JimmyVWine

My daughter lived in Athens for a year and still has friends there so I have asked her to see what she can find out. She also said that pharmacies would be the place to go.

I am loving this new ad perspective. It started with a comparison to theme parks, and one in particular run by a mouse, and now there is an ad comparing the cruise experience to Las Vegas/Foxwoods. The overall theme is that whatever you want to get out of a vacation, you can get it on Princess. I think that the ad agency did a brilliant job here. (One can debate the overall accuracy of the message, but hey, that's advertising.)

Don't give up yet. I just checked Amazon and there are a number of companies that sell dried black currant powder sold in pouches. You just add your own water to turn it into a mixer. Just do a search for "black currant concentrate powder" and you'll see several choices. I apologize if this is something completely different, but it may be worth a look for you.

Any idea what the cost is?

I would add to the earlier post that in addition to the buffet (cheese and charcuterie, olives, crudités, fruit) you can visit the International Cafe for other snacks as well as sweets. While not used for purposes of a sail away party, my family does this routinely for afternoons on our balcony in the late afternoons to hold us over until dinner. We divide and conquer. Some to the buffet and some to the IC. No charge. And frankly, the offerings that they will deliver to your room usually look pretty sad.

It’s Steelers36 (Jerome Bettis) not Steelers35 (John Henry Johnson) though that wouldn’t be a bad reference either!

If I let my "please come back as we return to normal" experiences guide me, I wouldn't: Fly on an airplane Eat in a restaurant Stay in a hotel Rent a car All of these activities have been "substandard" if I am going to use December, 2019 as my "standard". Everyone is struggling to return to the way things used to be, and cruise lines probably have a harder time than most in getting their product back to level par. You are in a restaurant for 2 hours. You are on a plane for 4 hours. You are on a cruise ship for a week, or two, or three. Lots more room for error and places where things can let you down, but only if you let it. My advice is to refrain from booking any cruises until well into 2023 if you really want your experience to be close to what it used to be, or book now and know that things will be different. But if you do the latter, you have to be willing to grade on a curve. Anything less just isn't fair to the cruise line or its employees.

You have to book by clicking through the promotion link. Go to the Princess website. At the top, next to the "Log In" option, you will find "Cruise Deals". Click on that and scroll down until you see the Kids Sail Free promotion. Each region of the world has its own link. You have to click on the link for the area of the world you are interested in in order for the promotion to apply, as not all sailings are included in this sale. I did this exact thing this morning and it applied the promo. The only frustrating thing is that it would not allow me to select anything other than the Basic Fare. But if you get this far, you can place a cruise on Hold and call a Princess Vacation Rep to finish the booking and get "Plus" or "Premiere" added on. This pricing glitch may not be a universal error and may just be on my end. But in case you run into the same error, know that you are not alone.

The content shouldn't pose a problem, but the packaging might. Princess allows cans of non-alcoholic beverages to be brought on board. It disallows bottles because there is too much chance for the contents of these to be poured out and have alcohol placed in the bottle in its stead. In looking at pictures of Ribena on the internet (I am not familiar with it), I would guess that this is exactly the type of packaging that would cause rejection by the security people. Is this (or any similar product) sold in cans? The exact wording in the Passage Contract states: Guests are also prohibited from bringing water, sodas and other non-alcoholic beverages on board that are packaged in bottles. A small quantity of non-alcoholic beverages (i.e., sparkling water, sodas, juice, milk) packaged in cans or cartons may be brought on board on embarkation day, only if carried on in Guests’ hand luggage (not in checked luggage). A small quantity is considered a maximum of 12 sealed, unopened cans/cartons of 12 ounces each or less per person. Guests will be asked to discard open beverages in plastic containers prior to boarding.

My daughter sailed with us on a number or cruises when she was a teen. (14-19). Without a doubt the single most enjoyable thing she did was to meet other teens and from there, they made their own fun. Children that age are not confined to the Teen Club, and they can come and go as they please. So on each cruise we would sign her up for the Club and she would go there on day one and before you knew it, she was part of a posse of 4-6 other similar-aged teens who became fast friends. They don't need organized events, though they did partake in a number of those. The most important thing was just to meet up and hang out, which is what teems like to do the most. After dinner she would take leave of us, head to the teen club, meet up with whomever was there, and she was back in the room by her curfew of 11:30-midnight. What did they do? Not sure. Hot tubs. X-Box. Basketball. Talk. But she always had fun and wanted to go back. On Sea Days, it was more of the same. After lunch, she would say: "I'm going to meet up with my friends at the Club. I'll be back in time to change for formal night." Did they stay in the club? Not usually. Not often, actually. They just used the Club as a place to meet up before striking out on their own. So the takeaway is, don't assume that organized activities offered by the ship are going to be what keeps your teen occupied. Teens are going to do what teens do best. Meet up, talk, gossip, soak in hot tubs, play on the Sports Deck and exchange information so that they can text each other. My daughter still keeps in touch with many of the friends she has made on board. Too much emphasis is placed on activities and events that are offered by the ship when in reality, what teens want most is independent time away from their parents and a chance to hang out with people their own age. There is no better place to give a teen some additional independence than on a ship. They really can't get lost or get into any real trouble. Make sure that they have the Soda and More package so that they don't need you buying them drinks, and you be surprised how much fun they will have when you tell them that they are free to do whatever they want after lunch (or dinner) and to just be back at the cabin by [set your time].

Pretty much describes us. We tend to take port-intensive cruises. Off the ship by 8:00 and back on at 5:00. Grab a lite snack at the International Cafe, then shower, have dinner around 7:30, enjoy wine/cocktails (preferably at Vines or Crooners) from 9:00-10:30, and if we want to hang out and watch the ocean, we do so on our balcony if no other space is convenient. With this as our almost daily agenda, it is really hard to have a bad cruise. I have a pool at my house. I don't covet the ones on board. If I get a lounge chair, fine. But not getting one does not ruin my cruise. I have multiple TVs at home. If I cannot watch a movie under the stars, it won't ruin my cruise. I've never had a problem getting seated in an MDR immediately or close to it at 7:30. If you spend most of your waking hours off the ship touring the ports of call, what happens on the ship becomes almost irrelevant. It is a form of transportation that takes you from one place to another. I'm knocking wood that I never encounter a cruise that is so bad that I eat these words. But things would have to go really, really sideways for that to happen.

Note to self. On lobster nights and escargot nights, ask for extra peas! 😎

Live performers have had such a bad go of it during Covid that I am more than willing to overlook the annoyance in favor of having some performers being able to get a paying gig again. Her steady paycheck is more important than my mild annoyance.

True. But the Upgrade Chain is bidding on specific cabins, and no one else knows that the cabins in their chain are going to be bid on, especially if they are showing up as occupied on the deck plan. Why would anyone else put in a bid on D203 if it looks like it is taken? But the Upgrade Chain is manipulating the system so that D203 becomes available as the result of upstream movement. Yes, if someone else also bids on the cabin and bids higher, the plot fails. I said that there is room for manipulation and collusion. I never said that this was failsafe.

Because the big money is the result of a pooled effort, not any one person's own funds.

But that is my point. If this group pools their money, they could offer up a really big number for the suite to almost guarantee getting it. (Or as Steelers36 points out, skip the suite and "overbid" for a Mini.) Once the bid is won on the highest level of cabin needed to set the chain in motion, the other bids can be quite low since you would be bidding on one specific cabin and odds are that others won't pick the cabin that you are targeting. It's far from a sure thing, but target bidding in a collusive manner definitely increases your chances of success. Remove the targeted bidding option and this all falls apart.

Hopefully you will get an official answer soon (though I would caution that one person's experience with one Customer Service Rep on one ship is in no way indicative of what others might experience.) My guess is that if you are on board and tell the person in charge that you would like to hand them money, there is a good chance that they will take it.

Too much room for collusion. A group of people in a Roll Call could form an Upgrade Chain where someone in an Inside, someone in an OV, someone in a Balcony, someone in a DX Balcony and someone in a Mini-Suite could all band together, pool their money (if they want) and all try to pull off a giant swap. If the person in the MS wins the bid for a suite, (a big "if", I know), then their cabin will become available. The person in the DX Balcony knows which MS the person will be vacating and bids for that specific cabin. The person in the Balcony knows which cabin the person in the DX Balcony will be vacating and bids on that cabin, and so on. The bids could be very low (except for the one on the suite, which is where the pooled money comes in), since the odds of other people bidding on the specific cabins that these people will be vacating would be low. Kind of an odd coincidence for someone to randomly select the MS of the person in this chain. It could happen, but the odds don't favor it. So if the system works and the Suite is won, all the other people in this chain could get upgrades for a very low winning bid and that is not what PCL is trying to achieve here.

I said that it is a matter of perspective. From my perspective, what you said is not accurate. Princess compares very favorably with those other cruise lines you mentioned for a July, port-intensive cruise which is what the OP is doing. When you get off an RCL ship at 8:00 a.m. and return at 5:00 p.m. having spent the day touring, and you do the same from a Princess ship, I’d say that by definition the two cruise lines are dead even.

I think this is a matter of perspective. What does one want their 8 year old to get out of a cruise? On a port intensive cruise, are go-carts and rock walls important? We took our kid on a cruise to climb Mayan pyramids and zip line in the Honduran rainforest. Not climb a cruise ship wall and zip line over the pool deck. Off the ship at 8:00 a.m., back by 5:00. Dinner at 6:30. It’s now 7:30-8:00 p.m. What is the cruise ship supposed to provide from 8:00-9:00 (bed time) that is so important that Princess can’t deliver? As for a Sea Day, the club for 8 year olds will do just fine in July. People can’t assume that all cruise are Caribbean cruises with 4 Sea Days. Consider how much free time there will actually be on a cruise before concluding that Princess isn’t a good choice. Destination, port activities and excursion options are far more important than what a kid’s club offers. Kid’s clubs are vastly overrated on cruise ships. If you want your child to have an amusement park vacation, take them to an amusement park.

"Coming out of The Chute, the Number 99 seems to be experiencing propulsion problems and will have to change course. It will no longer be traveling through The Boot and will have to bypass the Esses."

I don't have any specific do's and don't miss's as those are really specific to the individual. I just want to add that I really enjoy Regal and my next two cruises are booked on this ship, so I am putting my money where my mouth is. When Royal Princess launched, there were a lot of things about it that didn't sit well, and Princess addressed many of those when Regal rolled out. (and Royal addressed some of the issues in dry dock.) The lack of a center staircase was corrected. A more robust (but far, far from perfect) Promenade was included. An aft pool was included. Basically, all of the features and venues that we enjoy the most in the Princess fleet were included in this ship, except for Explorer's Lounge, Vines. International Café. Alfredo's. Crown Grill. Sabatini's. Trident Grill. Scoops. Retreat Pool. Crooner's. And some new Royal Class favorites were added like Bellini's, the Skyview Bar, Ocean Terrace. And just as important, Regal did not include any of the newer venues that we have had no use for, such as Salty Dog, Share, (or anything associated with Curtis Stone.) Bistro Sur Le Mer. To us, Regal is a like a "Greatest Hits" album. For a first cruise on Princess, you can't do much better (assuming that you enjoy the really big ships). I still have a spot in my heart for Sapphire Princess, but it has been almost a decade since I have been on that ship and I am betting that with each passing year, I will enjoy the style and décor of the Royal Class ships more than I will the dated appointments of the Grand Class and Gem Class ships.

Ah yes. I forgot that not all the cruises are in and out of NY.

Isn’t all this discussion about Canada a bit disproportionate? There are only two cruises scheduled to depart or return to Vancouver after 9/30. A R/T to Hawaii and a departure from Vancouver that ends in Los Angeles. Once these new procedures are implemented on 9/16, Canada will be largely irrelevant. When the next season resumes in 2023, I am certain that ArriveCan or whatever it is called will have been sunsetted. At least that’s my humble opinion.

I don’t think that the areas of the website and specific FAQs have caught up with the press release yet.