beg3yrs

I would pre-arrange a private taxi. Do not use a taxi that is really a large van and waits for all the booked passengers to show up - had a bad experience with that. IIRC Stefano's Rome Cabs took us from FCO to Civitavecchia a couple of years ago for around 120 Euros total - probably more now though. Pretty sure they can do the same in reverse. You'll have a driver with your name on a sign waiting for you when you leave the terminal with your luggage. +39 339 3525028 or www.romecabs.com. IMHO they were well worth the money, even if more expensive than a Princess transfer as you'll get where you're going faster.

I'd be absolutely surprised. This is a one year build. Project plans have been in place for years. The supply chain is long and detailed. The enemy of making a schedule on time is changes to the plan. And ... the deck plans show the same aft layout as the Sun Princess.

Thank you to everyone for all the reviews and updates. They're very helpful and I hope they keep coming. I'm so sorry for all of you who are not getting the promised fantastic shows and entertainment that Princess has been promising for SO long now. Here's hoping Princess gets this completed ASAP!

A lot of those satellite or aerial map images are quite old. 2022 IMHO would be a recent image.

Thanks for all the videos, they help a lot. Please though, and maybe it's just me, but my eyes are side by side and they would really prefer videos taken with the phone horizontal so we can see more detail!

The title of your post perpetuates a myth about EZ Air. Airlines change schedules and make your original itinerary not feasible, not EZ Air. You said it yourself in the second-to-last sentence of your post, Alaska Airlines did the cancelling.

Stairs are in the aft end of the Piazza on the port and starboard sides. Most Piazza photos I've seen are looking forward.

Or for ports with large tidal swings, which deck for the morning or afternoon?

From videos I've watched it seems to me that hanging space in the closets is much reduced from Grand and Royal class ships. Can anyone confirm if this is correct or not?

I think you meant Suite section ...

I'm seeing this behavior as well. I'm using Fire Fox. It's very annoying!

Hmm ... no mention of Effy. Princess website is down at this moment so I couldn't check the deck plans. Any idea if Effy is gone?

Me too. I was wondering about all the different colors of wine bottles. Made for a gorgeous display but where do you get wine bottles of all those colors?!

First of all, they are Princess gift cards sold by AARP. AARP sells lots of gift cards for all sorts of businesses and none of them say AARP on them, just the name of the business for which they are for. Go to the AARP.org website and log in if you're a member. If not, don't worry, you don't have to be. In the upper right you'll see this: That's a link, click on it. If you're not logged in, you can now "Get Started". There you can register for a free AARP Rewards account. From there you can get to the main rewards page. Here's the tricky part that trips up many first timers. You have to keep scrolling down until you get to a link that says: Once there you can either search for "Princess" or just scroll down until you see the cards. They sell two kinds, a $100 card and a $500 card. You can only purchase 5 cards a month of any kind, i.e. if you buy 5 Home Depot cards, you can't buy any other kind of card until the next calendar month. People often register a spouse or significant other and then double their monthly allotment (we do). It's also not completely obvious but the way to purchase multiple cards at once is to add a card to your "Cart" and then go to your cart where you can increase the quantity. I hope that helps.

Once cruise I gave $4500 in GCs on a single day. On another cruise, $7500. The only issue I had was on the $7500 submission where a supervisor came over and wanted to be sure I wasn't going to leave a large credit balance on my folio as it's difficult for them to refund large amounts. I assured him with our planned bingo playing we'd have it negative again pretty soon. He was good with that. Anyway, we try to redeem our GCs near the end of the voyage so we have a good idea where we sit and not over-redeem. Usually only do that once a voyage but I seem to recall one voyage where we redeemed twice with no issues.

I guess we'll have to wait until sometime after May 1 for someone to get ticketed through EZ Air. Once ticketed I think you'd be able to call AA and find out if your ticket would earn miles. I have noticed we already earn significantly less miles on AA with EZ Air tickets because the miles awarded are really based on spend, not actual miles flown.

Seems to me having 1,000 workers on board for the trip to Rome is an excellent opportunity for MDR and Buffet dress rehearsals. A great way to get all the kinks out with passengers who won't really complain (too much). Those workers all have to eat as well as stay in cabins - I doubt they stay in crew cabins, not enough. Another way for the stewards to get in the groove before paying passengers arrive. Heck, they may even get a few shows in as well.

They're not really AARP gift cards, they are Princess gift cards purchased at a discount through AARP. I don't know about your TA but mine certainly does. He's done it for at least four cruises now.

I just completed payment in full for the Sun Princess on June 1. Gave my TA an encrypted spreadsheet with 29 gift card numbers and pins. Thought it would be 30 but he only needed 29.

Not far from the truth. In January of 2023 we rounded Elephant Island on the Sapphire and went from nice weather to greater than 100 knot winds and 9 meter swells just like that. Captain McBain tried to make headway towards Admiralty Bay but had to eventually settle for pointing her into the wind and setting a speed enough to maintain steerage. However, the Sapphire still rode comfortably even though now and then you had to grab a handrail. Her wider beam over the rest of the Grand class (except for the Diamond of course) makes her a much better ship to sail in rough seas!

If the original delay was due to water contamination, they would have debarked all crew living on board. Can't have people staying on board with bad water.

Sounds like it's very possible the water contamination was found at the last minute, probably as part of the normal testing procedures. Yes, it is a big deal and must be dealt with immediately and canceling the current sailing is definitely a last minute thing. I wouldn't fault Princess management for a technical issue like this. IMHO it's likely water testing has been going on since they started using the system for human consumption and this is a brand new issue. Would love to have @chengkp75 chime in here.

^^ This! ^^ If you had to cruise within 60 days you'd be paying in full!

Yes it is. 😱 If DW and I play both sea day sessions of bingo with the full package of electronic bingo games it doesn't take many sea days to incur a large folio charge. We personally know three Fortunas now! Nice kids once you get behind the 'corporate' personality. No refunds involved. As @KarmaCruisers said, games are charged to your folio, winnings are added to your casino account.

I once went to guest services and added $7,500 worth of gift cards to my account. Of course the account was already "in the hole" from playing too much bingo so we ended up with a net balance of around $700.