desertdwellingsailor

Probably too late to do this for my mother on March 2nd. I have her ashes in a plastic bag in a cardboard box but I could buy an urn if needed. I can't decide what is most appropriate. My wife's father was in the navy and he was buried at sea which made sense. I'd kind of like to put mom's ashes in our yard and plant her favorite flowers (roses). Also I signed something saying that I wasn't going to take the ashes out of Arizona which I don't know why that matters. Anyway, thank you for the post. I didn't realize that burial at sea was an option on a cruise.

We are going to be on a cruise that stops in Puerto Vallarta and don't have an excursion. We want to go to the big church and the Malecon and I've read other posts in this section about doing that but wanted to double check. Once we get off the ship (Discovery Princess), will there be busses waiting there with signs saying Malecon or something like that and do we have to pay for them? I ordered pesos from my bank for what that is worth. I've also got Uber app on my phone which will probably work there. Do I need to do anything else or just get off the ship and buses will be waiting? Sorry, I know this has been asked before but I am a little uncertain.

Waze is good also. I've used it a lot in SoCal.

Maybe you could hop on Taylor Swift's private jet. I'm guessing it might fly into LA on the 10th before heading on to Vegas for the SB. 🙂 Seriously, will be fun to hear about your trip. We are doing the same on March 2nd and driving from Phoenix.

Had Heineken on tap near the pool on Discovery in October 2022. Unfortunately the beer ran out before I got a full glass and the beer was not as good as a normal Heineken in a bottle maybe because it was the last bit.

It was pre-covid. It was just funny because my BIL dresses worse than me which is saying something. 🙂 I like the MDR food for sure. Might be fun to hang out on deck more on this cruise since it will be warmer than our last one. (Mexico versus Alaska). We will probably cave and bring some nicer clothes just in case.

My sister-in-law said that her husband was sent back to their room to change after wearing shorts on a formal night a few years back. He is pretty casual normally. I've worn a tie for formal nights on my first two cruises. This time I'll have t-shirts, shorts, jeans, and tennis shoes (and bathing suit). Probably ditch formal nights but we could test the limit with jeans and t-shirt/tennis shoes. But I don't want to bug anyone by dressing informally so we may do buffet/pizza/hamburger options.

I leave my Kindle Paperwhite in airplane mode all the time at home to keep from running down the battery. I turn on WIFI only to get new books. Just put it in airplane mode before the trip and bring your charger.

Funny. Three cruises and I never thought to look for cabins with larger balconies. The two mini suites I have been in on Caribe had narrow balconies. I see the ones aft that are larger. I guess there are some angled ones also. We could barely fit our chairs on the balcony we had and it was hard to walk around the table.

This is probably explained elsewhere but how can I tell how big a balcony is when I am choosing a cabin? Thanks! Bobby

I have been on two cruises on that ship on deck 10 Caribe and it was great but we were in the middle. Not sure about smoke near the end of the ship. The only thing that occurs to me is that you might want to choose the Ketchikan dining room since you are near the rear stairs and elevators. Not that it is a big deal to just walk to the forward elevators.

One semi-clever thing I am thinking of doing is taking the advice from other discussions on this board about turning on Wi-Fi Calling on my iPhone. I didn't do that on previous cruises. Then if BoA texts or calls me I should be able to respond. Of course I may not really want to get texts and phone calls on my cruise so that is the down side. Anyway, I'm not worried. We are booking excursions now and then we will reserve dinner times and be ready to roll. We really need a vacation. My dad went into the hospital with cancer in August and we had to move my parents to Arizona where we live and deal with everything but now things are more stable so a cruise to Mexico sounds pretty nice and I've got the app working and in the green lane.

This doesn't work for Bank of America. I have tried contacting them before we travel. They just love locking my card. We setup an appointment to talk to them about it and they suggested the Visa. The Visa works well but the Princess App is rejecting it.

I'm sure it will be fine. I was kind of kidding. On my first cruise my bank rejected the first charge from Princess while I was on the ship. My Mastercard has been compromised a couple of times so now the bank locks it at the least thing. We recently got a "travel rewards" visa card because my wife and daughter were travelling to Greece and I didn't want our Mastercard to lock up on them while they were there. They didn't have any problem using the Visa. But my Visa number is buried in Princess's IT systems somewhere and they won't let me use it so I put my older Mastercard in for onboard charges. I'll just have to keep an eye on it and contact the bank if the onboard charge gets rejected. I may turn on WIFI calling so that texts and calls from the bank can reach me.

Yeah. It is poor. I ended up using our other credit card. It keeps getting declined when I travel but at least I'm in the green lane. They may kick me off the ship when I can't pay my bill. 🙂

Thanks everyone. I am sorry for all the complaints. It is a minor inconvenience in the grand scheme of things. I have had two nice cruises in the past and I'm sure we will work through this issue and enjoy the next one. Best wishes.

Looks like they will only charge us $500 if I cancel before January 6. I guess I will bang away on it for a few days and then pull the plug.

Doesn't seem like my sister-in-law had anything to do with the misspelled last name. It was not that way on our previous two cruises. As far as I can tell we have done everything right. It just won't take our credit card. And anyway, I shouldn't have to jump through hoops to enter my credit card information. That is terrible design on Princess' part.

The funny thing is that my wife found her princess.com login and it has our last name spelled wrong. Could be that her sister-in-law whose first language is not English didn't spell it right on our first cruise. Her brother and his wife have been on a bunch of cruises but they are not tech savvy. They introduced us to Princess and they organized the first cruise we went on. But everything I have seen for the two cruises we have been on has our last name spelled right. It has to match her passport. Odd. Maybe it got changed somehow but who would change her last name in her record? The problem seems to be that somehow after our second cruise they disconnected my wife from the app. Maybe they changed the way they looked at last names in their code or something and it has always been wrong somewhere. Anyway, why do I have to debug their IT systems for them?

If Princess wants my business they will figure it out.

Thanks. I'm going to wait until after Christmas to call back. I booked the cruise on the web site. I don't think we have 2 captain circle numbers. At least they are the same as last cruise. I've only been on two. The first was organized by my wife's brother so it had her as primary which might have something to do with it. Still, that shouldn't be my problem. It should be Princess's problem to take my perfectly fine credit card. (Take my money, please!!!)

Expires in 2027. I had to do what you describe on my last cruise and it worked. But for some reason my wife's app wasn't working and they lost her picture and passport information. Maybe she has another record somewhere with our CC on it. Now neither of us show any payment methods. So I'm guessing, not working in Princess IT, that there is some record somewhere with our credit card leftover from past cruises or the one we cancelled. I guess it is too much to ask that I put in a credit card and it just takes it. I used the same card to pay for the cruise. On the other hand, I should be thankful that I have the resources to go on a cruise and the past two cruises were very nice. So, I shouldn't complain. It is more of an annoyance.

Trying to get the app to take my credit card. You think it would be easy. I think it is because we had the same card on a cruise we cancelled. I have been on hold with Princess for a long time trying to get them to fix it. They ended up ending the call and asking me to do a survey when they didn't do anything. Funny. I will give it a day or two to see if they fix it. I guess I can get a new credit card but that wouldn't be ideal especially if I have to do it every cruise.

All's well that ends well. My wife's boss really wanted her to go even though it isn't the most convenient time for her. So, cancelled my October 12th cruise. Booked March 2nd mini suite deck 14 ahead of the front stairwell as we discussed. Price was reasonable. Only about $600 more than my balcony in October. We are sailing. Mexican Riviera Discovery Princess.

Very interesting. Well, its a moot point. I feel like I wasted everyone's time. My wife can't get time off work for the March 2nd cruise and my daughter wants us home for her birthday during the April 13 cruise. We are sticking with our balcony room on October 12 after all. It's more than $1000 cheaper for one thing(including plus and standard pvp). We may just go somewhere like San Diego for the weekend in March or so to do something sooner. No ships involved!