Live Cruise Reports

Live, well that's up to the ships internet and my patience. I tried to do a live on the Prima TA, even with the a brand new ship / hardware, the internet was garbage.
 
Still getting those latitudes minutes ( yes I booked this cruise that far back ) along with the promo there should be enough time to cover
 
Hopefully we won't make that wrong turn at Albuquerque.
 
And at the end will I be able to say " I love it when a plan comes together "

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Wow, dear co-travellers. Just wow. And we haven‘t even left the Chilean mainland yet. But let me start at the beginning.

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Day 1 - Departure:
We are doing our final prep before heading to the airport in a few hours but I wanted to start this thread while I still had access to a real keyboard.
 
We have a loooong day/night ahead of us flying from Southern California to Athens for the 4 day pre-cruise Classic Greece extension. It will be our first time in Greece and we are really excited to get the journey under way.

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January 12 - We’re still a few days away from our Antarctic adventure, but I decided since we were already in South America, I would start recording info about our adventures pre-cruise.  Originally, we had signed up for the Viking pre-excursion to Easter Island, but Viking canceled that back in September.  Since we had purchased our own air, we decided to keep our outbound trip to Santiago in place and do our pre-excursion on our own.  We flew down on Tuesday night.  The overnight flight on Latam was nice since were were in business class, but I’m not a fan of overnight flights, so I was still a bit groggy when we arrived after the 10 hour flight.  

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Welcome to my occasional musings and reports from the Island Princess.  We are onboard for a total of 111 days (!) and have been having a blast the last few days.  It is only the first week of 16 so we are certainly in the honeymoon phase.  If you have read any of my previous postings (link below) you know that are are a couple in our 60s retired in the Tampa, Florida area.  We are a go-with-the-flow type (mostly) and glass-half-full (always).  OK enough with the metaphors.  But I promise to tell the good and the bad about our travels.  We have been on many cruises, but this is by far the longest.

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I wanted to start this last night but sleep called and I answered. 
 
Because of a reversed vacation day approval at work, I was forced to fly into FLL the morning of embarkation.  Yes, I know it’s a bad idea, and luckily despite the storms in the southeast, I made it, along with my checked luggage, and was upgraded to 1st class.  We arrived around 8:15. 

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Welcome to 2023 from the beautiful Celebrity Reflection.  I will try to post as much as possible, but the internet has already proven to be less than reliable.  So, most of this ‘view’ will probably wait until after we return.
 
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Time to hit the road in about nine hours southbound on the 405/I-5 to San Diego where we will board Holland America Line's ms Koningsdam, the first of the tree Pinnacle-class ships for nine days worth of Mexico (Cabo San Lucas; Pichilinque/La Paz, Loreto, Puerto Vallarta & Mazatlan) incl. a New Years celebration at sea. Should be a good time! See ya there!

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Embarkation: we left from NYC, which we have many times. Small issue on arrival was that we were parking at Pier 90 but the boat was at Pier 88. There were no porters to get luggage. We had to walk it all the one block. A small hassle for us, but if you had mobility issues I could see this being a task. We did arrive very early as we did not hit any of the anticipated traffic so this could be our issue. Check in was extremely organized. 

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Welcome to our family holiday trip to NZ & Aus. We did the Viking extension is Auckland beforehand.

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First day was pretty good. Enjoyed the afternoon exploring the ship and drinking at the various bars. (Not a big deal but you are taxed for drinks when ship is at Port Canaveral. Saw some minor charges that made no sense. That was the explanation from the Haven concierge.) Indulge Food Hall was quite interesting and very crowded even at 4:00. Loved the muster procedures-video at check in and simply report to your muster station to be checked off. You also have to watch a 15 minute video at some point in your cabin in order to be able to use your tv. 

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Background: couple in early 50s. Have cruised NCL, RCCL, DCL maybe about 15 cruises. None since mid-2017. We prefer land All Inclusives ( big Sandals junkies) but the food/drinks looked great on VV and the no kids convinced my husband to try it (cruises aren’t his favorite but he wanted to go on this one). 

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Since this system is new to me and it's my first purchase of the Premier Package, I thought I'd start a little "live" report of what we're winning. 
 
A few basics I've learned thus far:
-game only works when the casino is open
-if you have an underage passenger, their medallion won't activate the game upon entering
-game resets after a few minutes
-you need to look on the app to see what you've won (door simply displays "congrats!" or "better luck next time"
 
 
Day 1 (embarkation): won two entries into the end-of-the-cruise raffle
Day 2 (at sea): won several entries into the EOTC raffle and $25 onboard credit
Day 3 (at sea): won another entry into the EOTC raffle and another $25 onboard credit
Day 4 (Loreto): docked all day thus far, but will update if we win anything tonight:-) 

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Hey everyone! I'm super excited to be going on my first Cruise in move than four years. I really enjoy doing live threads and am going to try to keep up with this this week. If anyone has questions, let me know, I'll try to answer them.

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This begins the latest live thread for my 7-Day New Years cruise aboard the Ms Rotterdam.  Feel free to post questions and I will do my best to locate answers that will help with future-cruise planning.  

Embarkation Day began under blue skies, warm sun that erased a recent Florida chill, and temps in the high 70's.  I arrived at the port at my appointed Group B time of 11:20 and was on board the ship with the first boarding group of Neptune Suites and 5* Mariners. 

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Hello Princess Cruise Critiquers,
 
After defecting last spring to *gasp* Carnival (spoiler alert: it was a blast) I’m back to enjoy my (lol) RUBY status on Princess.  Yes, I know that doesn’t get me anything except a red Medallion.  Of course, red is my least favorite color.  I should only be stuck with it once!

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Here we are again for one last cruise enjoying Ponant’s advantageous child pricing (for our seventeen-year-old). This time, we’re on Le Paul Gauguin, with basically the only itinerary Ponant offered this year that worked with our Christmas Break schedule. Ten days to the Cook Islands and the Society Islands (Bora Bora, Huahine & Moorea), with two days at sea. Gauguin is apparently polarizing — we’ve heard from many people who love it and some who — I wouldn’t say hate — but won’t go again. I guess we’ll find out where we stand.

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We're doing Auckland to Sydney but I understand Westerdam is continuing on to Singapore from Sydney.

Originally we were supposed to go to Kaikoura but that changed to Picton a couple of weeks ago. I'm not happy! I was hoping to indulge in some of the best crayfish in NZ!

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Looking out the 9th floor window from the Hotel Indigo Garden District, I can't see our ship - but Cruise Mapper says there is one. We are facing away from downtown. This blog would not start until we were actually here.  
 
We have been driving but it was a long trip and hotel expenses did add up.  So back to the air.  One rule - write this down - two days ahead is safe in 2022.  

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We are excited to board the Odyssey of the Seas this Saturday as part of a B2B (or side to side), with the second leg being the Celebrity Beyond Dec 11-18.
 
This will be our 4th Royal sailing, and have also sailed Celebrity, Norwegian, and Disney.  My last review of the Symphony of the Seas was mostly post-cruise.  This one will be more live with daily reviews and updates.  

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We boarded QV, on a very cold and murky day, and really hoping to find some warmth.
A brief enlightenment about the checking in. QG started boarding at 12.40 and the terminal was quite full. The boarding papers just say “priority”, no mention of Grills cabins, so when the first group were called, some just joined. I saw the couple behind us had a time of 14.00 on the papers they were holding. This is something Cunard perhaps need to address: this would not happen on airlines where premium pax have to queue behind others, and would not be accepted.

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We had received an email on 7th December advising us that boarding next day would be delayed by 3 hours so told everybody to arrive at OPT 3 hours later than designated boarding time.  Our original time was noon so decided to get there at 2pm incase boarding started early.  Wise decision as I think boarding had just opened as we rocked up.  Went straight through and was on board by 2.30.  No dramas whatsoever. 

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Join The Bird for another cruise on NCL’s newest and first-in-class Norwegian Prima. This time, The Bird is on a 7-night cruise to the Western Caribbean out of Miami. The Norwegian Prima is the first of six Prima Class ships delivering from 2022 to 2027. The Fincantieri shipyard, near Venice, Italy, began construction of the Prima on December 9, 2019. NCL took delivery of this next-generation ship on July 29, 2022 and godmother Katy Perry christened the ship on August 27, 2022 in Reykjavík, Iceland. 

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That title ought to bring out some folks who just adore me!🥰
 
Our trip is upcoming at 3:30AM when our friends have a limo service picking us up at that happy time in the morning.  😂. Our first flight to Charlotte departs at 5:25AM, we have a couple of hours to kill in the Amex Centurion Lounge at Charlotte.  Our next flight gets us into FLL at about 12:30PM.  We are traveling with friends for the first time since pre-covid.  One couple has travelled with us a lot over the last 30 years.  They are 8 and 14 years older than us… so who knows how much longer.  The other joining us is a nurse who works with my wife, and this is her third cruise with us.  So, she will be turning Platinum after this cruise.  🤪

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So I see there is already another “live” thread, so I will cut back some.  Come  join us as we take our 92 year old neighbor Sam on his 4th Carnival Cruise.  

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