CaptainPedantic

Personal favourites:

Frozen Jalapeno Margarita

Ultimate Patron Margarita

Cartagena Cool

Sandia en Fuego

Dirty Banana

Mudslide

Bahama Mama

Also recommend to try the Butterfly and Starry Night in Oslo at Good Spirits for the entertainment value 🙂 say Hi to Carmen if she's still there

21 hours ago, Ombud said:

Not as bad as @CaptainPedantic but still!!

Well what IS worse than my experience is that you only have 10 days to go... If that was me in my situation, I'd be beyond help! At least I had a couple of months of breathing space to worry about the point at which I'd have to tell my wife about it...

"No human could screw it up this good" made me laugh 😄 not sure I agree though 😉 

Finally it's all sorted 🙂 what a relief. And if anything, the flights are slightly better than the originals! Thanks everyone for the advice.

Thanks everyone. Still no updates and my TA is now escalating. The one saving grace is that this is only for our return flights after the cruise, and not an issue for us joining the ship. Appreciate all the advice, I continue to check at least daily and chasing my TA regularly too.

Thank you. I'm checking daily even though my TA is also on the case.

Thanks for the reassurance! We'll keep an eye out for more changes and hope this is sorted out soon 🙂 

When Princess had a UK promotion at the start of July with discounted flights through their Plane Sailing program, I put my previous bad EZAir experiences to one side and decided to book (EZAir is now called Plane Sailing in the UK). The flights are ticketed with Air France, but operated by Virgin and Delta. Around 3 weeks ago, I got a reschedule email notice from VA telling me that other flights I had booked with them had been rescheduled and automatically rebooked. By chance, I just happened to check our Plane Sailing flights. They have also been rescheduled and rebooked, without notification, and it turns out the new schedule has us arriving in Atlanta almost an hour AFTER our connecting flight has left 😞 Since we booked via a UK Travel Agent, they are working with Princess on our behalf to make sure we get an appropriate flight connection home, but is this normal (for international flights) and should I be concerned? What's the latest you'd expect to find out? I know that there should be plenty of options from FLL/MIA to ATL to get us to our connecting flight in plenty of time, but then if it's that easy, why are the IT systems not able to work this out quickly!?!

All I've been told so far is that Princess address all flight changes and conflicts in departure date order, which I completely understand, but we like to have things organised well in advance and I'm starting to stress...

15 hours ago, Rubynic said:

We have received confirmation from Princess that this only applies to bookings in North America. As with most deals & the ability to refare without charge, it is not available to customers in the UK,

😞 not surprised but still 😞 

Thanks to feedback from the lovely people on this forum, we used P4C for the first time last year after 'defaulting' to CPS time and time again, and seeing similar huge increases. Very impressed and like others have said, the slight inconvenience of a less-than-5-minute walk is well worth the savings (and actually was quicker too). Recommended.

2 hours ago, david63 said:

But they do - book another Princess cruise and by magic your credit card details appear!

Really?!? I haven't experienced this with them - but I'm not surprised if it makes it easier to take our money!

We had a fabulous 14n cruise on Caribbean Princess last May, no issues with illness or overcrowding, wouldn't hesitate to book again

Is there still a night nursery available for the under 5s?

When our kids were little (a long time ago!), we were able to regularly make use of this excellent facility and enjoy our evenings safe in the knowledge that they were being well looked after, and we could easily be contacted by pager if needed.

11 hours ago, sandancer said:

The only way Princess would let us have our refundable OBC back was by a cheque (in dollars) within 14 days.

Princess made changes to their process last year to allow UK passengers to request any outstanding refundable onboard credit in cash before disembarking. I was told of this when trying to get a refund from a Caribbean Princess cruise in May 2023 (which was later paid via NatWest PayIt) and by the time we were on our August 2023 Island Princess cruise, we received a letter in the cabin telling us we could do this. They've done this because they can't retain non-US card details after the cruise, so can't issue refundable credits automatically.

2 hours ago, Glitterati said:

I wish they offered more curries on an evening in the MDR! 

+1 for this... as long as they are spicy... we find the curries are 'dumbed down' for the masses and miss some heat!

10 hours ago, Thejuggler said:

Manchester Airport latest offers email is giving 24% off lounge access and parking.

We got this too - discount code JANSALE24M if anyone needs it

10 hours ago, cheshire said:

 booked 1903 but the seats were poor in there. It’s nearly £50 each this time

Agree with your comment on 1903 - we tried that but much preferred the Escape lounge, and it was cheaper (although both had the long queues)

15 hours ago, Presto2 said:

Really helpful.. many thanks. Hubby is disappointed but in the great scheme of things its not a major issue.  Just gives me more time to look at the shops 😉

Hubby will probably be even more disappointed if he has to be dragged around the shops 😉 

As others have said... you do get fast-track but you don't get lounge access included.

There's a dedicated check-in desk/queue for premium economy, last month it was the very last of the P&O check-in desks, and there are always staff on hand to help direct you. They will give you fast-track tickets/stickers at check-in so you can breeze through security. But no lounge access unless you buy it separately... and the last two times we've been on these P&O fly cruises, we've had to wait 20+ minutes to get into the lounge even though we pre-booked - both times due to P&O premium economy passengers trying to argue their way in for free (unsuccessfully).

Hope you have a great cruise 🙂 

Hope you have an amazing time, looking forward to reading all about it 🙂 

13 minutes ago, Presto2 said:

Was the ship pretty quiet on disembarkation day? Am guessing that for us half will be off exploring and the other half will be like us either off wandering, on an excursion or lazing about.

The ship did feel pretty quiet. I suppose there will have been a combination of people making the most of their first full day in Barbados, people recovering from long flights, and those leaving the ship early for a last trip or beach visit before going home. The pool area was definitely quieter than any other day on the cruise - even at 10am there were sun beds available poolside. MDR was quiet for breakfast and lunch too. The only busy times I noticed were when dropping off our hand luggage at 9am - everyone must have had the same idea after vacating their cabin but even then, it was less than 10 minute wait. And it was busy in the waiting areas naturally.

Here are a few of ours... This year, thanks to cruising, we have:

• Bobbed along in a RIB with a pod of humpback whales
• Seen and touched icebergs
• Ridden a horse through a Caribbean rainforest, onto a beach and into the sea
• Zip-lined through a rainforest and a cave
• Swam with a dolphin in the wild (that one was a complete surprise!)
• Snorkelled with turtles, stingrays, so many colourful fish and over a shipwreck and an underwater sculpture park

We feel so privileged to have been able to do these things, and yes while we could organise land-based holidays to do similar things, for us, cruising is the best way to travel 🙂 

Over Christmas, me and Mrs Pedantic were reflecting on our first proper year back to cruising since the pandemic, and all the wonderful experiences we have had in 2023... We definitely had started to take cruising for granted before Covid, and we are very grateful to have been able to have so many brilliant experiences this year. Not to mention all the lovely people we have met along the way! 

So as we get close to the end of the year, I thought it would be nice to hear all your cruise-related highlights for 2023 in one thread 🙂 look forward to hearing your stories!

On 12/23/2023 at 5:02 PM, Presto2 said:

On our last day has anyone.done one of the excursions that take you either in a tour or to a beach bar before the airport?

How do they work and are they worth it?

Last year on Britannia, we took the Turtle Snorkel tour on disembarkation day on Britannia, and it worked perfectly - back to the ship for 12, quick shower and change in the gym (and btw lots of people had left their toiletries behind there if you forget), lunch in the MDR and all ready for our 2pm disembarkation. Which was delayed to 3pm so we even got to keep using the drinks package for a little longer 🙂 it was a great way to end the holiday before flying home. You can leave your hand luggage in the theatre too, to allow you to do what you like without having to lug things around with you.

So good, that we had booked exactly the same tour for our Britannia cruise earlier this month, but unfortunately it was cancelled a couple of days before due to low bookings. So apart from a quick walk outside the terminal building, we spent the morning sunbathing by the pool instead.

I did note there was also a beach excursion available which would take you directly to the airport at the end, instead of returning to the ship (in which case, don't leave your hand luggage in the theatre 😄).

One other note... If you're doing Friday to Friday, you will need to go through immigration on the morning of the last day. They ask all those with tours booked to go through immigration first - it was at 7.30am on Britannia this month, although due to a late arrival it was more like 8am and the queue was huge! Once they started to process the immigration, the queue moved quickly, but if you have an early tour booked, it's worth getting to the immigration early... 

Great review Technoman2, thanks! We were on the same cruise and had an amazing time 🙂 and would agree with just about everything you wrote.

We were in cabin G719, so a little further forward from your original cabin, and only noticed the noise from the Live Lounge a couple of times. To be honest, we had worse disturbance from the thrusters when docking early morning. Our balcony also overlooked the smoking area on Deck 7, which we thought would be a problem, but thankfully we barely noticed it.

Freedom dining in the Peninsular MDR was excellent (so was breakfast and lunch), even better than we expected. Sure, there was quite a bit of repetition in the dinner menu, but there was always something nice to choose and all our meals were tasty and hot. I would personally like a bit more spice in some dishes, but I understand having to cater for the masses... Our waiters were truly amazing - even though we were on freedom dining, we managed to sit with the same waiters almost every night. Drinks service was also good at dinner and in fact, throughout the cruise. The only real issue we had was the ship running out of prosecco 10 days in, Mrs Pedantic not pleased about that! And I agree that the cocktails were disappointing, especially when compared to those on our Princess cruise in the summer.

We thoroughly enjoyed all the ports, and for once took mainly P&O excursions, which were mostly very good both in terms of experience and value. The 'Cat Caribe and Turtle Snorkel' in Barbados was a particular highlight, and most of the other trips were also excellent. Our St Kitts 'Beach Hop by Boat' was saved by an unexpected but thrilling encounter with a dolphin, without which the trip would have been disappointing. And in Grenada, our 'Starwind Snorkel' trip to snorkel with turtles and stingrays wasn't as expected - we were taken instead to the underwater sculpture park which was amazing! I think this was due to the weather. I would still personally prefer to organise things to run at my own pace - we did feel a little rushed on a couple of the trips when we were expecting to be more 'chilled' - but no big issues and the security of a return to the ship is appreciated. Shame to have missed Antigua, thankfully our insurance covered that and our claim is already processed.

We heard about the quiz disruption and allegedly the same person had caused issues in the Limelight Club. We also heard of 4 people being removed from the ship. All second or third-hand reports, thankfully we didn't experience any such issues ourselves the entire cruise. Just the usual sight of sunburnt towels... 😉 

All-in-all an excellent cruise on a lovely ship with lots of happy and helpful crew - lots of great memories and new friends, and we can't wait to do it again 🙂 

Just back from a fabulous Caribbean cruise on Britannia, and despite normally preferring DIY, we booked more P&O excursions than we would have done previously. Mostly snorkelling / catamaran trips.

We found the prices to be reasonable - similar to what was available independently - and most of the trips were brilliant, well-organised and good value. A few were sold out before we embarked, and I did notice some of the prices had increased onboard slightly (but not all). If there's a specific excursion you want to do, I would recommend booking now to avoid disappointment.

I'm sure we could have done the same with independent vendors - and without P&O taking their cut therefore helping the islands more - but the added security of getting back to the ship, especially for the longer trips, was a big plus for us. On the negative side, we did have a couple of trips cancelled at short notice (including Barbados on our last day 😞) and we did sometimes feel herded around to meet a schedule (e.g. only having 45 mins on the beach in Curacao was a shame) but then that could happen with independent tours too.

We heard from plenty of people who had great trips with independent vendors and also lots of people who did their own thing, and I can't remember hearing anything particularly negative about any of them.