skrodle

just want to throw in my 2 cents on your cruise...

we did this one 4 years ago and was amazing. In Naples, since you are on your own, we did the same. Its a very short walk to the train station, we googled the information and found a great resource online that showed us how to get there (train station) picture by picture actually... took the train to Pompeii and Herculaneum, if you do not want to do Pompeii, definitely do Herculaneum, its much closer of a train ride and much smaller than Pompeii but so much better preserved and the history there is fantastic....

for Dubrovnik, we did the cruise tour of the Jeep 4x4 tour, and if this is still an option.. BOOK IT!!!! They take you out about 50 km into the Croatian countryside, you learn all about the war, see bombed out houses, great views of the Adriatic, and you end up at this olive farm that has been in operation for 500 years where the family cooks and serves you lunch. 8 cruises and tons of ports, this had been my favorite port and excursion by far....

have an awesome cruise!!!

Crown Princess is scheduled for a drydock in San Francisco on May 2nd, 2015 for about two weeks...

I love when the Princess ships do their dry dock in SF... its just down the street from where I live and it just makes me so excited when I see them everyday... we got to take one right outta dry dock once... it was cool... early boarding cuz no one was getting off

True, but "Mediterranean" to me is very different from "European." When a restaurant opens up and says it's Mediterranean, I don't expect French or Italian cuisine, and chances are it won't include Moroccan, Egyptian, etc. food. Just saying. :) I'd love to see teppan or PacRim cuisine on Princess although it sounds like that's not going to happen.

Pam-

When I was on Sapphire last year in So Cal, just before they were getting ready to ship her off to Asia, they were reformulating a lot of menus, making changes and introducing new things to the food. For example in HC they added a made to order ramen station that was amazing. We did chef's table as well and it was an intimate dinner with only 6 of us. The chef and Matre'd spent a lot of time with us that night and said how they were having to train all the cooks to new menus and were bringing on chefs who specialized in pan-Asian cuisine.

So if you get on her, you might get your wish :)

David

Interesting. I read about Uber all the time but it never would have occurred to me to give them a try :P

 

How does Uber's fare structure compare to other options for getting to the Fisherman's Wharf area from SFO? My wife and I (and some suitcases) will be making that journey in January and I'm just starting to research my options.

 

It looks like we'd be good with UberXL or UberBLACK service which would put our ride in the ~$60-70 range. Is that pretty much on par with traditional cab service?

I think they are pretty competitively priced if not better than other options. i like that its flat rate, tip included, and no money changes hands. often the cabs will hassle you over using credit or other various things. Uber is the way to go in SF

Hi! I am wanting to book transportation for our Jan 2015 cruise out of San Francisco. We are coming in the day before our cruise leaves, and Princess does not offer transfers the day before, than I can see. Please let me know if I am wrong about that.

Also, Has anyone ever used Nationwide Limousine in San Francisco? They just gave me a really good quote for service from SFO to Fishermans Wharf in an 8 psngr stretch Limo. We are a group of 6 adults and they quoted me a price only slightly higher than a shared shuttle van. Just wondering if anyone can share their experience. Thanks!

those of us in SF use Uber to get around, usually cheaper and more reliable than other companies. While uber doesn't offer guaranteed limo, they do have Uber SUV which is a black SUV (usually like an Escalade or comparable). From SFO to downtown it is a flat $85 and that includes tip. it is an app on your phone (iphone or android) and you request your car when you get your bags and at SFO it is usually about 5 min for your car to come get you.

let me know if you have questions

I am from SF, and the easiest way to get around is to use Uber (app on your phone, available on iPhone and android) much cheaper than a cab and much more reliable. You put your credit card in the app and your card is charged automatically upon completion of the trip, no money changes hands between you and the driver.

Use the UberX option, that is about 1/3-1/2 the price of a cab. Regular Uber is black car service and will be a couple dollars more than a cab, but really nice if you want black car service. Cars in downtown and financial district are usually available in less than 3 minutes. I havent used a cab in SF in 3 years now.

From SFO, only black car service is available and it is a flat $65 from SFO to anywhere in SF

What are you seeing that has changed? Thought they were the same. :confused:

I think the OP means they are different from the Grand Class Mini Suites

If you're doing the anytime dining, just call the dine line around 8am each morning and request a table for two at the time you want to eat.

this... exactly this... we call every morning based on day/port. they are usually really good with the reservations

awesome thanks!!! :)

What ships have the S1 Grand Suites? I was looking on the Emerald today and noticed that where the Grand suite is Aft on the Golden, on the Emerald it is a S2 Owners and S3 Penthouse.

I know on the Grand its forward on Lido, but did not see the Grand Suite on other ships.

Help :)

Definitely don't count on your TA to check price drops for you. That's up to you. Then you can contact him or her.

oh I totally get that... its just when I had a travel agent on one of my cruises I got nothing out of it... I had to do all the work and they got paid... I wanna find the agent that we will both benefit out of our relationship

-David

So I know people are not allowed to advertise travel agents on this site... Thats not what Im asking for here. But reading though so many posts, it seems like getting a TA will benefit us.

We are loyal Princess cruisers, 8 cruises in and 2 on the books... I used a TA once because of a travel voucher I got from work and got no benefit from the TA (The voucher was paid for by my work, so it was not a promo from the TA). Price drops happened and I had to contact the TA directly to get the adjustment. There was no OBC from them, gift, or even a note from the the TA to recognize that we just made them a nice chunk of money.

So my question is how do you go about finding a good TA? One that will take care of you, look out for the price drops, and has good connections with Princess. I saw something about being a "Princess Commodore" Travel Agent, but I have also read that you can get this status without even stepping foot on a Princess ship.

Thanks in advance for your advice.... :)

I have a cruise booked (April 2015 10 RT Mexico out of SF) and we booked full suite. It was list price and since we were using a FCC we were not too concerned about the price since the deposit was taken care of. Also, the suite rarely drop below list price, maybe they will offer a OBC.

To my surprise the morning when I was checking if any better Suites had opened up, I saw a price drop and OBC being offered for the suite. They previously had the OBC for the 4th of July sale, but it was only $75 pp, and the Deposit became non-refundable (I wasnt ready to TOTALLY commit yet, even though we are pretty sure we are going). Well I was so happy to see it was a $100 pp OBC, a $300 total price drop, the $20 or so savings on our cruise insurance, AND it was a refundable deposit! WIN all around!

Seems like a great sale to me! Now if only they would offer me an upsell from the S6 we are booked in, to an S2 I would be a happy camper :)

No, you can't. The person who the FCC is being purchased for needs to be on board...

If your friend lives near a port where Princess sails from then another option is for your friend to book a BVE (Bon Voyage Experience)--search "Princess BVE" for more info. For $39 your friend will get to check out the ship and enjoy a lunch w/ wine before the ship sails--while on board they would be able to purchase a future cruise credit.

I wish I would have known about this... we ran out of FCCs and we needed to book but we were 6 weeks away from our next cruise... Well we booked anyway, but had I known we totally could have done the BVE (Live less than a mile from the SF pier) oh well.. now I know for next time... maybe Ill just do it to go have lunch on board a ship..

My 2 cents

Sabatinis use to be amazing. On my last 8 cruises we at at Sabatini's every cruise except the last one. We had noticed by cruise 6 the food was going down hill and on cruise 7 we barely ate. However, I love love love the white chocolate semi-freddo. It is out of the world and almost worth suffering through a bad dinner just for that (I often get 2)

Crown we have eaten at 2 or 3 times. The food is outstanding, the black and blue soup is worth going there for it. The service is awful. It was almost 3 hours every time. This is a common complaint I have heard on the ships. When we were on Caribbean earlier this year our friends went and reservation was at 6, they got out at 10pm. They loved the food but there was a good hour in between courses.

If you can, and want domething really special, do the chefs table. We did that on Sapphire and we were blown away. The food, the service, the attention to detail... All of it. I would do that again ( much pricey-er) but so worth the splurge. Would easily be a $300 pp dinner on land.

Hope that helps!

Any questions you can get information here on CC. Did you join your CC Roll Call? On Princess you can go directly to your cabin when you board, it will be ready. Drop your carry ons and start your cruise.

i have only sailed princess, are there cruise lines which you board and your cabin is not ready? i would not like that...

thanks

When I started working on cruise ships in 1974, tipping was still done via envelopes. But when we added up that money from the envelopes, the total was averaging US$20 per passenger per day.

That was 40 years ago, when $20 was actually worth something.

 

Today my tipped employees have exactly the same monthly salary I received 40 years ago - without any adjustments for inflation or cost of living. But at the same time, the tips they receive are just a bit over half of what I received 40 years ago - again with no adjustments for inflation or cost of living.

 

Can you think of any other industry that could treat their employees like that - just to make the cost of the product more affordable - and get away with it?

i have always found the auto tip WAY to low. For the amount of work they have to do, it is insane for only $12 in tips. If i was to eat a a restaurant 3 times a day, I would have at least tipped $15, stayed at a hotel, $5 for the house keeper twice per day, other general tips (bellman, valet, etc) would probably be another $5-10... the $12 on Princess I think is far too low. Reminds me of the 10% tippers at restaurants.

For every cruise we have been on, we have tipped our steward up front $10-$15 per day, and have always had the best service. The CLEANEST room, tons of extra pillows and towels, and our room is always cleaned first in the morning and at night.

I was at the pursers desk one night and witnessed people demanding their auto tip be credited back to their account. I couldnt believe how cheap people could be. If if you have bad service at a restaurant you still need to tip.

was this an email offer you got? Ive never heard of a "move over offer"

-David

I would rather the $25 credit... the Victoria stop on this itinerary is only 7pm-1159pm, no time to really do anything in Victoria, you couldnt go to buchart gardens... the only reason the stop there is the PSA, if that didnt exist, the victoria stop on this itinerary would probably be nixed

We had the complete opposite experience on Caribbean Princess. This was a 4 day get away and was basically a booze cruise. They way oversold the UDP, and in my feedback I told them they should have limited the number of PAX that could buy it.

The servers, with the exception of a few in Skywalkers, were completely unresponsive, the bartenders at EVERY bar were horrible. Many of the bars had too many patrons trying to get drinks, and they did not have them fully staffed.

On 7 other cruises during sail away there have always been servers walking around with the drink of the day. Not one server even was walking around taking orders.

There were several times where we left bars because we could not get service.

I have a friend who is on Golden right now and getting much better service, but again, not as many people have seemed to purchase it on that cruise.

It could also be the darn Rivera deck on the Caribbean Princess. But there was several times where bars were not open, the bar at the back of the ship only had 1 bartender on at any time (and he had THE WORST attitude any time with the sticker showed up)

I am a huge fan of the package, but I sincerely believe that there should be a limit to the number of passengers who can purchase it.

well they changed up the flyer, its the old one with "escape completely" on top. I took a screen shot yesterday of it with the time and date stamp of the new one that shows the unlimited internet (this one has the "come back new") on top... we have two suites booked, one for this august and one for next April. We booked the suites because my husband is a professor (online classed) and needs the unlimited internet... Im gonna raise some heck with princess customer service on Monday because we need the internet for his teaching.

It is two singles mated together.

 

In our recent suites they have been placing a one piece topper over them that makes it almost like a single bed.

 

Mike:)

awesome thanks :)

I understand why it has to be a queen, but wondering if it is a queen, or the two twins... I hate that gap in the middle of the bed

Hi there-

We are currently booked into a S2 owners suite and thinking about upgrading to the S1 Grand suite. There are a couple pros and cons we are considering. One that I am hoping will be a pro is the bed is listed as "Queen Only".

Does anyone know if this means it is an actual queen? or is it still the two twins pushed together and they cannot configure it to a queen?

Any help would be much appreciated!

Thanks

David

Currently only for 7 days or more. The future?????

BOO!!! I was so looking forward to this..