buddymum

Never seen Swing on any cruise although we've seen Ceroc. They do Jive and some Rock n Roll but remember there are a lot of older passengers so you are best to request them. We do a lot of Latin (including Jive) and we usually have to request Samba and Salsa. There is usually 50% Sequence, not our favourite, but we learned to do a lot of them rather than sit and watch.

Thanks for this. Incidentally we are not very young, it was my 71st birthday this month but we absoloutly love rock and roll and I am sure the exercise keeps us fit.

We have Ballroom Danced on the Britannia and, in my opinion, it is very good. The Crystal Room has a purpose built dance floor unlike the Ventura and Azura that only use the Atrium, There is normally a live band and this is interspersed with recorded music. There can be a problem with strict tempo but generally very good. We would always choose Britannia for the dancing and luckily we love the rest of the ship. They normally play approximately 50:50 with Ballroom/Latin and Sequence. The Dance Instructors are normally very good to excellent and they do lessons on sea days. We don't do them as we can dance already but they are very popular. Highly recommend it.

Do they do rock and roll/jive/swing?

I was planning a trip for 2016 to the British Isles on the fairly new

Royal Princess for a special anniversary until I just read that Princess is moving the Caribbean Princess for these sailings. I looked up this ship, which was built in 2004. There is no way I am taking this very special trip on a 13 year old ship, as I have been very spoiled with my new Celebrity Solstice class sailings of Europe in the past. I am so disappointed. The pictures of the Caribbean Princess look like a tired old ship that could use a major retrofitting.

Even though the Princess sailing was the perfect itinerary that fit our needs, I know I would not be happy on such a tired looking ship.

Very disappointed

Robin

We did the british isles cruise in 2013 on carribean princess and had a great time. So much so that we are sailing on cb again this year. We have also sailed on celebrity solstice, but found the ship didnt flow as well as princess. Who has a jogging track on the top deck where all the sun beds are .

Just in contrast to waddling about in the penguin colony :D

 

Maybe we are making progress to one of those magnificent DRESS CODE ROWS, we havn't had one for ages ;););)

I dont want to start an arguement, all I asked was do people wear suits on p and o's formal nights. Thanks for all the replies,

Or it makes you look as if you have just popped in on the way home from the office.

Do people still wear suits for the office. I wouldnt know as my husband has never worked in one so for him to wear a suit and tie it has to be special occasions e.g weddings funerels and cruises!!!

Does everyone wear a dj on P and O formal nights only we are looking at one of their cruises but my husband doesnt wear a dj, he has always worn a dark loung suit on all our previous cruises withh Princess and Celebrity as do a lot of people on those cruise lines.

This was my reaction when I received an email from travel agent today for a May 11 departure. It's not as if, at this late date, I can alter my travel arrangements!

Dont princess realise that people book their taxis/coach shuttles etc in advance and this sort of notice is absoloutley rediculous. What I want to know is if your book-in time is one oclock and you arrive late do you go to the back of the queue or get booked in straight

away pushing the later bookings even further back?

The road works have been there for a while, we cruised sept 13 and they had begun then but not to the extent they are now. Just keep calm and add xtra time if u driving.

Just spoke to my friend who left from Southampton on Easter Sunday. They didnt experience any heavy traffic although they did enter Southampton from the Cadenham side, which meant they avoided the centre of the city. They sailed with P&O and were warned of the traffiic problems by email before they left.

The roadworks have been in place since Christmas I think.....roadworks are ok if managed properly but in our experience there were not only no workmen there but no temporary lights or any other form of helping the traffic filter through.....guess a man organised it!

typical british way of working, put the cones down partially dig up a road then walk away for a couple of weeks and leave us to cope with the mayham!

The problem I forsee is that if staged boarding is in place and my time is 2pm, in theory I shouldnot arrive at the terminal much before 1.30, I rearrange my timing so I dont leave home by taxi until 11am, only to hit horrendous traffic problems around Southampton ( as the contributer from Bournmouth did) and at 4 pm I am still trying to get to the cruise terminal. What happens then?? I think I will stick to my plan to arrive at 12 pm and then if I do hit traffic I have plenty of time. Incidently, when did the roadworks start? There definitely wasn't a problem last June

Im not sure I see most of the main stream cruise lines as expensive/too cheap either way.When I was looking at Med cruises it seemed major ones such as NCL, Celebrity, Pand O, RCL, MSC, Costa and Princess etc were very similar in price.

 

See my opinion on Carnival is an odd one, I have only sailed with them around the Baltics so the crowd was very different to what I had heard and they had trouble finding people to enter poolside contests etc. It was an amazing cruise with different nationalities on board and I booked to sail through the PC with them this year.

 

But that reminds me, I am a little hesitant to sail Costa/RCL due to their tipping policies (Ie paying before your cruise if you have anytime dining and whatnot) being a bit odd.

Celebrity too also has this policy on paying tips if you are on anytime dining.

We were whale watching on open water from Juneau in shorts and t shirts in July. Were very fortunate that we had wall to wall sunshine for the whole cruise except when we called in at Victoria on the way back to seattle when it was a lot colder. It is in the lap of gods what the weather will be but we did go prepared with layers etc and fortunately we didn'need them.

I'm getting in early with this query so we know what to expect. ....

 

Once Emerald Princess docks in St Peterburg there is an immigration check. We are with SPB tours, so our ticket is our visa. I understand we will also need our passports and completed immigration cards which we'll receive the night before.

With regards to the queueing, I'm curious to know if there is any preference given to the ship tour participants Vs private tours and whether you experienced an orderly, efficient progression or did people jump the queue to get off the ship earlier. Is it possible for a private tour group such as ours to move off together or do we attend the immigartion check according to decks/cabin numbers?

I also picked up somewhere on Princess web site that they say you should have a photograph of the relevent page of your passport to hand to Russian immigration for them to keep. I don't know if this only applies to passengers taking Princess tours or everyone who goes ashore?

Secondly, princess tend to hold on to passports for quite a while, presume we will get them bakck in time?

After our kayak adventure we stopped off at one of Costa Rica's National Parks. While we did not have a lot of time we ran through hoping to see a Sloth or two, but no such luck.

 

 

We did see some interesting animals, have a look at this little guy. I am sorry but for the world of me I do not know what he is called. Miniature Dinosaur Maybe??

 

 

 

 

 

And then, of course, it is impossible to arrive back at the ship and not take a photo of her sitting in the sun, waiting for us.

 

 

 

OK, so after a false start I think I can now announce that the next post will be about our big disappointment.

We did the exact same cuise on coral in march 2011. We did see sloths at the sloth sanctury. They looked like sad little lonely old men! Thanks for you review, it has brought all the wonderful memories flooding back.

We are sailing on our first Hawaiian cruise on the Grand. Other than seeing Pearl Harbor, we're not sure which excursions are the best. We like volcanoes, waterfalls, lava tubes, snorkeling. Which excursions are not to be missed? Should we consider booking through someone other than Princess?

Did hawaii on golden princess in 2010 (our first ever cruise). Did mostly private tours, best by far was whale watching in maui, just got off the boat and booked a tour on the quayside. Absoloutly fantastic sight ,

Hubby and I were talking about bucket list cruises the other day. His is Australia and mine is the Orient. Just curious as to what other people have in their bucket list.

We only started cruisung 4 years ago-wish we had started 20 years ago because as we knock off one bucket list cruise we seem to add 2 more. So far we have cruised hawaiian islands out of la, panama canal transit, alaska, Barcelona to venice and return, circumnavigation of the uk and this year we are doing the baltic. Each cruise was just magic for all sort of different reasons but up to now Alaska comes out tops, not only because of the scenery and wildlife but also we were extremely fortunate to have wall to wall sunshine the whole cruise! To anyone who has never cruised my advice is do it before you are too old.