heckofagator

thanks for the thoughts. I suppose it can't hurt to call Princess to see what they can do for airfare and then we can at least compare.

hi everyone,

We are considering cruising the British Isles 12 day via the Caribbean Princess this summer.

Being from Florida, we've done the majority of our cruises in the Caribbean, so we really ever hadn't had to worry about airfare, which appears to be quite expensive to London. Does Princess offer any good bundle rates with airfare, or are you just as well off to shop the discount air carriers?

Is there any reason why you would say the British Isles cruise would not be good for a family of four with a 9 and 12 year old boys?

We've almost always done our our excursions, booking a head of time and not through the ship. I've read just a handful of reviews so far on this sailing and I see a lot about the tours, which most are, I'm assuming, offered via the ship. Is there anything different here with the oversees cruises versus our Caribbbean one where we would NOT want to book outside of the ship for activities on port days?

thanks in advance. I'm sure I'll have more questions later on.

Does Speedy's take credit cards?

For the schedule, I'm looking at:

Virgin Gorda <--> Road Town, Tortola

right?

On the Escape, which is in port from 7am-3pm, looks like if we get off early, we can catch the 7:45 ferry to the Baths and then head back to the ship on the 12:40pm ferry.

FWIW, we did the Melia last year and were disappointed. The grounds were nice enough, but apparently they had recently stopped the water sports as part of the pass. We didn't realize this until after we had paid and tried to go take something out. Everything I had read here said it was included, so they must have changed the policy inbetween the posts I read here and when we went.

I thought it was a bit overpriced for just sitting on the beach.

We are, unfortunately, back again to Nassau this spring and don't have enough time to do the Atlantis park, so am now trying to figure out something else.

Not sure if this was mentioned yet or not, but I def wanted people to know. I guess I missed it if it was.

We just got off the Getaway today and spend the day at the Melia on Friday. Apparently, the non-motorized water sports are not included anymore with the day pass. We paid $120 for 2 adults and 2 children and felt really ripped off. I asked about the paddle boards and kayaks and was told the policy changed last year and now only guests can use the toys for free.

We brought my brother and sister in law and they felt the same. Beers were really expensive, too. I would definitely not go back. We did take the #10 bus which was fun.

This thread is about specialty (pay) restaurants, NOT the main dining rooms. You can order multiple entrees there.

Which is why I mentioned the specialty restaurants in my reply. ;)

For our upcoming trip, the OBC was significantly different between a TA and NCL direct, something like $250 OBC for a $500 interior room with TA vs $50 OBC direct. I'd probably prefer to book direct, but with that big of a difference, TA works for me!

Wow...is this unique to NCL? We have been mostly on Princess (and once on Disney) in both the regular dining rooms and specialty restaurants and have never been charged extra for ordering multiple entrees. The wait staff has always been more than willing to bring out additionals if we couldn't decide.

I'm honestly really surprised about this.

your carry ons get heavier.

the case of wine is heavy enough :)

Point taken, though.

Thanks for the thoughts. Yeah, she (my wife) already a bit unhappy about the preposition of leaving early and getting there early, so I don't need crazy lines to make things worse.

We have a 4-4.5 hour drive, so getting there earlier is not a particularly good option. Especially with the other family not getting to the port around noon anyway. Maybe I'll just make my life easier, leave after breakfast, get there mid afternoon with short lines and see the rest of the family on board.

We normally run a little late for everything and in the past have boarded most cruises between 2-3pm. We are leaving on the Epic out of Miami and i have some family coming in that I haven't seen for a while. I thought it might be nice to do the boarding with them since they have never been on a cruise.

The thing that gets my wife all worried, other than the fact that we have to wake up early for the drive down there, is that she thinks boarding the ship around 12-12:30 (when the other family will get to the port) is going to be a nightmare.

So how bad is it at that time?

We did Blue Hole and Dunns with our 7 and 10 year old boys in December. the 10 year old loved both. Blue Hole was a bit too much for the 7 year old, but he did fine at Dunns. Some of the rocks are pretty big so the 5 year old might have some trouble climbing, but there's a beach at the bottom which would be perfect.

If you split up the boys, have them do Blue Hole. It was scary at times, but def fun.

I hope you don't mind if I tag along, but came to ask a similar question - does the Epic have rowers like the Concept II?

 

I usually fly United - never occurred to me to call them if the cost of my particular flight has gone down.

You should try Southwest. They will. They used to refund the difference but now will give you credit for the amount of the difference in the fares.

And as far as I know, Princess will also (lower the price if it goes lower after you book). At least that's what several of their reps told us about our past Christmas cruise.

Just to confirm, this is the MJS being discussed here, correct?

http://gomjstrans.com/MJS_Trans/Home.html

Thanks!

Is any of the silver in the form of coins or bullion? Or is it all in jewelry?

Just wanted to chime back in for a followup. I realize its been a while, but the HDMI hookups worked perfectly for our 7 year olds new Wii U that Santa brought to the boat Christmas morning.

And thanks for the tip on the mirror. It was real helpful finding the open ports on the back of the TV.

Would someone mind reposting the link to the coupon, pls?

I'm guessing the 800 number isn't going to know for sure, but I guess it can't hurt.

This isn't a huge dealbreaker or anything, but we're leaving on cruise over Christmas, and we're debating having Santa come on the ship and deliver presents in the middle of the nite. If he does, that means we are carrying on the gift, which of course is the one that needs to be hooked up to the TV.

If the TV's dont work, I'd just as much prefer Santa just drop off the presents at the house and we get them when we get back. :)

Thanks!

I did verify with the wife that she'll have a little pocket mirror. If the RCA cables work, that would be great.

Thanks for the reply. I didn't even think that they might not be active.

Hi all,

Do the TV's the basic staterooms on the Coral Princess have any additional inputs for hooking up external devices?

Thanks!