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.

38 minutes ago, hobo1937 said:

Do you know about the SigAlert App for LA traffic. We also live in Las Vegas and drove to San Pedro last year for a Discovery Cruise. It really helped navigating the LA traffic as it shows how the current speeds, traffic flow etc so you can change your routing to avoid problems. 

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

6 minutes ago, sonomaphil said:

We ended up opting to drive to LA rather than fly because the return flights were outrageously expensive on 2/10.  We live in Las Vegas and as you may know there is some small gathering scheduled here in Vegas on 2/11, I believe it is called the Super Bowl....

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.

8 minutes ago, MissP22 said:

What you describes happened a long time ago from what I've seen in the last 2 years. Things have changed in many way since then.

Still it's a shame that you'll be depriving yourself of a decent meal substituting a hamburger & fries in it's place for the lack of wearing a pair of slacks & polo shirt.

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.

On 1/12/2024 at 2:43 PM, Italy52 said:

@Firefly74, @yorkshirephil.  Thanks for your replies, I appreciate it.  My husband has already purchased his books and they have downloaded to his device; he even opened one of them up for assurance.  I am assuming that the next thing he should do is put his Kindle in "airplane mode" so he can read his books while on the ship and not worry about incurring any charges?

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.

16 minutes ago, nini said:

 

You can go to the deck plans on the Princess website. You will be able to click on each deck your would like to view. For example:

https://www.princess.com/deckPlans.do?shipCode=XP&version=1

 Go to the above link and select the deck you wish to view. You can easily compare them that way. Aft cabins on the Emerald and Dolphin deck are quite different. The aft cabins on the Emerald deck are very narrow and have no cover. One deck above, the Dolphin deck is deep and partially covered.

 

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.

29 minutes ago, nini said:

 

We always book an aft balcony when possible. You may want to do a search to see if that one is covered at all. It is one of the larger aft balconies, they are not all created equally. For example, the balconies below on the Aloha deck are super small.

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.

10 hours ago, Thrak said:

 

I have a Capital One Venture card. I never let them know I'm traveling. They don't lock me out. There is no foreign transaction fee. It just works. However, I do get both a text and an email every time to let me know that a new foreign transaction has been posted to my account. I have the options to say, "NOOOOOOOO" but I just do nothing (which is a valid option) as I know I just made the transaction. I love that I get the "real" cost rather than whatever the cost was wherever I was. I like seeing the USD cost of the AUD charge I just made. (It soothes the pain of an overpriced thing in another country.)

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.

1 hour ago, Daniel A said:

When making my travel arrangements, I would notify my credit card banks of my itinerary.  One of my cards lets me do it online.  Amex no longer wants this info from me as they have an algorithm that compares current charges against where I've used the card in the past.  I have two cards with large credit limits which I never use but I notify them as my reason for having them is to cover emergency expenses in foreign lands.

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.

1 hour ago, JF - retired RRT said:

Probably won't be an issue for the ship. It won't look to the credit card company that you're "travelling" because the charge is from Princess...not a foreign port.

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.

8 minutes ago, Thrak said:

 

If your card is being used for more than one person on the cruise you can't enter it twice. You need to enter it for one person and then check the box to allow others to use the same card. I can't enter the same card for myself and my wife but I can enter a card for me and check the box to make her an authorized user. It's poor programming.

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.

1 hour ago, desertdwellingsailor said:

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.

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.

7 hours ago, PacnGoNow said:

TBH, I don’t think I’d blame this all on PCL.  Sounds as though your DW’s SIL may have misspelled your name snd someone either at PCL (at checkin) or a TA/CVP

caught the error.

 

It is your responsibility to get your names corrected and match your passports.  I would do that and make sure your loyalty numbers are correct too.  Names are a big issue in the App, as they reference everything, like credit cards, PP, airlines, etc.

 

Once names are correct, you shouldn’t have many issues with the App. Take documents and personal information out and reenter..after names are corrected.

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.

17 hours ago, PacnGoNow said:

It could. She would need to delete her CC, if she had you as an authorized user. She can delete hers and re-enter it, and not show you as an authorized user, if you want to just use your own CC on your booking. 

 

Good luck.
 

 

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?

4 hours ago, PacnGoNow said:

It could. She would need to delete her CC, if she had you as an authorized user. She can delete hers and re-enter it, and not show you as an authorized user, if you want to just use your own CC on your booking. 

 

Good luck.
 

 

If Princess wants my business they will figure it out.

1 minute ago, PacnGoNow said:

Are you sure you don’t have 2 captain circle numbers, or your DW?  
Make sure the website is correct and wait a few days and try agsin.

If you

used a TA or CVP, they should be able to help.

 

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!!!)

13 minutes ago, PacnGoNow said:

Did you delete your cc in the payment section on the App?

 

Delete it also for your partner, if traveling with someone.

 

Sign out and back in.  Enter your credit card again and pick your partner as an authorized user.

 

Check the expiration date on your cc, make sure it doesn’t expire before the sail date.

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. 

12 minutes ago, tonit964 said:

This has been discussed before. I’ve had the same issue. For some odd reason the balconies don’t show up when you put in 2 guests. I just checked with 3 guest's and all the balconies showed up. 

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!