victravellers

5 hours ago, nomadguy said:

where did you sail from - Southampton? If so, how was crossing the North sea in late fall?

Yes, Southampton. I didn’t think the seas were too bad but MrPantzOz says they were rough.

I would recommend a tour to see the lights.  While you could get great photos from the ship I personally think the photos look best with perspective from the land. 
Here is a photo just of the sky and while it is beautiful it is kind of missing something.

We were late arriving in Tromsø due to the weather but we did a tour on the cable car but visibility was pretty much zero because we were there quite late in the day. We also went to a polar museum which was pretty interesting.

In Stavenger we had a cruise through the lysefjord, beautiful scenery.

In Ålesund we stayed overnight again due to the weather. We just did a city tour and had plenty of time to explore around town. You can walk to the town from the ship.

19 minutes ago, jrmende63 said:

That is so exciting that you did this cruise. Could you tell me what excursions you did? And where did you see the Northern lights? From the ship or on an excursion?

We had an overnight in Alta, we did a ships tour called search for the Northern lights. The first tour on the Friday unfortunately didn’t see the lights due to cloud. We went on the Saturday night and the sky was clear. It was -8 degrees celcius with a wind chill of -12 so rug up.

You could see the lights from the ship and many people got great photos on the upper decks.

I have just returned from a cruise Search for the Northern lights. I think it was the first time it was offered. It was very cold but fantastic. We did see the Northern Lights but there is no guarantee of course.

We had snow on the decks, which was fun.

8 hours ago, MissP22 said:

Sometimes booking it as one complete trip saves more money then the extra Loyalty credit will get you anyway. 

I agree, I just wasn’t sure how it worked. If I got the bonus....great. If not...no big deal.

8 hours ago, chamima said:

 

 

It's only $25 for 21- 31 cruises.

A nice little bonus but not enough to get super upset about.

I wasn’t super upset or even upset really. I agree $25 dollars would have been nice but not enough to bother about. 😀

20 minutes ago, paul929207 said:

Have you booked the cruise as one cruise or two? If it is one, you will get the 20th and 21 cruise credit at the end of the trip. Therefore, no  Loyalty OBC this trip. If you have it booked as two,  you will get the Loyalty OBC for the second leg.

Damn, I booked it as one cruise. No credit for me. Oh well, never mind. 

Thanks for the info, I wasn’t sure how it worked.

Okay,I have a question.....I have 19 cruise credits and my next cruise is 37 days and showing 2 cruise credits. This will bring my cruise credit to 21. Will I get the loyalty bonus during this cruise?

First question would be, where are you cruising to? 

3 hours ago, meh56 said:

I was contacted by customer relations today. She said she does not know why it is a problem now when they started this last May. She also did not understand why this was important to us and were we going to spend that much time in the cabin. She also asked if I wanted to upgrade to a cabin with seating. She said Princess is taking all complaints seriously. I explained we do not want to sit on the bed to have room service, read or relax and we should not have to pay more money for a chair.We have booked with another line that offers mini sofa in every balcony.  Ruby did not offer any balcony cabins with sofa. It seemed like she really didn’t care , we are only one booking.  She said it was not really about safety but about giving us more room in the cabin. Loved the picture...I understand this may not be an issue for a lot of other people but when we vacation we want to be comfortable in our room - even holiday inn express (and similar chains) have a desk chair and arm chair in the room.

Haha, so they think you will spend more time in your room after they remove the chair.

1 hour ago, joll said:

 

Our cruise is on the Diamond Princess in Japan (May 2019) - Onboard account in $USD,  booked directly on the Australian Princess site.

 

I went into Manage Booking, Excursions Reservations, and it displays confirmed reservations for the tours I have already chosen.  There are also boxes with the option to Edit or Cancel these selections.

 

At the bottom of this page it states:

NEW - Pay before you sail, or Pay Later Onboard, then further quote 'You have the option to pay for shore excursions in advance of your cruise.  If you want, we will add the charges to your onboard account which is settled at the end of the cruise.'

 

When initially selecting a tour from the Browse and Reserve Excursions Section, and submitting the reservation, a message comes up advising if the tour is confirmed and at that point there is also the option of paying before you sail.

 

Our other cruise is on P&O Australia (account in $AUD) and they now have the two options for when you pay for tours.  Unfortunately, when I booked some tours a few weeks ago I had no choice but to pay upfront. For some reason, they cancelled the bookings when the new system came into place and refunded the credit card.  I had to resubmit the reservations and added some others but my cruise personaliser is still showing incorrect information - another call to P&O required!!!

That’s good to know, thanks, I have tonne of on board credit to spend and was hoping to use some of it on shore tours. I will have a look at my booking and see if I get the same options.

On 2/9/2019 at 1:27 PM, joll said:

We have just returned from a cruise so I'm not sure if this topic has been covered. 

When I was checking our bookings for a future P&O and Princess cruise, it states in the shore excursions booking area for both Cruise Lines that I have the choice of pre-paying or can reserve the tour and pay onboard.  May be they weren't getting enough advance bookings and have decided to revert to the previous arrangement.  

Anyway I went ahead and reserved a number of tours and the details have been included in my cruise personaliser.

Interesting, was this a Princess Australia cruise? Where did you see the option to pre pay or pay onboard, was it after you selected your shore tours?

Okay, I have a question. My TA often gives us 2 coffee cards which we never seem to use up on a single voyage. Has anyone been successful in trading the coffee cards for a mini bar setup? I have never heard this discussed on these boards. Thanks for any insight.

How ridiculous, my 6PM confirmed dining has now changed to 5PM. No way, no how am I having dinner at 5PM. I guess I am back to anytime dining....sigh

I can see posts in the Australia New Zealand forum

I have been upgraded on Princess from a mini suite to a vista suite. It was wonderful :D

US price has gone up to $68 inc gratuity's, also limiting the amount to 15 alcoholic bev per day.

You are quite right, I forgot to add gratuity to US price. It is still an insane increase.

An increase of $28 a day. That's an insanely huge increase. From $59 to $87 AUD. I notice the US price increased approx $3. Seems fair :rolleyes: not

He will still be with Princess but will no longer be Cruise Director. He has accepted a promotion to Entertainment Director.

I was on that cruise, he had left the ship prior to Suva for a cruise director conference. He re joined us in Suva and his contract expired when we arrived in Honolulu.

He is having a 2 month break and he's is coming back to the Golden in the roll of Entertainment Director.

We have just got off the Golden Princess and the hole was already punched.

Which Princess ships allowed you to take the cartons to your cabin before the last night of the cruise?

Between 2002 and this February I have not been able to do that on the Grand, Golden, Star, Sapphire, Emerald, Ruby, Caribbean, Royal, Regal, and Coral.

On the Emerald Sept 2016 Southampton to Sydney I could buy a carton of cigarettes to take with me to my room. Maybe they allowed it because it was a longer cruise.

Chips and gravy.....A bowl of chips from the burger joint and gravy from the buffet. Yummmm