I did buy 100 shares of RCL at $40 (when poor Carnival earnings dragged down the RCL price), and sold last summer when it reached $100, so the profits paid for 7 Celebrity and 2 Royal cruises.

I'm so glad I discovered cruiseplum. Their Hot Deals section got me an Azamara 7-night to Spain for $100/nt for a solo inside, and the same for a 9-nt Virgin Med cruise next October, which I never would have even thought of looking for on my own, since they've usually been out of my price range. I usually find the NCL site easiest to find good deals, though, because I can search for 1 and they include the military discount now (all the pop-ups and chats are sure annoying, though). Their price drops actually deter me from booking, since the drops right before sailing give me buyer's remorse and I can't do anything about it, other than cancel and get the FCC from the protection program, and gamble next time that I can prepay airfare and catch the lowest price before sailing.

I think one reason for denying it would be to avoid hogs eating everything on the menu and asking for more to eat later, particularly if it's specialty dining and somebody told them it costs more so don't do it. They might say it's for safety, so you don't trip and spill, or sanitation, but it's basically about money and cutting down food costs. I can see it as sort of equivalent of a buffet on land, where you pay a fixed cost so the restaurant wants to minimize overall food use and thus won't allow anyone to take food away. That's probably more true of NCL, with a lot of people getting a free specialty meal through Free at Sea, so they get more food eaten than on other lines in specialty restaurants and so want to minimize cost. It's the same principle as nominal charges for room service now, so a drunk doesn't order tons of food late at night and leave most of it uneaten in a hallway. Yeah, it's cheap and petty to deny it, but if denied, you can ask the restaurant manager and get a good reason, and leave it in a comment card at the front desk, to see if they'll make it up to you.

The best Cunard videos I've seen are by TipsForTravellers, the most popular YouTube channel and a Cunard fan, and EmmaCruises, which was a first-time budget cruiser who thought it would be boring and stuffy but found lots of enjoy, as she always does.

I think if you really love Japan and want to experience it well, you'd be better off with the varied itineraries on Diamond Princess, which is based in Japan and designed for the Japanese market. So it visits things like the Nebuta Festival in August, which was one of my favorite memories when I lived there for 2 years. Instead of dealing with cultural resentments that seem to be apparent with traditional Cunard cruisers wanting others to conform to their standards, I think I'd rather be perhaps in the minority and adapt to the majority on a ship designed for Japan and that's likely to be majority Japanese. That means you're likely to get better food, better excursions (since it's their base), and more interesting cultural experiences, particularly tea drinking (just as on Cunard as an American I sat through a tea service and wondered what point of it was).

With ships on most lines full and demand through the roof, you're unlikely to find anything, unless it's an OBC offer to get you to book at higher prices, or a more expensive cabin. That's especially true of Azamara, where it's so easy to sell out a small ship and they don't have to fill a megaship year-round. So I booked a Virgin cruise at a bargain price in August that sold out in a week, I bought an Azamara cruise to Spain a month ago, and most of the prices for that month are much higher. It's like looking for a Black Friday deal on a new car the past couple of years, where demand is so high that they have no incentive to give real discounts or deals, just incentives to get you to book.

What HAL does that's nice is give a ceremony when you reach cruise day milestones, starting at 100 (unless that has gone away too). Free drinks, a medal presented by the captain and hotel director. The old Mariner lunches also made me feel valued, too, with varied drinks, meal, captain's thanks, and tile presented at the end. The receptions now of sitting around and getting a glass of bubbly and a tile left outside your door (if they're not out) just doesn't do anything for me. I prefer the Princess loyalty program, since you can get status based on numbers of cruises, rather than sea days, and solos like me get double credit, so I got to their top status through lots of short coastal cruises, and enjoy things like a free minibar setup. Having a medallion with your loyalty level also gives a little sense of self-importance, and before that they'd put door tags with your name and loyalty color.

I actually met Rudi on an elevator in SF on a Princess ship, where he's advising now. I told him thanks for all the great Holland American meals.

Cruise personnel don't know, and wouldn't tell you if she did, since her job is to get you to sign up for internet, just as the cruise excursion desk isn't going to tell you how to find local tours or free things to do. The way to find out is to turn on iMessage and try it. If it doesn't work, pay or wait for a port. I found out I had it on an NCL ship, and it's definitely nice, because ship messaging apps are awful for talking to others on board, and some lines make you pay for it. The other thing to realize is that you can sign up for individual days or remainder of cruise internet, which is what I do when going to Mexico usually--I simply buy remainder of voyage on the final two sea days.

Skip the transfer and order a Lyft or Uber. It will be cheaper and quicker than a transfer, no waiting to fill a bus, not stuck in a pack of people entering the terminal at once, and no trying to find the cruise reps and get on the right bus. Download and learn how to use the apps locally, and then simply order one when you get there, choosing which one is cheaper. Their driving and attitude are rated, so they have an incentive to be safe and friendly, unlike a taxi driver. The same goes for the return trip, by the time they load everyone and their luggage onto a bus you could be on your way to the airport and get to your flight quicker, with less stress.

You might look at NCL. They've had the Sun or one of their older ships doing trips between Honolulu and Tahiti. Even if you don't like the ship or line, I'd think it would be more interesting than the 6-7 sea days getting to Hawaii. The NCL prices were dirt-cheap also, so one of their Haven suites might be affordable for you.