azbirdmom

We did a private tour last year with our friends and visited Loch Ness but didn't take a boat ride. We did pull into the parking lot where the big tour busses park (before they arrived) and I noticed creatures on the side. I soon shouted "Hairy Coos!". There were a couple of Highland Cows, the ones with the long hair over their eyes, and they are so stinking cute. Our tour guide / driver gave us some of the weeds that were growing around us and we hand fed them. One of the highlights of the day. We also took a drive along the Loch for a while and it is a lake, but it is very scenic. Great gift shop across from the Loch!

Good to hear! Did Tony's last name begin with "W"? If so I'm happy to hear he's still with Princess. He's a gem, very caring and at least in my case he worked hard to fix what others had broken. Hope you have a wonderful cruise!

We were on the ship earlier this month too but didn't hear that rumor. It wouldn't be a surprise though. When we were on the Royal in December about a third of that lounge had slots and the holdem poker machine. There was still room for a lounge and they had a lot of TVs set up for watching sports too. It's non smoking in there too so that's a bonus. I would love it if they did this on all of the Royal class ships.

Yes, it's working for me now as well.

With that itinerary there isn't any way you could do Loch Ness. I do think you have an overnight in Glasgow but it's still quite a long distance and even if you rented a car I'm sure it would be very expensive as well as exhausting. It's somewhat closer to Edinburgh but you're not in port long enough to do this. One other thing to think about. If your plan is to return to work the following day keep in mind that airline cancellations do occur. It happened to the friends we traveled with last summer and they were delayed until the next day when United cancelled their flight from LHR at the last minute. You will most likely be fine but just keep in mind that it could happen to you. If going to Loch Ness and returning to work the day after the cruise are primary objectives then I'd stick with the original cruise you were looking at.

Yes, I've gotten those calls but somehow I missed that news release. After our New Zealand cruise in December I thought that perhaps I was receiving the call in response to what I'd said on the survey. I think the agent was quite shocked at what I had to say (let's just say it was a problem that was allowed to continually happen at the buffet) and couldn't wait to move on to the sales pitch. After I said not interested a couple of times she asked if there was something else she could help me with. I mentioned something I was going to reach out to my CVP about and she said no, I'd have to contact him. Pretty clear that the only purpose for the call was to sell me Princess Promotions.

Yes, a new tab opens every time you want to do anything in the excursion section. A pain but at least it's a way to do this until Princess gets it fixed.

Thank you, this does work. Any idea what this indicates about the webpage that this prompt is the only way to get access to excursions? It doesn't seem like it's refreshing but I'm just curious how you came up with this solution (which I really appreciate by the way!). It's kind of like what you sometimes have to do when clicking a link in an email...

I meant it was cool and rainy almost every day. We did have warm, sunny days in Southampton pre-cruise as well as in Dublin and Le Havre. The rest of the ports were 50's and rainy, sometimes torrential. We got completely drenched on more than one occasion. The cruise before our's had very pleasant weather as did the one after us, it was just bad luck / timing for us. Still we had a fantastic time. This is one of the better itineraries that Princess runs.

Full disclosure: I have never sailed in an inside cabin. We love having a balcony and fresh air. On sea days I love sitting out there reading, sometimes with a glass of wine to enhance the experience. That said we also did a 12 day British Isles cruise last summer and barely used the balcony. It is one of the most port intensive cruises that Princess does. And at least for us the weather was miserable in late June / early July so even when we did have downtime the balcony wasn't that pleasant. If you absolutely don't need a balcony and will use WiFi / have a couple of drinks a day it probably makes more sense to buy Plus. As for the Olympics, Princess will have them on one or more of their sports channels. It's anyone's guess whether they will get a US or UK feed but it's popular enough that you should be able to watch some of it. If you are someone who watches the Olympics 24 X 7 I would agree that you should probably move your cruise to another time. There's so much to see in each of the ports so I think you will miss a decent amount of the TV coverage on this itinerary.

No one will be able to answer your specific question as Princess has yet to sail from Port Canaveral. But as mentioned above it is highly likely that it will follow the same process as Port Everglades and you'll have to exit the ship and then reboard after clearing immigration. Port Canaveral does have facial recognition software so it should be a relatively simple process.

I just noticed that they do have a new "Destination Collection" out there. It has the cruises for the next 12-ish months but doesn't have the deck plans or some of the other info that the old one had. Here's a link to the PDF: https://www.princess.com/html/global/brochures/pc/destination-collection-2024-25.pdf And here's a link to the page where you can order the hard copy: https://www.princess.com/brochures/?track=footer&trackId=free-brochures

Thinking you are probably OK. I didn't notice that these were past cruises when I made that suggestion, my brain automatically goes there any time I see a booking number!

@Ombud - you might want to report your post above and have a host remove the screen shots you added that show your booking numbers.

Agree. Not only does Princess share the name with their ONE "contractors", they also share cruising history with them. They mine the lists of people who have just returned from cruises as well as people who just booked them and then call them. They make you think that they are genuinely interested in your last cruise experience or thank you for your loyalty by citing your Captain's Circle level. Then the sales pitch begins. And as soon as that happens just say not interested enough times that they get the message.

Pay for access to something that allows you to pay up to double the direct price for a tour? Yep, they would totally do that.

Very odd. I could access excursions for our upcoming Alaska cruise yesterday morning but it's not working at all now. Ditto our Caribbean cruise later this year. Hmmm....

I think we can squarely lay the blame on Princess for starting that mess. ONE only works within the confines allowed by Princess but yeah, they seemed to be pretty useless when it all hit the fan.

The phone staff in the Philippines that was set up by ONE in late fall of 2022 first started out by booking casino reservations before branching out to handle all of the customer service functions for Princess. They were so bad back then that I had to reach out to senior Princess management - on two separate bookings - to fix what they messed up or couldn't handle. I was actually skeptical of working with the CVP they assigned to me but he's been good so far. I can book a cruise in minutes with him vs. an hour plus using the service center.

Correct. There is a CVP assigned to me for my casino comp offers (note: I have an awesome TA but she won't touch the casino bookings). He is a contractor who works for ONE but is indeed considered a CVP - not one of the people pushing Princess Promotions (I've had calls from those folks too). Anyway I've used him for my last couple of bookings and he's been pretty good. Until my recent booking I had to recite my credit card number to him to pay. For my most recent booking he transferred me to an automated system to input my credit card info and then when I was done the call was transferred back to him. I'm hoping this is something new Princess has implemented across the board and not just something that happens when it's a ONE CVP as I really don't want them having my credit card info. I know they have access to everything else for ALL bookings but that's just a bridge too far.

A few cruises ago I didn't get a survey and did what you said in the second paragraph. They sent a link to the survey so that I could complete it. Fairly certain they responded quickly enough for me to get my comments back to them within the two weeks before the link "dies".

My local bank would have much better exchange rates.

As long as it's the currency that they are using onboard there is no charge. I did find out something interesting through on a cruise from Sydney to New Zealand last December. The onboard currency was AUD (which I had) but I wanted to know if they could provide change for $100 USD just in case I needed it for tips. To do that they would have needed to change the $100 USD to AUD at their ridiculous exchange rate and then convert it back to USD at the equally ridiculous exchange rate. In other words I would have had far less than $100 USD at the end of the transaction. Even the GS person thought it was crazy but those were the rules. I didn't do it.

On our past Alaska cruises the posted menu looks exactly the same. But they would have Tracy's Crab Shack crab cakes just one night. When you are onboard ask when that will be when you are at the grill. If they can't tell you look for a restaurant manager and they should be able to help.

I know of at least one example of Oceania not refunding port fees when a port was missed. That’s because it’s all “baked in” when it’s one price. I can totally see Princess doing the same thing when this happens in the future if they go to that pricing scheme.