PescadoAmarillo

They will not close out your folio after the Queensland portion, but they will convert it all to $US using a method only they can understand. This is a good thing because credit card usage in Australia incurs a roughly 1.5% merchant fee (regardless of whether your credit card has an international usage fee). Do hold on to your gift cards until you start the transpacific portion.

Also important to note is that Paxlovid comes in two dosages, one of them for patients with moderate kidney impairment. https://www.paxlovidhcp.com/moderate-renal-impairment A ship’s doctor may not be aware of your personal health history, or may be too conservative in their approach to prescribing Paxlovid (if they even have it on board). It’s a good discussion to have with your primary care provider. All mine has to do is hear that I am going on a cruise and she’s sending in a scrip for Paxlovid, which, unless I was getting really sick in the first five days, I would unlikely take again, but it’s like my rescue inhaler. Better to have it than not. As @Cruise Raider mentioned, the price has gone up significantly ($1396). If your doctor is willing to prescribe it on an anticipatory basis, and you have good insurance, it’s probably best to get it before you travel.

And it’s a bit more complicated by the fact that (based on our past experience when a cruise was cancelled due to a ship wreck). If one used FCCs to pay for part of that cruise fare, the 50% only applies to the portion of cruise fare paid with “new money”. If FCCs were used to pay for the entire fare, then 50% of nothing is nothing.

Then Princess should charge $29.99 per day, if their WiFi is, as they claim, the best at sea. Maybe even $39.99 per day! Oh, and Princess should, at the same time, honor their promised Captains Circle benefits by reducing the price for Princess Plus and Premium by 50% of that daily WiFi rate for Platinum and Elite cruisers. And then we can talk about further reducing the price for Princess Plus and Premium for Elites by $5 per day for forgoing the minibar setup. ($70 value, 7 day cruise, 2 people in cabin). What’s that you say? Some cruises are 15 or 30 days long? Yeah, it’s kind of like the two free casual dining meals per cruise, isn’t it, only in reverse.

If you love smaller ships, HAL is definitely a better choice. It you really enjoy production shows, Princess is. Live music? Definitely HAL. Educated, informed destination specialists and enrichment speakers? Princess. Food and dining ease? HAL, all the way. Longer, more interesting itineraries? HAL. Crews are about even. Years ago, HAL crews seemed stiffer, but that’s changed quite a bit. We’ve found them to be as welcoming as on Princess (where they are nearly always great). I would cruise solely HAL; DH likes Princess. So we cruise more on Princess but are always watching for HAL cruises that might work for us.

It’s really not a madhouse. I would liken it to being in a busy airport terminal. But we learned that no one (except us, apparently) adheres to the suggested arrival time. Looking back at my blog, I see that we were told to arrive at 10am. When we got there, the earliest bus departure time available was 11:30am and we got to the ship about 1:30pm, http://pescadoamarillo.blogspot.com/2018/10/day-3-embarkation-in-sapphire-princess.html

The ship is doing a three-day cruise (Princess calls it a Seacation). These short cruises to nowhere tend to be booze cruises, and, given the holiday timeframe, I’m sure that’s what this one will be, too.

@Bimmer09, I’ve enjoyed your entire review. Thank you for taking the time to keep notes, write and post pics! Your complaint resolution skills are desperately needed at the Subway I was at today. “Man that blows”. I’m dying here. 🤣

I think the original poster of this info was @CruiseRaider, so perhaps he/she knows, but it was confirmed by several others so maybe they’ll be able to answer this, also. Whatever the reason, it’s an excuse and could be changed…if Princess had the desire and motivation to change it. I’d love to see Princess to acknowledge that their crews are the primary reason that guests return and allow us to recognize them individually. It’s one thing to have a three day cut off for crew feedback (ridiculous) but even worse to not tell guests about it, so that they continue to use their resources to give individual credit when the crew member will never benefit from it. They used to have the ‘You made a difference’ cards at Guest Services and the advantage of them is that they more or less limited the space (and therefore the time required) to say good things. Have they replaced them with another form?

Exactly, and it’s even worse than that, as crew members with specific mentions don’t get them unless they’re made in the first three days after the cruise, which I guess means disembarkation day and the two subsequent days.

I don’t think this is a “gotcha”. You booked under a fare code that offered an airfare promotion. If you change that fare code, you’re going to lose that promotion. This happens all the time, sometimes with additional OBC, sometimes with premium dining…whatever. As others have said, you can easily check the current EZ air fare by searching for your cruise on the Princess website and choosing CRUISE DETAILS and FLIGHT QUOTES. Then you can decide if it’s worth asking your TA to refare.

You answered it very well, and with the exact kind of information I was curious about. Thank you for sharing your knowledge and time!

Thank you for this report. I just booked a first class, refundable flight to Fairbanks and a refundable hotel around the Spring solstice for the sole purpose of seeing the lights. I thought I could look at weather and NL reports in the days ahead of time, to see if sightings looked possible, and go ahead or cancel as a result. I have been weighing this against a Hurtigruten cruise for several months. Based on your experience, would you go the Hurtigruten route again? Given that it was polar night, what else did you do/see during your month on board? Hurtigruten used to guarantee you’d see the NL or you’d get another cruise at no charge (obviously requiring many out of pocket exoenses, such as transportation) but I’m not sure if they still do that.

I don’t mind the repetitive breakfast menus. I generally rotate through the same two or three things for months at a time. But with the one standard lunch menu, I guess chicken korma is a thing of the past.

Were the rhododendrons in bloom? I love the gardens off of that trail.

It’s great to be a Michigan Wolverine!

The 26 glaxiers are not right next to each other. The tour boat also goes into Blackstone Bay, and its glaciers are even more beautiful than those in College Fiord. Only you can decide if it’s right for you, but having hiked in Whittier and taken the glacier tour, I’d chose the glacier tour at least once every few years, and certainly for the first and/or only time I’d be in Whittier.

This. The 26 glacier boat is next to the cruise ship. There is just one 26 glacier tour per day. There is zero risk of not making the ship. If you book the 26 glacier tour through the train, they will know you are coming for that boat. Seems pretty risk free to me.

I am home wearing maize and blue from neck to toe and I feel your pain. Try this: https://www.thestreameast.to/v2/ It’s finicky and you have to keep going back to your original tab (ignore the pop ups, and don’t sign in/up for anything, you may have hit the arrow key a few times), but the game WILL be shown online. I use this website to watch (a lot of) games that aren’t shown locally.

We booked through Princess only because it was very slightly less expensive with our Elite discount. But you don’t meet up as a group, just walk off the ship and next door to the excursion boat on your own.

We did B2B cruises last year and did the 26 glacier tour on turnaround day (lots of pics and info here: http://pescadoamarillo.blogspot.com/2023/10/day-9-whittier-alaska.html). There were still guests being checked in for their cruise as we walked through the terminal about 6:30pm (we were held up a few minutes on the tour boat when we docked due to a bear on the shore right there). We love this tour and have done it twice now. I think it’s much better than the ship’s scenic cruising in College Fiord, though it’s nice to have both perspectives. I would, however, be concerned by your 12:20pm arrival time on the train. All kind of things could delay that.

I had really hoped that B2B issues might have been resolved with the new app. With 17 B2B cruises booked in the old app, they were grouped 9 cruises and 8 cruises. While I could book dining reservations for the 8 cruise group, I never could for the 9 cruise group. Then we cancelled the first of 9 cruise group and that broke things even further. It was partly out of frustration that I cancelled everything. This is supposed to be fun!

I don’t know who, within the company, truly has ownership of these issues. I fear no one does, and we’re seeing the result of that.

For all those with lingering cruise ship coughs….ask for a prescription for Benzonotate Oral. I had a cough that started in early April a couple of years ago and just wouldn’t give up. A doctor started me on Benzonotate in late July and I slept through the night after three doses.

Unfortunately, all upper management knows about this app is that it was released in the month promised, so some Customer Experience SVP will earn their year-end bonus. The fact that it doesn’t work (for most people) won’t affect that.