sunviking90

I agree. That’s what I have and I would find pizza or a burger to be much heavier.

There really isn’t. Onboard now and when I went through a mock booking the AARP automatically shows up, but I went down to actually book a cruise with the future cruise agent and he could not get my AARP to attach. I used a TA for this cruise, so I had it credited to her and I’ll have her chase it down when we get home.

I went in to see what it showed for our 7 day January cruise, and it reads as $16 day, but the total is in CAD even though it doesn’t say that. It works out to $1.30 exchange rate still.

My booking was through a TA, but I went in myself and paid the tips.

We were able to prepay gratuities in CAD for our cruise leaving tomorrow. Paid them about 3 weeks ago. The exchange rate they used when I calculated it was 1.30, so much better than waiting. Oddly enough buying OBC is in USD so would cost much more. Consistently inconsistent is HAL. @electro’s experience sounds unusual but I don’t doubt it.

I don’t miss the bags. They were the flimsiest of the cruise line bags we have received and I don’t think we ever took them home with us.

Bon Voyage!🛳️

They’re wrong. It is clear if I do a mock booking:

Bon Voyage!🛳️

Bon Voyage! 🛳️

The sale is live now.

Wow, I’m glad I screen shot ours for next week.

Haha, I believe it. I had a book recommended to me and it was very, very good. I then read another couple of books by the same author, and thought hold on! These characters are all so young! I had unwittingly stumbled into YA fiction.

Thank you @kazu! Getting very excited to join the beautiful Volendam in San Diego next week! It will be wonderful to sail towards Hawaii as the dark winter rains start to hit Vancouver.

I was wondering this too. I looked high and low on the website to find the terms, but it appears to be a secret.🤐

I was just going to add this. You beat me to it. Because it is really 2 7 days cruises, it could also be that the “same” cabin isn’t available for both legs, and that’s why it’s showing sold out.

If you’re looking at the Noordam, they are actually 2 7 day cruises, and they usually hold back cabins to sell as part of the cruise tours. The rest may be held by TAs as group space. They will open up. I always get emails for these cruises after final payment at greatly reduced rates.

I can let you know soon. We board on the 22nd, and intend to show up an hour before our assigned time. I have never missed MDR lunch on embarkation day in over 30 years of cruising and I don’t intend to start now. (My flame suit is on 😊)

I guess in my mind, I’ve seen it AS their salary for a long time. This charge is added to our fare to pay it. It would be nice if it was just included in the base fare, but it’s not. My understanding (and someone correct me if I’m wrong) is that their base salaries were increased after this change so that they would not be so dependant on “the kindness of strangers”.

I do understand your point, but wasn’t the change partly to make things more balanced between the behind the scenes crew and those who interact with passengers? And wasn’t it also a result of dining changes with the end of the same wait staff nightly who were tipped at the end of the cruise? The cruise environment has changed and for me at least, going back to the “old” tipping style doesn’t really fit the new reality. I understand that people don’t like the idea that their CA is then pooled among all the ships, but it probably is the easiest way of doing things.

The daily CA is charged to our account and any OBC we have is applied towards the balance.

I would never remove crew appreciation as I really don’t want to go back to the days of having to bring a lot of US cash on vacation with me and then put it in envelopes to distribute at opportune times to the crew. I love having CA automatically charged, and know that the crew are paid a mutually agreed upon contracted salary and not depending on people doing the right thing in compensating them. And I can used OBC for this or prepay at a more favourable exchange rate beforehand. We obviously do bring some US cash on cruises for extra tips if warranted, but I’m glad I don’t have to travel with $1000 cash on me for the basic CA on a longer cruise! Plus as Canadian it’s always a big “ouch” moment buying the US cash pretrip, lol. I don’t really care who Princess decides the crew appreciation goes to. It’s not for me patronize a business and then decide to second guess how they pay their employees when mutually agreed upon contracts are in place.

They are only offered in USD online for us and we book our cruises in CAD. Is purchase in CAD an option by calling in? I only see other pre-purchase items such as onboard credit, flats of water, etc offered in CAD online.

Nieuw Amsterdam and Eurodam also have Tamarind (sorry, I don’t remember what “class” they are). So, 5 ships total.

No. They’re in the Piazza making a racket! See the other thread. Actually, the bands that perform with the production shows are usually very good.