geoherb

3 hours ago, Bwana Tom said:

I’m curious, what is the percentage of the amount they are shortening you. I wonder if it is in the neighborhood of the usual 25 percent less than is owed you.

I wish you all the luck. If all else fails you might want to call my contact noted earlier.

It's about 20 percent. I'm owed $103.21, and the statement makes it look like I'll be receiving $80. 

I received my statement the day after my cruise last week. It looks like they're planning to short me $23.21. I've already written a complaint on the webform. In my case, the ship refunded port fees and 10 days worth of internet that added up to more than my refund. I asked onboard the ship if these amounts were refundable and was told that they were. I don't see how Princess decided that they were only partially refundable.

1 hour ago, WYB! said:

Nice meeting you.

 

Good comprehensive review of this trip.

 

in 7th Place with 139 points: the Solo Gems

 

 

Thanks. It was nice to meet you. The champagne waterfall photo is of my 4:00 trivia teammates. I managed to have three separate trivia teams with only one regular teammate in common at the 10:00 and 4:00 games. 

4 hours ago, Keikidoc said:

Geoherb, thanks for the excellent live reporting. We are scheduled for Sept 10 embarking from Quebec City to NYC on Caribbean P. Could you tell me if cabin steward tended to ur cabin 2x a day or just once a day? 

He did it twice a day without my having to request it. On my previous cruises since the restart, it was always an option that passengers could request in person or through the app or TV. I requested the evening service a few times on one of those cruises when I had laundry ready to go out.

13 hours ago, cruzsnooze said:

I was on that sailing and disembarked on the 31st. All one had to do is go to deck 6 and walk off. It was quick and easy and people moved quickly through the line. I was on the bus to transfer to JFK by 9AM. Multiple buses went to LGA. Why was the OP unable to just walk off?

I was on that sailing as well. My color tag was for 8:45 disembarkation, and they were running an hour behind by the time I disembarked at 9:45. I overheard Valeria, the loyalty and events manager, explain to one woman that she could disembark then but that her luggage may not be ready. They were still bringing out more bags when I got off the ship.

My understanding is that the delay was because they started with just one gangway. It was the same problem they had 16 days before. 

Drinks up to $12 are included except for cans of soda usually. Sometimes, though, you'll get a bartender to serve a can of soda without charging extra for it.

On your own or through an independent tour excursion company will usually be less expensive and give you more. We booked two excursions through independent companies: with Butlers/eCoach in Cobh to go to Blarney Castle and Kinsale and with Invergordon Tours in Invergordon to go to Urquhart Castle, a boat cruise on Loch Ness, Clava Cairns, and Cawdor Castle. We did Dublin on the hop-on/hop-off bus. We did the same in Glasgow after taking the train there from Greenock. We walked in Belfast to the Ulster Museum and around the downtown area. In Edinburgh, I purchased tickets in advance for the castle. We took the train from South Queensferry. We walked in Le Havre and enjoyed it, especially the art museum there.

EZair has worked fine for me. It was a lot less expensive for our cruises that started from Southampton than booking airfare on our own. We did have a slight problem of not being able to choose seats together on our flight from RDU to Toronto before our last transatlantic cruise. But that was OK. We survived being apart for less than 3 hours. 

I used EZair for my cruise last month from New York without any problems. I'm using it again in November for a cruise from Fort Lauderdale. 

The travel summary for my cruise on August 15 gave Manhattan or Brooklyn. It did not matter to me since I was taking a transfer from the airport. Discussing it became all the rage on our roll call and Facebook page.

I received my final statement via email yesterday. For some reason, the amount I'm getting as a refund is wrong. I had a final balance of $103.21, but the amount on the statement for a refund is just $80. I asked via CrewCall Chat before leaving if the refunded port fees and internet were refundable. Samantha-Joanne Erica B. answered me, "Its refundable." I don't understand how Princess decided that just $80 was going to be refunded to me. I filled out the website contact form. According to what I was told, I should have had more than enough refundable OBC to cover the $103.21 left on my account: $39 transfer refund, $54.58 refund for Nuuk port fees, $13.79 initial port fee refund, and $50 credit for the lousy internet. 

11 hours ago, Megamixer said:

We embarked the day you disembarked. You getting off the ship late explains why the bus was over an hour late picking us up from the hotel. So far the internet for me has been slow but workable. I'm able to stream security cameras from home and upload pics to FB and via text. (We've yet to reach Boston though) We have so far found this ship lovely. Reminds me of cruise ships from the 80s and 90s before the big Vegas hotel type redesigns! I just miss traditional dining. 

I hope the internet holds out for you. It did not get truly bad for us until after leaving Sydney. I will miss traditional dining when I sail with DH. As a solo traveler, I prefer sharing a table. I had a couple of bad traditional experiences in 2019, so I had already decided to go with anytime dining when solo before Princess came out with Dine My Way last year.

10 hours ago, G&Gcruisers said:

What was the ship’s general location when you saw the whale’s tail?

It was our first day at sea after St. John's. We were off the coast of Nova Scotia. We continued to see whales and dolphins the next day when we were off the coast of New England. One of my friends took an amazing photo of a whale from the Emerald Deck portion of the promenade.

11 hours ago, c-boy said:

was that pillow chocolates you received on the third formal night ?

No. These were four little chocolates served on a plate with a cover. I ate two that night and two the next afternoon.

We took National Express coaches the last couple of times. It was £16.40 for the two of us, which was around $10 per person. 

On 7/6/2022 at 11:10 AM, mpk said:

 

Is August a good time (bug wise) to visit Greenland?  Sounds like Alaska, where bugs are gone by August or September, from what I've read.

I'm back from my cruise on the Caribbean Princess. We missed Nuuk due to rough seas between us and the port. They announced it a couple of days in advance. Nanortalik had the tendering problem others have mentioned. I was lucky to make the first tender. I made it to the island before the museum opened. I walked around the town and hiked up the hill to get a great view of the ship. When I made it back to the ship around 11, people were still waiting for tenders. Some had been waiting for several hours. The worst I heard was a 3-hour wait for a tender off the ship and a 2-hour wait for the tender back to the ship.

The tendering went much smoother in Qaqortoq. I hiked halfway around the Great Lake. I passed one of the organized Princess excursions and took a detour to see a waterfall. I got back to place where the organized group was about to ford a stream. The guide was explaining that the other side was longer and more strenuous. Several people turned around at that point, including me.

On 8/26/2022 at 1:41 PM, shipgeeks said:

Please tell us more about this new area.  What are some of the attractions?  We have been planning to book the hop-on bus to tour the area, but it sounds like this could be fun as well. Details, please!

I was in St. John's this weekend on a cruise. My friends who booked the hop-on/hop-off bus were disappointed. The driver told them that if they hopped off, they probably wouldn't be able to get back on since the buses were running at capacity. They ended up riding around the whole loop and then taking a taxi to get back up Signal Hill.

Halifax has so much within walking distance: the Public Garden, the Citadel, Maritime Museum, immigration museum, restaurants and shops, the Halifax Distillery, Alexander Keith's Brewery, and Province House. We saved going to Peggy's Cove and the cemetery with the Titanic graves for our second trip there. We rented a car and did it on our own.

I walked around Halifax two weeks ago on my cruise on the Caribbean Princess. I went to Point Pleasant Park, the Public Garden, the Citadel, Halifax Distillery for a rum tasting, and Salty's for the seafood platter. We had toured the Citadel several years ago, so I did not purchase a ticket to go back inside. I was there just to watch the firing of the cannon at noon and the changing of the guard. The photos are of the martello in Point Pleasant Park, the Public Garden, the changing of the guard, the rum tasting, and my seafood platter.

The distillery does tours/tastings at 1 and 3. It's very near the Maritime Museum. On a previous cruise, we did the tour at Alexander Keith's Brewery and enjoyed that a lot.

I had delicious scallops at Salty's in Halifax a couple of weeks ago. They were part of this seafood platter, but you could order them on their own.

I just returned from a cruise on the Caribbean Princess that went to three Canadian ports: Halifax, Sydney, and St. John's. We went to two ports in Greenland between Sydney and St. John's. All we had to do was provide our proof of a negative Covid test and fill out the info on ArriveCAN. I know there were several passengers with Covid by the time we got to St. John's. Some passengers were even speculating that Canadian authorities would not allow us to dock there. But we did. 

I need to find the paper listing benefits when I embarked on the CB on August 15. I don't remember if the upgraded bathroom amenities were listed on it or not. I asked my cabin steward about them, and he told me they did not have any. 

Bon voyage! 

Comparing Princess to Viking isn't very helpful. Of course Viking should have much better food and service. I priced out an itinerary similar to the one I'll be taking in November on the Caribbean Princess. Viking would cost me eight times more. And that's a comparison of the price I'm paying with Princess Plus, so I will be getting all the glasses of wine and cocktails and bottles of water included along with gratuities and internet.

I disembarked from the Caribbean Princess yesterday. I enjoyed the cruise in spite of the many little things that weren't perfect. I did not have any problems with the medallion or the app. 

2 hours ago, leck57 said:

 

I reckon if they were the things you put on your survey, I would say that you had a great cruise overall.

Really big ticket stuff.

I did have a very good cruise overall. But sometimes it is the little things that would take it from very good to great. It would have been easy for Princess to have removed those promises from the list of Elite benefits when they revamped the program last summer. 

I disembarked from the Caribbean Princess today. We had 2,712 passengers--around 86% capacity. They had the front two-thirds of the port side of the Aloha Deck closed off for quarantining people.