lx200gps

As soon as you board the ship, right there on Deck (6?) right off the gangway there will be at least one table set up with crew members ready to process the Upgrade for you. No need to go to GS or a bar/restaurant, the Upgrade table will be VERY obvious ;o) The upgrade is immediate.

We're also very adept at researching and planning as well. We always use a TA to do the job we can easily do ourselves for two very important reasons. One is the Perqs that come as a result of their big annual Sale, but the most important reason is that in the event of a booking change, a problem etc, I MUCH prefer having her do the leg work and sitting on the phone with the cruise line than doing it myself. We occasionally re-book, change, upgrade etc and she takes care of all that for us. Luckily we have been using a TA for some years now and she is excellent

We usually do the Plus to Premier upgrade immediately upon boarding as it only takes a minute or two and lets us use some of our huge OBC stash. I have done it twice by phone and amazingly, both times I ended up with a human within a minute or two, no long waits and no need to attempt the Chat. Both times, the CSR was not sure if they could it and had to put me on hold for a minute or two while they checked with their superiors, but came back and told me they could. The first time, late last year, the upgrade went through almost immediately, and all references to Plus disappeared and were replaced by Premier. The summary page on the Personalizer as well as our Travel Summary showed us as having Premier. Bizarrely, when I did the upgrade for a second time, just last week for trip next February it was processed differently. Instead of all the documents, Personalizer etc showing Premier, they all present it very differently. The Summary page shows us as still having Plus, as does the Travel Summary, but the TS also shows us as having a "Premier Upgrade". I actually called Princess yet again to ask why we still showed Plus on the summary page, and the CSR checked and told us quite definitively that we did have Premier. Needless to say we will be bringing paperwork with us in case there is a problem.

For an all-in-one PDF version: https://www.wts-touristik.de/fileadmin/user_upload/Deckplaene-Flyer/Sky_Princess_Deckplan.pdf

Your best bets on 17th St are the Hyatt Place, the Renaissance and the Hilton Marina. If the Lounge is where I think it is, then the Renaissance is literally across the street, and is also physically the closest hotel to the PE entrance on Eisenhower.

Nothing half empty about it. I have no interest in spending 5 hours sitting at a border crossing enduring work to rule when a normal drive through would have taken 10 minutes.

Exactly correct. Imagine the lineups when they decide to spend 10 minutes interviewing EACH arriving driver or passenger.....

Technically, we're not out of the woods yet. While the union negotiators have accepted the new deal, it still has to voted on by the membership rank and file. I doubt there will be any problems, but there have been recent cases of accepted "deals" being thrown back in the face of union management once the membership gets to vote on the deal and reject it. Our fingers are firmly crossed, we drive to Boston in a few weeks for a cruise.

I mentioned Burlington as we are driving in from the Great White North, and so Burlington was right on the line between home and the cruise terminal. Hotel prices are still much cheaper there than near the port, but since you are coming in from Jersey, areas to the north of Boston would be far out of your way. That being said, when I use Tripadvisor's great map utility, I'm amazed at how $$$ hotels are even far outside of Boston to the south and west. For some reason, hotels to the north are quite a bit less money (at least for our July 13-14 stay). I had also thought of just parking at the hotel in Burlington and Ubering to the ship, but I'm not a fan of leaving our car in an exposed hotel parking lot for a week. I would much rather pay quite a few dollars and park in a relatively secure lot like the covered garage we plan to use near the terminal.

We're doing exactly that for our Princess trip in July, though we are driving down from up north. With the astronomical cost of hotels near the cruise port we're staying up in Burlington, at a Marriott property for less than half the rate of hotels near the port and driving to the port on the Sunday morning. Driving into downtown around 9AM on a Sunday shouldn't be too difficult, traffic-wise. All the cruise parking options very close to the terminal come to around $30/day, a lot better than Manhattan and Brooklyn's $45/day. We don't want to risk parking in the open at our hotel for a week so we're driving right to the port and will use one of the lots there, probably the multi-story ABM Parking Garage one block from the Terminal.

We just re-booked two of our five sailings under the Sale. Surprisingly, even though we got the full OBC for both, only one of the two received the $25/pp "Travel Agency Grp Promotion". Not sure why one was disqualified, and it's the first time since we used this Sale that a booking didn't get the little extra. Still, we'll have more OBC than we can probably use ;o)

Wife applied for her renewal in early April. Letter of Approval was posted to the website 21 May, but not sent by Email or snail mail. No interview required. New card arrived in the mail 5 June, so start to finish the entire renewal process took 2 months.

FWIW, we drove down and parked in Weehawken, NJ, almost directly across the Hudson from the MCT. We stayed at a Residence inn located at the Weehawken ferry terminal. Hotel and 8 days parking were about half of what a comparable package would have cost across the river in Manhattan. Morning of the cruise, we jumped on the 8 minute long ferry ride and walked the 15 minutes north to the MCT.

We're in the process of going through all five of our upcoming booked trips with our TA during her Sale. The two closest upcoming trips, in July and October, were many thousands more expensive than what we had booked, so no change there. Our Feb 2025 trip only came out about $C200 cheaper with the big OBC factored in so we didn't bother changing that one either as we didn't want to run the risk of our losing our Mini with the huge balcony. Our Nov 2025 and Jan 2026 trips did end up a bit cheaper or the same basis price, but the OBC made a big difference. For the Jan 2026 trip the OBC for a 7 Day trip came to $US235PP. In short, the Sale wasn't as good as in recent years but $US400+ in OBC is well worth it

As the others have said, yes, you definitely can buy the Plus (or Premier) package on board and pay for it with your OBC. As soon as you walk on the ship you will run into tables set up with crew members offering the sale. They will initialize it with their tabletand it goes "live" instantly.

Yes, we're well aware that it would be a re-booking. Done it many times. Our TA almost always gets our original cabin back for us.

If you have any trips currently booked, it may be worth investigating the 3 Day Sale. I just reviewed the current website pricing for the 5 trips we have booked with that Agency, in preparation for possibly re-faring during the Sale. Our C/NE trip out of Boston next month is almost DOUBLE what we paid for it last year while our last booked trip, in Jan 2026, would actually be worth re-faring. The current price is almost the same as we booked it for a few months ago, but re-booking during the Sale would add $US400 in OBC. We don't know what the new "Sale" pricing will be, but based on today's pricing, the rule seems to be that the closer the trip is to today, the higher the pricing while trips near the end of 2025 and into early 2026 may well be worth re-faring, as the pricing hasn't risen that much over what we bookedpaid.

Thanks for the heads up on that. If we're forced to use the roof, there is little incentive to use the garage over one of the nearby open lots, we'll just stick with either the C1 lot or the "official" lot on Fargo. I had read a post here on CC from someone who had parked in the garage on a cruise last summer, and they reported at the time that they had spoken with the garage managers and yes, cruisers were welcome to use the garage but were asked to park on the "upper floors", no mention of being restricted to the roof. Not that it means much, but when I look at satellite views of the garage from both Google and Bing, the garage roof is completely empty of cars, not a single one.

A few general comments. If Air Canada allowed the itinerary to be booked with a 1.5 hour connection at YYZ, then technically THEY consider it acceptable. As it is an AC to AC connection, then the AC staff will know that the OP is connecting and will be watching out for connecting pax. Our last AC flight, back in Feb, was heavily delayed and when we arrived, there was a table set up at the exit from the jetway with a team of AC employees handing out the boarding passes to the arriving (and very late) connecting pax and arranging for them to get to their connection. Also, though I can't speak to whether they do it at YYZ, here in YUL airline staff patrol the security lines with clipboards and call out departing flights, marshaling passengers to the head of the line so they can make their connections if they are caught in security lines. At YYZ are there priority security lines for NEXUS and premium credit card holders to help them get through faster?

For us, Ubering from a quiet hotel to the port is never a problem. In places like Fort Lauderdale and LA, there are Ubers everywhere and we rarely wait more than 5 minutes for one to arrive, obviating the need to arrange for one in advance. Ubering FROM the port or the airport has always been worrisome for us given the absolute chaos and crowds of people crammed into a tight space all waiting for a specific car. Port Everglades T2 (Princess) is particularity bad given the design of the traffic circle in front of the terminal. That being said, we did Uber from San Pedro for the first time on our last trip and it wasn't bad, though we did do very early disembarkation and the Uber pickup area was relatively quiet. As to the $25 flat rate in Fort Lauderdale, IIRC that was about what we paid that one time and, as I said, we just didn't give him a tip.

I do hope that was said in jest ;o) Actually, 96% in a strike vote where I come from is quite normal. Strike votes with powerful unions like police, firemen, ambulance/paramedics, teachers, liquor store workers, nurses, government employees, large private corporation workers etc usually usually have overwhelmingly high percentages like this. Re the CBSA, keep in mind that they are definitely considered an "essential service" so a certain level of operation must be retained, but yes, border issues will be horrendous for the duration of the strike. That being said, once this strike happens, it will probably be ended quickly; the last strike a few years ago ended after 36 hours. We're keeping an eye on it for sure, we drive down to Boston for a cruise on July 13. I wouldn't expect any issues getting INTO the US from here, but if the strike in on during our return a week later, it would take us MANY hours to get back across, not the usual 60 seconds....

The flat rate scam only happened to us once, and the amount ended up, luckily, only being what we usually pay on the meter plus our usual tip. We've done those trips many times and know exactly what a metered ride costs. So when we reached FLL I simply gave him the flat rate and no tip. I once asked one of the Sheriff's Deputies who manage the taxi line at PE Terminal 2 about this scam, and he quite clearly told me that taxi drivers never do this and always use the meters. We're not due back to FLL until October, and I think we'll be using Uber to and from the airport for the first time. We always use Uber to and from hotels etc, but prefer taxis at the airport and PE as they are easier and faster to get. Crooked taxi drivers are something we can do without on vacation.

Technically, the closest hotel to the port entrance on Eisenhower is the Renaissance, at the corner of 17th and Eisenhower. It's definitely closer than the Hilton. The big new Omni will take the prize as the closest hotel when it opens up next year, as it's in the Convention Center.

Interesting that you say you were notified. SWMBO submitted her renewal application in early April, and we only found out she had been approved when we checked the status on the website and saw the approval letter dated 21 May. No formal approval notification had been sent. Thanks for the heads up on the 10 days, looks like we should be receiving it on the next few days.

Ubers come in all sizes (and price ranges), from little compacts that might struggle with multiple suitcases from multiple passengers, to massive super-SUVs that can carry even my wife's suitcases ;o) You shouldn't have any issues if you only have one or two bags