cruisequeen4ever

I’m really enjoying your account of your cruise; keep the posts coming! 😀

That’s helpful info to see; so some people will experience a savings this way.

Like others on here, I really just wanna see ship ops and life aboard. I was hoping they’d stream it on a service we have, but I guess I’ll just have to subscribe to Paramount+ for 1 month after the show finishes to binge it.

Thank you for being considerate of others, and I’m sorry for your loss! I’d call Royal and explain there was an outbreak at your child’s school resulting in exposure within a week of your school and see what they can offer you. You’d think they’d want you to stay home.

I’ve cruised AK both of those times of year. Weather is completely unpredictable, so I wouldn’t base it off that. The end of May is generally better pricing and before many schools get out, resulting in somewhat fewer people, so I’d go then.

I live in AK, and April can still have snow. For your one AK experience, I wouldn’t risk that time of year. Last week of May through early August are good. If you absolutely need to do the San Francisco itin to make your trip work, do it, but the 7 day one way between Vancouver and Whittier (Anchorage) is the best. To really see it all, do the cruisetour that takes you to Denali. Happy planning!

We love Princess’s food and consider it far superior to Celebrity’s (unless you sail in Aqua or above and get special options- we don’t have experience with those). I haven’t been on Holland America in many years, but I have read many accounts of people saying the food is good. It seems like the atmosphere on Princess would be more fun for a girls’ trip.

It’s crazy how all over the place the offers are.

For your specifications, I’d go with the Majestic, Discovery, or Royal. They’re all in the same class of ship with some variations. The Majestic has an indoor pool, which is wonderful for Alaska. As others have said, definitely do Glacier Bay. Happy planning!

When they were doing upsells, the offers were much more reasonable than what I am seeing for bid opps. Didn’t someone say they hired a third party to handle this?

Have a blast!

I got the bid offering for our cruise, and the pricing was out to lunch! It was basically no savings off of upgrading ourselves by paying full price.

The tendering process isn’t bad as long as you have an excursion booked, get up early to be in one of the first groups, or don’t mind leaving the ship later. Yes, there will be a long line to return, and that sucks, but it’s not a deal breaker IMO.

Book the train through the Alaska Railroad! You get to transit a section roads don’t access. It’s a relaxing, beautiful way of getting to Seward.

Goodness, all 3 itins are fabulous! Anything with the Greek Isles will allow you to swim. There are lots of cool places to explore in Italy. Have fun planning!

Interesting; I’m surprised you rated Princess food the lowest.

They better not be segregating with the change in allowing everyone onboard! That goes against their whole welcoming of everyone onboard. If they tried to segregate, they’d have people canceling who wouldn’t be able to dine with their travel companions, and the unvaccinated certainly wouldn’t be feeling welcomed.

I appreciate you sharing your experience; I’ll be going on the Solstice in the spring after a very mediocre experience on Celebrity a few years ago so understand your food rating. Hope the rest of your cruise improves!

That’s good to know! I think that’ll make people more comfortable bidding.

Let’s come up with some ideas for new perks Princess could offer loyal pax and/or paid opps for anyone onboard! Who knows if Princess reads these threads, but if they do, 🤞 they make note of our suggestions, and just maybe we’ll see some of them put into place! My top request would be for the opportunity to have breakfast in Sabatinis/Crown Grill without staying in a suite. After experiencing it when we had a suite, I can still recall the scrumptious flavors of breakfast and have reallllllly wanted to experience it again. I know I would be highly motivated by it being offered as a loyalty reward or as a paid specialty restaurant experience like they already offer for dinner or both. I wouldn’t think it would cost Princess that much to offer it as an Elite perk as they’re already serving pax breakfast anyway. Sure, they couldn’t have 600 Elites showing up every morning, but they could give Elites a voucher for 1 breakfast there per cruise or do a drawing for cruise-long access at the Captain’s Circle party.

Whether or not this is true, some rewards should still be offered to loyal pax as we are the bread and butter and are the ones who will spread the word of how wonderful Princess is. Though every cruise line is making cutbacks, I haven’t read of other cruise lines reducing their loyalty benefits.

That’s great news!

Thank you for all the input. It’s reassuring that Princess’s protocol is to only upgrade those in an accessible to a higher accessible stateroom if a bid is won. 👌

I think on any given ship at any given time you’re going to hear different experiences. The funny thing is that one of my favorite cruise blogs from this Alaska season was the lady from Alaska who sailed on the Spirit with her boyfriend! I wish I could remember her name, but if you read her account, it may help.

Goodness, I remember pre-pandemic the process would be estimated at taking six weeks after receiving everything, and in my experience, it did take that long. Way to be persistent!