jeromep

I have an 8 y.o. So I do understand the difficulty you are facing. The choices we have made are that we cruise less and we only vacation when she is out of school. If a cruise, trip across the U.S. to see the other side of the family in Georgia or another vacation option doesn't line up, well, we don't do it. We either find something else to do, or we don't do anything. Such is the cost of having school aged children. Seeing family is difficult because we loose a whole day to air travel, even when we can get direct flights from SEA to ATL, we have one commuter flight from home to SEA, a layover there of at least 1.5 hours, but sometimes as long as 3, then 5+ hours in the air from SEA to ATL, along with the time it takes to retrieve luggage, get the rental car, and then drive north to where the in-laws are. And we loose a whole day coming home with flights and layovers that are similar. I don't consider visiting family much of a vacation. They aren't as curious or historically excited as I am. When we visit Atlanta and Georgia I want to visit historical landmarks, Civil War sites and such. I still haven't gotten to the MLK Jr. Memorial, and it is near the MARTA line to Buckhead (right?). They just aren't into that. We end up visiting a lot of malls and chain restaurants. I can do that at home. I am glad that you are not willing to pull your kids out of school to vacation. My mom taught 3rd grade for many years in a low performing and low income school district, and the kids that need to be in school the most were the most likely to be pulled out of school for a week or more just to visit family. The kids that wouldn't be impacted by being out of school for a couple of days were always in school. The irony of it all. We all make our own decisions and have our own tolerances for "risk" when traveling.

I have not dealt with a casino booking, so any advice I gave about transferring to a TA may not be accurate. Do you wish to share with the group what issues you are trying to resolve? We may have some insight.

Things have changed quite a bit since the Royal class ships came on the scene. When Princess's fleet was mostly Grand class ships cabins were almost always ready when you boarded, assuming that you liked to board early. So, 11am, noon, cabins were ready to go and fire doors were not closed and nothing but the occasional service cart "blocked" the passageways. There are so many more passengers on the Royals, and I think the cabin stewards are spread a bit thinner, that they are still working if you happen to board around 11am. It is a toss up if you can drop your carry-ons at your cabin or not. We have been fortunate in that our cabin has been done and we could drop off our carry-ons, but we would just drop and go to the MDR for lunch and come back around 1 when everything had calmed down in the hallways.

Pop can be had fountain or can. More often than not if you don't have a beverage plan or Plus/Premier, pop will be from the gun behind the bar, served in a tall red cup with ice. If you don't have a plan you'll probably get a can. I think the can price is $2.50. If you are on a beverage plan you can request a can instead of fountain. Princess does not have any self-serve machines, everything comes through a restaurant or bar, so no non-carbonated, syrup based, beverage options, like a Freestyle machine can do. There is a juice bar on board. I don't recall the prices, thanks to having Plus or Premier on my last cruise, but juice, smoothies, and mocktails can add up if you consume a number of them for the cash price. And remember, cash price will also incur an 18% bar gratuity for each beverage in addition to the list price. Oh, and if she is ordering room service from the TV in the cabin, be sure that she is logged onto the TV with one of your profiles, not hers. Your Plus includes room service, but her profile will not. If she orders under her profile it will ding the onboard account $14.99 once to cover room service and OceanNow delivery for the entire voyage. Just some food for thought.

Did you book the cruise directly with Princess or did you use a travel agent? Sounds like you booked through Princess, so you are dealing with their call center. If I'm wrong I'm sorry. However, if you booked through a travel agent, you should direct your queries through them, no matter how large or small. Have you made final payment? When did you book the cruise? If you have not made final payment and you booked the cruise less than 90 days ago, you should be able to transfer the cruise to a travel agent. Mentioning travel agents by name in the forums is terra non grata, so I can't provide you any specific guidance or a recommendation. But generically, I can tell you that you can transfer your booking to a travel agent if the cruise is not fully paid for and you booked it less than 90 days ago. Once you have found a travel agent you like, they have forms they can use to request the booking transfer to them, and once Princess transfers the booking to the agent, from there your customer service needs pre-cruise, along with any remaining payments, will go through the travel agent. I hope this helps a bit. But I don't disagree, Princess' reliance on offshore call centers has done terrible damage to their brand, and has reconstituted some travel agent's client lists. The Princess product is excellent, and their web site is excellent, booking a cruise through their web site is super easy, but the call center support is generally terrible. By investing in a really great web site, they are able to get bookings at their normal rates and are able to keep the commission they would normally pass back to travel agents for the booking. If you do look for a travel agent and transfer your booking, then the travel agent will get the commission for your cruise, and you'll get better service from somebody that you can build a relationship with.

I didn't realize that your third berth was likely your daughter. That said, there are other packages that would work better for a teen. There are a number of non alcoholic beverage packages you'll want to look at. If she is a pop drinker, you may want to consider one of those. If she likes coffee beverages, same thing, look for the NA beverage package that covers that. Just like Plus and Premier, they are selling beverage packages on board on embarkation day, so you can decide when you are on board to purchase one for her, or do so ahead of time. Aside from Plus and Premier covering gratuities, gratuities for her will just have to be something you know you are going to pay for at the end of the cruise.

If your third person were interested in a Plus or Premier package, they can purchase on board, and they will have their own benefits and included gratuity. Yes. You are not required to add third or fourth berths to the Plus or Premier package, but they also don't get any of the benefits. There is no additional charge for MDR food (unless noted on the menu) or dining at the buffet, so no cost issues there that would be handled by a package. Without a package they would have to pay for specialty dining and for the "casual" dining venues, even if your meal were comped by your package. She can be added in advance, but you have to contact your travel agent or Princess to do so. You can purchase a package for her on embarkation day, there will be plenty of opportunities to do so. You don't state the age of the person that is the third berth in your cabin. Are they an adult, child? Depending on age and their independence from you, and their personal desires, that will be a factor in determining if a package is a good value for them or not.

If you are staying in the SeaTac area you'll need food. Once you are on the ground and at your hotel your choices are hotel dining room food, which really is hit or miss, or you can try to go out. There are a few chain restaurants in the area around International Blvd. But you should at least consider a local place if your time in Seattle is limited. Near SeaTac, on International Blvd., in an office complex, is a place called 13 Coins. I remember them being 24 hours, however that has since changed, but they open early and stay open late. They are within walking distance to a number of hotels near SeaTac, or a short Uber ride from the rest. https://www.13coins.com/ I think you'll find their menu extensive. My favorite of their restaurants in the one outside SeaTac, however on our last cruise we were in the Pioneer Square area after a Mariner's game and ate at that location. It doesn't have the same cache as the SeaTac location, but the food was excellent. Service is also attentive. Restaurant and food prices in the Seattle area are astronomical, so be prepared. But if you are going to pay and arm and a leg for food, it should at least be good. I guess I'd just advise, don't be afraid to use Uber or Lyft while in the area, even if it is only to get to dinner after you get out of the airport and settled.

Agreed. I looked back in my email, and for our last cruise the folios for the 3 of us showed up in my email the day after disembarkation at 5am Pacific.

Others have covered that Princess does have a luggage-in-hand walk-off option, which is going to be your earliest disembarkation after the ship has cleared customs. If we have to fly to and from the port we always budget, both money and vacation time, to accommodate arriving to the port city at least a day early, and giving us an extra day after the cruise to fly home. I'd rather get off a cruise in a leisurely manner and fly out the next day, than either have the stress related to rushing to the airport to make a flight or try figure out what to do with my luggage and burn time in an unfamiliar city waiting for a late flight out.

Indeed. And they had to rummage through a bunch of paper to determine that they were wrong. Very inefficient. Any airtight payments system operates on the concept of something you have and something you know that would then authorize the transaction. If a transaction at a bar or restaurant on board required you to scan your Medallion (something you have), and enter a pre-established PIN (something you know), that would eliminate just about every unauthorized charge. This is the exact same process as what is used for non-VISA/MC debit card and ATM transactions. You have to insert or swipe your debit card, and then enter your PIN before the transaction occurs or before you can access the ATM. This is widely recognized as one of the most secure transaction authorization practices ever conceived. It is really too bad that the Medallion was not developed with this same attention to securing transactions.

Sounds to me like you are in the Apple iOS environment. This should make things easier. Apple watches aren't very useful unless they have an iPhone attached, so I presume he has an iPhone, too. If you get a multi-device Internet plan, you can attach his phone to the plan and have it always connected. You can then use iMessage to communicate with him; I presume your messages to and from your son are blue in iMessage, indicating that they are being sent through Apple's servers and not via telco SMS. Now you can track his location in the Princess app via his Medallion, and you can communicate with him with push notifications alerting him to messages via iMessage. Also, does your phone plan have Wi-Fi calling? If so, turn it on for all the phones on your plan. With Wi-Fi calling active, and your devices connected to ship's Wi-Fi and Internet, you can take calls that come in from anywhere, and you can also call him, if you need to. Just make sure you put your phones in a modified airplane mode before getting back on board the ship. You'll turn on airplane mode, which turns off all the wireless services on the phone. Then you turn the Wi-Fi feature of the phone back on and connect to the ship's Wi-Fi and Internet. On our last cruise I was actually able to call my wife on her iPhone on board when we were at sea since our plan includes Wi-Fi calling, and I was able to call home (parents who are looking in on the house and cat), and they could call us if necessary, and at no additional cost, besides the Internet package. We had Premier, so we had more than enough ability to connect multiple devices and leave them connected. Keep in mind that there is "cellular at sea" on board, and when the ship shoves away from the dock, that system will go on, and if your cellular antenna isn't turned off, the phone may connect to that service and you'll see some incredibly expensive charges on your cell phone bill, so making sure you are in airplane mode and then turn on Wi-Fi is essential to avoid unexpected expenses.

I have encountered this before. Showing up at the same time as others and the bartender having to sort things out. They do it with ease. The bartenders get in the habit of asking for your cabin number before putting in your order so they get it on the right account. In theory, if you are looking for a technological solution to this you would have a pin number entry system. So you'd scan your medallion and enter the pin number you chose when you set up your medallion and then the charge would both go to the right account and require authorization.

Looks like admins moved this from another forum. The existing thread here has already gotten a lot of good input. I have used cruise line transfers in the past. It is a lot of hurry up and wait. We tend to be punctual in our travels, especially if we are making a scheduled service of some kind, like a cruise line shuttle; we don't want to hold everyone up, however our experience is that others aren't so considerate and have no issue showing up 5 or 10 minutes after the scheduled meeting time or even departure time. On one of our first cruises out of Pier 91 we stayed at a hotel in Seattle close to Mercer street. The hotel offered a shuttle to port. It had a 10am departure time. We were at the shuttle by 9:45. Most of the rest of the folks showing up for the shuttle were there right about 10, but we were missing a couple. Driver goes back into the hotel and is gone for 5 or more minutes. Comes back and indicates that the last passengers scheduled for this shuttle are in the lobby checking out and having to work through some issue on their invoice. 10:20 or so they finally show up, have a bunch of luggage to load in the back and leisurely get in the van, and off we go. So, while the ship was not scheduled to depart until like 4pm, we were hoping to get on board on the earlier side, have MDR lunch and start relaxing. Did an extra 20 minutes ruin anything. No, but it was highly inconsiderate. And this experience has duplicated itself over and over again with all kinds of shuttles. Therefore, when I can, I'll do UberXL or a large vehicle Lyft and have my travel party transported on their own, not having to wait for others to get organized. I recognize my experience may not be others, but when CC members come asking about transportation to and from the port, especially in Seattle, I'm always going to lean toward Uber or Lyft over shuttles based upon my experience.

Have you thought about just taking the train all the way from Portland to Vancouver? That is Amtrak Cascades bread and butter route, plus you have no wait times going through the border crossing. You could even just take the train from Portland to Seattle, stay overnight, then catch the next train to Vancouver, stay another night and catch the cruise. You won't be exhausted from driving, you won't have all the fuel expense from having to fuel up along the way and no border crossing wait times, especially on the return trip back in to the U.S. I did a dummy trip for July 11th of this year. Going from Portland to Vancouver on the 518 train, departs at 2:10pm, arrives Vancouver at 10pm. Coach seat is $52 and a business class seat is $162. Basically more leg room for business class. But consider that you can get up and wander around as you wish. There is a cafe car on board, so you aren't going to starve, and the scenery along the way is some of the best of any train route in the nation (in places). This is a tremendous value.

You can pick just about any hotel in the Seattle area to stay at, proximity to the port is basically immaterial because Pier 91 is not near anything. It is an entirely industrial and seafaring location which is only accessible through a series of odd surface street level interchanges and bridges. So you aren't walking to port, and public transit isn't convenient to the port, at least not for travelers and their luggage. There is a bus stop at the port, but the walk from the bus stop to the terminal is very long, and I think there is a set of stairs down from the bus stop that is on the bridge. So you will need to shuttle/Uber/Lyft to/from the port. That said @Ferry_Watcher's advice about the Ceaderbrook Lodge is excellent. It is probably the best property down near SeaTac. I've stayed there a couple of times and it is both enjoyable, picturesque, and upscale. You barely know that you are near an airport. Seattle Express is an excellent shuttle company. I don't have any recent experience, but they continually get good "votes" here on the boards. Nearly all the shuttles to the airport are passenger vans; older Ford E series wagons and the newer Ford Transit wagons. When using any ground transportation service, you will get what they send you. If your travel party is large, you may get something more akin to a shuttle bus, but if your travel party is just 3 or 4 of you at your pick up location it is unlikely that you will get anything more than a passenger van. Generally speaking hotels do not provide shuttles to the port, you are on your own when it comes to getting from the hotel to the port. I have cruised with children, even children younger than yours, and, generally speaking, find that Lyft/Uber drivers and cabbies do not make a big deal about booster seats. Last year we used the hotel booked black SUV from the Ceaderbrook to Pier 91. I helped the driver get all our bags on board, and my wife got our 8 y.o. daughter buckled up in the center seat of the back set. My wife and I sat on either side of her and off we went. I would advise against the hotel booked black car or black SUV because the trip plus tip was $100. When we returned from the cruise we used UberXL and got a similar SUV to take us back to our car that was at Ceaderbrook and that was $76 including tip. Same routine. I helped the driver load up our bags and my wife got our daughter all secured. We did carry with us a MiFold booster seat. It lowers the seat belt to child height, but does require you to fish the seat belt through brackets to function. If drivers showed concern we'd whip it out and use it. If not... away we go. We rented a Jeep in Juneau last year and the rental agency had a booster waiting for us when we picked up the vehicle. Again, no need to bring one as they provide. If you are very concerned, I'd look into the MiFold product line. The style of seat we have is no longer in stock, but they have other products which are travel friendly.

I looked at the weather up in SE Alaska. It is a chilly, and damp day, by Pacific Northwest spring standards. I hope that those Bilss pax are prepared for the weather.

Slippers are a full suite "perk". I've had slippers, in clear plastic, waiting in the closet when we arrived at our cabin. They are also one-size, and that isn't my size. They fit my wife, but not me. They are also very disposable, definitely constructed to be used once and then tossed when cruise turnover day occurs and cabin occupants change. And they aren't very comfortable or supportive. Of all the cost cutting measures they could do on board, dispensing with the slippers is one I wouldn't mind.

The Medallions are magnetic. We stick them to our fridge when we get back. Princess does try very hard to satisfy dietary needs and allergies. Be sure to mark your preferences in the Princess app before you sail. I'd recommend doing that at least 3 weeks before you sail so the information is transmitted to the ship with sufficient time for them to provision and have record of your needs. Be certain to check with the maitre d' in the dining room, or the head waiter, and alert them to your needs. If the technology is working correctly, they already know your needs.

Sounds like you know exactly what you are doing, which is good. There is no place on a cruise which is steerage (except maybe inside cabins, I can't do those, but to each their own). Either way, you are totally correct, you can cruise very well without any packages if you know yourself and your needs.

A drink order through the app, if it were your first action on board, would be the trigger for the $14.99 one time charge. Basically the first time you use the OceanNow service will trigger the fee. And that is on a per user basis, so if your traveling companion logs in on their credentials and orders, that would be a 14.99 fee to them. It would be possible with three passengers to have 3 $14.99 charges in the cabin. If one of the passengers is a youth, there are things you can do to limit this for them. My daughter does not have any of her own devices, so on board she doesn't have any access to OceanNow. And if she orders through the TV, she is on my account or my wife's. Either way, there are ways to be smart with these changes so you aren't taken to the cleaners.

We did 360 on Discovery last July. It was a wonderful experience. It was comped. We were invited as Suite guests. I got a random call from a call center at Princess about 2 weeks before the cruise to select an evening for 360. I had to really dig into the itinerary to see what date would be best for us, but it worked out. It is a stellar experience, however at like $150pp I'm not sure I'd do it again. The food was very special, and I ate things I'd never had before (octopus) and the Mediterranean story line was interesting and visually striking, it felt a little out of place on an Alaska cruise. However the talent (host) and wait staff were all top notch and the interactivity was something I've never seen before. Ok, so maybe it is worth $150pp; and considering that I've pad that much for the old Ultimate Ship Tour, I guess it isn't outrageous, however with the old Ultimate Ship Tour you got a whole bunch of swag to take home. With 360, we just got some photos from the pre-entry reception, and some nice memories.

Once we are back from the cruise the Medallions go up on the fridge. They are magnetic.

Exactly! And speaking of the app, to set your preferences, including food allergies, you go to Profile (where you see your smiling face), scroll down... way down, and choose Dining Preferences. There are three tabs there, the first is Allergens, where you click on the food groups you are allergic to, the Diet tab is where you would click to tell Princess if you were following a Vegan or other type of special diet, and the Seating tab ask for table preference and dining pace. This is a much more reliable way to communicate this kind of information to Princess than trying to email them and having some call center handle it.

I recommend that you download the recreation.gov app. From there you can order your timed entry ticket. Or you can just visit recreation.gov, but I like the app better.