pompeii

I agree 100% with keeping an eye on your bookings. A few months ago, with no notification or reason whatsoever, Princess removed my fcd's from my two upcoming bookings and then tried to reapply them. But they reapplied them backwards and put the fcd with the oldest date on the booking I made the most recently, which would have been fine except then I had only recently-purchased fcd's to put on my older booking. And the rule is that the purchase of the deposit has to predate the booking. So I also lost my $150 obc for that cruise. I didn't notice it for about a month because 1) I was on the other cruise in S. America and Antarctica, and 2) I knew I hadn't made any changes and so wasn't checking my obc or deposits to see if they changed. When I saw it after I returned from the Antarctica cruise, I contacted my pvp who said there was nothing she could do because the oldest deposit had already been "used" on the cruise I just got back from and they couldn't backdate the other deposit. She said to contact customer service and ask if they could possibly do something for me as a courtesy. I was able to find out the date they took the deposits off, but she would not say who did it or the reason why. The funny thing is that they did not touch my husband's deposits, only mine. I had to push quite a bit and insist that she contact customer service herself without me wasting my time going back and forth begging them for a "courtesy". After all, this was not my mistake or my doing. I got an email from her a few days later saying she had reached out on my behalf, and then a month or so later they reinstated my deposit and $150 obc. So yes, keep an eye on your bookings because Princess can do some strange things.

It shows as refundable on your account on the Princess website? My husband also gets military obc and his is clearly marked nonrefundable for both of our upcoming cruises. IIRC, it changed from refundable to nonrefundable last fall. It also states this in the FAQ about the military benefit. But to answer your original question, in our experience, nonrefundable is used first.

Check out Trip Advisor. Search your port and then things to do, then under experiences there should be tabs for day trips, walking tours, shore excursions, private tours, etc. You can also read the ports of call section here on cruise critic for your specific ports. You should find threads with independent tour suggestions there as well.

International Friends offers this as well and the drop off at LHR is 1:30-2:00pm. We did their Stonehenge, Salisbury, and Windsor tour a few years ago but got dropped off at our London hotel since we were staying for a few days. Everything went off without a hitch and we enjoyed the tour. We're using them again in August from Southampton to London via the Cotswolds and flying out the next morning. Southampton to London & Heathrow via Stonehenge | International Friends

If you are Platinum or Elite and the app doesn't show the 50% discount up front, then your app has your loyalty level wrong. You need to contact the IT department to have them fix it. It is not a requirement that you pay full price before boarding and wait for the discount in obc once on board. It should look like this:

I have a little nightlight that I plug into the bathroom outlet. Gives off enough light to be safe without being blinded.

We always put blue painters tape over ours, but if it's driving you crazy and you find yourself without any tape, someone mentioned that their steward took a little wad of tissue paper and dampened it with water, then stuck it over the sensor.

We're doing the same s2s in July out of Southampton as Mike above. However, we had no problem booking dining reservations on the app for each leg. On turnaround day, our dining reservations change from 6pm in the Provence dining room for the first 21 days to 5:40 in the Concerto for the remainder.

I'm glad it's on the Royal now. We were on her from September - November last fall (2023) and they still had the old coffee and coffee machines in the buffet. And they were broken most of the time. We went through a lot of Starbucks Via!

My husband and I will be disembarking from the Island Princess on July 26 at Southampton's Mayflower terminal and boarding the Regal that same day at the Ocean terminal. How easy is it to get from one terminal to the other? I assume walking won't be possible and I don't count on the cruise line to offer any type of assistance or transfer, so will a cab driver be willing to take us that short distance from one terminal to the other? Obviously, we'll have our luggage. Or is there some type of port transportation between terminals?

We got free tokens no problem from guest services on the Sapphire last month for when we wanted to do a load or two ourselves. Elite laundry service was also pretty quick, next day or 2 days max.

What I don't like is that it's not just the number of people signed up, it's that they don't know if they'll have a guide. So there can be plenty of people interested but they'll still not run the tour, or they'll cancel it. Just seems kind of iffy and unreliable to me.

Here's another option for you. I have never used this operator and cannot vouch for them, but I am considering it for our date in August. Normandy D-Day Beaches Shore Excursion from Le Havre Cruise Port (vexperio.com)

Regarding Overlord, I'm trying to book it from Le Havre for our stop on the Regal Princess in August, but they won't commit to running the tour. The email communication I've received is vague and says "I have added you to the wait list and we will let you know if we can open the tour. Again: We open group tours depending on demand. Please note this offers no guarantees and is demand dependent. We need a minimum of 8 people to open the tour but it also depends on how many and which guides we have available as to whether we can open the tour." For those who have used Overlord, did you run into this? I know from our roll call that at least one other couple is on their waitlist. It makes it very hard to plan if they don't even know if they'll have a guide for Normandy that day. It seems very odd to me for a tour operator that specializes in Normandy tours.

Yes, there have been numerous reports of these calls. Enough so that when we got one, I interrupted right off the bat by saying if he was calling about the $7000 package, we weren’t interested. He said thanks and hung up. It’s a legit call but nothing we’d buy.