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geoherb

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Everything posted by geoherb

  1. The National Park Service usually limits it to two large cruise ships per day. Smaller cruise ships, such as Lindblad or Nat Geo, may also be there at the same time. Here's a photo of Margerie Glacier from my cruise last year on the Majestic. We had a week without sunshine and I still had a great time.
  2. Does that mean it's been nearly 20 years since you've sailed on Princess?
  3. Be sure to check the prices of regular balcony cabins. On my February cruise, I got a great deal where a balcony was the same price as an inside cabin. It doesn't happen like that very often. And even better, I booked it as a guarantee and got assigned to a deluxe balcony at the aft. It was a wonderful view.
  4. It depends on the type of OBC you're receiving from your TA. If it's nonrefundable, it will be used first. If it's refundable, it won't matter which Princess uses first.
  5. Congrats! I'm too cheap to pay for the custom logo. Please keep the ship in good order. I'll be sailing on it six weeks later to Greenland.
  6. We had a trans woman come to the LGBT meeting on one cruise. She was traveling with a gay friend. If I remember correctly, it was a large gathering with a diverse group. It was the first time I had been to such a meeting when each of the 4 letters was represented plus some straight allies. It also ranged in age from 17 to 80+. The 17-year-old was traveling with his mother. She was great. The bisexual guy was with his girlfriend. The original meeting space was in the Adagio Bar (Princess ship). The daily schedule kept moving the meeting place around and changing up the time--but we all decided to keep it there at 6.
  7. Not exactly. I paid for an excursion with my credit card. It shows up on the onboard statement as "Prepaid Shorex." It's not paying for OBC ahead of time but for the excursion. But the net effect is the same. Your nonrefundable credits will be used first.
  8. I'd still consider a cruise on the Crown if airfares were not so high this summer. I actually looked into booking a week on the Crown followed by a week on the Discovery so that I'd get to see a lot. But I'd pay more for the air than for the two cruises.
  9. I sailed on the Caribbean in December and the Regal in February. Both were great cruises. The funny thing is that one woman on my cruise in February did not realize she was not on a true 14-day cruise. I had a great aft deluxe balcony cabin on the Regal. I did not have any beam issue, but perhaps other cabins do. It's hard for me to take a preference between the ships. They both have things I miss when I sail on the other. For instance, I love walking outside on the Promenade Deck on the Caribbean. The Regal has a narrow little pathway beneath the lifeboats where I could walk back and forth between the larger outside deck areas--but it's not the same as a nice outside Promenade. But the Regal has Alfredo's, which is a great place for lunch on port days when the dining room isn't open. I'd probably choose the true 14-day cruise. You will get more variety in the menus instead of having them repeat and the same with the shows. Plus that will give you a chance to make friends with people over two weeks. The 14-day cruise will skew older. That's not a problem for me. I never was one for nightlife. And you won't waste time going back to Florida. The 14-day offers a lot of nice islands, especially Aruba and Curacao.
  10. The regular price is $50 and $75 per day, but your mileage may vary. For my upcoming cruise to Greenland on the Caribbean, the cost of adding Plus was $900, which works out to $56.25 per day. Back when the regular price was $40 a day, I frequently saw cruises where the cost was a lot more, some even over $100 per day. The highest in the spreadsheet I did before my February cruise was $124.14 per day.
  11. The good news is that if you do pay with a credit card, it will show up on your statement as refundable OBC. They will use up any nonrefundable OBC credit first. I had a similar experience when booking an excursion before my shareholder OBC had shown up. I received a check after the cruise for the amount I had left in my refundable OBC.
  12. Princess lists the benefits: https://www.princess.com/learn/ships/staterooms/suites/ I don't find the cost worth it. We booked a suite just once through an upsell at a great price. I did enjoy breakfast in a separate restaurant--wonderful. We traded our second minibar for coffee cards. That was great back then because our unused punches carried over to other cruises. Dinner in the Club Class area of the dining room was nice. They have the best servers in that area. But the menu is the same as the rest of the dining room with one or two additional specials available. The extra space in the cabin was phenomenal, especially the bathroom. We were on the Royal, though, and our suite did not have a great balcony. The Concierge Lounge is a nice space. We would have used it more if our suite had been closer. But ours was at the bow of the ship. The concierge made reservations for us for the Crown Grill the first night (which is included with a suite except on short cruises). We had tried calling from our cabin and couldn't get through. They kept a nice selection of things to eat there and had a fancy coffee machine that made cappuccino. Same day laundry is also a great benefit. But we were already Elite by the time we had a suite and getting laundry back the next day or two would have sufficed for us.
  13. But with Princess Plus and the $12 limit, you can still order drinks that cost more and just pay the difference plus the 18% service charge on the difference. A $13 glass of wine will cost you $1.18. A $25 glass of Talisker would cost $15.34 with Princess Plus and $8.26 with Premier with its $18 limit.
  14. I will use the wakeup call feature on the phone when I need to get up early for some reason. If I'm going to lie down for a quick nap, I'll use the timer on my phone--setting it for 60 or 90 minutes. It's quicker.
  15. If you're local, it would be easy to do. But if you need to fly to Seattle, I'd go ahead and switch so your airline tickets are taken care of.
  16. If the price of airfare would come down, I'd consider taking a cruise on the Crown this summer--or even back-to-back cruises on the Crown one week and Discovery the next. But right now, airfare would cost me more than two weeks on the ships.
  17. I've heard somewhere that the average cabin is booked four times before sailing date. Seems like this promotion is trying to make it five.
  18. Our last Celebrity cruise was disappointing--from service to food. We have not been back. I occasionally look to see if I can find a Celebrity cruise that fits my schedule and budget, knowing that one bad cruise isn't enough to write off the whole line. Our previous three Celebrity cruises were great.
  19. I also have been sailing solo. Money is a factor. I booked an inside cabin for my next cruise--16 days to Greenland and back. I'm still waiting for my cabin assignment, but there aren't many cabins showing up as available right now. I'll probably get one of the available forward insides on the Aloha, Baja, or Caribe decks. On my last cruise, I got a great deal on a balcony cabin--the same price as an inside cabin. And then I got lucky to be upgraded to a deluxe balcony at the aft. It was a wonderful view, but way too sunny for me during the day. And I did not get to enjoy the balcony as much as I do when my husband has sailed with me. Having a glass of wine together before dinner on the balcony is great.
  20. Maybe they're working on updating the itinerary since they know it will not be making it to Ketchikan.
  21. The Royal and Majestic are pretty much the same except for a few minor differences, such as Sabatini's on the Royal and Harmony on the Majestic. They're almost exactly the same size. Currently, Princess is listing Skagway as a port on the northbound cruises on the Majestic next summer. Late July is still peak season but toward the end of it. We took a cruise tour that started in late July several years ago, followed by an early August southbound cruise. If you are doing a one-way cruise, I hope you have time to spend at least a few more nights after your cruise, either on a cruise tour or on your own. I took the Majestic last year on a roundtrip cruise to Alaska from Seattle. I had a great time. It helped that the ship was at 65% capacity so most things were not crowded.
  22. We walked by it the first day on our way to Dublin Castle, but we did not go inside.
  23. In February, Alfredo's on the Regal had the full menu. I love the vegetarian antipasto and the veal agnolotti.
  24. What a great trip! We took a British Isles cruise in 2017. Ours had an overnight in Dublin, and the ship docked a few miles from the city instead of having to tender at Dun Laoghaire. Princess provided a free shuttle to Merrion Square. And you'll need to go back to London when Buckingham Palace is open.
  25. That's smart. The ship has been skipping Icy Strait Point even though it's still listed as a stop on the upcoming cruises.
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