BrandiGreg

Our cost at the supermarket here in Fresno for a bottle of Beringer is about $3.25 per bottle after 8% sales tax and with the 10% off for buying 6 bottles. On board, it is about $28 plus 15% gratuity. So, with corkage fee of $15, I pay $18 if I bring it on board myself versus $32 if purchased on board. Of course, it is way more convenient not to have to carry them on board or pack them.

Again, depends on what wine and how many and how much you value the convenience (and where you live....I hear Canada wine is much more expensive due to taxes). We for sure take the two bottles free of corkage fee on board with us in our carry-on, but not sure if we would take more than that, depending also on if they offer a wine package on that cruise to bring the costs down. Also, remember that if you have a port day on your last day before debarkation (such as Ensenada), you can bring any wine (as well as any liquor) for that last night on board with no problem.

We always deal with Princess directly, never have used a TA. They are consistently pleasant and helpful on the phone. I am betting they will fix it quickly with no problem.

We have done Carnival twice (caribbean, with our son when he was young). We had a good time, but with just the two of us we prefer Princess, especially because we have reached Elite and get all those perks like free laundry and mini-bar set up. It is hard to consider any other line at this point, now that they have us "hooked". We like Princess for the reasons already listed, at our age (62 and 48), we like to hang with "middle-aged" people who have a young attitude (whatever that means). There are exception however, because there are plenty of mature young people and immature old ones, and vice versa. The longer cruises or Transatlantics have an older crowd and more Elites, but they are usually more younger acting, open-minded, and tolerant than most elderly (at least the ones I know) since they travel a lot and are tolerant of people different than themselves. As if they have done it all, seen it all, heard it all. So that fits us fine. Lots more signs of people not handling their alcohol consumption responsibly on Carnival than Princess, but for a 3 night cruise the assumption is that most everyone there is there to drink and party (which is fine if they can do it responsibly and not barf in the elevator). There are no water slides or rock climbing walls or surfing machines like you see on other lines like RC and Carnival. So, in summary, don't judge a line by a 3 day cruise or even by one or two cruises. That would be like judging a restaurant by one bad entree or by one bad server. But for the perks, if you plan to cruise a lot, I think Princess does a good job with rewarding loyalty. And the best perks are available to all cruisers on Princess, and that are the cabin credit for being a Veteran and for owning 100 shares of CCL stock.....Look into these if eligible, because it is free money...Have fun!

Not many changes from 5 years ago that I can remember.

Are the cabins normally unavailable until ~1pm on embarkation day? usually around noon they will let people start boarding the ship, cabin is always ready for you. Luggage may not be there though until 4-6 hours later.

We always have traditional seating, so don't know about anytime dining.

We always prefer sharing a table, so not aware of tables for two, though I don't recall seeing many.

Are there 5 or 7 bottle wine packages available for purchase onboard? Would anyone have the price of these packages? Only available on the longer cruises in my experience (10 days or more) and then not guaranteed they will be offered. Price per bottle works out to about 20% discount using the package, depending on normal price of the bottle. It is a good deal if you KNOW you will consume all the bottles on that trip (since you cannot use on a future cruise, like you can with coffee cards). Welcome Back!;)

The steward may offer you the champagne. Don't drink it. They are doing you a favor if they skip it :)

If it is like the free champagne at the Captain's Welcome Party, then it will be fine with us. We have never had a bad champagne. But then again, we are probably not sophisticated enough to know the difference....at a wine-tasting we went to once (the $25 one), they had Dom Perignon, and to us it tasted like Korbel. :cool:

Why haven't they offered to upgrade our 3 insides to balconies?! All the insides on our sailing are sold out but plenty of balconies left, last I checked.... :p

I would assume they would offer the balcony upgrades to the outside cabins first, then when outsides are freed up, they would consider insides to be offered an outside. Seems the fairest approach. For us, we are just glad to have a cabin, since we would rarely choose to sit/stand on a balcony. Once we fall asleep and close our eyes, all cabins look the same to us. Was of more value back when one of us smoked and you could smoke on the balcony. Some people love having a balcony, I understand, but unless it is an upgrade at no added cost, we would prefer to spend our money on other important things...... like booze :D

Oh, I also wanted to comment on Moveover offers. We have had only one, last year, to cancel a 14 day Transatlantic, inside cabin, with just 5 days to go. We got in exchange a 28 day Australia cruise in a balcony cabin, with all taxes and insurance paid, the following year (coming up in November!) and all money we had paid refunded in form of cabin credit. So, essentially a $14,000 cruise plus full refund. All we lost was a one way airfare to Copenhagen.....How could we say no? (we did have to bargain on the phone a bit....but they must have been desperate to get people to cancel at that point). Easy to be flexible when retired and I would gladly take any other offers even half this good!

24 Princess cruises, only one upgrade from outside to a balcony. We now only book guarantee inside (lowest price inside) and ALWAYS get an "upgrade" to a higher category inside. We have never had a cabin we did not like or that was noisy because of ship location. And we don't get seasick, so we are fine at either end. The biggest problem is how noisy the cabins are near you, particularly if they are frequent door-slammers. That is the only sound we hear.:(

I personally feel that, at least in the USA these days, there are more and more complainers about things. Turn on any cable news program or read the comments of an online news article, and you can hear or read the constant complaining going on, more often without actual solutions. And there are more people who like to complain very loudly, use bad language, or make personal attacks when they know they can do so anonymously. Also, part of the problem is that people expect a premium experience for an economy price. Myself, even after one cruise, I am already more fortunate than 99.9% of the people on Earth, so I keep that in mind before I feel the urge to whine and complain about a stain on the carpet or having 2 dessert choices instead of 6. Opportunities to improve stated in the form of helpful suggestions are different than complaining, in my view, and should be made in the evaluation emailed to all passengers. Also, it is helpful to take a deep breath and examine the source of one's bad experience, because often it has a lot to do with the person who is unhappy. Just my thoughts.....

ok, yes will do that in the morning. My address is correct in my princess profile, so not sure how they determined my gateway city. I don't recall ever having been asked that before. Despite 24 cruises with Princess, we have not used EZAir before, but I hear sometimes they have great fares.

I have booked a cruise that ends in LA and I wanted to look into EZAir to see what flights are available for us to fly home to Fresno (about a 3 hr drive north). So, I went into cruise personalizer under Flights and Transfers, and clicked EZAir and got this message "Air Transportation is not needed for your cruise as determined by your home city." What the heck??? Yes, I do know I don't NEED to fly, but what makes them think I want to drive that far? What if I was unable to drive? Do they expect me to grab a bus? How far does a person have to live from the port to be able to use EZAir? They don't even offer a transfer to the LA airport. Anyone else unable to use EZAir if the port is within drivable distance or know how far you have to live before they think you need to fly?:eek:I will probably have to call them and pose the same questions....

We were in a suite on a 4 day cruise. We just *had* to take advantage of the free laundry! So on the first day we packed up one night's worth of dirty laundry and sent it in, getting it back the second day. On the third day we packed up 2 days worth of dirty laundry, and got it back the fourth day. Frankly, it was a little weird to be sending in a couple of pairs of underwear and socks to laundry, but we just had to do it! ;)

We have sent most of our clothes out for "pressing only" the day we board. because they get wrinkled in the suitcase and it is nice to have everything nicely pressed on hangers for us the following day (especially formal wear, which is often on the 2nd cruise night). (however, we don't send underwear and socks for pressing, that just seems a little too much). It is a nice Elite benefit!:D

We like it for the same reasons we like dinner in the dining room. It is a dining experience rather than an eating experience. PLUS, you get to meet other people, if you request to share a table with others. Also, I like the Chef's Salad or Cobb Salad, which you don't get in the buffet. And of course, less effort because you are served. I guess the only downside would be the limited choices (about 4 entrees) compared to the buffet. But we are not picky and all choices are good to us.:)

No wine packages available on Diamond Princess, May, June 2014. They want you to buy a drink package at $49 per person per day, no sharing. Outrageous!

My wife bought the drink package last month and we used her card to buy bottles of wine at dinner at the 40% off, and we were allowed to share the bottle. Why would they care who shared the bottle? That is like one person in your family who is Elite using their card to get 10% off in the gift shop for something for you. How would they even police who the actual merchandise was for? I think, for wine bottle buyers on board, the 40% off is a great benefit (in conjunction with any other free drinks you also get).:o

Last year we had a fantastic deal offered to us by Princess. They apparently had overbooked our 15 day transatlantic (inside cabin) from Copenhagen to Ft Lauderdale, so they called me 2 days before we were to fly to Copenhagen to catch the cruise and offered us a similar length cruise in a balcony cabin in the Mediterranean later in the year. Well, we had already done that itinerary, so I got brave and said "how about the 28 day cruise the following year around Australia?", so she put me on hold for a few minutes and then returned and said "OK". Not only did we get a free $14,000 total value cruise with balcony with free insurance, taxes, and port charges, but she gave us all of what we had paid for the first cruise ($3,000) in cabin credit. We will be enjoying this cruise in November. (we did lose a $400 non-refundable Copenhagen hotel charge and our one-way flight costs to Copenhagen, but it was a good enough trade for us despite the losses! They must have really been desperate to get people to cancel! There is no way we would ever have been able to afford this Australia cruise ourselves.:D

I believe the policies are all about making money. Theoretically, a person could bring 100 bottles of wine on board, as long as the corkage fee was paid on embarkation. And, on the last full day of the cruise, unlimited bottles of hard liquor purchased on board can be taken back to the cabin for consumption that last day and night :D:eek:

If you would like to help "broaden his horizons" a cruise is a great place to try new foods (for adults too!). You may be surprised what he likes, and if he tries something on the ship, and does not like it, it is no big deal like it would be at home. (I would just put a tiny bit of a lot of things on his plate from the buffet and allow him to taste as much as possible). If he is like the 4 toddlers I have raised, he may actually like some things you had not anticipated before. Often, when kids are picky eaters, we only serve them what we know they already like, and they never get to try other things. Good Luck!

Three advantages not mentioned yet that we like about longer cruises 1) you get to know your wait staff better and they know you and your preferences better, also you get to know your tablemates better (which may or may not be a plus.:eek:) 2) the cost of the cruise vacation per person per day is usually lower, especially if you have a lot of sea days, and considering your flight costs to get to and from the cruise 3) you only have to unpack and then not have to pack up to go home for a LONG time! These days, we only take cruises of 14 days or longer (now that we are retired and have the time) because it seems like by the time you unpack, and get relaxed and settled in, for short cruises you already have to worry about debarkation. The disadvantage for us is having our mail held by the US Postal Service, since their rule is that they don't hold mail for more than two weeks! (bills paid online which is no problem on board)

Princess for us, 24 times. We always have late traditional seating (7:45 or 8:00pm start time) and finish by 9:30pm, plenty of time to get to other end of ship for the 9:45 or 10pm show. Never felt we had to rush to get a good seat. What entertainment we DO miss are evening trivias or smaller crew staff shows like the newleywed game or theme parties (like 50's night) which run while we are at dinner....but we would rather miss those than rush back to the ship to get ready for an early dinner.

24 Princess cruises for us, and all the past 20 or so we have booked an inside guarantee (window or balcony not worth the extra cost to us), and have always been upgraded to a higher category inside (usually more popular location on ship). If the obstructed outside is less than $20 per day than an inside (sometimes) we will book outside guarantee instead. From that, we have been upgraded to an outside non-obstructed and (once) to a balcony. We were the last ones to board once (late to pier) and they upgraded us at the pier because, I think, some passengers had cancelled at the last minute or were no shows, but that was maybe 10 years ago. What is more likely these days is that you will be offered an upgrade if you pay something extra. We are not the picky type, so we are happy with any cabin we get in any location on the ship and would rather get an "upgrade" than be locked into a certain cabin. By the way, from what I have heard, the upgrade fairy visits people no matter what their loyalty status nor how early they had booked. Seems to be no way to increase your upgrade-ability short of being related to the person who gives out upgrades. Just our experience and talking with others.

We each carry the one bottle of wine allowed per person in our carry-on bag and no one has opened the bag and actually looked at it. They just xray the bag, as they do all bags at embarkation. A wine bottle typically has a distinct shape on xray. This sounds like a waste of time by Princess. The whole point is that they want to sell more wine, who cares what the alcohol content of the wine is? A bottle is a bottle. Geesh!

We did back-to-back on the Crown in Alaska in May, and the dinner menu was different each week, slightly. (I noticed some entrees for one week that were not there the previous week). All great food!

We have been on 8 different Princess ships, and the storage and closets are roughly the same on all of them. More than enough. If you fill the storage space, you have brought too much stuff.

We have been on 24 Princess cruises on 8 different ships, including the Crown last month to Alaska. The degree of "crowding" was the same on each cruise. Each ship was enjoyable. I find it funny that people give a cruise a bad review because of the ship. Most of the stuff they are critical of (such as the food or staff) has nothing to do with the ship. The layout of all the ships is also roughly the same. You are always going to encounter crowding in the atrium just before dinner times. The tables are always there. So what? where is it that one is rushing to that crowding makes a difference? Next time, leave for dinner 5 minutes earlier. We never consider the ship in our decision of which Princess cruise to take. Just the itinerary and the price for the cabin we want (inside). Just like airfares, we do not care about the airline, just the price (to us, airlines are pretty much all the same as well and they all get you where you want to go irrespective of the airline or plane type). Maybe we are not picky enough, but Princess is not a high-end vacation experience, so we don't expect everything to be perfect at less than $100 per person per day. With that attitude, we are always happy on our cruises.:cool: