missnd

In December 2022 I took a Lyft from San Pedro to an LAX airport hotel at 10:06am on a Friday morning for $61.24 (including tip) and that was with the Wait and Save rate. The app doesn't show how long I waited, and I don't remember. I thought it would be easier and possibly cheaper to get a ride if I waited until as late as possible to leave the ship, assuming there would be lots of cars in the area as people were getting dropped off at the same time people were being picked up. I was wrong. Surge rates were in effect and there were long waits. I had been watching the rates, and they just kept going up throughout the morning. If I had to do it again, I'd try to get off the ship and get a ride earlier.

I just saw that. So weird!

Right. Like I said, the last time they had them at that price was last Friday. Recently, it seems to be once or twice a month for a limited time - like 24 hours or less - and I believe there is a limited amount they sell at that discounted price as well as a limit per purchase (I think 4 or 5).

As recently as last Friday (9/27) Newegg had Princess $500 gift cards for $460. They don't offer them at that price all the time, and when or whether they will again is to be seen.

The contract for my cruise out of Japan in June 2025 includes the language about vaping being allowed in guest staterooms.

I suppose that's another possibility, but I would be very surprised if that's the case in this instance. This is a 16 night cruise, that doesn't seem to be anywhere close to sold out at this point. As I look at booking Specialty Dining, even with the limited choices on Coral, there is a ton of availability. I can have my choice of reservation times even on New Year's Eve, Christmas Eve, and Christmas Day.

I'm sailing on Coral out of Los Angeles in December, and I've been wondering why under Packages, I only see Plus as an option. Is it because this cruise is out of California? Because the new Premier hasn't officially started on Coral yet? Some other reason?

I just called to have the remainder of a gift card applied to my booking as onboard credit. I thought I'd share my experience in case others might benefit or learn something from it. I first tried to see if I could purchase the OBC through chat, but since they can't take payment over chat, I had to call the 800 number. The phone line said about a 15 minute wait, so I chose the option to have them call me back - which they did in almost exactly 15 minutes. As I've experienced in the past, the person I spoke with had to put me on hold 3 times, which was annoying, but within 15 minutes total, I had the OBC added to my account. She initially told me that I wouldn't be able to use it until I was on the ship, but as we confirmed in my personalizer, it did show I could use it to pre-book excursions, etc. The other catch I found was that I had a gift card with $211 remaining on it after making my final payment because the system would not allow me to pay anything over the amount due. My options for purchasing OBC was $25, $50, or $100, so I opted to just purchase 2X$100 and I will save the $11 to apply as payment for a future booking. I believe I could also just call in to directly purchase my excursions, etc. with the gift cards, but I wanted to see how it would work with purchasing OBC first.

I had maybe half an inch of water in my clear, refillable water bottle - really just the amount that the straw couldn't reach - and they made me dump it at Port of LA. I didn't care about dumping it other than it seemed like a hold up and waste of time for less than an ounce of water.

Please update if this works for you when you make your final payment. I had hoped it would work that way for me, but it would not take my payment when I tried to do the full $500 on the gift card. Once I adjusted to the remaining balance $289, it allowed it to go through. The remaining $211 is still on my gift card.

The first time I ordered, it took a few hours. I went to bed and woke up the next morning and they were there. They came through around 1am. The second time, they were delivered much more quickly. I don't remember the exact details, but I would say within an hour.

I booked my cruise myself on Princess.com and was easily able to use gift cards to pay my balance on my cruise. I had to enter each gift card one at a time ($500 at a time), but it was easy. I'm not sure if you can easily pay your deposit with a gift card online. I am planning to purchase some more for excursions and other expenses. My understanding is that I cannot use them directly on the website as I did for my payments. I believe I can call in and use them to purchase OBC and then use the OBC to pay for excursions, etc. I'm planning to give that a try here in the next couple of weeks and hope it isn't too painful. After a couple of horrible experiences, I'm hesitant to call the 800 number. Hoping maybe I can use the gift cards to purchase OBC through chat.

I have a cruise booked with the standard rate on Coral in December. I am strongly considering adding a package, but when I look in my personalizer, it only shows Plus as a choice. Is that because the 90 Premier hasn't started yet on Coral? Just another IT glitch? Or is there some other reason it wouldn't show as an option?

Are you using Chrome? I get the technical difficulties message frequently when I do. Edge browser works fine.

I appreciate people sharing their experiences. I submitted my screenshot on 9/11 and it's still being processed. So many other responses above saying how quick it was, but seeing people saying 7-8 days is giving me some assurance that things are fine and I just need to be a little more patient.

It really frustrates me that cruise lines do this. I understand that they'll make more money with more passengers, but it really makes me feel unvalued as a solo traveler when they have cabins available, but apparently don't want my money. I am generally a very honest person, but @Coral suggestion above is really the best workaround. As far as I know, I've never heard of any repercussions for lying about a second passenger and then having them "no show".

AARP is now 8% off/$40 off of $500.

FYI - Newegg has $40 off $500 Princess gift cards today 9/6. It says it's good for another 6 hours as of about 8:30pm ET.

I appreciate you asking this. I would like to know too! I've always avoided the casino because I have no idea what to do. Do they ever offer any intro sessions on how to use the casino? Are there staff around who won't be annoyed if I ask for help?

With MDR lunch from 12:00-1:30, what's the latest you can arrive at the MDR? Can you stroll in at 1:25 and still be served? Or does everyone need to be out by then? I wouldn't want to be a pain to the staff, but with travel constraints, I can't always board the ship as early as some others.

Just because we cruise solo shouldn't mean that we're relegated to only the Solo cabins. With a few exceptions, they are interior and tiny. I've sailed in them, but since I can now afford to pay 200% at times, I prefer to get a normal cabin with more space and a balcony. (I do realize a few of these ships have solo balconies, but that's not my point). I was recently looking at booking a last minute cruise on MSC. They had slashed their rates for this particular cruise for everyone else, but as a solo, I could not book it at all. Is that their stance? They would rather a room go empty than to sell it to a solo traveler? I would get it if they wanted to hold out to try to book 2+, but when they seem to be trying hard to sell more rooms, why not open them up to solo travelers?

The top pinned post has a lot of information on this, including a spreadsheet where people have posted their outcomes. I submitted a status match request a couple of weeks ago with my Hilton Diamond status and received Diamond status with MSC in less than 24 hours. While I could have gone a couple of different routes (I'm also Marriott Lifetime Titanium), based on other people's results, Hilton seemed like the most sure thing for Diamond.

I applied for the status match a few weeks ago and received a response the next day. After that, when I was looking at cruise options and added the Voyagers Club number they sent me in response to my status match, the prices updated right away.

I am on the Virtuosa in two weeks and don't have any options to book Specialty Restaurants either. I called and the guy read off the options and prices to me, but then when I asked why I wasn't seeing those options online, on the website or the app, he told me they were all sold out for my cruise. I don't believe he was telling the truth, as others on the cruise still see options available to book. Probably just wanted to get me off the phone. I'm traveling solo and booked fairly last minute through the US site for a Southampton based cruise. Not sure if any of those factors weigh into why it's not available to me, but, yeah, definitely some issues with the MSC site. 🤨

Thank you so much for the reply! I'm sorry to hear about your credit card hack. That is never any fun. I really appreciate the feedback on the train times and ticket prices. I think I will heed your advice and book something in advance a little later to be safe and save some money.