Prezz

Go to WORLD NAVIGATOR Current Location (cruisemapper.com) to see where off the coast of Portugal the World Navigator is for sea trials.  The World Navigator is out of dry dock/wet dock.  Good news!!  Waiting to get on the ship in Odessa Ukraine in August.

Steve and Karen

We have our flights from LAX to Odessa to be on the World Navigator on Aug 4.  Our TA even has our port tours scheduled for our 24 days on this ship.  We are ready to go.  Seems like there will be plenty of testing for Covid going on though.  

Steve

My wife and I are also signed up for the Cappadocia tour and hot air balloon ride.  Should be interesting.  Get back on the ship in Kusadasi.  

Steve and Karen

I have also booked the World Cruise on the Island Princess Jan-May 2021 in April 2019.  The boat quickly filled up and cabins difficult to get but that is only because the small down payment to hold the cabin was all it took. There is another small deposit due on March 3, 2020 and by Sept 20, 2020 the final payment is due.  The next day any cancellations will incur a 30% penalty.  There will be plenty of choices, some on March 3 but certainly on Sept 20 of next year.  Steve

And when traveling overseas and taking some american money, be sure that the bills in one, fives, tens and twenties are fairly new, crisp and have no tears in them.  Many times when paying a guide, retail or for services, people overseas will not take american money that has a tear in it, even if a small tear, or very crinkled or used, because their local bank will not accept the bills.  Also be sure before you go that your charge card does not have fees for overseas purchases. Some cards do.

Steve

As for leaving the ship overnight without permission, on one cruise we knew a couple who left the Princess ship while it was two days in Hong Kong by staying overnight at a Macau casino to visit friends without informing anyone.  When they got back to the ship the next day which was still in Port they were shortly visited by the Hong Kong police in their stateroom.  It seems that Princess filed a missing persons report with the Hong Kong authorities.  Princess gave them a very strong warning NEVER to do this again.  

We leave the Princess ships usually once or twice on each of our World Cruises of which we have done two.  We have left the ship in Bari Italy to tour Pompeii and Rome and rejoined the ship four days later in Venice, and left the ship another time in Ho Chi Minh to visit Angkor Wat and rejoined the ship in Laem Chabang in Thailand three days later for example.  I want to do maybe two sidetrips on our 2021 World Cruise with Princess. We do our own side trips seperate from Princess Tours and usually work through our Travel Agent although not always to create our itinerary.  It is not uncommen for other passengers on these world cruises to do the same.  

• We get permission first through our Travel Agent from Princess in writing to leave the ship and bring it with us.
• We take this document first thing to Customer Service so that they have it on file if they do not have it already.
• We confirm shortly before we leave the ship what we are doing and leave with them any contact information and itinerary on our side such as a cell phone number, hotels, etc., as well as get from the Customer Service desk the Princess port representative contact information where we will be joining the ship at in case of emergencies.
• Unfortunatley they dont charge you less for the cruise when you are off the ship.
• Then we have fun on our tours.....

Steve

If you are an Elite category you get two mini bar setups, one for Elite and one for the Suite.

The Pacific Princess on April 1, 2017 was supposed to visit Bodrum Turkey but has been cancelled and replaced with Rhodes, Greece yesterday.

My wife and I normally like use private tours for various reasons, mainly for small custom group tours. So I like to have on my possession a portion of the patter with the local shore company contact information, my passport and a credit card on me for the day. I have never had a problem with the boat leaving me behind but if there are problems I know I can find the local port rep and travel anywhere in the world with my passport and credit card to catch up with the ship at its next stop.