BGKAHUNA

HALLELUJAH - the long nightmare with Princess is finally over (we hope). We finally received the last amount owed to us by Princess. We had three cruises effected by the first pause. We were on one cruise when the pause hit. Princess finished the cruise as scheduled making all ports and ending the cruise as planned in Adelaide, Australia on March 15. It only took Princess 166 days to refund our remaining refundable onboard credit. This should have been a very simple matter but Princess turned it into an ordeal by not appropriately responding to any of our communications.

The next effected cruise was to begin on March 15. This cruise was cancelled so we were expecting a return of our cruise fare, taxes, fcd, fcc and some expenses as indicated by Princess. The first of these payments was received on May 14, the last was November 10, 224 days after the initial claim was received by Princess.

The third effected cruise was to leave on April 4 but was cancelled by Princess. Similar to our cancelled March 15 cruise, several types of refunds were promised by Princess. The first was received on April 21, the last was received on October 27, 210 days after Princess received our documentation relating to some expenses. So much for processing refunds based upon either date of cruise or date request received by Princess!

As an aside, in April, 2020 we put down deposits on two cruises with CMV.  In July of this year CMV filed the British equivalent of bankruptcy. It took less than 60 days to receive a full refund of our deposits. We know the two situations are completely different, but we just found the two timetables interesting. Hope everyone else has received everything that is owed from Princess.

Charles,

Although our time knowing Judy wasn’t long, she was a beautiful fun-loving lady. Our deepest sympathy to you and your family at the loss of a very special person. 

Susie and Marty

(I’m raising my hand.) Enjoying your commentary but please discuss important matters, such as: how are the doughnuts; is there enough ice cream and Frosted Flakes for the entire cruise; how many glasses of orange juice is each passenger allowed to have on the table at one time at breakfast; and probably most important, did you personally check on the status of all future boonker barges.

I would like to second the recommendation of a previous Cruise Critic reviewer and highly recommend Dean of Bali Drivers with Distinction. My wife and I have been on over 30 cruises and find that Bali is one of our favorite ports. We have been there twice, each time for two days. Our first visit was in February, 2015 and our second visit was in February, 2016. Before our first visit I did a lot of research on the best way to view the island. Based upon very favorable recommendations found on Cruise Critic and Tripadvisor, we decided to hire Dean as our driver/guide in advance. What a great choice! After several communications with Dean concerning what we were looking to get out of our stay and what we weren’t interested in, we left it up to Dean to plan our outings. We were a little apprehensive leaving all of the details up to him as we only knew him through the email communications, but our apprehensions quickly dissipated after arriving at the port. Dean was waiting for us in a clean, comfortable, air conditioned vehicle. He made us feel right at home with his affable style. He not only told us about his beautiful island but we felt like good friends before the day was out. He took us to so many truly magnificent sights the first day, we felt like we had seen all there was to offer on the island. We were very pleasantly surprised to find that our second day was equally spectacular. Dean is a professional photographer, check out his website at distinctionbali.com for ideas on what you would like to see. When we decided to take a cruise in 2016 that again included a two day stop in Bali, we immediately contacted Dean to show us around for another two days. This second time we never discussed what we should do, we only requested that we see and do more of the same. Dean delivered once again. We had another fantastic stay in Bali. I doubt if we would have seen and done so much with any other driver. Just tell him what you want and he will make sure the magic happens. He can be reached at deanbalidean@gmail.com.

Thank you I-Cruiser for all of the great information you have provided on this thread. You have inspired us to rent a car and take the Path of the Trolls loop. I have a reservation with Budget. I understand that they are at or very near to a gas station. My question is - when we return the car and need to fill up with gas, what form of payment do they accept? American credit cards? We are not planning on obtaining any local currency. Also, if the gas station is self service, are we going to be able to figure out how to use the gas pump? Thank you in advance for your response and again for all of the great info. on this thread.

The pictures sold me, looks like a great walking tour. If someone could please email the directions to bigkahuna at rochester dot rr dot com I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks so much.

I should be all caught up with recent requests. If you didn't get the notes, please let me know by posting again.

Hi Cruisemom42,

Please add us (bigkahuna at rochester dot rr dot com) to the next list of Herculaneum info that you send out. Thank you for sharing.