pompeii

On 5/30/2024 at 7:06 PM, azbirdmom said:

There are several private tour vendors in that area but this is the one that we went with:  https://www.shorexcursions.co.uk/ .  We did the first tour (with Cawdor, Culloden, etc.) but they customized it a bit as there were only 4 of us in the car - us and our best friends.  Not sure what is available but if you are booking this cruise it's probably best to nail down any tours you want to do as quickly as possible.  Tripadvisor does have multiple listings for tour operators in the area.

@azbirdmom We have this exact tour lined up when we’re in Invergordon. By any chance was your guide’s name Allan?

11 minutes ago, fruitmachine said:

 

Having mulled this over, and to avoid time backtracking, I'd suggest:

1. Castle (as you have early tickets already)
2. Walk Royal Mile (lots of Fringe street performers to watch) to Holyrood.  Remember to visit St Giles, try Haggis at The Haggis Box, or drop in at The Museum of Edinburgh on the way.
3. Taxi or 35 bus to Britannia
4. Visit Britannia (allow 90-120 minutes to tour)
5. Tram from Ocean Terminal to St Andrew Square (allow 30 minutes, but it will probably take 20)
6. Walk ~3 minutes to X99 stop to return to Hawes Pier.

 

You can easily drop Britannia if you're engrossed in 1 & 2 ... and there are a multitude of other paid and free attractions to see on or very close to the Royal Mile that I've not listed.

 

As @gumshoe958 says, it will be busy.  The Fringe is the world's largest arts festival, and as a ticketed event is only surpassed in size by the (soccer) World Cup and the Olympic Games.

I think this sounds like the best plan. I’m more interested in Britannia than my husband is and although I’d like to see it, I won’t be heartbroken if I don’t get there. I think we’ll have a great day either way. 

13 minutes ago, fruitmachine said:

Although Britannia would like everyone to book a timed ticket, they will never turn away a walk-up visitor. At the worst, you might have to wait a few minutes for a bulge in numbers to go through. This was confirmed to me by their marketing manager. 

 

Either book for a later time and perhaps turn up early, or buy on the day. 

 

It's a bit of a walk between tram and Holyrood and between Holyrood and X99, so you may want to work through whether to take a taxi for one or more of those. 

 

The last tender will wait for the last X99. 

Thanks so much for your reply.  We'll just wait to buy tickets on the day so we can play it by ear.

55 minutes ago, gumshoe958 said:

Noon feels too early to me. You’ll be there on the first weekend of the Fringe so the city will be extremely busy and you should allow lots of time to get anywhere.

Wow, thanks for this information.  We may decide to forgo the Britannia in lieu of just enjoying whatever the streets have to offer!

We will be in Edinburgh on Aug. 3 on the Regal Princess from 7am-7pm and have tickets to Edinburgh Castle for 9:30.  Regular entry, not guided tour which were sold out already.  We want to follow the castle with a visit to the royal yacht and are wondering what would be the earliest time we should get tickets for? Would noon be too early?  I was thinking of taking the tram but we would be fine with a taxi if it would save us a lot of time between the two sites.

After visiting the yacht, we want to take the tram back to Edinburgh to wander around some, perhaps Holyroodhouse area, before catching to cruiselink bus back to S. Queensferry to catch the tender.  The last bus leaves at 5:20pm, but I'd want to be back in S. Queensferry by about 5 to be on the safe side.  

I'm also on that cruise, jumping over to the Regal after 21 days on the Island from NYC.  Have you checked out the roll call yet?  

Also, I see interiors starting at $1399 and balconies starting at $1699, so the price between the two should be much less than $1450 for the two of you.  

6 minutes ago, lovevacadays said:

That’s great it worked out for you. I always mark my cabin “no upgrade” as some upgrades end up not being an upgrade because of things like location, etc.  

 

Good point.  I forgot to have her mark it no upgrade, so I'll email my pvp again to do that when she returns.  

59 minutes ago, windango said:

I did this on our current booking and it worked fine. I knew exactly which cabin I wanted to switch to, it was in the same category and there was no price difference. The call center rep was able to easily make the change for me and I got the confirmation immediately. The call rep did have an accent and there was a little background noise but he seemed very eager to help. What I did NOT like was the brief survey I took at the end of the call. I was happy with the interaction and gave the rep 5’s but the last question was really odd. It was something like “ If you were a business owner, would you hire the person who helped you okay?” Or something to that effect. What the heck kind of question is that?

That’s a pretty common question on customer service surveys. They basically want to know if you were happy enough with the rep’s service that you wouldn’t mind having them work for you and represent your company. 

10 minutes ago, Cruise Raider said:

 
 

I’ve only tried the chat line once and after an hour, she just disconnected.  
I think I’d try the phone line .. at least you can keep them on the line until you get your new invoice to ensure everything is right.  You can also express you want no changes to anything else .. just the room change.  

Yes, that is pretty much exactly what I did.  I told her the only thing I wanted to change was my cabin assignment to one that was the same category and price.  She confirmed the same category and price then made the change.  I refreshed my cruise personalizer while on the phone and it reflected the change and the same fare, obc, etc.  I didn't get my confirmation until after I was off the phone (she said it would take up to 24 hours to receive, but I actually got it a minute or so later) and it was correct. 

I just checked everything again this morning and all is still good🙂

29 minutes ago, dweeb said:

As I have told my PVP previously,  "if I have to call Princess with their current Customer Support Team, I'm calling 1-800-647-2251 to make a new booking!!

 

I refuse to call Princess Customer Support for anything since they can't seem to be able to correctly do things.

 

Just my two cents!

Well, I agree with you, but it was either call them or miss out on the cabin I've been waiting to open up.  On any other day my pvp would have taken care of it in a jiffy, but it just happened to be Friday before a holiday weekend.  I will not call the 800 for anything if I can absolutely help it.

14 minutes ago, MsSoCalCruiser said:

What did you end up doing? 

I called the 800 number this morning and got someone who seemed to know what she was doing.  She made the change to the new cabin, tried to sell me the plus package, sent me our new confirmation with everything exactly the same except for the new cabin, and from what I can see, all is good.  (btw, I did post this info earlier in this thread so I didn't keep you all hanging😉.  One of my pet peeves....)

16 minutes ago, voljeep said:

Hmmmm  guess I never tried to do that when the fare had increased

If you’re keeping the same cabin category your fare won’t change even if the cruise itself has gone up in price. 

1 hour ago, memoak said:

When I call my CVP and they are out their phone message gives me an option to get to their back office CVP folks. I wouldn’t go through anyone else 

What do they say to do?  Mine just said leave a vm because her messages would be monitored. 

1 minute ago, sfpd3000 said:

Double check tomorrow to make sure you still have the booking.  We booked through the 1-800 number and the next day came to find out the booking had been cancelled.  Only found out because we happened to look on the princess website and saw that the cabin we had booked was now available.  We had no warning.... no email, no nothing.

Yikes, I will definitely double check it all tomorrow.
 

Had you received a booking confirmation?  

12 minutes ago, voljeep said:

chat - no way in 👿   Is the current price the same price you booked at?

Yes, everything is the same, price and all.  Just different cabin number.

OK, well I took the plunge and got an agent named Anne who seemed to be pretty knowledgeable.  There was an absence of loud noise in the background so I don't think she was in a call center.  Anyway, she took care of it and I see it on my personalizer and have also received a new confirmation that looks correct.  So I think I lucked out!  She didn't, however, bypass the opportunity to try and sell me the plus package, lol. 

Thanks, everyone, for your feedback, suggestions, and best wishes😉.  I think I'll go buy a lottery ticket.

7 minutes ago, that said:

Sugges Call the Vacation Planner line

and ask for help thru

another pvp explaining situation

 

 

I would have done that but when I call the pvp number I get only an option to enter my pvp's extension.  There is no option to wait for an operator or press 0 or anything.  Is there a workaround?  I even tried entering a couple of other random numbers as extensions but just got their voicemails as well.  

3 minutes ago, Cruise Raider said:

Then, I would go for it since it is a cabin you really want.  
 

If you were me, would you try your luck with chat or the phone number?  Just wondered if one or the other has more chance of getting someone who knows what they're doing.

Just now, Cruise Raider said:

I would only trust the 1-800 number if you are making a cabin change within the same category.  

It is the same category. No other changes at all. 

I want to change my cabin on one of my cruises but my pvp is out of the office until after Memorial Day.  The cabin I want is a desirable one that just came open and I don't think it will last until she returns.  Do I dare trust 1-800-Princess to take care of it?  Or trust the chat line?  In my experience with the regular customer service line, they often do more harm than good.  But I don't want to lose out on my cabin.  So do I feel lucky?

4 hours ago, Ken the cruiser said:

We can also buy 12 bottles of water for $7.09 once onboard, which is all my DW drinks. 

 

So making Elite has definitely been worth it for us. 😁

Unless it has changed recently, you can purchase the bottled water package only before you board.  It is not available once you are on the ship.  I just checked and the personalizer still says pre-cruise exclusive.  

Regarding the free laundry, if the turnaround is too long and you need something back right away, Guest Services will probably give you free tokens for the laundry room, including soap etc. I say probably because I have gotten them on every ship I’ve asked but some people have said they weren’t successful. I agree that the best thing about the laundry benefit is that they do it for you, but sometimes you just gotta do a quick load. 

We use EZAir every time we cruise Princess and our first and middle names are always run together like that.  It has never once caused a problem when boarding the plane. I'm not sure exactly what nightmares people are encountering when using EZAir, but for us it's been problem-free and much cheaper than booking directly with the airline or through a booking site.  

27 minutes ago, hpeabody said:

@pompeii   YES, this is my issue.  I want to know the size of each in order to compare. 14101 sure looks larger than 14104 to me and I am sure that is true.   By them only providing "average" sizes is of no use when shopping for a cruise.

14101 vs 10104 is one thing but they also list them as the same size as the much smaller ones in purple below them.  It’s ridiculous that they can’t give accurate info. 

I'm frustrated with this as well.  We're booked on the new Star, which is the same as the Sun, and forward balconies in particular appear much larger on the deck plan.  But the average square footage and layout schematic are the same as the regular balconies.  For example, in the deck plan below, 14101 - 14104 list the exact same sf and drawing as 14208 etc. But they sure look bigger to me!