lx200gps

Based on our aforementioned trip on the Celebrity Equinox, I'd certainly have to agree. We don't usually eat in the buffet (on Princess we occasionally do breakfast upstairs to be able to eat outside in the aft end of the ship, great views, fresh air etc), but I was surprised at how basic the buffet was on the Equinox. Fewer offerings, much smaller space, though admittedly more open and not nearly as congested as the buffet areas on Princess. Yes, the Equinox is a smaller ship than a Princess Royal class, on par with a Ruby or Emerald, but I would definitely give the edge to Princess on the buffet.

We've done three Princess trips post-COVID, the last being in Feb 2023, and disembarked from the Celebrity Equinox two weeks ago. FWIW, we tend to eat most of our meals in the Specialty dining restaurants, but occasionally use the MDRs for a few dinners, and some breakfasts. As most will probably agree, the two lines are pretty comparable as far as dining goes, but here's our take: 1) Overall, food quality was a wash, just as good on Princess as X and vice versa. The only comment I'll add about our experience, on this last trip is that I did notice X's food tended to be a bit blander than Princess (needing a bit more salt and pepper, spices, flavoring etc) Could very well have just been the kitchen staff on the Equinox tending to under-do things a bit. This was both in the MDR and the SDRs. Still, overall, little difference in quality, both MDRs and SDRs, both lines very good. 2) While food quality was in general very much the same, we found that X was more "reliable" i.e. had less variability than our last few Princess trips, fewer culinary boo-boos. On Princess we had more than a few culinary errors than we would have liked. On X, we had exactly one bad course on the entire trip (strangely tough white fish in the fish curry on Indian Night in Sushi On Five) 3) One area that X did clearly, to us, beat Princess was in the service level. Even as recently as our Feb trip, Princess still seemed to have issues with staffing, usually a waiter or two short in every venue, causing the inevitable longer waits. (on our first dinner in Sabatini's, we didn't even see our waiter until we had been seated for 30 minutes). On the Equinox, no issues with waiting for food, in any venue on the ship, ever. Of course, one area that X also beats Princess is in having dedicated Sommeliers in all dining venues, who handle the wines. We never waited for a glass of wine on the Equinox, as "les Sommeliers" were everywhere. I loved having the guy re-fill my glass even before I knew I needed it refilled ;o). I wish Princess would implement such a system. The differences, quite honestly, were not enough for us to abandon our preferred line Princess. We have three more trips booked, and are on the Discovery this October for the first time.

It's not a sidestreet, it's a car-free walkway that runs all along the Hudson in that area. That's the view as soon as you exit the ferry terminal heading north towards the MCT. We loved the Residence Inn when we stayed there last September. Tons of parking in the parking garage attached to the hotel

We did it last year and it's a very easy, level walk. Note also that the entire trip, from the Ferry terminal at 39th north up to Pier 88, is done on a pedestrian pathway, officially known as the Hudson River Greenway, easily visible on Google Street View. No need to even go near the street (12th/9A). Other than dodging a few maniacal cyclists on the pathway, the walk is very safe

To the OP, if you are going to be driving to any of the NE US cruise ports with any kind of regularity (Cape Liberty, Manhattan, Boston, Brooklyn etc) you might also want to consider the many tolls you will be paying on the way down and back. Have a look at the E-Zpass system and see if getting a transponder for your car makes sense for your use case. We got one on our first trip last summer and it makes the travel process easier as you don't have to worry about getting toll bills sent by mail, the $$$s simply come out of your account balance. The transponders are available at many stores, gas stations etc in upstate NY (we got ours in Plattsburg immediately after crossing the border from Montreal) and the account setup is dead easy on line. And as Martin says, having NEXUS for all parties in the vehicle is a game changer. Driving past the hundreds of non-NEXUS folks in the massive lines and driving right up to an agent in the NEXUS-only lane, is a great time-saver.

Valid point, I just assumed they would overnight at a hotel near the ferry then take it across on Embarkation Day. Even if they are simply driving down on Embarkation day, I would consider it simpler, not to mention cheaper, to park at one of the ferry terminal parking garages at Weehawken, for almost half the daily rate as parking at the MCT, then take the ferry across. When we did it last fall, it was $22/day at the garage closest to the ferry terminal.

Quite true, the Sheraton was also on our list when I was planning our trip as well. The primary issue I had with it, and why I ended up choosing to "...ferry 'cross the Hudson" from Weehawken, was that the ferry terminal near the Sheraton was much smaller and the ferry schedule across to 39Th was not nearly as good as the ferry schedule out of the huge terminal at Weehawken.

The TL:DR version, based on the correct comments above: Drive to Weehawken, stay at one of the of the two excellent hotels (Residence Inn or Envue, both Marriott) located right at the ferry terminal, park cheap at the hotel (compared to Manhattan prices), then take the ferry across the Hudson to the 39th Street terminal and it's a short walk north to Pier 88.

On Air Canada at least, pax with the appropriate status are allowed up to 70 lbs for each individual bag, not total.

Keep in mind that folks with higher airline status or flying in business have limits of 70 lbs, not 50, at least on Air Canada. I also don't think Princess have weight limits, beyond the sizing rule that luggage has to fit within the X-ray machines

Sorry, I was only slightly generalizing. Smoking was far more prevalent on the Equinox than we have ever experienced on Princess and was happening in many areas on the ship that would have never been allowed on a Princess ship. And yes, people WERE smoking in the eating/drinking area on the pool deck. Clearly the crew is not enforcing their own policy.

I'm sure it's obvious to most folks, but if you have NEXUS, doing Arrivecan is a waste of time. On our return to YUL a few days ago, the NEXUS terminals were down so we walked up to a surprisingly friendly and chatty CBSA agent. After handing him our cards, I mentioned in passing that I had done the Arrivecan, and he proceeded to give me hell, albeit in a friendly, joking way, that if you have NEXUS, you do not have to bother with Arrivecan.

We've sailed three times on Princess in the last year (Enchanted once and Sky twice) and left the Celebrity Equinox just last week. A few comments on the above comments: 1) The "live" TV on X is a bit better in that it has a good number more channels available than Princess. Sadly for us, most of the extra channels were sports which are of no use to us. The VOD movie offerings on X were pathetic, far fewer than Princess 2) It may have been just the crews on the Enchanted and Sky at the time, but we found the "crew attitude" on the Equinox to be far superior to the crews on our recent Princess sailings. Noticeably happier, more engaging with passengers etc. The Princess crews just seemed tired and overworked. Of course, the officers were everywhere on X, we even ran into the captain himself many times, walking the ship, eating with fellow officers in the buffet etc. On one of recent Princess trips we never even HEARD the captain on the PA let alone ever saw him. 3) Somewhat related to the above, we also noticed that the Equinox was much better staffed than any of our recent Princess trips, though hopefully that is improving now on Princess. There were always a lot of waiters in the MDR and the specialty restaurants, no long waits for food and drink as we had on our Princess trips. We ate mostly in Murano, TG and Sushi on Five and the staffing levels were fantastic. Bar waiter service was a bit thinner but still good. On our last trip on the Enchanted, I well remember there being exactly one waiter for all of Crooners. 4) One BIG negative on Celebrity is the amount of smoking allowed on the ship. People smoked in outside areas all over the ship, including in the Mast Grill on the upper deck 5) Further to what some others have said, we find X is much more expensive than Princess in an apples to apples price comparison, to the point where they are off our list of possible cruise lines. We're back on Princess in October, on the Discovery out of San Pedro. It will be interesting to see whether they have progressed since our last trip this past February on the Sky.

Had exactly this happen to us returning into YUL a few days ago. Those few of us in the NEXUS lane gave up on the terminals and walked up to the CBSA Agent at the desk and handed him our cards. He filled in a yellow piece of paper with our details and waved us through. It seems non-functioning NEXUS terminals are something they are familiar with.

Quite probably. This particular TA has offered those books during their Sale for many years, I just haven't yet received all the confirmations, documents etc yet as the bookings are very fresh. In any case, when they removed the BOGO deal for first night Specialty Dining and replaced it with a bottle of wine (pretty pointless with a drink package), the booklet has little value for us now. Some folks did seem to like them though.

Sorry, that wasn't clear from your wording.

The "deal" seems to vary according to the date of the sailing. The sale is simply what Princess are asking, less a few hundred, plus OBC. For sailings between this October and into 2025, the farther out in time we go, the less the deal seems to be. For our Oct 2023 sailing we saved a ton when we re-fared, but when I asked for pricing into April 2025, the offered pricing was little better than what Princess were offering. The major difference is in the OBC being offered. Still, we saved a lot by re-faring and making one new booking. One thing that I can't find mentioned in our new paperwork is the Coupon Book, hardly a great loss if it's not given out.

We actually just booked the sailing immediately following, 19 October 2024 7 Day, through the 3 Day Sale. We saved about $400 over what Princess were showing for our desired cabin, and the TA threw in $225/pp OBC as well. Looking forward to the Sun, can't wait.

FWIW, our TA with this agency just re-fared two of our existing trips to take advantage of the sale. She saved us a bit over $300CAD on each trip and added $US400 in OBC for each trip. She added one new trip for us, for October 2024 at a price about $300CAD less than on the Princess site and also added the $US400 in OBC that was not available on the Princess site. That being said, the prices they are offering for 2025 sailings aren't that much better than Princess, though they are still adding the $400 in OBC.

We disembarked from the Equinox a few days ago, and yes, the WiFi with the Premier plan is pretty good. I can confirm the ~4.5Mps number as well. One thing I found particularly good, relative to other ship WiFi systems I've used, is how "consistent" it was day to day regardless of passenger load.. Our trip was to the ABC Islands, so 2 sea days there and back. Typically, on other systems I've used, on a sea day with the ship crowded with passengers, MANY using WiFi, the performance would degrade noticeably. Not so on the Equinox last week. Even mid-day on a sea day, the download speeds were still a pretty consistent 4.5.

The closest "hotel zone" near Port Everglades is the 17th Street strip, right on the northern entrance to Port Everglades and there are some excellent bets in that area. Our two usual hotels are the aforementioned Hyatt Place (and check out Valuetrips to make our Canadian $$$s go farther) and the big Renaissance nearby. 17th Street has lots of restaurants and last-minute shopping in the immediate area as well (Publix supermarket and the ridiculously cheap Total Wines for example). Unfortunately, 17th Street pricing is VERY cyclical and in peak season pricing can be eye-watering when converted to Canadian dollars. A good fallback area with good local infrastructure but slightly lower pricing is Dania Beach, just south of the airport but still close to PE. If you are traveling in prime peak season, another good and cheaper option is Plantation. Farther from FLL and PE but the pricing is relatively stable and doesn't explode in peak season like the other areas.

Just disembarked from the Equinox a few days ago at PE. There were two "formal" nights but compared to our usual Princess cruises, there were noticeably fewer people dressing up. We spend most of our time in the lower decks near the restaurants, bars etc, and I doubt I saw more than a few suits and no tuxes on the two Chic nights on our sailings. As mentioned previously, Smart Casual is the order of the day on those nights.

Actually, our upgrade success rate isn't great, but isn't bad either. We're seeing maybe 30% success rate on getting bumped up to either PE or Business using eUpgrade points, and that's on pretty popular runs like YUL-FLL, always going down, never coming back. Yes 25K is lame but the perqs like priority everything are wonderful in these trying travel times. Gotta love getting Zone 2 boarding and having our choice of overhead bins ;o) Good point about the hijack, signing off. Let's get back to cruise talk ;o)

Having been Elite or SE for decades, it was a big letdown to drop down to "lowly" 25K status when I took Freedom 55 retirement, but Aeroplan continues to a HUGE benefit even now. My Infinite Privilege card confers 25K status, which is still enough for many of the perqs, like priority checkin and Zone 2 boarding, free bags, lounge access, Buddy Pass, eUpgrades etc. The outrageous cost of the card is more than offset by the benefits is confers. Even long after retiring, we still never pay for airline tickets beyond the surcharges, the only caveat being that we have to usually fly in the back, as Business or Premium is an inefficient use of valuable points. We also limit ourselves to North America, which makes the use of our points most efficient, If we do travel to Europe, it will be on paid tickets. I agree that general points accumulation from other methods works, but for us, AP is fine as Air Canada almost always is our preferred way to go.

I certainly have been using the AC website, I was only checking the PDF Timetable to confirm that, at least June through September, there are three flights a day. Unfortunately, that doesn't help me with next Feb, and I suspect that you are correct, there may only be one flight a day during the winter. Sadly, our only option to make this cruise is to endure the joy of a transfer through YYZ. At least our NEXUS and Aeroplan status will help with some of the lines, however little it will help.