CricketCruiser

Hi,

We are considering returning to Celebrity after taking our last several cruises on Princess and NCL. Having a place to take good walks is important to my husband and will make or break my plans for a Caribbean cruise in October on the Equinox. I've been reviewing cruise videos but so far I can't find any info on jogging tracks or promenade decks that wrap around the entire ship.

Can you help me?

Thanks!

Check with your bank on return. The $4 could be their charge.

 

But thanks for the heads up and share.

 

One way to avoid this is to pre-plan $$ before embarking. Another is to get cash out of the ship's ATM or via the casino (there are threads on CC how to do this, at least on Carnival) before heading off the ship.

 

ATMs in foreign countries are susceptible to all sorts of scamming and best avoided all around.

I need to add "Get Cash!" to my cruise prep list :D

Does your card charge a foreign transaction fee? Are you sure this wasn’t a cash withdrawal and foreign usage fee?

 

Can you tell us what the current policy at Buccanos is? Did you pay the taxi a pp rate to cover round trip taxi and entrance fee ( used to be $25pp) or did you pay one-way taxi fees for vehicle, and a pp entrance fee on arrival?

We used the "Beach Break Island Tour", they are white vans with drivers that give you the low down on the area as you are driving then bring you to Buccanos and wait for you all day. They try to have a van load but we just had 2 couples so it cost us $5.00 extra each to leave with just us 4, worth it because we didn't want to wait any longer, it was a few hours after the crowds had already left the pier area. We didn't pre-plan this, just walked up and they approached us with the offer. Email veni_vivas@hotmail.com (bus #02), his name is Veni Vivas, great guy. If I remember, it cost $60 total for us, ride both ways and beach club admissions fee ($15 for admissions fee and $15 per person for ride including the extra $5.00). This includes your beach chairs and snorkeling equipment. Also tipped of course. I would do this again in a heartbeat, and will when we are in Cozumel again. Buccanos has a restaurant/bar, it's a beautiful place. Small sandy beach but remember this is snorkeling heaven so lots of rock/iron ore or whatever it is. There are massages and a fish spa on the grounds also.

I'm sure there are others who do the taxi, but the nice thing about this service is that they wait for you to take you back to the ship. If you are staying for 4 hours and someone else wants to leave after 2 hours, they take them and come back for you.

Check with your bank on return. The $4 could be their charge.

 

But thanks for the heads up and share.

 

One way to avoid this is to pre-plan $$ before embarking. Another is to get cash out of the ship's ATM or via the casino (there are threads on CC how to do this, at least on Carnival) before heading off the ship.

 

ATMs in foreign countries are susceptible to all sorts of scamming and best avoided all around.

Oh, I see, could be. I'll be checking on that...thanks for the info. I think I'm getting too old for these drop & go cruises, I think I need more than 2-3 weeks to plan for a cruise which is usually how we are able to do it in our line of work. There's always a few things I forget. I have gotten cash before from the casino, I forgot about that option :o

There are a couple of nice atm accounts that, even tho the charge occurs, rebate the charges. My Schwab account rebated about $40. in atm charges incurred in South America.

 

And I think Capital One has a similar offering.

 

Wait...you got USD out of an atm in Mexico? I would have thought it would dispense pesos.

Yes, it was USD, I think I had to select "Other" when the first screen came up offering pesos amounts.

Just a quick note, we returned on Sunday from a 7-day glorious cruise on the Regal. In Cozumel, we were winging it with no plans, walked to the end of the large palapa where the vans are waiting to take you to the beach or wherever and realized I needed to visit the ATM so I had cash to pay for our day. Went to the ATM on the left, right after the last shop in that taxi area and withdrew $40.00. Noticed the fee was high ($5.80). Then returned to sitting down and waiting for a decent size group to form to head over to Buccanos Beach Club (wonderful by the way). Realized that I needed more cash, (duh) went back and got another $40 plus 5.80 for the fee. Got back to the ship that night and when checking my account, noticed that it took out $9.80 for the fee both times I visited this one ATM. I've attached a clip. Beware! :mad:

By the way, email: veni_vivas@hotmail.com for the Beach Break Island Tour, he takes you on a nice ride with commentary to the Buccanos beach club, it was wonderful and inexpensive.

Being eligible for an upgrade or upsell is the default status for every booking. In other words, just about everyone on the ship is eligible. Only those who specifically ask to have their booking marked "will not accept an upgrade" are not eligible for a free upgrade, but still might get an upsell offer.

 

So if your TA said you were eligible for an upgrade, he/she was telling the truth. Obviously thousands of passengers eligible for an upgrade or upsell will get neither.

 

Princess offers upsells when they have cabins in a higher category left unsold and want to get some additional income on the sailing. Princess offers free upgrades (and also upsells) when there is a need for the type cabin you have. If there is not an unmet demand for the 1B category, there is no reason for Princess to offer you a free upgrade.

 

There used to be many more free upgrades on Princess than there are these days. Two factors are involved.

 

1) Princess used to have a number of cabin categories with very few cabins in them, often as few as four or six cabins. Booking a GTY for such a small category almost always resulted in a free upgrade. However, several years ago Princess revised the categories and the categories with just a few cabins in them disappeared (except, of course, for full suites). Thus many GTY bookings could be satisfied in the category booked.

 

2) Princess figured out that people would buy what they had been giving away, in other words, upsells instead of free upgrades. Not only would people buy them, they were anxious to get upsell offers.

 

By the way, switching TAs (even if possible) would not make a difference in getting or not getting an upgrade or an upsell.

Great information, thanks!

It seems like the Princess agent misled you. There's really no rhyme or reason why some people get upgrades while others don't. For instance, sometimes (very infrequently) people get really lucky and get upgraded from an inside cabin to a balcony even on ships that have ocean view cabins, unlike the Royal and Regal. And that means that hundreds of passengers in ocean view cabins were skipped over.

 

It's possible that people with guarantees in lower inside cabin categories got upgraded to balconies on your cruise. Or it could be that no one did because balcony cabins sold well. On one of our cruises last year, Princess was actually having to offer move-down offers to people in balcony cabins because they had overbooked them.

 

The secret is to never book a category of cabin that you will not be happy with. Sometimes you get exactly what you paid for.

That's interesting. I agree with you, and I'm not complaining about the inside cabin just trying to learn how Princess works, we're as happy as clams to be sailing next week. Most of our cruises we book within 3-4 weeks of sailing so we're used to being on a guarantee, and getting bumped up (on NCL). Our loyalty situation on NCL may have worked in our favor as well. :D

You won't get an email even if an upsell is offered because you used a TA they will get the email. The TA then hopefully will forward it to you. I used a big box retailer's travel dept and they do not forward upsells along becaue they say they don't get to their email in a timely fashion.

I see. Well here's the thing, I actually I booked directly through Princess and paid $75 more than a quote I had already received from a TA because he sold me on the idea that he could give me an inside cabin in the highest category which would create a better pathway to a possible balcony upgrade. So because I paid extra for this it's natural that I would welcome the upgrade. The other thing is, when I was looking at this cruise a month ago, there were a lot more cabins available, they must have run good sales and now it's booked up.

Sometimes your luck just runs out. :eek: You will still be on a cruise and how bad is that??

Tony

Exactly! We're not disappointed in the least, so thrilled to be going on a cruise next week regardless of the cabin type, which is a small thing. But, like many other people, if there's a chance to pay a bit more for an upgrade we'd like the opportunity if it's available. :D

.If you look on line you will see that there are very few balconies shown as available on that cruise - I would not get my hopes up for any upgrade of upsell. I have done 35 cruises with Princess and have never gotten a free upgrade and only 2 upsell offers (both from mini suites to full suites Princess nearly always sails close to full on most cruises and I never plan on any upgrades or upsells

I see, thanks. We've only done one other Princess cruise in the past, we've been on NCL five times in the last several years, being bumped up is pretty common in our experience, we always go with a guarantee, and normally book within one month of sailing. I've received a free balcony to mini-suite upgrade, gotten aft balconies twice and an ocean view to balcony. Every line is different. Looking very forward to going with Princess again!

How do you know you are the only one not receiving an email for an upgrade or for an upsell? (BTW, an upgrade and an upsell are two different things).

Thanks for taking the time to respond with this helpful information.

Hello Cruisers,

Question for you. Booked directly through Princess, 4/8/18 Regal sailing (Western Carib), inside cabin category 1B (highest category for this type of room I guess). When I booked, the agent explained booking this higher category would mean I would be eligible for a free upgrade or up-sell offer before a customer who booked a lower category. I am very interested in a balcony upgrade up-sell but I seem to be the only one not receiving an offer via email. My agent doesn't know anything about it and it's too late to transfer my booking to an outside travel agent who may be better suited to help with a situation like this.

Any advice would be appreciated!! If I'm out of luck on the pre-cruise up-sell option, what about after I get on the ship?

Would really like a balcony for this important birthday + 26th anniversary cruise if possible plus having the fresh air option is helpful for my husband's sea sickness problem. There were financial issues or we would have gone with the balcony, but it meant adding over $600 to the booking at that time which wasn't doable for me. :o

Thanks!

Julie

Thanks for all the info! Seems like a lot of seasoned Floridians just drive down early in the am the day of. I'm going to check on hotels that offer free parking for the week, if I can find that we'll stay overnight, if not, we'll drive and park at Park & Go. Thanks again!

We are on this cruise as well and are using Park N Go. We always do. They are fast, clean and always on time. We had stayed at a couple of hotels in the past and got stiffed once and had to take cab back after cruise.

Oh no, stiffed? What happened?

Congrats CricketCruiser!

I'm on the same trip. I was on the Regal last January for the first time and she instantly became my favorite ship.

Great! I'm going to see if we have a meet & greet and sign up for the roll call. Why is this your favorite ship?

Don’t forget to use the two hand towels on each edge of the tv for curtains.

Hand towels? Not sure what you mean, maybe so it isn't so bright 1st thing in the morning?

Living in Denver we always flew in the day before, but now we live in Jacksonville and it's about a 4.5 hour drive. Watching every penny, wondering if we should try to find a hotel that allows you to park for the week or if we're better off getting up early and driving directly to the pier and parking at the terminal? I'm not sure if there are hotels that offer free or low cost parking? I found Park&Go parking at about $9/day.

Also, how early can we board (we aren't in a suite or Elite). Any tips appreciated :D

Set the TV to the bridge-view channel with the sound off.

When the sun comes up... :cool:

Wow, that's a great idea. Thanks for the tip, we'll do it on the days when we want to get up for whatever reason. :cool:

I just wanted to say Happy Birthday & Happy Anniversary!! Have a great time celebrating both.

Tony

Thanks Tony! I booked my cruise last night, a sales agent from Princess called me and we finalized everything :D

Sounds silly, but cut out any paid for coffees and lunches a few days a week. Go with the inside and just get on the ship. You'll have a great time!

I'm with you Doreen, sacrifice whatever and just get on the ship. We're booking tonight or tomorrow, just researching travel agents tonight. Thanks :D

We just booked Caribbean Princess after a ten-year absence. We, too, are excited to get back. Hope your cruise is excellent in every way!

Thanks, Jim. I hope you have a great time on the Caribbean Princess! :cool:

Welcome back & have a great cruise

Thanks Paul!

Try a go fund me page!

Or you can stand on the off ramp with a sign like I do.

HILARIOUS! Thanks for the suggestions! :D

"take shuttle, taxi or uber to Pier 2 at Port Everglades, go thru terminal show them your passports and express boarding passes. Get cruise cards, sign health forms, get in line. gangway is on deck 4, show them your cruise card - they should let you on the ship."

Funny! No, I meant financially, find a way to pay for a cruise. Oh well, I can't have a balcony this time, just get on the ship. Actually your response is helpful, I'm going to print and take with me. ;)Thanks Mike!