Nancybell

20 hours ago, jannieb said:

We booked the Sapphire with an Oceanview guaranty cabin for Alaska in May. I later bid the minimum for a premium oceanview (for the extra space) and the bid was accepted. Cabin C100. . We knew the location is at the front of the ship. My question is that the confirmation states "metal front balcony". Does anyone know what that means?

We also did this for our 32 day Sapphire cruise around South America last march. Our minimum bid for premium oceanview was accepted. We received B101. It was amazing. Huge balcony with chairs and foot rests. Your going to love it.

This sounds really good. 

So is it $25 per person up to two bags or is it per bag? Do you arrange this at guest services once on the ship?

I'm just going to recap the highlights of this cruise as I think my DH will probably do an actual Review in the Review section.

 

We haven't been on a Princess cruise since 2009...last two cruises were with Royal Caribbean. Honestly, I thought we'd probably stick with Royal for all future cruises (with the exception of our dream world cruise with Princess once we retire). But we decided we needed to get away from it all so headed to Hawaii for 15 days on the Star Princess on February 7.

 

The Star may be getting "long in the tooth" as they say, but I guess customer service is the selling point for me as I think this was my favorite cruise of all (lucky #7, I guess). On this ship, customer service was fantastic! From the best captain (Captain Tuvo) and best bar steward (Nico) EVER, to an amazing room steward (Gil) as well as waiter and assistant waitress (Tamas and Giovana), service was outstanding. Plus, I love the layout of this ship with Skywalkers intact. Walking on the Promenade Deck was good exercise, a good view and good fun especially when we had some wind and waves! We went to our first art auction which we found entertaining and we tried to go to most shows. We ate at the Crown Grill, attended the Chef's Table and tried out the Crab Shack dinner. We did some trivia, had 3 couple massages, did some ballroom dancing classes, I attended the Zumba classes and we had coffee from the International Cafe every morning. We watched a medical evacuation by helicopter which is a technical marvel to see (and we heard the passenger transported was in good condition once at the hospital in San Diego).

 

The weather wasn't great the first couple days but it wasn't horrible, either. In fact, hearing the fog horn made me think of bygone days for some reason and added some ambiance to the cruise. We have spent a fair amount of vacation time on Oahu and Kauai but I had not been to Maui or the Big Island so it was great to visit new islands. I wish there was more time to spend at each of them (especially the Big Island).

 

Prior to this our longest cruise was a 14 day transatlantic. My theory is that if we really want to do the world cruise, I think we need to work our way up to more days at sea. So with that in mind, we booked another cruise while onboard...a 17 day transatlantic from Rome on the Pacific Princess in late 2018. Although we hear the Pacific may not be doing the world cruise by the time we are (hopefully) retired in 2020 or 2021, we thought we should try an inside cabin on a small ship as a trial run. Hey, any excuse to book another cruise works for me!

 

Last year we booked the Explorer of the Seas to Alaska for May as I finally talked two of my siblings and their spouses to try a cruise. Now I'm wishing we'd chosen Princess! Oh well, we may just have to cruise twice as much so we can keep on comparing the two cruise lines ;p.

 

If anyone has any specific questions on this particular itinerary or ship, please feel free to ask and I'll do my best to answer. If I can't be on a cruise, I might as well at least be thinking and/or writing it.

Suzyl....I was wondering if Princess still has the coffee card that you can purchase and if so how much is it ? Thanks

cdnsteelman, would you please email me info on your TA. I'm having trouble finding a good Canadian one.

slappala@gmail.com

Wondering if the outdoor seating is at the pay restaurants only or if Taste, Savor or the Manhattan room also have seating there.

I am glad to hear this, as we are also planning to cruise on her Feb 2, 2015

Going on Splendor in Feb. Driving from Canada and thinking of parking at Port Imperial and taking the ferry across the Hudson River.

Any suggestions for an inexpensive hotel, near by?