AlpacaBag

4 minutes ago, dickinson said:

 

I have read many times on here that if you cancel your cruise the money goes back on your gift card so make sure you save the card # and pin.

Thanks, I updated my post.

9 minutes ago, sadiwest said:

My mind is literally blown.  New to AARP I just learned this here, tooday. 

Quick question...if for some reason trip is canceled (well in advance) do the funds go back to the cards (am assumingbut neverused them)?

Edited as it was incorrect. See below post.

I also had issues buying from the aarp rewards site for the first time, had to open a ticket, waited a couple weeks, then went to buy and it didn't work, then had to email them, wait more, and finally they said should work - and it did.

I am not sure what causes the problem, but I suspect it's a combination of user events. I.e. things that line up when a user signs up. For example, when I signed up, I was:

Using Firefox with their strictest privacy protection enabled which sometimes causes websites to act funny, given that the protection blocks cookies, some scripts, etc... I also had an ad blocker enabled and the email I used at signup was not a typical domain, like hotmail.com outlook.com, or gmail.com, comcast.net, etc etc etc.. it was my firefox relay service)

So I think because of those things, their system flagged me and stopped me from buying until someone on their staff whitelisted my account.

It's admittedly very frustrating and I do wonder if it is by design to inhibit the max number of sales since many users will get frustrated and give up.

19 minutes ago, Pepperoni0120 said:

how long did it take to hear back? I also tried making a reservation for July 2 weeks ago and have heard nothing.

I'd say about 14 days, give or take a day or two.

On 3/27/2024 at 8:41 PM, Ashland said:

OP try looking at ValueTrip rates for your date.

Wanted to say thank you for this recommendation. I had never heard of this site before your mention and was able to secure an over night for our upcoming December cruise and saved ~40-45% from expedia, similar site rates.

Many thanks!

Just now, Host CJSKIDS said:

True and they are showing them all having cocktails on the train.

Too bad we can't use our Princess Plus or Premiere beverage benefits on the train....

Just now, AtlantaCruiser72 said:

@AlpacaBag much as I expected.  Will let the community know any additional details I get from the webinar here in a few minutes!

Thanks for keeping the community updated!

Looks to be a brightline agreement: https://www.gobrightline.com/offers/princess-cruises

Screenshot in case the page gets pulled, Brightline may have published early.

3 minutes ago, Jemnibabe02 said:

But this wouldn't do much for the west side of Florida clients, would it?

Or those of us in Jacksonville. No Brightline here and Amtrak and Florida East Coast Rail would move heaven and earth to prevent a Brightline station from opening here.

And for those getting their hopes up about the port in Jacksonville being a Princess port - don't get one's hopes up too far... it's NCL that got that spot, unfortunately. Unless they are allowing a 3rd cruise line to use the dock, I just don't see how they'd have room, it's already so small.

Upcoming sailing, Dec 20 to 30 on Enchanted from Ft. Lauderdale and we were getting ready to secure Enclave passes and noticed there are 2 enclave pass listings for our sailing, both seem to be the same and are even the same price. Is this because there are 2 of us in the booking? (Seems the simplest explanation) or is there a difference I'm not seeing. Screenshot below:

Really good advice in this thread. I just wanted to chime in and add this very important tidbit about WiFi Calling - please please please be sure it is enabled for the very first time BEFORE you leave port.

On the US carriers, when you go to activate WiFi Calling for the first time, it will use the GPS and such in the phone to ascertain your general location, but it will also ask you to enter your physical address for e911 purposes. If you aren't detected as being in the US during the WiFi calling setup process, it might fail to activate.

You don't want to be at sea and have it fail to turn on. 🙂 So, as long as you have it working on your Home WiFi before you head out on your voyage, you should be golden.

Are you able to setup a google voice number on your phone? Google voice is free to use, for the most part. There are charges if you call international numbers on it, but US calling is free.

If so, you set the calls on your cell to forward to your google voice number, which can make/receive calls on WiFi (VoIP calling, basically) and you will be able to receive those (hopefully non-emergency) calls. As far as SMS forwarding, there are ways to do that - I think you can use something like Pulse SMS for example.

It sucks that the US carriers are so restrictive about using unlocked devices on their network, especially when they offer the exact same device through them directly and could just flash that firmware to the unlocked device during activation, and then customers wouldn't have these made up "wifi calling issues". Alas, let me get off that soap box.

Concerning WhatsApp, there's one very big reason not to use it - and that's their parent company - Meta.

Signal is many, many times better.

Princess does have connecting staterooms, you just have to be crafty when booking your cabin. It's best done thru a TA since it can be tricky. But when you go to select a cabin during booking - you will see a note that says Cabin connects to "XXX" cabin when you click the cabin you want. That way you could book both simultaneously.

As to your question about the Medallions opening 2 rooms, yes, they can be programmed to open multiple cabins. Guest services can do this for you once you're on board.

19 minutes ago, NavyVeteran said:

On a 7-night cruise, you can theoretically drink 120 alcoholic beverages using the package - 15 each day for 8 days from 6 am to 6 am.

I've been over 21 for a long, long time and don't think I've consumed that many alcoholic beverages in that span of time. Wow, that's just mind boggling, to be honest.

Replying to follow and also say hello up from Jax!

Mind if I ask what excursion was so compelling? 🙂 Always like to consider trying new things on a voyage.

Might not be worth it in that case if they are identical. 😕

New modem might give you better wifi and perhaps a faster connection, but if in the end the fault lies at Frontiers end, then the previously suggested changes would still be good to do.

But definitely get that setup if you can, I imagine you might get better wifi coverage from it, if it's the device I think it is (after doing some research into their hardware)

10000% percent, especially if paired with OPs DNS problems from Frontier.

If Princess are changing what are called URIs, Uniform Resource Indicators (which are different from URLs) and Frontier isn't updating their DNS caches on a regular basis  - this could absolutely cause visitors to have a bad experience.

Using a better/higher performance DNS provider like Google's Public DNS, Cloudflare, Quad9, (loads of others), nets a better experience on the web in general.

No. The changes proposed in the video only affect the device you do them on.

I actually found this video which does a great explanation https://youtu.be/Yn4E8f-L6nI?si=RZokAO37rGoFjASe

Hey there, just getting to my PC to reply to your post.

TTL means time to live.

In DNS terminology, it refers to 2 things:

1. The amount of time a entry that is part of a DNS record is valid before "root DNS servers" request an update of the record

or 2. the amount of time your request for "something" on the internet is valid before it times out or your computer resends the request. (Not all request types can be resent, sometimes the hard refresh is the only way)

I really think if you changed the DNS in your computer (for now) as an override to the DNS your router is using - which is Frontier's crappy dns - you will have a better time.

I can walk you through the changes on your computer, if you'd like - but keep in mind, if it does solve the problem, you'll really want your son in law to do that change to your router. Otherwise, the other devices on your wifi like your phone and tablet will still have these types of issues.

The easiest way I think to do this would be for me to create a video for you that does some explanation and then has very easy instructions for you to follow. Would you be open to that?

Just now, jwattle said:

I know, and I was saying that maybe the op's bank did the same thing, and that a phone call would fix theirs as well.

I was on the phone with the fraud department while trying to complete my transaction on the AARP website and their terminals never saw an attempted transaction come thru - no error with the bank.

If and when they get back to me with a resolution, I will definitely update this thread.

13 minutes ago, CruisingSandgroper said:

@AlpacaBagmy husband had the same problem this week, credit card is not the issue. AARP opened up a ticket for him also.

Cheers. Thanks! Just waiting on them to get back to me. I decided to wait on payments towards our voyages until I can get them to resolve the issue. Have 3 cruises booked with Princess and those savings add up!