geoherb

I searched Facebook by ship and date. Someone on our roll call thread mentioned there was an active Facebook group as well. The meet and greet tomorrow morning is for both groups. I doubt all 350 people will show up, but the organizer got them to move it to the Island Dining Room so that there will be room for lots of people.

I hope so as well. The Captain's Circle notice I received in my cabin said that we can receive priority boarding by going to the Crown Grill.

The wait for the shuttle bus to the port was ridiculous. There are a lot of angry passengers. The Princess reps did not know anything other than to say that they hope the buses would start showing up soon. I was prepared to wait until 10 or 10:30, knowing that my flight had been very early. I took the supervisor's advice and went down to Dunkin for a bite to eat. By that time, it had been five hours since my breakfast bowl of cereal. I started this thread afterward and played the daily free tournament on Bridge Base. Surely, I thought, the buses would start soon. I was wrong--very wrong. Fortunately I started talking to some very nice people in the crowd. One woman talked about how she was also looking forward to lunch in the dining room. She likes the appetizer with grilled vegetables. I was going to have the vegetarian ravioli. Around 11, I said it may be possible to still make it on the ship in time. By noon, I had given up. She and her husband went to reconnoiter the situation downstairs. They encouraged us to join them outside. A small crowd of 20 had gathered there. The supervisor was constantly on her phone, standing in the bus lane looking for one of the buses. One finally showed up at 1. Upstairs, I'd estimate the crowd had been up to 200 people. The supervisor said they were expecting 750 today. Earlier, a couple of the lead reps started taking down names and cabin numbers of people who wanted to give up on the shuttle and take a cab. They said they would be reimbursed for the cost of the shuttle tickets. I plan to be anyway. I visited passenger services as soon as I got on the ship. One of the pursers took down my cabin number and said he would make sure I got the credit. A mother-daughter pair we talked with decided to go the cab route. I ran into them at the International Cafe. They were happy with their decision, although they only got to the ship about 20 minutes ahead of us and still too late for lunch in the dining room. The ride over was not too bad considering that traffic backed up a bit in spots. Our bus driver was 72 years old and had lived in Brooklyn his whole life. He said he started driving buses 50 years ago. That's a long time to work. The ride over took 40 minutes. He pointed out some sights along the way. When we got to the port, they said we could leave our checked luggage under the bus and the porters would take care of it. At least that saved me a few dollars for not having to see one in person. They did not mention the wine I had in my backpack when it went through the security screener, and I did not see a table set up to declare extra bottles. There was not really a separate line for priority boarding, but a rep sent me to the shorter line when I asked and showed her my medallion. They asked to see my passport, proof of vaccination, negative Covid test result, and ArrCan. But some people had not done the ArrCan yet and they were still let through. From the time I got off the bus to getting on the ship was under 15 minutes. My cabin is an inside on the Riviera Deck. My minibar contents were not already set up, so I called room service to save someone a trip by letting the woman who answered what I wanted. She said they did not have Perrier, only club soda. That will do. My cabin steward introduced himself. He seems very nice. He warned that laundry will take 72 hours. That's better than the four or five days I was afraid it might take. Someone mentioned that there are 550 Elites on board. I'm betting the number is higher. I'll find out eventually from the loyalty and events director.

I made it to LaGuardia on my early morning flight. It left Raleigh around 5:30 and made it to the gate around 7:20. It was a great flight, only half full. I had a seat with no one beside me. My luggage was waiting for me at the luggage carousel. There were a half dozen Princess reps there as well. Another half dozen have shown up since. We are waiting for the shuttle buses to start taking passengers over to the terminal. The supervisor is emphasizing to the other employees to tell passengers that we're better off here than waiting over there. The itinerary for the cruise is three ports in Canada and three in Greenland and lots of days at sea. It's a 16-day cruise. We will stop in Halifax and Sydney on the way to Greenland and St. John's on the way back. The three ports in Greenland are Nuuk, Nanortalik, and Qaqortoq. I've only been to Halifax out of these ports, so the rest will be new to me. There's a great roll call thread going for this cruise with hundreds of posts. There's also a very active Facebook group. I am hoping the internet works well enough for me to make daily posts here. Please feel free to ask any questions you may have. The ship will be sailing on 10-day Canada/New England cruises for the fall after this cruise, one way between New York and Quebec and vice versa.

I received this error message this morning. I was able to switch browsers and get in.

It varies from ship to ship and according to the itinerary and the whims of the entertainment director. Last December, they were 7:30 and 9:45 on the Caribbean Princess. On my February cruise on the Regal, there were only 1,325 passengers, and they scheduled just one show per night in the theater at 9:15.

The British Isles was my favorite itinerary. We took the one that had an overnight in Dublin. I hope you're planning on going at least a few days early. There's so much to see in and around London.

I booked my cruise that leaves Monday (on the Caribbean Princess to Greenland) during the 3-day sale in June. It came with $360 in OBC at the same base fare as Princess was offering. I booked my November cruise (on the Caribbean to the Panama Canal) this week under the 3-day cruise. For some reason, the cruise fare increased from what Princess had in order to get the sale, but I'm netting $99 in OBC compared to booking directly with Princess. It was better than other travel agencies competed with. The only worthwhile coupon for me is the $10 in casino play with $20 spending. I'm sailing solo, so the free bottle of wine doesn't apply. We'd definitely use it if DH were coming with me and we did not have Plus.

We took a train the first time we went from London to Southampton and National Express the next two times. The coach is certainly a lot less expensive if not quite as much fun as riding a train.

The good news is that you have a couple of weeks to get things worked out. Flying in the day before is always recommended, but I realize you weren't prepared to do so. You could check out the British Isles board to see recommended hotels near Heathrow. We've always flown in a few days early and stayed in London, so I don't know any.

I finished it this morning for the Caribbean Princess on Monday. Here's the link to the website version: https://arrivecan.cbsa-asfc.cloud-nuage.canada.ca/en/welcome I managed to get the app to work on my phone. I printed out the emailed receipt, though, just to make sure in case I can't get it to work on my phone whenever someone wants to check.

The premium balcony will have a small loveseat and more room. It's a nice upgrade. Posting the original cabin number and upgraded cabin number would help. When you receive an upgrade, you can request to be moved to any other available cabin in the upgrade category if another cabin appeals to you more. A lot of times, though, there are not any available cabins. I received an upgrade from my guarantee hold booking from the lowest level of inside to the highest. The cruise is 110 days away, but there are not any cabins showing up as available in the highest level of inside cabins.

A porter in Port Everglades remarked to his co-worker that one of the dollars I gave him for one bag was very worn and had a tear. It irked me. As others have pointed out, they move bags 10-15 feet most of the time and load them onto the luggage container that someone will pick up with a forklift to load onto the ship. I doubt any of them would sabotage a piece of luggage because someone did not tip or did not tip what they thought was adequate. They'll make it up from the suckers who are tipping $5-$10 or more per bag. They wouldn't risk their job by doing anything malicious to someone's luggage.

I placed a hold on a cabin over the weekend and then contacted my most recent TA yesterday. She's able to get me the same rate as on the Princess website plus her agency is currently offering onboard credit that equals 14.5% of the cruise fare (before port fees and taxes, insurance, flights, etc.)

The good news is that there are fewer Elite passengers on Alaskan cruises. I'm thinking there will be close to a thousand on my cruise to Greenland since Princess does not offer it very often. The last time we had a tender port, the instructions were in the Patter. On a previous cruise, the instructions were on the info sheet received by Elites at the beginning of the cruise. On my last cruise, Elites met in one of the dining rooms, people on excursions met in the theater, and others picked up tender tickets in the atrium and listened for an announcement. They were trying to avoid having people congregate in one place. I took an excursion there (Belize), and they were also spacing us out in the theater as well.

I should clarify that for both of those cruises, it was after the final payment date.

We were in one of the forward-facing cabins with a balcony on the Sapphire Princess. It was one of the ones that Princess later decided was too windy for furniture, so there was not any. Princess reclassified those cabins as premium ocean view cabins. It was a great cabin for viewing glaciers in Alaska. The wind was not too bad since the ship was not moving forward very fast.

I had several drinks show up on my onboard account the first few days of my February cruise on the Regal. I was diligent about checking my account through the app to make sure they eventually came off. It did take three trips to passenger services to get the problem corrected. And after being charged for a drink the last night of my December cruise, I've learned not to leave the ship without checking my account one last time the morning I disembark.

You have to stick with the package you book is my understanding. I couldn't even add Princess Plus to my cruise in December because I did not book it initially. I did manage to add Princess Plus for my cruise in February, but it entailed the rep canceling my initial booking and rebooking me (and nine hours of being on the phone with nine different reps to get it to work somewhat correctly).

It's toward the end of this page of recipes I developed for my herb society when hops was the herb of the year: https://herbsociety.tripod.com/recipeshops.htm

We sure did. After being in a suite, we did one cruise in a regular balcony cabin and two cruises in inside cabins--and they were 15 and 16 nights long transatlantics. The difference in price was worth it.

If you trade in your entire mini bar, you should be able to get two coffee packages for it and designate one for your sister. You may have to get passenger services to work it out correctly. The "free" brewed coffee that comes with the package is not supposed to be transferable. If you have a coffee package, you can buy her a specialty coffee but not the free brewed coffee. When my husband and I travel together on longer cruises, I'll buy the coffee package. He gets the cappuccinos after dinner and I get the free specialty teas.

That's what I do as well, except I keep the two bottles of still water and keep refilling them.

I lived off of room service when I was quarantined in 2019 for three days. My favorite hack was to order a Caesar salad along with the chicken fingers.

I'm glad things worked out for you. I will be on the same cruise. It's funny how inconsistent Princess can be. I was able to buy the internet through the app at half price upfront. In December, I had to pay full price and then received half back as refundable OBC.