Steelers36

If only I had a crystal ball as I bought an extra $100 for my wife a while back - at a significant higher price of course. If only I knew this virus was coming!! If it drops to the 52-week low (a few cents under $40), I think I will double-up for both of us and then sell after it recovers. This pandemic can't last forever. Got the extra shares just in case we might book two cabins sometime. And the dividend is okay too - closing in on 5% yield right now.

Yup. Probably not the same TA, but same service. I am always trying to do things myself when I could just ping them. Lived and learned for next time. Looking forward to extra days in Dubai and attending the World's Fair.

Yes, I understand and had one of those once (I have a couple of US-based Visa's, but similar situation with Cdn bank cards). Had to use the bank's agency of record. It worked fine for that reward trip several years back. Fortunately, nothing unusual came up for them to deal with.

Tuesday this week was the first time any Princess rep I spoke with concerning our request mentioned doing it through the TA (I had several calls to Princess following up on status). I told the rep I was informed I could do it myself by calling Princess (I specifically clarified back in Jan that I didn't need to engage the TA) and I didn't intend to bother the TA until it was completed and then I was going to send them a copy of the approval email. It certainly makes sense that the TA is aware of it, but it doesn't affect the fare or payments, so IDK. Perhaps Princess prefers it that way. Not everything to do with a cruise booking has to be handled by the TA and our TA is a discounter with expectation of less hand-holding, which I don't need, so I didn't want to bother them about it. Nonetheless, they are always accommodating and our TA is wonderful. I can say that shortly after I advised them, the fantastic back-office person at my agency contacted Princess and within two days we had the approval email. Go figure.

Actually, I scrolled through it and there were lots of duplicate entries for the same issue. Some of it seemed pretty benign, but I did get the impression that the managers/supervisors did not make sure everything was ship-shape for the inspection. However, if the report is an indication of things on a day-to-day regular basis, then there is some concern. I also began to think some things may have been an issue when the inspector came upon it, but might have been rectified by crew staff/mgmt soon enough from their own procedures. Ir is a bit of a head-scratcher when the rest of the fleet does so well, including this same ship last time. I'd have loved to be a fly on the wall at the senior staff meeting following publication of the report!! I would expect a keel-hauling if this happened on The Rowboat.

The solution is to neatly pack up their markers (towels?) and set them aside and sit in the chair if they truly are gone and don't return within 30 minutes. If no one takes them to task over it, they will just continue to do it.

@Waynetor, I am enjoying reading some of your port experiences and recalling what we did in 2018. In catching up, I noticed you posted about President's Day (USA) and Family Day (CAN) several days back. The 3rd Monday in Feb is actually a holiday in more places than you mentioned, although a couple of provinces have their own name for the holiday. "Family Day is not a national statutory holiday, it is only observed in New Brunswick, Alberta, Manitoba, Ontario, Saskatchewan and in British Columbia. Two other provinces have holidays in February: In PEI Islander Day is celebrated on the 3rd Monday in February and in Manitoba the 3rd Monday in February is the Louis Riel Day holiday." And a pet peeve of mine is that we eat dinner in the dining room - not the dinning room. 😉 Hope you get better weather experiences for the last days of the voyage.

Princess doesn't board its ships by Deck. They board priority guests first (Elites, Suites, followed by Platinums). Other guests are handed priority letters/numbers upon check-in and they call boarding groups in order - so it is by order of arrival at check-in, even for the priority group as similar letter codes are handed out to them as well. Once those who arrived early (ahead of ship being cleared for new passengers) have boarded the ship in groups, all other passengers arriving later to the port terminal proceed directly on-board after checking in. Checking in with Medallions in hand (or around neck) is somewhat faster, but depends on length of the lines.

That is normally my Prime Directive on this forum!

@nho9504, read your saga with some interest. If you indeed have unofficial confirmation of the early disembark, you might want to make sure you receive the email from Princess - either directly or from your TA. That was quite fast service - and perhaps they are able to do the early disembarks quicker than mid-cruise deviations. I had to wait over a month to get formal approval for our Route Deviation request (we are leaving a ship during the voyage and then re-joining the ship at a future port prior to the end of our booked voyage). Forgetting the time lost due to the first Princess rep screwing up our request form, it took close to four weeks more to get it done - and I was following up. Ultimately, when I informed our TA office, things happened. (I had been told by Princess originally I could simply call in and make the request directly). My original request was ahead of the Coronavirus outbreak and the correction was ahead of the CB's Norovirus situation (and now I hear it has struck again), but service was impacted for these requests because the same team was involved with those disrupted cruises. Anyone applying for a deviation in Feb has to expect a longer service cycle than is normally the case.

@RocketMan275 and @Coral are 110% correct. What you may be thinking is if you go cruise shopping on various TA websites, you see the same pricing as Princess offers. But if you talk to an agent or get a quote or have access to their booking pages, you are going to see that all TA's are not at all alike and many offer better pricing than Princess. Every payment I make to our cruise bookings is charged to my credit card and paid directly to Princess Cruises (it appears as such on my CC statements as well). It would not make a bit of difference if my agency went bankrupt (except I would miss them VERY much as they give the most generous discount of PCL fares that I am aware of). In that most unlikely of circumstances, Princess would just end up taking back the booking.

If you each purchased a single-device plan pre-cruise, you will collectively pay more than the cost of the 4-device plan. If you only buy one single-device plan, then any one of you who wants to connect to internet will be knocking someone else off. Unless you are all together all the time and can coordinate the sharing, you may find it bothersome. If anyone of the group has Platinum or Elite status, wait until you board the ship and exchange the free minutes benefit for 25% off the on-board pricing on Day 1. You will have the best pricing that way and you will also find that the 4-device price equals two single-device plans, so your best to have that person book a 4-device package and then share.

That is true for the On Board pricing. Pre-Cruise pricing, the 4-device package is sometimes more and sometimes less than 2x the single-device package - depends on cruise length.

Not sure why all the careful wording and why you think Landmark was dropped last year. It did occur at it's normal time and was immediately followed by 3 For Free. Preceding it was Sip & Sail. SANTA CLARITA, Calif. (July 18, 2019) – Today, Princess Cruises announced its Landmark Sale offering guests up to $1,000 onboard credit per stateroom plus $50 onboard credit for a 3rd and 4th guest booked in the same stateroom. Now through September 3, 2019, the sale includes some of the most sought-after landmarks in Europe, Alaska, Japan and the Caribbean. The sale applies to select cruises and cruisetours sailing from March 2020 to May 2021.

Yes, that is nice. She is not the only one, however. And that is a good thing. Free markets make capitalism great.