PR-Texas

Would be great if our cruisetour went down but right now an Inside stateroom costs more than the Balcony we booked. I did save $450 by refaring the airfare with EZair several weeks ago so at least I'm ahead of when I originally booked.

I'm taking single serve packages of snacks. So they will be unopened until we eat them. I'll take an opened bag of my favorite trail mix on the plane from DFW to SYD but what I don't eat will probably end up in the trash. I definitely won't try to sneak anything in.

We will have to check that also. Our excursions are in NZ and my understanding is the only beverage you can bring off the ship is commercially bottled water. Hopefully they will allow our prepackaged peanuts, trail mix, etc.

Since you need the head of the bed elevated for health reasons, the inflatable wedge looks to me like the way to go. Reasonable price and it can be used for future trips without worrying whether the room steward can help. If you also purchase the mini pump which is smaller than a soda can you'd be set. Seems a cheap price to pay for guaranteed comfort.

I hate to see food go to waste. If I don't eat it, it goes in the trash. I remember reading somewhere that someone wished they could share so they could stretch their included casual meals to 4 visits instead of just 2, which would be nice on a 14 day cruise.

I doubt it but we would really like that. We often buy one dinner and share it when dining out... or order off the kids menu if allowed. Our last cruise was Disney with traditional type dining so the same waiters throughout the cruise. I told the waiters the first night that I wouldn't be "cleaning my plate". Has nothing to do with the quality of the food, just the quantity.

That's me. The only way I'll be up that early is if I need to be up and eat early to get to an excursion. Oh well, I can sleep in on sea days.

I understand that this change will cause problems for some folks but my guess is that fewer than 1% of cruisers are interested in coming in either more than 5 days ahead or staying more than 5 days after. Possibly a larger percentage for those flying halfway round the world for their trip. The change was probably implemented to simplify the booking process.

My take is that you do your research and go with what works best for you. And on the BOGO, there's a possibility that the prices will go back down. Definitely worth watching especially if your cruise is in 2025 or 2026. See my post #20. Since I've been monitoring they've gone up and down and up.

Unfortunately for our New Zealand cruise the independent operators that I've found might save us $30-$50 per excursion. Since several excursions go a fair distance from the port and one is in a tendering port we've chosen to stick with Princess excursions. Also when I compared the descriptions and reviews of the non-Princess excursions I couldn't find a compelling reason to choose them. Guess we'll find out if we made the right decision in November.

My understanding was that the excursion could have any number of folks but "20" was the number of seats left. Our "can't miss" excursion has fluctuated between 1 and 4 seats left since we booked a month ago. It will be interesting to see what the numbers do as we get closer to final payment date on August 12. Doesn't really matter one way or the other to me. Pricing has played the roller coaster game going up and down. I'm expecting it to get higher as we get closer to actual sail date.

I was watching the excursions on our Australia New Zealand cruisetour in Nov to be sure I booked them before they sold out. I'm a bit of a spreadsheet nerd so I had the prices of the ones we wanted listed. We booked 3 when they dropped below 20 tickets left. Then I saw the prices of the other 3 go up so booked immediately before they went up more. Out of curiosity I kept watching them and they went back down. Immediately cancelled and rebooked and received a refund several days later. Sometimes it pays to be nerdy.

Can't speak to now but I booked in January with a CVP and got a free upgrade from a BF to a BB midship. I don't remember what the pricing was then so can't say whether I actually saved any money.

You can search others on Amazon also. The ones I found state which cruise lines they work for. That lets you choose the style and budget that works best for you.

Congrats on the health and enjoy the cruise. If she picked the cruise and probably the activities in each port she knows what she can do. The best thing to bring is a sense of humor. Guaranteed that something will go wrong but probably something minor that you will laugh about years from now as you remember the wonderful time you spent with your family.