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lx200gps

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Everything posted by lx200gps

  1. NCL for one. Are they any more of a fire hazard than the electric kettles installed in Princess cabins on UK itineraries?
  2. Is this the sort of detail you are looking for, or do you need even more:
  3. Thanks. My concern is that I would be submitting my laundry request on Embarkation/turnaround day, when the ship's laundry will be slammed with turnaround ship's laundry as well as all the folks taking advantage of the free laundry perq. I will give Wrinkle Release a try at home first, but I'm pretty fussy about having my dress shirts very well pressed, which is why I prefer to do them myself. Worst case, I'll just send mine down as soon as I can on embarkation day and pay the extra for next-day delivery.
  4. Yes, I'm well aware of what I can and can't bring on board. I was not planning to bring an iron and ironing board with me on vacation, I was hoping that the ship could supply them, as other lines do.
  5. We're on our second X trip in May, on the Equinox to the ABCs. Inevitably, when I open my suitcase in the room, my shirts look like I slept many nights in them. On our Princess trips, I would walk the hall down to the laundromat and quickly iron them, and on our two Norwegian trips, we would ask the steward and he/she would bring an iron and ironing board which is an even better option. I understand that Celebrity do not have laundromats, but do they at least have irons and ironing boards available for delivery to your room? Failing that, what is a typical turnaround time for sending items to the ship's laundry for simple pressing? Thanks in advance.
  6. Actually, there's an EAST Coast Departures sub-forum, as well as a FLORIDA Departures sub-forum. Your question is best suited to Florida departures. And yes, 11:50 AM should be easy to make as long as your ship arrives back on time.
  7. It's $220US for the cabana for the day (unless the price has gone up in the last few weeks). The simple loungers are per person, but the Cabana is for the whole space, the two associated loungers, the sofa, the TV etc.. As I understand it, it's also possible to get a cabana but share it with friends, as they can hold more than two. No, there is no booking in advance, you can only board ASAP, I mean EARLY, then race upstairs and hope. AFAIK, you can use OBC, as they will charge the cabana to your room, so you can "pay it off" with the OBC as it will show up as just another room charge. We got off the Sky a few days ago. We always board early, among the very first on the ship, and raced upstairs to try and book either loungers, or failing that, a cabana. By the time we arrived, the ENTIRE Sanctuary had already been sold out for all sea days. Apparently there were over 800 B2Bers who were given the option of booking on our cruise during the previous cruise, so pretty much every "new" passenger like us was shut out. That had never happened to us before. We didn't ask about port days, but the chances of getting something is probably better than on sea days. Best of luck, I hope you can book what you want.
  8. I just checked the pricing for the few remaining balcony cabins for our late May sailing on the Equinox to the ABCs. The same category cabin as we booked months ago for $4000CAD for the two of us, same perqs etc, is now asking $CAD9200.
  9. Princess can be quite good when it comes to making cabins available early, but not this time. I don't remember if the corridors were actually blocked off, but they made it clear that cabins would ONLY be ready at 1PM, and they had signs posted to this effect at all the stairway entrances to the hallways, In the past, we've had cabins available as early as 11AM, but this time it was 1PM. Yes, lots of folks were in the dining venues with their carry-ons, but Princess also advertised a location on the ship where you could drop off your carry on if you wanted to. We didn't have a lot of experience with any time dining as we tend to eat in the SD restaurants with firm reservations. We did eat in the Estrella MDR once and simply walked up and asked for a table for 2, which was of course available as it was 5PM, right when it opened. There may be a slight wait at peak times, but nothing too onerous. Shows were 7:30 and 9:30 except for one day when they were inexplicably at 7 and 9.
  10. No problem. Dania Beach is a good alternative to 17th St, we've stayed there a number of times when 17th St was out of range for us in high season. Right at the I95 and Stirling Road on Google maps, the Hyatt Place and Hyatt House are great bets right next to each other, as are the Springhill Suites and Hilton Garden Inn. The two Hyatts are very new hotels. There are a lot of restaurants in the immediate area and the big Oakwood mall just across Stirling Rd. Have a great trip. ;o)
  11. FWIW, I like to use Tripadvisor.com to search out hotel prices for any trip because of its very useful map feature. I don't usually book through them, but it's a great way to compare prices over a wide area visually rather than simply looking at a list of prices. Simply enter the date you want to search (and the area of course, Fort Lauderdale) and once it searches for hotels in the area you've selected, you can elect to show the search results in map form with the ability to zoom in to view only hotels in a specific area. It gives a good idea of prices from all the big agencies but also shows how the prices can vary by location. Doing a quick search for your Dec 10-11 date, the 17th St strip hotels aren't at high-season prices but aren't cheap either, especially for us Canadians. Just a few miles away, just south of the airport, the Dania Beach hotels are upwards of $CAD100 per night cheaper, though a bit farther from Port Everglades.
  12. No problem. No info on the dry dock, but folks here have been discussing it in other threads. Embarkation lunch is the buffet, one DR (I believe it was the Estrella), or Alfredo's. Alfredo's had large line-ups almost every day at lunchtime (sometime huge lines) including embarkation day but access at dinnertime was easy. If you want Alfredo's after boarding, board early ;o) Also, I've heard it said on other threads that if you ask a crew member about lunch options on embarkation day, they are conditioned to not tell you about the DR, but AFAIK it was open. We never eat lunch so I can't confirm, but I certainly did see the big line at Alfredo's.
  13. Flew YUL-FLL a week ago and returned yesterday. The outbound flight to FLL was mid-day and YUL was deserted, fastest checkin/security experience we've had in years, essentially no waiting at any point up until the pandemonium of boarding. FLL to YUL was the opposite. Something's amiss at FLL Terminal 2, and Air Canada refuse to let people even check in until 2.5-3 hours before the flight. Delta, in the same terminal, won't let people checking until 2 hours or less before departure. The result is that the pre-check in concourse at T2 is a zoo, with hundreds of people sitting on their suitcases, having arrived to early and unable to check in. Once you actually check in and drop your suitcase(s), security with TSA-Pre-Check is a breeze.
  14. On the Sky this past week, a small Cap was $3 and a large was $3.50. They were available in every location we asked for one, including the Estrella DR
  15. We usually sail Princess (just got off the Sky yesterday in fact) but have sailed X once, on the Silhouette a few years ago in the Med and loved it. We have a Celebrity trip booked to the ABC Islands for this May on the Equinox, and I decided to check the pricing for the same class balcony cabin we've had booked for months. You never know, maybe there's been a price drop or a sale going on. When we booked our balcony cabin a few months ago we locked it in at a hair over $4000CAD for the two of us, (which is what we just paid to rebook a Minisuite on the Discovery Princess for this fall after the price dropped BTW). The cost of a basic balcony cabin on our May sailing on X, and there are very few left, is now $9200 for the two of us. If that's indicative of where Celebrity's pricing is going, we'll be sticking with Princess despite the ongoing issues with Princess's service and offerings.
  16. Welcome to Cruise Critic, fellow Canadian ;o). The closest hotel zone to Port Everglades is the 17th Street strip, with a bunch of great options like the Hyatt Place, Hilton Marina, Renaissance, Holiday Inn Express or a dodgy Embassy Suites. Great location, near shopping and restaurants, VERY close to the port and not very far from FLL. Prices there can be high at certain times of the year, so if your time is high season a good alternative is Dania Beach, a little closer to the airport but a bit farther from Port Everglades. In the highest priced seasons, an excellent alternative is Plantation, much farther from the Port but immune from the very high prices closer to the port. A lot of people also recommend "downtown" Fort Lauderdale and the Riverside hotel. As a start, check the prices at the very popular Hyatt Place and see if they match your budget.
  17. Saw it on the Enchanted in September, and on the Sky this week. Great show. Sure beats the video game show they had previously
  18. We parked at the Brooklyn terminal last September. We had driven down the day before and stayed in northern NJ for FAR less than a hotel in Manhattan or Brooklyn, then drove to the BCT the day of the cruise. There was tons of available parking, no issues finding a spot very near the ship, and our car was perfectly fine 7 days later. We did arrive relatively early as we like to board ASAP, so the outgoing passengers were clearing the parking lot as we arrived.
  19. Neighbors from hell are also a worry for us as well, though we've been lucky over the years. How did GS deal with your neighbors? Was the problem solved to your satisfaction?
  20. Excellent, thanks. We live in a semi-rural area where there my be a single Uber within 10 miles. I was amazed yesterday when I hailed our ride and the guy was at the hotel in less than 2 minutes. There were a lot of others available as well. Getting a car to PE should be simple.
  21. We ran into the same scam last November out of PE, but only got soaked $20, so that's all we gave the driver when he dropped us at FLL. We used Uber yesterday for the first time in Fort Lauderdale, from the Renaissance to Terminal 2, it was painless and simple. We will be using it again to avoid the taxi mess when we disembark at T2 in a few days. How is the Uber pickup experience, is there usually a big crowd waiting for their driver, or is it reasonably easy for find your specific ride. We have the luxury of having a lot of time until our 1:30 flight so we may wait until most people are gone.
  22. That's exactly what we were told, by a lady who was on the previous cruise to this one. She also mentioned that she somehow missed being told, early in that cruise, that she could book for the following cruise, so she had to wait in line with us to try and book this week, only to be shut out like we were. Question: when you say "They asked people on the first sea day....", are you saying they actually asked only those already IN the Sanctuary if they wanted to book for next cruise, or did they send a notice to ALL B2Bers in their cabin? If the former, that's astoundingly bad news.
  23. We're actually on the Sky right now. Can't help with how many spots there are, though there are both loungers and much larger cabanas at significantly higher cost. When we boarded yesterday, we used our Elite status to board VERY early and race upstairs to book, only to be told all sea days were already fully booked. As we had plans for the port days, we were SOL. Apparently there are 850 B2Bers on board right now and they have priority over everybody else because they were apparently able to book the Sanctuary for this trip on the PREVIOUS cruise. Sadly, on our last three Princess trips, on the Enchanted in September, on the Sky in November, and now on the Sky again, it's gotten progressively more difficult to get decent loungers, at least for sea days. The Sanctuaries on these newest class of ships are getting smaller, with more open space/fewer loungers, many more cabanas in direct sun, more $$$ cabanas and even lounger-stealing hot tubs taking up space. There are far fewer loungers than, for instance, on the older ships like the Ruby, Crown etc. Given our recent experiences, i can't see how anyone without status has much chance of getting any decent spot, even on port days. As for sea days..... ;o(
  24. We used the Port Imperial parking garage last September (the one closest to the ferry terminal, located in the hotel, not the slightly cheaper one a block away) PLENTY of spots available on the higher levels when we arrived on a Friday afternoon, and we stayed for 8 days with no issues.
  25. We just EMbarked from terminal 2 at PE yesterday. Taxis lined up to take pax, and we arrived by Uber. Every time we have sailed from PE there have been taxis lined up in great numbers.
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