calteacher

I'm a newbie to Princess. We've done many cruises on HAL and always found a DVD player attached to the TV in our cabins. Will we be able to bring DVDs from home to play on the TV in our cabin?

Thanks for your advice. My husband's sister lives in Rocklin--near Sacramento--and we plan to meet her for lunch that day. My DH has driven in San Fran a number of times, so he recognizes the challenges. Therefore, our main reason for renting a car is to meet his sister and we don't plan to drive around the city on a sight-seeing expedition.

Thanks so much.

I'm hoping someone can help me find where the Crown will dock in San Francisco on March 21 and the nearest location for renting a car.

Thanks.

Thanks for finding that. At least I know I'm not losing it all the time. However, when I tried this, I was told "impossible".

I know that you cannot share an "all you can drink" card, but can you share a coffee card where each drink results in a "punch" on a 15 drink card?

Sorry for asking. I just thought I had read a posting (within another thread) about contacting Inventory Control and getting an e-mail registered.

Yes, I am contacting my TA about the possibility of paying to upgrade, which I am sure is very expensive since current prices are for new bookings only.

I can't remember where I read about it (and couldn't find it in a search) but someone posted that it was possible to call customer service and ask to have e-mail addresses added to the list of e-mails going to passengers regarding upsales.

The person to whom I spoke was very polite and tried to be helpful. She "checked" with someone (it took her about 5 minutes to get back to me) and she said the we never do that. You can't be "added" to a list.

Can anyone tell me how they were able to get that accomplished?

Thanks.

Sorry to be ignorant but I'm new to Princess and what ship is the CB?

This is our first cruise on Princess after many on HAL. In the past, we have been able to pay to upgrade to a better category on HAL after final payment and as the day of sailing approaches when the prices drop. I was surprised to learn that the price drops on Princess are for "new bookings only" and you cannot even pay extra to upgrade to a better cabin.

Of course, every line has its own rules, but i was surprised at that. Even though I booked our cruise about 7 months ago, I've decided that if I cruise Princess in the future, my best bet is to wait until a week or so prior to when I want to cruise since the prices are so much better.

I may have just been fortunate on HAL, but they allowed cruisers to also benefit from reduced prices.

Just surprised, please don't flame me. This will be a new experience, but I'm planning to enjoy it as we will be celebrating our 49th anniversary.

Thanks. Not sure that I'm going to convince my DH that we need a break, but wanted to know my options in advance.

We are anticipating our first cruise on Princess in March. In addition, one of the four-day cruises looks very inviting since we needed to cancel a 2-week vacation in Hawaii due to my DH's health.

We have sent proof of stock ownership to Princess and proof of my husband's army service to Princess for the March cruise. If we take a four-day cruise in February, it will probably be a last-minute decision. I don't know if we will have time to get the info to them regarding the OBC we could get from Carnival and for my DH's military service.

Will Princess look at the paid-for cruise in March and transfer that information to another earlier cruise (if we decide to go?)

Thanks.

We have 180 cruise day credits with HAL and are looking forward to a Princess experience.

Thanks. I'm guessing that it will be quiet as opposed to being over Crooners.

goofed

I'm a newbie to Princess and thought I had booked the perfect "obstructed view" cabin (E416) which looked like it was almost unobstructed. Then, I read the posting which indicated that it was directly over a bar. Now I'm concerned. I notice that the cabin directly across still is available and the view looks acceptable. But, it is marked over the "Essence" area. Is that also a noisy area? Thanks.

I'm a newbie to Princess as have sailed often on HAL. Sorry to be ignorant. But what is MUTS?

Thanks.

Thanks for the response. Think I will go ahead and make our reservations today. Justaims29, I'll be waiting for your response when you return. Happy sailing.

We are considering Cabin 416 on the Crown which is directly outside the elevator. Should we be concerned about noise from people getting on and off the elevator? Are the doors pretty soundproof?

Thanks.

Thanks so much. The pictures were so valuable. Cabins 414 and 416 are right by the elevator. Does that create a problem? I may submit another thread just regarding elevator noise.

I'm a newbie to Princess having a number of cruises on HAL. We're considering a California coastal on the Crown. I'm considering an outside cabin with an obstructed view. When I look at the diagram on Princess, it seems that some of the "obstructed" cabins actually are between lifeboats. Is this accurate? For example, E414, E416, and E418 look as though there is some "daylight" between the boats.

Can anyone tell me if this is the case?

Thanks.

We are 3 star HAL Mariners and have enjoyed our cruises. From what I read on CruiseCritic, I'm sure we will also enjoy a cruise on Princess. We are considering a 7-day Pacific Coastal from Los Angeles next March. A co-worker told me that cabins are usually available for $500-600 each after final payment.

We have always been able to re-price our HAL cruises if the price drops. Sometimes we've just received a more expensive cabin, and sometimes we've actually received onboard credit for the difference.

Does Princess also honor reduced rates? We've always worked with a TA, but am wondering if it would be beneficial to work with a Princess consultant with regard to upgrades, etc. (Yes, I know upgrades are NOT guaranteed). It seems I do most of the work in planning, my TA just calls HAL but at this point I don't want to "drop her" for my HAL trips, but might want to try it without a TA for this Princess trip.

Hopefully I'm not asking a bunch of questions which have already been answered.

Thanks.

Yes, the Rotterdam does have a self-serve laundry. The laundry by the bag is $20 for all you can stuff into the bag. The unlimited is about $100 which we used and found it very convenient as we sent laundry out every second or third day which eliminated the number of clothes we brought. We traveled from the US to Amsterdam and were able to do it with just carry-on luggage--one roll aboard and one personal item.

One thing I forgot to mention is that when they replaced the "black out" shades, they must have used a less expensive material a they let in a significant amount of light. And since we are in the north and are enjoying the longest days of the year, we do have light in our room from 3-4 a.m. unless it is cloudy.

Will add more in a week or so when we get home.

We are in day 10 of a 14-day cruise. So far, nearly everything has been positive. The Rotterdam was in a two-week dry dock in Hamburg just about a month ago. All the carpet has been replaced. The decorative strips along the hallways have been replaced and the walls from waist level down have also been replaced.

The bathrooms are new. Only down side is the medicine cabinet has been replaced with two shelves which doesn’t allow for as much storage. The shelf under the sink now has a spot for a waste paper basket to be inserted so you lose about 12 inches of shelf space.

The beds are new. Our steward said they had to move about 2,000 beds and from the expression on his face it was quite a job. The bedding seems to be new as well as the towels. So the condition of the ship is great.

We were told that there are only 1,100 passengers instead of the 1,400 capacity. I was also told that 75% of the passengers are European, and most of them are Dutch. All announcements are made in English and then followed in Dutch. The menus are printed in both languages. A number of different newspapers are available—NY times, a London paper, an Australian paper, a Canadian paper, a Dutch paper, and a couple of other European papers.

The food is not as “first class” in selection, but is great in taste—but, of course that is personal taste. The portions are smaller which is OK by me. When I consider that the cost of this 2-week cruise compared to the first cruise we took in 1998, I’m OK with the changes. If I need to eat only the "best of the best", I can do that after the cruise. That cruise was a 7-day Alaska with an added 3 day land trip. I will need to check when I get home, but I think the cost for those 10 days in an M class cabin was nearly as much as we paid for an OV cabin for 14 days.

We have not gone to many of the shows. There was a Juggler show which, as my DH commented, “I’ve seen better juggling on the pier in San Francisco”. I left after about 15 minutes as there was little juggling involved. My DH and a DF stayed for the entire show, but said that after one “skit” about 1/3 of the audience got up and left.

The weather has been cool in all of the ports. It was definitely not what I expected from reading the 10-day forecasts prior to leaving. We had one day of a constant drizzle while in Tallinn.

The biggest downside is the Internet. (As I reported in an earlier post.) As we will be gone from home for nearly three weeks, it was important to us to be able to keep in contact with our children without them needing to spend a lot of money calling us. While I don’t think HAL was intentionally blocking Yahoo, the gal in the Explorations Café told us that whatever they did in “upgrading” their system definitely greatly diminished the ability to get a yahoo account to come up. Usually after watching the “circle” go around for five minutes without uploading the e-mail, we simply gave up and tried to use the free e-mail in port. Most of the cruise terminals did have some free e-mail. All you have to do is look to see where all the crew is sitting with their phones.

My thinking is that it would be responsible for HAL to simply indicate that you may have trouble with yahoo e-mail but just surfing the net is fine so that one knows prior to purchasing the package. Our DF who is traveling with us has a gmail account and has had no trouble downloading her e-mails.

The photographers are not pushy and simply walk away if you indicate that you do not want a photo.

All in all, it has been a great cruise. The ship, while old, has been greatly upgraded. Of course, the painted areas around doors, windows, etc. are chipped in places, but the parts that could be up-graded in the two-week dry dock has left her in great condition.

I'll try to answer questions (assuming I can get on-line). I'd cruise this ship again, just might change the e-mail address for friends while gone.

We are on an excursion in Stockholm and had no problem getting Yahoo at this restaurant. My dh finally opened a gmail account for our children to reach us. Just wanted to warn others to think before committing to spend $100 for internet use.