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My wife and I had a very enjoyable Antarctic cruise on the Sapphire Princess that ended on January 4th this year. The best 1 way rate we got from EZ Air was $800 each give or take on Delta to fly home to Florida from Buenos Aires. If we tried booking this on the Delta website, we would have been paying close to $1,700 per person. So yes, it all worked out great for us and saved us a ton of money. And the other thing to consider is that with the recent issues of the Sun Princess canceling its 1st sailing on February 8th, people without travel insurance and people that booked private airfare to get to Europe got screwed in that they only got $200 per person from Princess to book a future Sun Princess cruise. But the people that booked their airfare through EZ Air were covered and their flights were automatically changed to the new cruise dates they selected. Same thing on some of these world cruise segments that were scheduled to sail out of Dubai in the very near future. All Red Sea cruises have been changed and that cruise you were looking to catch in Dubai is now departing from Johanasberg South Africa. If you had EZ Air, they will re-route your airfare to the new departure city. So there are benefits to using EZ Air. But the other point I suggest is simply dont spend thousands of dollars on a cruise and airfare costs WITHOUT getting cruise insurance. Anyway, I have only used EZ air on a couple of cruises and have been 100% happy with how things have turned out so far. Honestly, I may not have been able to afford to cruise internationally without some of their amazing rates. And being able to reserve the airline of your choice is another huge positive.

It's been a great cruise so far.

Thankfully I was able to apply the rest of my gift cards to my account at guest services on the sapphire princess. The gift card system was back up.

So I am on the Sapphire Princess since December 1st. Some of my gift cards were entered by guest services on day 1 of the cruise. However, I had a few of them left and have been unable to have these remaining cards entered by guest services for the last 6 days as the 3rd party software the ship uses has been down for several days. Very unfortunate but what can you do. I wonder if any of the other ships are currently having the same issues as Sapphire Princess is with the gift cards.

Am on the Sapphire Princess now. Have been on since we left LA on 1 December. Internet has been very good so far the whole trip. Spoke to the internet manager and asked him if internet would be spotty in Antarctica and he said due to Starlink he did not believe we would lose the internet there. We shall see. For the 2nd year running, this ship one the #1 customer service award in the entire Princess Fleet. Service has been very good in the dining room and our room steward is amazing. Of course the cruise is what you make it, and everything is not always perfect. But having been on the ship for nearly 3 weeks, my wife and I are very happy.

Dumb question. I am currently Ruby status with 49 cruise nights. I understand that you need 50 cruise nights to become platinum. I have a cruise upcoming. Will my loyalty status remain Ruby on my next cruise, or after the 1st night will I become platinum?

Do they have any decaf coffee machines in the diamond lounge?

Diamond plus on Royal, and most of my cruises have been on it. Have been on a couple of princess cruises this year. Still get our stateroom cleaned twice a day. But the biggest benefit on the longer cruises is very few children. But I have to be honest in that the food has been underwhelming to say the least.

Book a princess cruise. Very few children, especially on longer cruises.

Ditto. I am not impressed either. Have been a diamond plus cruiser on Royal Caribbean and primarily sailed with them over the last several years. Before RCL, most of my cruises were on Carnival where we have been diamond for 15 years. But earlier this year I took my first cruise on Princess. Really enjoyed the fact that there were many free items you could order through room service. It was a nice touch. My wife and I are not big drinkers, so paying for a drink package is not something that we would use. So we book the standard package. Its just unfortunate that the bean counters at Carnival took away a nice benefit that separated Princess from the other cruise lines. Will this in itself cause us to no longer cruise Princess? No it wont. As always, itinerary and price are important. But I do believe this will cause others to look at other cruiselines.

My wife and I will still be on this sailing.

Will be going on the Millenium in April, on a 15 night Panama Canal cruise. Have not been on Celebrity for 10 years. I usually cruise on Royal as I am diamond plus with them. I am concerned about the food issues, mostly because I am a very picky eater. With favorites of mine being Prime Rib and Filet gone, I hope the MDR will still have something I like. Yes its a shame that the prices and quality of everything on the planet are going parabolic. All that I can do is hope for the best. All of the cruise lines have tons and tons of debt. So cutting costs and cutting service is going to happen.

I just checked Square Mouth for my upcoming cruise and their price was double that of insuremytrip.

My wife and I have both had back surgeries. We ALWAYS ask for extra mattress toppers on Royal Caribbean cruises as their beds tend to be much to firm and they hurt our backs. Some to the point of me being able to stay in the bed to sleep.

Cruise stocks are down today because Carnival announced yesterday after the close, that they are issuing another 1 billion dollars worth of new stock. The cruise lines have a TON of debt and have already issued millions of new shares since the pandemic started. The earnings per share are going downhill quickly with so many additional shares issued. Financially speaking, the cruise stocks are literally a shell of what they once were pre-pandemic. I honestly believe that if there was any more cruise no sale orders in the future, the cruise lines probably would BK with such massive debt.