coops14

1 hour ago, themob said:

What shops at  Cozumel cruise port sells good vanilla and you can use Princess medallion to purchase?

Most of the shops in the cruise port sell good vanilla. We noticed the shops seems to sell the identical bottles of vanilla, all at the same price. I don’t know if you can use your medallion to purchase.  

We noticed this too, we phoned Princess and they booked our cruise over the phone, we are from the UK and there is an offer at the moment on Premium package for Plus price.  It took two phone calls,the first agent said there were no packages left to purchase on our cruise! When I phoned back the next agent could book with the correct package. 

We did star gazing many years ago on the Crown in the Southern Caribbean. The presenter had a light beam she shined into the sky and explained which planet was which. The overriding memory was, it was so windy we could hardly stand up 

We bring our own tea with us, we find the tea served on board very weak. We like a builders cup of tea, especially in the morning, we are from the UK and love our tea. 

We haven’t sailed on Celebrity, also we are not elite. We made many friends on the cruise who really enjoyed the cruise, ship and crew and have booked many more cruises.  As I mentioned it’s good we all like different cruise lines and ships. Happy cruising 😎

3 hours ago, SaltyDoggg said:

I also sailed in November. It’s interesting how everyone’s experiences and expectations can be different. I’m 58 years old and really come to expect quality food when I sail. I also come to expect a really good live, amplified band, but I found that that is not, something that everyone needs. I am also not a big fan of the production shows, preferred to be on the pool deck, listening to live music. 
 

in short, I feel there is no excuse for anything, but top quality food on a brand like Princess.  
 

curious if you’ve ever sailed Celebrity and are you an elite member on Princess?

We sailed on the Emerald Princess in November and loved every minute of it. We have previously sailed on The Royal, Sky, Caribbean, Crown and Discovery. Whilst the newer ships are all bells and whistles, we love the older more traditional ships, they have so much more character and a lot more spaces to find a seat!

The food quality has reduced, but we still found many dishes we really enjoyed. The crew on this ship was the best we have ever had. 
It’s a good job we all like different ships/ cruise lines.

We enjoyed our cruise on the Emerald so much that and booked two more cruises, we are so grateful to be cruising again. We all know nothing can be taken for granted anymore. 

Really enjoyed your report and pictures too. We sailed on the Emerald from New York to Fort Lauderdale. We loved every minute of the cruise. We think the Emerald is our favourite ship. The crew were amazing, we really enjoyed all our food.  The two comedians on our cruise were so funny, we could t stop laughing. I really enjoyed Gary’s volcanoes presentation, he was right about when the volcano in Iceland would blow….soon he said.  

Routing for you Tom, I’ve never been successful yet, I’m going to try again on my next cruise. Our problem was we had a Princess shuttle that was delayed. We are getting there under our own steam next time. 

The OBC promotion has finished and been replaced with free stateroom upgrade. I’ve been checking the prices of a few different cruises. All of them have increased with this new promotion.  For example yesterday, the price of the 16 day grand European Explorer for a balcony cabin for 2 people was £4046, plus £300 OBC. Today, it’s nearly £6000 with no OBC for exactly the same cabin. I wonder if the next promotion will be half price plus and premium packages, but Princess have already increased their base price, so it won’t be a good deal at all. 

Thank you for posting the menus, they look great 

We got one yesterday from Sept 2022 too

We phoned Princess who advised the flights would eventually show on our new booking. My husband emailed Princess, he received a very helpful reply, to advise they had now moved over our flight. We can see the flights now on our booking. 

52 minutes ago, AF-1 said:

 

sorry,  just saw your post;  and someone beat me to your question.  Yes it is Baked Alaska and yes Princess serves it every cruise.  I believe they serve it on last formal night.  Have fun;  we did

Do they just serve it in the formal dining rooms on the last formal night at a certain time?  I remember I have seen pictures a few years ago of a procession of waiters holding baked Alaska’s aloft 😎

49 minutes ago, AF-1 said:

Tony,  we were watching our carbs;  so the smaller piece was fine.  But your slice does look wonderful

Wow, I love baked Alaska 

We have booked a Caribbean Circle cruise for February next year, we can’t wait. Thank you for your review. Please could you tell me what the dessert is with meringue? 

Many thanks 😎

15 hours ago, sprint180 said:

Is there a reason you didn't ask questions?  We went in and talked to the lady as long as we wanted.  There were people waiting and she did seem to try to hurry us but I just sat there and asked away until I was satisfied.

It was a whirlwind, we were in and out of the office so quickly. Maybe we had a bad experience.

Thank you for all your replies, we are still looking at the cruisetours. They seem to be sold out very quickly.

We are thinking of going to Australia and New Zealand in the Autumn 2020, so looking out for the cruisetours to be released for that time.

in the meantime, lots of research.

safe travels everyone

On 1/27/2019 at 8:06 AM, Geoffa30 said:

We were booked on a Princess cruise-tour in March of this year. Having thought about it and read various comments, we decided against it in the end and are doing something independently instead. The Princess cruise-tour seems to pack too much into the six days with extremely early starts and lots of travel. Seemingly it is well organised but pretty full on. We also reconsidered based on cost. There is some information on the Australia New Zealand CC board if I remember. I also started a thread on the Princess board.

 

With regards flights, we booked these independently. We are flying Premium Economy with Cathay Pacific at £2,080 per person. Try as we might, we couldn’t stretch to around double that for Business. Having looked at Princess, the prices were significantly higher. The advantage of booking through Princess of course is not having to pay until nearer the time whereas we paid when we booked so almost a year in advance.

 

We fly to Sydney five weeks today. Cannot wait. Holiday of a lifetime. A very expensive holiday of a lifetime!

On 1/27/2019 at 3:39 AM, zalusky said:

We haven’t done the larger cruisetour stuff but we did do the overnight from Milford Sound to Dunedin with the overnight being in Queenstown.  Highly recommended.  We flew business class from SFO to Sydney via Auckland on Air New Zealand.   Really nice to have more privacy and all seats effectively being an aisle.  A number of the other business class setup are just larger traditional seats.  I would definitely check the aircraft no matter how you book.  We are using princess air for our New England cruisetour and have booked business class.  We got a pretty good deal and I continue to check prices.

 

i would like to do another down under trip in a couple but the budget is consumed for now.

On our second cruise, we queued up with so many other passengers to go into the Future cruise office, as we wanted to book a cruise to Alaska. We queued for 30 mins, we must have been in the office less than five mins. No time to ask any questions, a balcony cabin was booked and deposit paid and we were out the office before we knew it.

We found the whole process very stressful, no information given and not sure if we received any benefits for booking that way. 

Next time,  we will book in the comfort of our own home and not waste vacation time queuing. 

The best advice we received about future cruises was from the lovely passengers we met on the cruise.

Wow, that is a great deal 

Thanks for your reply.

We will check with Princess and their airfares.  We do like to book the flights independently, but if they are cheaper with Princess, we would book with them. 

A few years ago we were upgraded by the airline to business class, free of charge, they are not daft, we now always try and book business.

Enjoy Your New England cruisetour.

Safe travels

Thank you for your reply.

I agree the cruisetour does look extremely full on, but covers all the places we wanted to visit. We thought if we did the tour first, then have chance to relax a little on the cruise.  

We have tried putting this trip together ourselves and the price works out about the same. Normally we always book our holidays independently, but as you say, this will be a very expensive holiday of a lifetime. 

The premium economy price looks good, will have a look at that. 

Have a great time, safe travels 

On 1/23/2019 at 2:58 PM, jrobe said:

I am sure it is variable but the last time I tried to get the sanctuary for the week, I got to the terminal very early, waited quite awhile in the terminal for boarding to begin and was one of the first 8-10 people on the ship.  I then literally ran directly to the sanctuary before going to my room and it was already completely filled.  I suppose there were people doing back to back cruises that took may of the seats.  I wasted most of my morning getting to the terminal early and then making the whole process a big rush.  I have never done that again.

Exactly the same thing happened to me. As soon as we had boarded I ran to the Sanctuary, there was nothing left at all. I was very disappointed as I would have liked to have experienced this.  

We were on the Crown, south Caribbean route.  I did look at the Sanctuary a few times during the cruise and there were so many empty sun beds each time I looked, more than half empty, I felt really  upset as I really wanted to experience The Sanctuary, even if just for one afternoon,  but many of  the  beds had been booked by people not using them. 

Hi

We are looking to visit Australia for the first time, we usually visit the Caribbean and going to Alaska for the first time in September, can’t wait. 

My question is, are the cruisetours are good? We have been looking at the cruisetours, 6 day tours around Australia and 12 day cruise around New Zealand.  This works out about £5000 each without our flights from the UK.  This will be our one and only trip to Oz.  We have always booked our trans Atlantic flights ourselves separately from Princess, as we like to be independent. This time we are undecided whether to book our flights with Princess, as we would like to fly in Business Class as the flights are so long, or would we be better booking the flights ourselves. 

Has anyone had any experience with Cruisetours and or booking business class flights through Princess verses buying the flights independently.

Many thanks as always for any help 😎

Linda and Simon