beg3yrs

How do I feel? Well, if we thought the deal worked for us when we booked it I will just let it go. However I will keep an eye on this for future bookings. It would be a throw the dice proposal I think. If I book without a package (but I think it would work for me) and keep an eye on the offers, that would be great to take a reduced price. However in this day and age I would also run the risk of the packages increasing in price as they have been known to do.

Complete agreement with @Thrak here. We did the Connoisseur tour in Alaska, 17 days (10 land and 7 cruise) and it was fabulous. Our guide was great with narration and stories on the bus, making sure we all knew what to expect at every venue, arranging meal reservations and so on. We thought it was well worth the extra money and would do it again when the time is right.

I've changed my mind after reading all this. Once we ordered medallions and they were so delayed they arrived at our home the afternoon we had left on a morning flight. So, at check-in they expected us to have our medallions. They were unprepared for passengers showing up without medallions and not having them already ready to pick up. That caused so much confusion that we had to wait while they figured it out as they evidently don't have the facilities to make new medallions on shore. They did however make old-style cruise cards for us so we could board. We then had to wait in the horrendous first day guest services line to get new medallions made. We said never again. Just arrange to have them picked up at the port and deal with the blue lane by arriving later. Now I see reports that even after arriving after 1 PM the blue line was too long. Hoping the shipping problem was a rare issue, I just changed the next two cruises to ship to home. We'll see ...

Travel summary - we always take a hard copy as if you need it at guest services, hard copy is best.

I remember hearing something similar to this on one of the released videos. A comment was made that lower to upper levels went from slower to faster service.

The United Kingdom never was part of the Schengen agreement. They've always had their own border controls. Brexit had nothing to do with that. Our experiences pre- and post-Brexit have been the same in the UK and the rest of Europe. Pretty much non-existent checking. If there has been any it's so unobtrusive you don't even notice it.

Not only that but the officers and crew are getting lots of experience in handling this new class of ship. Probably lots of shipyard designers and class society staff on board as well so they can compare the performance predictions against actual performance. A good opportunity to update their performance modeling software and the operations manuals.

In the Fall of 2022 we were on the Island Princess for a B2B2B of 38 days. It was our first time on that ship although we had sailed its sister the Coral Princess back in 2010 for our very first B2B. Yes, we found she was older but still well maintained and in good shape. Its layout was a little odd too but not as odd as the Dawn and Sun Princess ships. We were fortunate enough to attend the MTP luncheon on each leg and on the last one there was one passenger who ranted and raved about how OLD the ship was although I'd bet this person was close to four times the ship's age! This went on the whole lunch and the poor officer at our table dealt with it very nicely but the rest of us just didn't get a word in edgewise about anything else. Anyway, I digress. I for one and a fan of classic cars currently own two. One is completely restored and the other is a driveable, sound but unrestored classic. Our other non-classic cars (daily drivers), well, one is from the previous century, the other is two years into this century and the third is the newest had to replace a pickup from 1988 which was finally uneconomic to maintain any more (getting parts was a problem). So maybe I find the older ships just fine. No complaints here. They still look great, they run great (mostly) and they get the job done. It breaks my heart (a little) when I hear that a perfectly good ship HAS TO BE SOLD just because it's old. Yes, I do understand the economics too. Bigger equals more economies of scale, newer means more fuel efficient operation and lower maintenance costs. People like to book newer ships just because. I get it. Yes, the Island Princess will eventually be sold but I cross my fingers it will be after the March 2026 54 day cruise!

I had completely forgot about this thread until someone "liked" on of my posts. Since then we've booked the Island Princess for the March 2026 54 day cruise out of San Pedro in California. Got a great deal in a great cabin and now y'all have given me something to worry about. Granted that it's at the bottom of my worry list, but it's there...

This is similar to what we use except ours has eight plugs. We call it "the octopus". On the Grand Class ships it lives on the shelf where the old televisions were. Just live this particular design as no matter what you plug in, it won't block the adjacent outlet and of course, it will fit in those desk top outlets without blocking anything next door.

It's the same policy fleet-wide. Training of the crew is likely to be similar as well.

Two additional memories of our Northern Lights cruise. Standing in the rock quarry at night looking at the lights, first I spotted the Big Dipper constellation and used it to find the North Star. It was directly overhead! Then I pulled out a trusty compass and it was pointing to where the sun had set! Things are different above the Arctic Circle ...

I believe @Thrak took his cruise in 2019. We were on the Northern Lights Cruise in 2022 on the Island Princess. It was stormy on the way north along the coast of Norway. The captain sacrificed a stop in Stavanger so he could sail "between" storms. We made the rest of our ports OK. Our experience with the lights, our first time, was amazing although after the fact, it could have been better I've heard. Nevertheless we heard the announcement in the hallways late one evening that the lights were visible. Out onto the balcony we lept (with warm robes and heavy duty slippers of course) and they were barely visible to the naked eye. We finally found them in the distance and once located we were enthralled by the changing shapes. Once we reached Alta (I believe this is Thrak's goofy bus port) for the overnight the lights put on a better show. Much more visible to the naked eye. We took the late night excursion to the rock quarry and the lights were reasonably bright even with a full moon. I have an older camera but was able to catch some beautiful shots with a tripod, a wide field of view and a long exposure setting. Others however, with iPhones 8 or higher were able to get some amazing hand-held shots with no problem at all. I understand many of the newer Android phones can do the same thing. Unfortunately we had iPhone 6 and that didn't do much at all (we've since upgraded). The next night sailing out of Alta, the Lights made another showing, this time even better. Set against a backdrop of islands they were very visible to the naked eye. We could see the curtains and even flares. We enjoyed this trip so much, we're booked again in 2025 on the Emerald Princess. Looking at the sunspot cycle, it's supposed to peak this year so as long as the weather is good for you I think it's a good bet you'll get a spectacular display.

Why are you afraid to use the Medallion to open (actually unlock) your cabin door? You don't say why in your post. Your only other alternative is a cruise card which has a similar proximity capability.

AFAIK, the direct phone number has not been published. Nobody IIRC has posted such a number. The only access seems to be through a front line representative. Often they will not even let you speak to an EZ Air person but will act as a go-between. It's a very rare situation where you end up speaking directly to EZ Air staff.

Disabling location means that your "shipmates" can't find you via the app or the on board screens. The crew won't have that restriction. It also could be the battery died in the medallion. It does happen.

On the ship the Medallion or a cruise card are the preferred options for purchases. I once made an Effy purchase and used a separate credit card on board the ship in the Effy store. I was trying to hide the transaction from DW as this was going to be a Christmas gift. Seems that won't work as the charge still goes on your on board account and is then offset by the credit card payment. Fortunately DW didn't review the folio so the gift was still unexpected.

Regarding room service under Plus 50, it's not that there's no room service, it's that there's a service charge for room service ordered by phone. I can't recall at this (senior) moment if the charge is $5 or $15. Room service ordered through the app has no service charge regardless of which package, if any, you have.

Not only is it not unique to Princess but most major unique construction projects of any sort (roads, one-of-a-kind buildings, new aircraft models, etc) end up behind schedule. That said, everyone will be exceptionally pleased if the Sun Princess goes into service on time.

This is quite true up until the reservation is ticketed. Then the airlines will work with you. If you are sure of keeping your trip, this is a good reason to request early ticketing once your Princess booking is paid in full.

Thanks for justifying what is likely to be my obsessive compulsive checking of my travel itineraries almost daily. Cruise summaries AND airline websites, making sure they all match and haven't changed from what it was the day before. More than once have I seen this kind of problem and was able to get a resolution long before it became a travel emergency.

Just starting to collect Social Security and I just learned there's a requirement to report being out of the country for over 30 days. It seems the purpose is to arrange for payments to be sent elsewhere. But, if it's just a long cruise, say less than five months and all my banking will remain in the USA, is this really required? Will there be repercussions if I don't report this? Asking here because I want to hear actual experiences with this rather than wait hours on the phone to get an official set in stone response from a bored government call center employee.

Welcome to Cruise Critic. We've been on the Emerald several times and our experiences were quite different than yours. Many experiences are subjective so I hope you find Celebrity more to your liking.

I didn't know that myself until I saw a crew member working on one. It really makes sense to go that way. Probably a lot lower cost than trying to "roll your own" developing the hardware as well as the software.

Not just hundreds but possibly thousands. If you look closely, the cabin door displays are in reality Samsung tablets encased in a housing with a medallion sensor (similar to the ones used for Bingo) just below the tablet. Inspecting the tablet you can see the opening for the tablet's camera. While I don't have first hand knowledge, my speculation is that Princess has access to the tablet cameras via the ship's Intranet. Whether the data is used and for what purposes we can't be sure but ... those cabin hallways can be monitored with video too.