Paula_MacFan

Use the card to hang on your door the night before. Be forewarned it's been our experience they always come earlier than the time selected 🙂

I got this email yesterday about Caribbean and other bookings for 2025 & 2026. I was able to book a Panama Canal cruise this morning. When I did a search for 2026 Caribbean cruises I get 26 results open for booking, as per screen shot attached.

My reservations are still showing up. Not that this helps you now, but I take screen shots of my reservations in the app 'just in case' and also of my credit card payment. Better safe than sorry 🙂

Ha! Glad I wasn't the only one. I thought I was losing my mind there momentarily 🙂 I had a cruise picked and was in the middle of selecting the cabin when it suddenly said 'pricing not available for this cruise'. I didn't realize it was Elite day until later -- we're Platinum -- and I just had randomly been looking at some Panama Canal cruises.

Thanks for the nice review. We spent 12 days on the Island in Sept/Oct and our experience mirrored yours. We found the ship to be in generally good shape and had a great time. I would also echo your comments about voice levels in the public areas. During our dinner in the Crown Grill one evening we heard a grown man speaking like Donald Duck throughout the entire meal. Happy holidays and safe travels home.

Probably just supply & demand? Our May 2024 Alaska cruisetour has been sold out for months, and the price of the cruise alone has gone up too. Several of our excursions have been sold old for months, and the ones that are still available have gone up anywhere from $10 to $50 per person. I've heard 2024 & 2025 bookings are really strong, and some tour operators are accepting reservations for 2025 already.

I looked at the 2 excursions that I think you're referring to in Genoa. The Discovery Family version has '30 minutes for refreshments at a local cafe' and is one hour shorter in duration, while the other tour has '1.5 hours for lunch at a local restaurant' and the whole tour is one hour longer. I would surmise the 'local restaurant' isn't as kid-friendly as the 'local cafe', and with the shorter time may be more kid friendly on the Discovery Family version.

Here's what the Princess website says about the Discovery Family excursions, and the link. These tours are supposed to appeal to kids 3 - 12 years old. We've never done the Discovery Family ones but we have done the Discovery Exclusive ones which typically have behind the scenes or other special features not available on other tours. I'd probably compare the details tab to see what specifically is different about the tours, that's one thing I like about the Princess website over other cruise lines' -- the detailed descriptions for travel time and time at each sight on excursions. https://www.princess.com/ports-excursions/

Here's a map from the Princess website which shows the route Royal Class ships take vs other smaller vessels in the fleet. Note the 'Royal Class Ships Route' in black in the lower right corner, that shows those larger ships must sail farther west around Vancouver Island. In the list of ships in your example, the Royal Princess would be considered 'Royal Class'. You can also see that Glacier Bay is farther north of the Inside Passage on the map. We have a Sapphire Alaska cruise booked and are very much looking forward to it. There are many positive comments and reviews here for that ship. Good luck with your planning.

Glad you were able to make the best of it! Thanks for the review.

Thank you all for the responses.

I thought about putting this question on the Alaska board but it's really specific to our upcoming Princess cruisetour so I'm posting it here. We have the Denali Tundra Wilderness tour booked for our May cruisetour, and I've read reports that a boxed lunch can be ordered in advance. I've also seen on the park concessionaire's website there's a form you can fill out to order the lunch in advance. My question is this -- do they have a way to pre-order the lunch from the Princess lodge, or do you have to do it yourself through the concessionaire? The concessionaire's website has a form to fill out but says you should drop it off the night before. We aren't planning on being in the park the day prior so I wasn't sure if the Princess lodge would have ways to order for people staying at the lodge. I know they provide a simple snack box on the tour as well, and yes I know that the Natural History Tour is the default tour and we've already upgraded to the Tundra Wilderness Tour. And yes I know the road isn't open the whole way yet. Just wanted to get some feedback from anyone here who has ordered the boxed lunch in advance. Thanks

That's where we went too on our last rocky cruise. There were so many people there who felt queasy the waiters were going around with ginger ale for everyone. Hope you get relief soon!

Agreed! Galveston is our preferred port for Caribbean cruises as we are from the midwest so it's an easy travel destination. We are going on the Regal in 6 weeks, but after that I doubt we'll go again anytime soon. I was disappointed they weren't offering some new itineraries too. Maybe some Eastern Caribbean routes or even Panama Canal with a smaller (non Royal class) ship. Carnival has a Panama Canal cruise from Galveston but we've never been on that line. They are offering the same old thing unfortunately.

That's why we take reviews with a grain of salt. Sometimes I think people have unrealistic expectations or didn't bother to do any research or reading in advance. We've even been on excursions with people who literally have no idea where they are going. Oy! We always make the best of it no matter what 🙂

For people like us the cruise is all about the ports, getting out and seeing things we normally don't in our everyday lives. We treat the ship as a floating hotel rather than the destination. So while for you the 'main point of a cruise' is to relax, for others it's to see the world. I can lounge around at home, or at a domestic resort hotel, but I can't see foreign ports everyday. To each their own 🙂

We had an aft cabin on our last Alaska cruise and have another one booked for May 2024. We love aft cabins for any itinerary, but especially for Alaska where the temperatures can be cooler. Due to typically less wind it's more usable than cabins on the port or starboard sides, at least in our experience. We are really looking forward to our Alaska cruise and asked our CVP to mark the cabin as no upgrade 🙂

Also on the Island September - October and got cans with our Plus package. Initially we didn't ask specifically but sometimes that's just what the waiter provided. As the cruise went on and we realized we were not being charged, we started asking for cans so we could have a few in our cabin fridge. I really appreciate finally having cans included as I like Sprite Zero, and in the past you could only get it onboard in cans and wasn't available from the gun.

I initially booked the day flights opened at 330 days out for our European cruise, and was able to immediately book seats. This was on United. We have flights booked for another upcoming cruise to Alaska which I also booked the first day available at 330 days, and was able to select seats for all flights coming and going. Those flights are on Delta and Alaska airlines.

Per the Princess website: https://www.princess.com/en-us/cruise-deals-promotions/plus-premier-cruise-packages Drink package only: https://www.princess.com/en-us/ships-and-experience/onboard-experience/food-and-dining/beverages See FAQs at the bottom of the link for purchasing onboard.

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Your questions have primarily already been answered, so I'll just chime in with general comments. We used EZ Air to London in September for a European cruise and saved quite a bit over booking on our own. We flew United first class Polaris both ways and it was wonderful and totally worth the money. Just the lounge access for pre-boarding and layovers, onboard meals, no checked bag fees, and other included perks made it so much more civilized. Our fares were not much more than premium economy, and having the extra room and perks on a long flight were great. We used the United app to manage our flights and were able to choose seats at the time of booking, and order meals in advance on the app. We got all flight and gate notices on the app as well. I watched our fare prices every day, and was able to re-fare a couple times when prices dropped. That is one of the best perks of EZ Air IMO -- the ability to refare with flexible fares if prices drop. My experience has been for domestic flights EZ Air isn't that much different in pricing, but for Europe it really seems more cost effective. We flew in 5 days early so we didn't have the worry about missing the ship, but for people cutting it close the benefit of Princess getting you to the ship could be important too. I don't see any downsides to using EZ Air to Europe but maybe others will chime in. I've heard some horror stories of people who swear they'll never use EZ Air, but mostly those seem like airline issues to me and not specific to EZ Air.

From the Princess website:

Agreed! We love the Regal and have a cruise booked for next month. We've been on that ship for other Caribbean and New England cruises as well. My one pet peeve is the Princess Live venue -- it's a waste of space IMO and I miss not having Explorers. That is one of our favorite venues on other ships and Regal doesn't have it. Now it sounds like they are taking away the Club 6 area as well for more casino space. Oh well, a day at sea is better than a day at work 🙂 We still consider the Regal to be a 'newer' ship as well. Our last cruise was on the Island in September - October, and we found her to be in good shape too albeit an older, smaller vessel.