Diamond Princess--Feb. 1, 2006-Sydney to Auckland

[emeyers]

Has anyone signed onto this cruise as yet? I feel pretty lonely as I posted in Roll Call but have received no response.

On our February 2004 cruise on the Celebrity Infinity around Cape Horn we had a very active Roll Call group with almost 100 cruise critic members attending the shipboard special party held on our behalf.

 

Ellis Meyers

[Cal Cruiser]

We are taking the Feb 1 2006 cruise. We made the reservations long ago. But it is nice to know someone else is going. I thought we would have the Diamond all to ourselves. Is this your first cruise?

[Cal Cruiser]

I wrote my E-mail before I read your E-mail. I see you have cruised before.

This will be our 9th cruise. Our last cruise was also with Celebrity.

[emeyers]

Hi Cal Cruiser:

 

This will be our 11th cruise with Princess, but 25th overall. I've been posting on the Roll Call message board on the Diamond Princess 2/25/06 cruise as you are the first person I've heard from who will be on our 2/1/06 cruise.

I assume you live in California. We live in west central Florida so this will be quite a long plane trip for us. That's the first element I will be looking into. From looking at the messages from those who have taken, or are taking the same cruise, on the Princess Sapphire this year, it looks as though Princess will use United Airlines for our trips to and from our cruise ports.

We have booked in category BB--Cabin 501 on the Aloha Deck. We booked the same day the cruise appeared on their website.

We also have booked the 3 night Blue Mountain package at the Four Seasons Hotel in Sydney, and 1 night at the Carlton Hotel in Auckland, N.Z, as we want a tour of that city. The first flight back to the U.S. is not until 7:30 pm. so we may cancel that if we get a tour from Princess which ends at the airport.

The messages from those who are on the same cruise this year indicate that the documents are not received until 4-6 weeks prior to the trip. Last year we sailed on the Celebrity Infinity from Santiago, Chile around the Horn to Buenos Aires. Although we booked the first day the cruise was offered, because the manifest was not sent to American Airlines until a month before leaving, we were assigned seats in the 5 abreast middle which were very uncomfortable. We want to avoid this problem.

Both my brothers live in Southern California. We will be flying to Palm Springs this April to meet them and then drive to Los Angeles to meet other members of the family. Having lived in Philadelphia, Chicago, and New York, we wanted to get away from the urban problems and hence we settled in west central Florida away from the hustle and bustle, but even our area has quadrupled in the past decade.

 

Ellis

[Cal Cruiser]

My wife and I are also going in early (Only 2 days) and we are staying at the 4 Seasons. We are staying at the Sheraton in Auckland. (2 days) I looked at the Princess cruise books and my wife and I picked a room on the Baja deck. My T/A said we could get a better deal on your deck but my wife liked this room best. The couple we sail with would not go on this cruise, she said the flight was to long.

They also live in Florida, Orlando. If you want to E-mail us this is our E-mail address utahplace@aol.com. Hope to here from you.

 

Ralph