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geoherb

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Everything posted by geoherb

  1. The ship will be scheduled to arrive at port as listed in the itinerary. But listen for announcements. Sometimes there is a delay. Here is the info from the Patter last month on the Caribbean Princess. Those people not on a ship excursion or Elite were in for a big surprise. Some waited over three hours for a tender to get to shore. Those going back to the ship late in the afternoon waited up to two hours. But Nanortalik, a port in Greenland, doesn't have the infrastructure to support a large cruise ship. There was room for just one tender to disembark passengers at a time.
  2. The children's menu includes orange juice, apple juice, lemonade, milk, 2% milk, and chocolate milk for free. There are other juices and milk available in the buffet at breakfast.
  3. They usually have scones available in the buffet for an afternoon snack. I had one last month in the buffet after getting back to the ship from port one day. But it doesn't feel as classy as being served tea in the dining room.
  4. On our first cruise to Cartagena, we took an excursion to the mud volcano. A National Guard soldier with automatic rifle accompanied us on the bus. It's a port where I would not wander too far off on my own. I'm taking an organized excursion in December that goes to the Old City and then a boat ride.
  5. There was also a problem with the shuttle buses for passengers who were late getting off the ship. They were running an hour behind the estimated disembarkation times when I left the ship. Fortunately, there were buses ready. But people who had later disembarkation than I did reported that there were no buses by the time they left the ship. Some people on our roll call waited 90 minutes for a bus, getting off the ship at 10:30 and boarding a bus at noon. They said they were lucky to have plenty of time to make their 2:45 flight. Others on the bus missed their flights. Another couple said they ended up paying extra to their car service because of the delay in getting off the ship.
  6. One of the reasons I stuck with the shuttle bus was that I was traveling solo. I did ask for and receive credit for the cost after I boarded the ship.
  7. You can each bring more than one bottle of wine if you're prepared to pay the $20 corkage fee. I took two bottles with me on my cruise last month. The security folks did not mention them when they X-rayed my bag, so I ended up not having to pay.
  8. Fortunately, I've had just a few problems with the app, and they've all been surmountable. In December, for instance, the night before my cruise, the app suddenly shifted me from the green lane to the blue lane. I discovered it had lost my passport info. I had to reenter it to get back into the green lane. But I'm sure it would not have been a disaster if I had not noticed, maybe a few extra minutes checking in. I would not give up on a cruise line over one problem when there's a way around it. I'd also hate losing an FCC. On the other hand, I had my share of dealing with incompetent Princess employees in January. I spent nine hours talking to nine different reps one day to get things worked out. They still did not come through exactly right, but I was so grateful that the final rep was able to sort of get things right at the time. I did write a letter and follow up with the web form several months later. I have not heard back from Princess.
  9. Sometimes the cabins are ready and sometimes they're not. On my Regal cruise in February, they had the fire doors closed in the corridors to prevent passengers from going to their cabins. They made an announcement around 11:30 that the cabins were ready. I boarded the ship a little before 11.
  10. Perhaps they are going to pick up someone.
  11. I do not save thousands of dollars, but it's because my cruises are not costing thousands of dollars. I am saving around $100 on my next cruise by booking with a TA over booking directly with Princess. I placed a hold on the cruise on the Princess website then contacted my TA to see what she could do. It's hard to figure an exact percentage of the savings because I'm going by the total cost to me, including Princess Plus, airfare, insurance, and taxes and fees less any OBC offers.
  12. On my cruise on the Caribbean Princess last month, afternoon tea was not offered when the ship was in some ports. It was in others. I did not see a pattern. We made it to five ports. They did not have afternoon tea when we were in Halifax and Sydney. We did have it in Nanortalik, Qaqortoq, and St. John's. It was offered every sea day. I only made it once. The waiter immediately poured me a cup of tea before I could stop him. I asked for a pot of chamomile. He took away the poured cup and brought me a clean one and a pot of chamomile tea. There are also other options for people who can't have caffeine. Just ask.
  13. Island Dining Room is still not showing up on my app.
  14. I received my cabin assignment before the final payment date. I'm in an inside cabin, Cat. IB. I haven't received an email about bidding yet. I see the info on the process on the cruise personalizer.
  15. I was one of the hundreds of passengers who waited several hours for the shuttle buses at LaGuardia on August 15. I knew my flight was early, landing at 7:20, and was prepared to wait a few hours. The supervisor told me that the buses should start taking passengers around 10 or 10:30. I did not get on a bus until 1, and that's because I went downstairs to wait by the curb. They did not have any organization. Apparently there was an earlier bus that took some passengers. They did not ensure that those of us who arrived first got on the first bus. Things were much better organized when I took the shuttle from SeaTac to the port last summer. They passed out colored slips of paper and called people by color to fill the buses. They did start telling people to take cabs or other means. They wrote down names and cabin numbers to be reimbursed for the cost of the shuttle. If I had not been traveling solo, I might have done that. New friends of mine took a cab, but they had enough luggage to fill it up.
  16. The reservations I made for my cruise starting November 28 on the Caribbean Princess disappeared as well. I had made a set reservation for the Island Dining Room. That dining room is no longer showing up in the app for me. I had to redo my reservation for the Coral Dining Room.
  17. My estimate of nearly a thousand Elites on my cruise to Greenland last month was close. We had 836. The info sheet that was in my cabin said that Elites could meet in the Crown Grill for tendering. They changed their minds without telling us, however, before the first tender port. We met in the Explorers Lounge instead. No one was in the Crown Grill when I went. I asked one of the assistant cruise directors, and he directed me there. When I got to the Explorers Lounge at our first port, Valeria, the loyalty and events manager, radioed down asking if they had room for one more. She sent me immediately down with a tender ticket. No one asked for it, though. I had a nice hike in Nanortalik, almost all the way up the big hill/little mountain. I was in port for about 3 hours and headed back to the ship with just a brief wait. When I got back to the ship, I stopped by the International Cafe for a bit. I noticed a lot of people milling about. They were waiting for tenders--and had been for several hours. The worst wait I heard about was three and a half hours to get off the ship and two hours to get back on. I talked with one woman who saw the huge line of people waiting to get a tender back to the ship. She decided to stay on the tender. It was a pretty ride past the icebergs. I knew from reading about people's experiences in 2019 on this itinerary that getting up early was the way to go.
  18. I hated the scent of the hand soap and body wash on the Caribbean Princess last month. They smelled like gardenias. They were labeled eucalyptus and sea salt, as was the shampoo/conditioner combination. The shampoo/conditioner smelled like it was supposed to. There was no bar soap. I brought my own for the shower and the sink.
  19. The way Princess limits the number of people in Club Class is by having a limited number of cabins designated as Club Class. On my cruise last month, the demand for Club Class dining from the people in those cabins and suites was such that they ended up extending the Club Class dining into the dining room. One person posted on my live thread that "they put some overflow tables in the regular area of the dining room with CC servers but it's noisy awkwardly placed randomly in aisles."
  20. The zipper on a pair of DH's pants was damaged once. There's a tailor onboard who fixed it. On my cruise last month on the Caribbean, they did not do the accounting trick of charging my onboard account and then giving me a credit. My cabin steward warned me that due to the number of Elite passengers on the ship (836) that it would take up to 72 hours to get laundry back. My first couple of batches came back in 36 hours. My last few batches came back in 60 hours. On one of our transatlantic cruises, our cabin steward told us it would take up to five days to get things back. Your cabin steward should also tell you what the last day to send out laundry is. My cruise ended on a Wednesday, and the last day to send anything out was the Saturday before.
  21. The Patters on my cruise last month list the shops being open from "Sailing - 11 pm" on embarkation day and all port days. They were open 9 am to 11 pm on sea days.
  22. Here are some photos from before we learned to ask for broccoli instead of asparagus. Princess supplied the LED candle. This UBD happened on a beautiful night when our ship had a late departure from Curacao.
  23. You'd get one bottle of wine for trading in the entire contents of your minibar. I did it on the second leg of b2b cruises.
  24. I met friends every night in the Wheelhouse Bar last month on the Caribbean Princess. I noticed they had a wine glass of water on the bar. The waiters from Sabatini's next door would pick up wine and drinks from the bar. The bartenders measured the pour in glasses of wine by doing it next to the glass of water, making sure to get it to the exact same level.
  25. We have made several changes to the set menu when doing the UBD. I don't eat pears and DH does not eat nuts, so we get plain salads. We always ask for broccoli instead of asparagus. We're not fond of the dessert and have asked for something else. Once it was a raspberry creme brulee. Another time they were able to serve us flourless chocolate cake.
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