beg3yrs

If the Caribbean Princess has been running cruises in the same region for a while, it could get this reputation as many times it doesn't matter how much the ship is cleaned as passengers bring the illness with them from the ports.

My experience as well. The last time I called the representative had what I think is an accent from the Philippines. In the background was not a dog but a rooster. When I commented that we used to have roosters and our neighbor has one she seemed very embarrassed.

I should have added a fourth which is similar to three without schlepping through customs. That's what we experienced in Southampton as well.

I have experienced several different methods. Some will depend on what the customs requirements are for your particular debarkation port which you didn't specify. 1) Your disembarkation luggage tag will be unique to your specific tour and they'll be loaded on your bus that will travel with you during the tour. 2) Your disembarkation luggage tag will be unique to your specific tour and they'll be loaded on a truck that will go to the airport and you'll meet your bags there. 3) Your disembarkation luggage tag will be for a time that fits your tour departure and you will pick up your bags in the terminal and schlep them through customs yourself (or with a porter - my favorite) and then take them to your tour bus.

I discovered an issue with copy and paste but it also involves the Excel spreadsheet program. When I would receive a plethora of ten emails each month (mine and DW's), I would copy and paste the card numbers and PINs into a spreadsheet which also recorded the date purchased and could keep track of when and on what a particular card was spent. Now and then I'd use the online gift card balance check to verify a card's balance and started to receive the "call Princess" error message. After several hours of sleuthing I found that Excel doesn't really like to directly paste long strings of numbers into cells as text. Instead it will change the last digit or two of the long number and not even give you a hint of a problem! Fortunately I had saved all the files and was able to recover the correct numbers. The Excel workaround is to not paste directly into a cell (even Paste Special doesn't work correctly) but to use the formula bar at the top of the screen. First one must type a single apostrophe and then paste. Then everything works as Excel should, not as Mr. Gates and his minions implemented it!

Of course you mean the Loyalty and Events Manager instead of Captain's Circle rep ... not to be confused with the Director of Restaurant Operations ... 😉

We took the Windsor Castle debark tour a couple of years ago. IIRC the bus drops you off right in front of your terminal. They load the bags on the bus according to terminal so it was quite efficient. Going from Windsor to LHR was quick as they're close to each other. I'd worry more about delays if I was coming from Stonehenge. I too would be a bit worried about LHR as going through security was a nightmare last November. That said, we went through security as we were changing terminals from BA in terminal 5 to AA in terminal 3 and there was no facility for expedited screening there. Waited ninety minutes to get through. Good thing we had a three hour layover. It almost wasn't enough.

Hmm ... I beg to differ Chief. Starlink's satellites are not geosynchronous with spot beams, they are low-earth-orbit (LEO) birds with various orbital inclinations. They do cover the oceans quite well. It's actually the reverse for coastal / territorial waters as some governments have not yet given permission for Starlink ground / maritime terminals to operate.

We take a water pik with us and it's not the rechargeable one. Tried that and it was just too clunky, didn't hold enough water and the stream wasn't strong either. You will find water piks have polarized plugs (one blade is wider than the other) that won't fit in the bathroom receptacle (note the one in the photo has blade receptacles the same size). Even if you try an adapter (which we did, once), as others have said (and even yours truly in another thread), the bathroom receptacle doesn't supply enough current to properly drive the water pik. Our solution is to take a looooonnnnngggg polarized extension cord and run it across the cabin when we use the water pik. Kind of a pain but it works.

I have personally seen this in the past as well. Don't know what the criteria is to get an airline reservation ticketed though. We generally travel AA and have had some flights ticketed early but recently they get ticketed 45 days or less to flight time.

One of our comments on the post-cruise survey was that it was way too clunky. Looks like enough of us complained!

Jalapeños would be great. Italian sausage seems to be missing too.

Kilts are often seen on formal nights on cruises out of the UK and IMHO are perfectly acceptable. While I'm a second generation born-in-the-USA Yankee, my heritage before that is Clan Johnston and I'm all for wearing kilts. One of these days I'll spend the big bucks to get one and all the trimmings in my clan's tartan.

My experience is that you need to call and that's fraught with peril. If you don't get an agent who knows how to apply GCs to excursions, HUACA (hang up and call again). My first call was with an agent who did not apply the GCs correctly and I ended up being overcharged. On my second call when I discovered the error, the agent almost got it right. On my third call I got an agent who knew what to do and fixed everything. I don't bother paying for excursions ahead of time with GCs anymore. In the big scheme of things, for me, the big savings are paying for the cruise and air (yes I know they're not for air but my TA has always applied them). The hassle of calling for excursion payments isn't worth the savings, especially as we already get 10% for our CC level. All that said, sometimes if I want an excursion that I'm confident won't sell out by embarkation, I'll just book it on the ship and pay with GCs there. Caveat that excursions often increase in price as the sailing date approaches.

Maybe, just maybe, there's a Chef's Table happening that night. I've seen the Chef's Table event displace tables before.

Good point. While I'm sure there are drawings and plans that show how many tables of each size and their locations in the tri-level dining room, getting all that sorted for the App could take time. They may have to break it into three separate rooms, one for each level, as each level is supposed to have a different ambience. Also, when they start actually furnishing the rooms, the drawing layout may be different from the actual one.

I too get the same Dine My Way error. I also tried to book excursions a couple of days ago for the Sun Princess June 1st, 2024 sailing. Can't do it yet. Although they excursions are populated, when I go to book I get a "Passenger Error". An agent at Princess told me excursions can't be booked until 180 days out. While I know that's not completely accurate (a have booked excursions on the Discovery for a cruise that's over a year away), I didn't bother to argue.

And I really appreciate you coming back and letting us know all is OK. When I read your post I immediately went and checked my security photo. It's terrible but it's still the one I supplied a year or so ago.

Has anyone mentioned how the project is doing with respect to schedule?

Wasn't saying to only follow what Princess says on their website. There have been times where the Princess documentation requirement is more stringent than those of the countries being visited. I'd always go with the most restrictive set of requirements.

All these posters refer to official government web-sites but ... what does Princess say in the Important Notices section on the cruise personalizer for your particular sailing. They're going to be the ones who will let you on the ship or not.

That's gonna be the first thing we do when we board the new Sun Princess in June of 2024!

We sailed the Sapphire Princess from January 4, 2023 through February 6, 2023. We too had a window table for two in the Savoy and Asif and Lawrentiu seemed to be battling to be our headwaiters. Both were great. Anyway, please tell Asif that Scott and Charlie say hi. And, if you get a taste for Indian food, Asif will put together an amazing meal for you.

Had a situation on the Island Princess last fall somewhat analogous to this. We sailed a B2B2B originally booked in a regular balcony cabin. The upgrade fairy smiled on us for only the first leg and we were upgraded to a full suite (maybe hitting 500 days had something to do with it but all staff deny that). Anyway, we enjoyed Club Class and the Sabatini's breakfast for two weeks and then had to revert to regular service for the next two legs. Needless to say we had been very friendly with the CC wait staff and also made some nice acquaintances with other CC passengers. Several times we were invited by these passengers to dine with them in CC. It always turned out to be a table adjacent to the CC area with the CC wait staff attending to us. That service really is a cut above.

Yes of course. Took BA once in business and won't do that again. Old and tired would be the description for the cabin and just tired for the attendants. Service was marginal and food was dismal (well, it is British 😉). PHX is always considered but mostly doesn't work out for us. LAX does and when it doesn't, DFW typically wins.