lx200gps

There are two car rental outlets in SP, very near the port. An Enterprise outlet is physically in the Crowne Plaza hotel and a Hertz outlet is across the street from the hotel. It's important to check the operating times and dates on the agency's websites, as IIRC they are not open on certain days, particularly Sunday. We had no issues using the Hertz outlet a few years ago, also after driving down from Vegas.

Excellent, thanks for the confirmation. Looks like things haven't changed since we were there last.

FWIW, you can also check the account on the cabin TV, and also print out a hard copy at the printing station near Guest Services (assuming it works, which isn't always a sure thing ;o). And check it carefully, on a very regular basis. Erroneous charges are not unheard of, but easily corrected with a quick trip to the GS desk. In our experience, there are one or two errors on every trip.

Gotta' love Valuetrips. Just received our confirmation for next October, $US134 all in. Going direct to the Hyatt site, the same room, same date, is $US634 all in. Interestingly, when I looked at my Hyatt account, there is no mention of the booking under "My Stays". I can only find the booking by selecting "Modify/Cancel" at the bottom of the page, then manually entering the Confirmation Number. Any thoughts as to whether it will eventually show up in my account? As to whether breakfast is or is not included, there is no reference to it in any of the documents. We've stayed at the HP three or four times, well pre-pandemic, and it's my recollection that the breakfast area is basically the lobby, with no way to police whether any guest does or does not have breakfast included. I'll assume we have breakfast through our Hyatt membership, even if booked through VT.

The OP called it "St John'S", but probably meant "St John". That misidentification is very common here on CC. A lot of Canada/New England itineraries sail to St John, New Brunswick, but very few feature St John's Newfoundland as a stop, owing to its location on the far eastern tip of Newfoundland. Maybe the OP can clarify which city they were referring to?

No worries. The OP has a decent cabin in a far forward location one deck below Lido, so if they are pool/buffet aficionados, they are well situated high up in the ship. Cabins above and below, so no issues with noise from the pool deck etc. The loveseat helps a lot, though we prefer the full sofas in the minis. Those tiny balconies though....

The OP is in a Deluxe Balcony cabin (M131), Category DF. The cabins you refer to are Premium Deluxe Balcony cabins, category D4, so a different class with, yes, a larger balcony (hence the "Premium") The balcony the OP will have in M131 is one of the usual tiny balconies that the newer ships all have.

Welcome to Cruise Critic. According to the Enchanted Deck Plan, M131 is a Deluxe Balcony cabin, so is a bit larger than a standard balcony cabin owing to its loveseat. As previously stated, it's very far forward, and is a connecting room, with a door between your cabin and M129 (which would be locked tight unless you and the occupants are traveling together). As to balcony size, most balconies on the newer Princess ships are, to put it mildly, disappointingly snug. Here is a link to the Enchanted Deck Plans on the Princess site https://www.princess.com/deckPlans.do?shipCode=EX&version=1

Our cabin on the July 24 C/NE out of Boston on the Emerald is a little over $500 more than what we have booked. None of our three other booked sailings are down either. No deals for us ;o(

We disembarked off the Discovery Princess at SP in late October, heading to LAX for an 11:55 flight home. We did the early self walk-off, grabbed a taxi and were at LAX in half an hour. Note that the traffic at LAX was so bad that it took us longer to get from the start of the driveway into LAX to our terminal, than it did to get from San Pedro to LAX itself. But as Steve says, a 12:55 flight should be quite do-able, and if you want, you shouldn't have to do an early self walk-off and schlepp your bags off the ship, you should have plenty of time to do a "normal" disembarkation.

Technically, there are three entrances into Take 5. The "main" entrance is off the Piazza and is close to the entrance to the casino. The other entrance is at the back of Take 5 and ends up near the forward elevators. The third, often overlooked, entrance is FROM the casino into Take 5 but is rarely used. If you are hyper sensitive to the smell from the casino, it's theoretically possible to catch a very faint waft from the casino when someone opens that door. We spend a lot of time in Take 5 and can say that the stench of smoke from the casino isn't a problem at all, unlike what we notice in the open Piazza near the casino.

We've frequented Take 5 on the Enchanted, Sky and most recently the Discovery in October. It's usually very empty during the day and is always our go-to quiet place on sea days. Given its location tucked away next to the casino and the absence of through traffic moving from one end of the ship to the other, it's almost as if few passengers even know it's there. Great seating for two right on the ocean. During the day, no bar service, and it is used occasionally for lectures, loud games etc, by the entertainment staff. Bar opens around 4 IIRC. In the evenings it's a great venue for live music. I don't recollect any other music than Jazz, maybe others can chime in on what other types of music they have.

I guess we'll all have to agree to disagree. As Canadians, we're necessarily very attuned to the costs due to our weak dollar, and for us, the ease of driving down to Manhattan or Brooklyn will ALWAYS override the complexity, cost and impracticality of taking public transport, be it rail or air. Have a great trip...

If you're referring to the Renaissance on 17th street near the Eisenhower St entrance to Port Everglades, that's our usual go-to hotel as well, stayed there many times. When asking about hotels it's best to specify the date you are interested in, as hotel prices down there vary a HUGE amount from month to month. Low season, the 17th Street strip is a great option with the best location, but in high season, due to its proximity to the cruise port, prices can be absolutely outrageous.

AFAIK, that's only 200 miles, a very easy drive. Is there a reason why you wouldn't want to simply drive the few hours between Boston and the MCT? I would consider it FAR easier to drive over taking a train, and certainly preferable over enduring the hell of modern air travel.

It's pretty obvious that VT's pricing relative to the Hyatt direct pricing is all over the map. All of the above examples are quite correct, sometimes VT is MORE expensive than going direct to Hyatt, while other times it's far less expensive. I reconfirmed my earlier post and for our mid-October 2024 stay, VT is $129 and the Hyatt site wants $540. Clearly we should check around and not just assume VT will always be cheaper; usually it is, sometimes it isn't

I believe that the general answer would be yes and no. Some airline/credit card perqs, such as your free bags, priority check in and/or boarding, etc probably would still apply, assuming you make the EZ-Air booking and pay with that specific Mastercard. Some other perqs, however, probably would not work. One example that comes to mind is our Air Canada/Aeroplan Buddy Pass, where my wife flies anywhere in North America for $99. That has to be applied at the time of booking on Aeroplan's web site and even has a separate department inside AC that deal with them. I doubt I would be able to apply it if I booked with EZ-Air as the option would not exist, the booking has to be made directly with Aeroplan.

FWIW, we use the big cruise TA that has both on-line and storefront services. We met our personal TA at one of their pre-pandemic cruise seminars and she's been our rep ever since, probably 6 or 7 years. All our bookings are done exclusively through her, sometimes over the phone, sometimes on line, sometimes right in her office. She deals with the cruise lines if and when it is necessary, and I can't remember the last time I had to sit on hold forever trying to reach a cruise line rep.

Agree, but the meet and greets, LGTBQ meets, quiet lectures etc are usually not an issue for us. Often they only use half the Take 5 floor space (as we know, it's sort of a two area design anyway) so we often just sat in the unused area minding our own business and never had a problem. What WAS problematic, at least for us, was when they used it occasionally during the day for games such as bowling. A few times we had to leave for an hour to escape the screaming and yelling, but this is rare. Otherwise it's as quiet as a library, and wonderfully peaceful. The OP was wondering about using it as a pre-dinner venue and even at that time, it's not usually as full as other venues like Crooners.

That's great to hear, thanks very much. We very much love using Take 5 on sea days, sitting at those amazing big comfortable window seats watching the sea flow by, and we missed having daytime bar service in Take 5 on our sailings. I'm glad they offer it on the Discovery.

Thanks for the confirmation. When you say the Take 5 bar was open early on sea days, what time was that? On the Sky, it was closed every day until around 4PM, even on sea days. As we'll be back on the Discovery in Feb, it will be nice to have it open longer. Re the tournament, Take 5 was closed the week were aboard to set up for the tournament, to our huge disappointment, then also closed the week after for the tournament itself. IIRC, it re-opened the week after though some equipment, as you say, was still installed. Glad to hear they had been completely removed.

We use the big TA that offers the yearly "3 Day Sale" Their pricing is identical to Princess's but during their sale they offer decent extra OBC, for a 7 day trip in a balcony it's usually $US400 for the two of us.

We use Take 5 as our go to place on sea days for peace and quiet as it is usually deserted, it's almost as if few passengers know it's there. It was physically open all day, but the bar only opens around 4PM IIRC. It's theoretically possible to use "The App" to order drinks to be brought in, but our experience was hit or miss, sometimes the drinks we ordered never arrived. Pre-dinner drinks should be possible even with their opening at 4PM, and it would be lot quieter than the other alternative, Crooner's. Princess is using the Piazza for a lot of VERY loud events, and when we were on the Discovery in October, at times we had to shout at the waiters to be understood. Take 5 is a wonderfully peaceful venue in comparison. When we were in Take 5 on the Sky earlier in the year, the bar featured a rolling "Gin and Tonic" cart, with a variety of very interesting Gins, most of which I had never heard of. Sadly, when we were on the Discovery recently, it was closed for the entire week for a slot machine tournament. AFAIK that was a one time thing and it has since re-opened.

We regularly use the Sanctuary, and have never been charged a penny for the items on the Sanctuary menu when the meal was delivered inside the Sanctuary. Can't speak to ordering items from elsewhere on the ship, like the pool grill, certainly wouldn't want to do it given how good the Sanctuary menu is, but I would expect that a charge might apply in that case.

Princess actually have small "boutiques" on the ships selling a variety of add-on items for carrying/wearing the Medallion. For those who want to wear it on their wrist, there are a number of Princess options, but also others have reported that the wrist straps for Apple Air Tags also work. This is an example of just a few of the accessories available, for those who like to do bling (and yes, the medallion holders we use do have a Canadian flag ;o)