Emerald British Isles

[ihopfar]

Now that there have been a few British Isles cruises on the Emerald this season, I have a few questions as I prepare for our cruise later this summer.  (Ok, maybe more than a few!)

 

• How was your DMW experience?  Did you have same table /staff every night if you wanted?  If so, which dining room did you eat in?
• Anybody book transfers back to LHR on board?  Hoping to use OBC for this.   Any issues being able to do this?  Are there options of times?  How late of a bus did you take?
• Heard on another thread that Princess warns of delays when tendering.  Was tendering well organized in the tender ports?   Where there long waits?  If so, what time?
• Anyone stay starboard side of the Aloha deck?   I know port side is being used for quarantine cabins, but not sure if starboard side as well.  If they needed to move your cabin because it was in the quarantine zone, how far in advance did they let you know and where did you get moved to?
• Anyone have copies of the menus or dailies, by any chance?

 

Thanks!

Brad

[Fisherwoman]

I didn't do the cruise on the Emerald but did it before COVID.   We booked the transfer from the ship to Windsor Castle and then on to Heathrow.  Two people we were with booked Stonehedge and then Heathrow on the ship.  If you have a late flight, it's well worth it.  Better than sitting at Heathrow for hours!

[majortom10]

1 hour ago, ihopfar said:

Now that there have been a few British Isles cruises on the Emerald this season, I have a few questions as I prepare for our cruise later this summer.  (Ok, maybe more than a few!)

 

• How was your DMW experience?  Did you have same table /staff every night if you wanted?  If so, which dining room did you eat in?
• Anybody book transfers back to LHR on board?  Hoping to use OBC for this.   Any issues being able to do this?  Are there options of times?  How late of a bus did you take?
• Heard on another thread that Princess warns of delays when tendering.  Was tendering well organized in the tender ports?   Where there long waits?  If so, what time?
• Anyone stay starboard side of the Aloha deck?   I know port side is being used for quarantine cabins, but not sure if starboard side as well.  If they needed to move your cabin because it was in the quarantine zone, how far in advance did they let you know and where did you get moved to?
• Anyone have copies of the menus or dailies, by any chance?

 

Thanks!

Brad

We did 2nd June to 14th June on Emerald and have the following observations-                                                 

DMW - we booked Crown Grill on day of embarkation for 5 days later all confirmed, went to Crown Grill at our booked time and restaurant was closed. Went to reception and they said all those who had booked had been told it was closed. I said obviously not we werent told and she said after booking on DMW we should have gone to Crown Grill to confirm booking as there is a glitch and not all bookings go through. I asked what is point of DMW and got no answer. All our restaurant reservations we made on Medallion App prior to cruise were wiped off by Princess upgrade prior to cruise. Went to see Maitre'd at Da Vinci and he said dont worry all reservations in place. First 2 nights massive queues with 30 minute wait went to see Maitre'd if it was going to be like this every night and what was point of making reservations on All. She looked on computer and said we were VIPs as on this cruise done 500 days with Princess so she said I would have "special table" for every night and no need to wait just walk straight in. Dont know if anyone can book same table with same waiters as the "norm".

 

Tenders- we were Elite so didnt have to wait as went to separate area and were virtually sent to tenders with very little wait. There was complaints by others who had to collect a ticket and wait for announcement of severe delays getting a tender. Tenders were also filed to their full capacity of 90 with no mask wearing. 

[geoherb]

When we went on the Caribbean Princess several years ago, tendering was not too big a deal. It helped that we had priority tendering. The worst place was Guernsey. I heard several people who waited more than 2 hours to catch a tender back to the ship. Fortunately, we left the island before there was much of a wait. The only other place we tendered was in South Queensferry for Edinburgh. 

[majortom10]

We did 4 tender ports on our cruise last week and there complaints at tender waits at every port to get off the ship and their were long queues to get back onto the ship in Guernsey, Kirkwall and South Queensferry.

[SomewhereGirl]

Do they make shipwide announcements for the tender groups or does everyone (not elite or excursions) just crowd around the exit waiting for some to shout out the groups?  I've only tendered once on Princess and that was a ship excursion so I wasn't paying attention.

[majortom10]

9 minutes ago, SomewhereGirl said:

Do they make shipwide announcements for the tender groups or does everyone (not elite or excursions) just crowd around the exit waiting for some to shout out the groups?  I've only tendered once on Princess and that was a ship excursion so I wasn't paying attention.

Last week they handed out coloured tickets with animals on and you waited anywhere on the ship and then they made ship wide announcements and when your colour and animal was called out you made your way to the tender.

[leck57]

3 hours ago, ihopfar said:

Now that there have been a few British Isles cruises on the Emerald this season, I have a few questions as I prepare for our cruise later this summer.  (Ok, maybe more than a few!)

 

• How was your DMW experience?  Did you have same table /staff every night if you wanted?  If so, which dining room did you eat in?
• Anybody book transfers back to LHR on board?  Hoping to use OBC for this.   Any issues being able to do this?  Are there options of times?  How late of a bus did you take?
• Heard on another thread that Princess warns of delays when tendering.  Was tendering well organized in the tender ports?   Where there long waits?  If so, what time?
• Anyone stay starboard side of the Aloha deck?   I know port side is being used for quarantine cabins, but not sure if starboard side as well.  If they needed to move your cabin because it was in the quarantine zone, how far in advance did they let you know and where did you get moved to?
• Anyone have copies of the menus or dailies, by any chance?

 

Thanks!

Brad

 

Hi Brad,

We did the UK cruise in mid May on Emerald, and had a great cruise.

We ate most nights in the Botticelli DR and had the same wait staff. Friends of ours had booked but I'm not sure whether they used DMW or called Princess to arrange. The wait staff we had were outstanding and meals good, especially the lobster.

Had no trouble with tenders, although two of the three tender ports we had Princess excursions so they get priority. The other port no issue and the process was as per majortom explained above. 

When we were on board only starboard of Aloha was used for quarantine. 

Not sure re transfers but I think you can book these now on the Personaliser and use your OBC. Might be risky waiting until you are on board.

I will try and find a Patter and post but generally I don't keep them. I would refer to the thread about the Emerald cruise from 9 May on here written by @ROWSEwhich will give you a comprehensive summary of this cruise. Plenty of meal photos are included. 

[SomewhereGirl]

3 hours ago, majortom10 said:

Last week they handed out coloured tickets with animals on and you waited anywhere on the ship and then they made ship wide announcements and when your colour and animal was called out you made your way to the tender.

Where and when would they hand out the tender tickets for South Queensferry, for example, with a 7AM arrival?

[leck57]

1 hour ago, SomewhereGirl said:

Where and when would they hand out the tender tickets for South Queensferry, for example, with a 7AM arrival?

They announce on board shortly after mooring when tender tickets will be available and where from but I also recall it listed in the Patter which you get the night before.

[nini]

10 hours ago, ihopfar said:

Now that there have been a few British Isles cruises on the Emerald this season, I have a few questions as I prepare for our cruise later this summer.  (Ok, maybe more than a few!)

 

• How was your DMW experience?  Did you have same table /staff every night if you wanted?  If so, which dining room did you eat in? We ate whenever and wherever felt like. A few times we joined friends in a dining room. sometimes we ate in the buffet. We ate twice at The Crown Grill which was very good.
• Anybody book transfers back to LHR on board?  Hoping to use OBC for this.   Any issues being able to do this?  Are there options of times?  How late of a bus did you take? We used the transfer from Victoria Station to the ship. We had to pay for it up front. OBC could not be used because we "were not yet on the ship". A can took us from our hotel to Victoria Station.
• Heard on another thread that Princess warns of delays when tendering.  Was tendering well organized in the tender ports?   Where there long waits?  If so, what time? We did not really have any tender issues. They were timely and went quite smoothly.
• Anyone stay starboard side of the Aloha deck?   I know port side is being used for quarantine cabins, but not sure if starboard side as well.  If they needed to move your cabin because it was in the quarantine zone, how far in advance did they let you know and where did you get moved to? No experience with this.
• Anyone have copies of the menus or dailies, by any chance? We do not keep these. Besides, they can change.

 

Thanks!

Brad

We were on the May 9-21 cruise. My answers are in purple above after your questions.

[caribill]

6 hours ago, leck57 said:

 

 

Not sure re transfers but I think you can book these now on the Personaliser and use your OBC.

 

If booked in advanced, must be paid for in advance and OBC cannot be used in advance for this.

[insidecabin]

Tender port today on Emerald.

 

Cleared just after 7 am.

Tickets from crooners.

 

No waiting for the first few tenders first call was ~7:15

 

Once the 6 have left, wait for the first to return.

 

Now 9am and the time between calls has got longer tours will be using them.

 

First tender port some end up waiting as they miss there call.

 

Dining, we just turn up close to 8pm short/no line

[SomewhereGirl]

Thank you for this valuable intel.  It's good to know early wasn't quite so bad.  Is today Dublin?  I was looking at the ship excursions at South Queensferry for my sailing and it does look like the ship excursions don't start until 8AM and then really pick up around 9AM so I guess with non-ship excursions it's best to get on those earliest tenders.  

Please update how it goes at South Queensferry if you can.  Thank you!

[leck57]

5 hours ago, caribill said:

 

If booked in advanced, must be paid for in advance and OBC cannot be used in advance for this.

 

I thought OBC could be used for Princess excursions. I am referring to the excursions that are listed on the Personalizer for each port, and often include a bit of sight seeing on the way back to the airport. 

Apologies if we are referring to different types of transfers.

[mvaldes140]

If the OBC is already shown on the reservation under the payments area, it can be used for things in the personalizer. I just used it to book an excursion in Norway and Alaska. If it doesn't cover all of it, then you need to pay the rest of course, but it will apply

[junglejane]

Regarding the question of using OBC for the airport transfer, I think the answer may depend on whether it is a simple "ship to airport" transfer versus the ones that include a sightseeing excursion such as Stonehenge or Windsor Castle on the way to LHR or LGW.  When I look on my personalizer at the shore excursions from Southampton, the only ones that are listed are the latter kind. So if you book the sightseeing transfer, you can do it on the personalizer and use OBC. But if you book a simple "ship to airport" transfer, I don't think you can do those on the personalizer. We have a 2:40 pm flight and would've liked to go to Windsor Castle but realized we didn't have enough time. So we added the regular airport transfer through our TA. I don't know what happens if you wait until you're onboard to book that kind of transfer. We paid $59 pp.

[insidecabin]

We ended up getting in line around 12:30 they had finished tickets by then.

 

There was a wait for the tender to arrive and unload

The tender out was just a few pax and crew probably about 25(7 in our half)

There were 50 in line to come back

 

Sitting in the Forty Foot pub overlooking the harbour no sign of a line forming yet now 15:20.

We are planning 1 more drink and hope it stays like that for another 40mins, probably timed it for a tour bus returning.

You can see the princess  blue canopies, one tender just came in and one left, it's not that warm and people on the top deck.

 

[ihopfar]

Thank you all for your input!  Please keep it coming!

 

To clarify, for our own reasons we are not interested in a transfer to the airport that includes sightseeing along the way.  We would like the direct transfer to LHR.   I am hoping to wait on board to book this so we can use OBC from our travel agent.  I am assuming (but do not know for sure) that this OBC will be refundable.  However, I would prefer not to have to pay upfront and then wait for Princess to send me a check after the cruise.   But, if folks report issues booking this transfer on board - or only poor choice of times for the transfer  - I will probably change my mind.

 

Curious to hear from more people who took the transfer (even if they booked in advance):  What time were you assigned for your transfer?  What time did you get to LHR?

 

Also, with whole swath of cabins being reserved for Quarantine, I am surprised no one has talked about their experience on the Emerald of being reassigned to a different cabin.

 

Thanks!

Brad

[insidecabin]

Little update.

We could see a line forming not long after that last post.

The walk from the pub to the terminal is under 10min.

By the time we got there the line was out to the carpark.

It moved quick as each tender boarded, space for 2. On tender 20mins

Total time pub to ship 1hr then add 10mins to unload tender and get through security.

 

[caribill]

2 hours ago, ihopfar said:

 

We would like the direct transfer to LHR.   I am hoping to wait on board to book this so we can use OBC from our travel agent.  I am assuming (but do not know for sure) that this OBC will be refundable.  ...   But, if folks report issues booking this transfer on board - or only poor choice of times for the transfer  - I will probably change my mind.

 

 

 

Booking on board should not be a problem based on past experience. Just do it early in the cruise.

 

When you book the transfer (in advance or on board) you are not offered a choice of times. You give your flight information and then Princess will assign you to an appropriate time.

 

Often OBC from a TA is not refundable because it may actually come from Princess via the TA. You should be able to go into your booking online and look at the OBC that has been posted for your cruise. It will indicate which OBC is refundable and which is not.

[nini]

We were able to use OBC to book and pay for shore excursions, long before boarding.

However, we had to pay up front with our credit card to book the transfer from Victoria Station to the ship.

I can see how you might be able to use OBC for a transfer that includes seeing a sight. The best way to know is to call Princess directly which we did regarding our shore excursion using OBC. If you have a TA, you can still call directly.

 

Also, a few days ago, I booked a shore excursion online with our Princess account and we had some OBC which was automatically deducted and used to pay for the shore excursion. It was automatic so you might try that.

[junglejane]

7 minutes ago, nini said:

Also, a few days ago, I booked a shore excursion online with our Princess account and we had some OBC which was automatically deducted and used to pay for the shore excursion. It was automatic so you might try that.

There's no place online to book the Princess "ship direct to airport" transfer. 

[dreaminofcruisin]

14 minutes ago, junglejane said:

There's no place online to book the Princess "ship direct to airport" transfer. 

 

That is true if you are using a TA.

If you aren't using a TA, the option is available.

[nini]

17 minutes ago, junglejane said:

There's no place online to book the Princess "ship direct to airport" transfer. 

 

That is NOT what I said. I said that I booked a SHORE EXCURSION, not a transfer!

 

However, I did suggest that IF some sightseeing was involved in a transfer, that maybe a phone call may clarify the question. There are transfers that include Stonehenge, etc.