alibali21

Thank you for your replies. I hadn’t realised that so many huge conventions were held in San Fransisco. 

I’ve managed to book the Orchard Hotel on Bush Street which seems to get good reviews - not to be confused with the Orchard Garden on the same street which is way more expensive.

As I can cancel the booking without penalty I’ll continue to check availability in the other hotels I was considering in case they are holding blocks of rooms which they later release.

That said the Orchard seems to be in a reasonable location and includes breakfast so unless I read anything really negative about it we’ll probably just stay there.

Thanks again.

Leaving San Fransisco on the Grand Princess next October and would like to stay for a few days before we join the ship as we have never been to San Fransisco before. Have been doing a bit of research on hotels, and today for the first time I put in the actual dates we would like to book ( 16th - 20th October 2019 ) only to find that all of the hotels I had considered  (  Hilton, Hyatt, Hotel Zoe and more ) were showing no availability. Can anyone tell me why hotels are this booked up almost a year ahead? Many thanks in advance.

Sorry Lizzyanne. Realised you probably meant you were going to wait and see if the High Street rate improved not Princess's rate so just ignore my last post

We are only 1.28 for a June cruise, I am considering buying onboard credit but think that I will leave it nearer the time as the exchange rate might improve but I am not optimistic.

My understanding is that the exchange rate is fixed at the time of booking and doesn't change before sailing date. I haven't checked the rate for our cruise later this year so that policy may no longer be in place, but fingers crossed it is as when we booked, more than a year ago, the rate was 1.45.

While this doesn't help help with prepayment of excursions, some have reported that they have been able to buy refundable OBC at a better rate then the current exchange rate.

Yes we can, in the UK, purchase OBC, at a rate which is fixed at the time of booking, and which is usually considerably better than the rate on the High Street and we pay for it in GB pounds.

I usually book excursions and then try to purchase enough OBC to pay for them, and any other onboard purchases, so that at the end of the cruise we have a relatively small balance to pay. We also prepay our gratuities so they are not on the final balance.

No more Princess excursions for us I'm afraid, and we have booked a lot in the past. Will do a bit of research and book independent tours from now on.

We have an Alaskan cruise booked for next year and the excursions recently became available to book. When I saw that we would have to prepay I phoned Princess to ask whether we would be charged in US dollars or UK pounds. Having to pay in dollars, which we will have to do, makes the excursions very expensive for us in the UK due to the poor exchange rate at the moment and non sterling transaction fees imposed by credit cards.

Anyway the Princess consultant I spoke to said that they had just been notified that from summer 2017 excursions on all cruises, not just ones to Alaska, will require prepayment.

I think that the exchange rate is set when the cruise first goes on sale and remains the same, so different cruises could equal different exchange rates.

First apologies for the multiple posts - I'm new at this and not quite sure how it all works yet!

I have just checked my personaliser and it is still showing the rate that I got yesterday so it does seem that, once set, the rate maybe remains the same.

By my calculations the exchange rate is now $1.428 ( hope that's correct ). Obviously not nearly as good as it was but still better than you can buy in the High Street so possibly still worth considering.

Hi. I bought mine online yesterday morning so unfortunately it looks like Princess has altered the exchange rate since then. As has been said before the three blocks that you can purchase OBC in are equivalent to $25, $50 and $100. Once purchased in pounds it does not also show in dollars but if for example you now purchase £70 you will get $100 showing on your onboard account once you are on the ship.

You can't buy £100 worth of OBC. You can buy blocks of credit which show up on the personaliser as either £16.25 equivalent to $25, £32.50 equivalent to $50 or £65 equivalent to $100. For example I just purchased 5 blocks at £65 giving me £500 of OBC. As this cost £325 that gives a rate of $1.538. It appears on your personaliser in pounds but will show up on your onboard account in dollars.

Hi. We have done a cruise on the Diamond calling at Busan. As far as I can remember, and please don't take this as definite as it was a number of years ago, US dollars were accepted for tourist type purchases. The only thing I remember buying was a fridge magnet but I know that we did not have any of the local currency so would have paid in dollars. Hope this helps.

Hi Cruisemom

If you don't mind yet another request for your notes, and have time, I would be very grateful if you could send me a copy.

My email address is -

macbrayne.alison@gmail.com

Many thanks

Alison