2theship

We have sailed both a lot. We're Elite Plus on Celebrity and getting close to Elite on Princess. While I like the self serve laundry, I'm looking forward to sending the sturdier stuff out sometime soon. I love using the free laundry perk on Celebrity. We like to sail Aqua Class on Celebrity and love using Blu for breakfast and dinner. And, as someone mentioned, the theatre access on Celebrity is much better. I really don't understand the comment about elevators. The S-Class ships have forward and mid-ship elevators and the M-Class has forward, mid-ship and aft elevators.

Having said all of that, Princess comes in a close second and sometimes has much better itinerary options. You really can't go wrong with either line.

On the Emerald last month, my sister, a non-drinker, had the soda package. She enjoyed all kinds of alcohol-free drinks. She did a pretty good study of the bar menus to see what was available and was always very clear with the server when she ordered. When she wasn't sure, the bar staff was very helpful.

On Emerald last month in Hawaii, my sister was able to buy an unlimited internet package. We spent a lot of time in the middle of the Pacific going from LA to Hawaii and the internet was often slow.

6 hours ago, OCruisers said:

Unfortunately, we saw more "sharing" drink packages on our last cruise than ever before ... especially the coffee package.  

It's a real shame when folks think it's OK to cheat! 

I have often had a drink package and have not cheated with them. But, I had no qualms about going to the coffee shop and buying two cappuccinos. I was entitled to 15 of them over the course of the cruise and didn't go near to using my total. Now, I never went there and asked for two brewed coffees. 

If you are interested in seeing more of LA, you can rent a car from Enterprise at the airport and return it to a location very close to the Crowne Plaza.

"Coffee Lounge" is probably a better description than "Elite Breakfast". At best, it's a continental breakfast and some days that's exactly what I'm looking for. Using the word "Breakfast" might lead people to believe that bacon and eggs might be involved. We sometimes have a regular breakfast then go to the Elite event for cappuccino and conversation.

We were just on the Emerald to Hawaii January 3-18. In addition to the usual sea day activities like Zumba, trivia, dance classes, etc., Tiki Dave and Dr. Sharon Faff offered really interesting lectures about the islands and their history. Tiki Dave also offered Ukulele lessons and his wife Leiloha gave hula lessons. On the last sea day, there was a performance. There was also a passenger choir. All of these involve a series of events over the course of the sea days. The only time we had trouble getting seats in the theatre was when we arrived just a few minutes before the first production show. We left and came back for the late show and had no problem. 

We stayed at the Best Western in San Pedro. It was very reasonable with a decent breakfast and a free shuttle to the port. There were no fancy restaurants nearby but were easily accessible by taxi or probably a short walk. There were several fast casual places very nearby and we enjoyed a couple of those.

We always travel with some protein bars in case we're in port without food available. As long as it's in a sealed package, it's not a problem.

We tried three times. The first was a transatlantic with a lot of Elites on board and a very active roll call where Chef's Table had been discussed extensively. As Platinum members, we boarded later and simply could not sign up early enough. The next two times were both 7-day Southern Caribbean cruises that had far fewer frequent cruisers on board and we got Chef's Table both times. On the second one, Chef Alfredo happened to be on board and ever since then, I've used our photo with him as my avatar. They were both great experiences but Alfredo made the second one extra special. It was great fun to watch the ship's head chef jump at Alfredo's commands.

With New York City, the hard part is deciding what to do, not how to do it. There is so much to choose from and, if your ship is docked in Manhattan, it will all be pretty easy to do. There are mountains of tour books available to give you some idea of your options.

If you want an overview, a hop on, hop off bus might be a good starting point. "There's the Empire State Building, here's Chinatown, now we're in SoHo", etc., etc. If you're a museum fan, there are plenty of options and some are so big, they take most of a day to experience so you might want to decide which one you most want to see and focus on that.

If you want to see a Broadway show, now is your chance but I would not risk buying tickets in advance. I remember reading about a similar cruise last year being delayed by a day getting to NYC due to weather. People who had pre-purchased tickets were left with expensive pieces of paper. Once you're in the city, go to TKTS. I think that there are several locations but we usually use the one in Times Square and see what's available. You won't get to see this year's hottest show but you might see last year's big hit. You could also trying going directly to the theatre's box office.

Overall, we are very comfortable using public transportation in the city. However, if you see an evening show or have dinner late at night ashore, you might want to grab a taxi back to the ship.

Booking flights for our fall transatlantic, business class fares were $7000, first class were $1600. You need to consider all the possible options. 

My adult daughters grew up on Celebrity starting at ages 5 & 6. We had already cruised on a now-defunct cruise line that catered to families. The difference was that instead of 800 kids in the program, Celebrity had about 100 total so that in their age group there were about 30 or 40 kids instead of over 100. They got a lot of personal attention. Also, the dining room staff was fantastic over the years and helped my girls become totally non-picky eaters.

36 minutes ago, Baron Barracuda said:

 

Agree.  Took our first Viking sailing in October on the Star and were blown away with how welcoming they are.  All senior officers attended M&M and they provided live music, cocktails and hot apps.    

15 minutes ago, PROCRUISE said:

 

Indeed, as mentioned before, Viking officers and crew go all out for meet and mingles and want to know from everyone attending how they are enjoying the ship/cruise and if they have any suggestions/concerns. Celebrity officers/crew seem more interested in how quickly they can leave.

Could that be partly because this is all still new to Viking? They certainly don't do anything like that on their river cruises but there are very few Cruise Critic members on those small ship cruises. Personally, I'm over the multiple roll call events. I like the Meet & Mingle and we always register and I'm always active on the roll call but some days I'd like to just sit back with my book and chill but I feel I have to go to the slot pull, lunch, cabin crawl, whatever. I've also been on some roll calls where a few people feel the need to dominate the conversation and activities. Like others, I find the best benefit is the opportunity to participate in private tours, especially in Europe. But I have a few pet peeves there . . . oh, don't get me started.

We booked on the Sip & Sail package on June 28. I think I booked as soon as the S&S promotion opened. Since then, some other sales have come along but because our cruise is nearly sold out, I'm not able to change offers. Oh well, I guess there are a lot of martinis in my future.

Where cruise line air fares really excel is on international flights. Of course, we always compare with buying direct from the airlines and other sources but, almost always, EZair is better. As mentioned earlier, on an international flight, each person gets one checked bag for free. If you decide to fly business class - and there are great deals on that through EZair - you get three checked bags free. For domestic flights in coach, there is a fee per bag but the $200 that Princess mentions is just a blanket statement. If two people traveling together each checked two bags, the total roundtrip fees might get up to that.

40 minutes ago, billco said:

There are two ways I use. Scroll down to "Add or Modify Flights" and do a search for the same itinerary or go to Find Cruises, do a search for your cruise and do a flight quote.

I usually do a search for my cruise without logging into my account. Then I look at flight quotes. I don't choose the "Add or Modify Flights" option unless I know I want to make a change. I think I'm afraid that I'll accidentally cancel my flights.

On 12/16/2018 at 8:48 PM, Michael50 said:

Hi there.. sorry I wasn't more specific.... so we are flying from NYC to Barcelona - would prefer a non stop if that's possible - and we are flying home from Rome - but we added two extra nights on our own.  We paid for air plus through Viking which i'm assuming allows us some input as to our flights, however,  since this is our first Viking cruise we really have no idea how this works.  Any info would be appreciated... 

Thanks again

I'm currently researching flights to Barcelona - there are non-stops from JFK on Delta and from Newark on United. We sailed Viking last year and paid the additional fee to have control of our air booking and it was absolutely worth it. Some of our fellow cruisers had terrible connections in both directions and could not do anything about it. They had no idea that for a small fee, they could have picked their flights. Do your own research, know what you want and ask for it.

At non-tender ports, we've had no problem leaving when we wanted. Since the ship excursions exit in groups, there are generally opportunities to exit between groups. We've also been in ports where we planned private tours that left super-early in the morning and we always left the ship before the ship excursions started.

On 12/14/2018 at 7:37 PM, Desert Cruizers said:

I was put in touch with Lawrence Andrada for our March 12th M&G at landrada@princesscruises.com

Address : 24305 Town Center Drive, Valencia, Ca 91355

31 minutes ago, DMRick said:

That email gets returned, as not valid. Anyone have a better email address? Thank you. 

I have been email Lawrence as well for my January 3 cruise at that address. Double check your spelling - the first letter is a lower case L (as in Lawrence) but also looks like and upper case I (as in Inside).

I've never sailed on the Pacific Princess but it's a smaller ship so perhaps less family oriented. It sails to Glacier Bay.

We've done transatlantics on both Celebrity and Princess and the activities are more similar than they are different. The lectures will depend on who they managed to get for that specific cruise but we've found enough variety that we attended one or two each day. There will also be ongoing trivia, arts and crafts, etc.

If you have an active roll call, members might plan a Meet & Greet, slot pull, cabin crawl, bar crawl, gift exchange and more. We've never gotten bored on a TA.

It varies from one TA to another based on who's available to lecture. There will be a couple of lecturers who are experts in some field. They will then do a series of programs on their topic. On six westbound TAs, we've experienced presentations on art history, baseball, navigation, weather systems, giant squid, history of ocean travel, etc. Some presenters are better than others but we've enjoyed most. These are all done by people who are onboard just for that cruise. Not all of them are paid, some do it in exchange for a free cruise.

In addition to the usual trivia, there may be an ongoing trivia game where you stick with the same team over a series of days. There might be a passenger choir organized by the entertainment staff, rehearsing throughout the crossing and performing on one of the last afternoons or evenings. All of this depends on the cruise director.

More than once, we have used a shared transfer with Woodford Chauffeur Cars. They will pick you at your London hotel and take you directly to the ship. If you book with them and post on your roll call, it will fill quickly! We've had no problem with pickups at different hotels.

It has been our experience that anytime the ship is in port very late, you may dine at whatever time you wish. Obviously, you won't have your usual table and tablemates. Your serving staff may mention the revised arrangements the night before.