KKB

Have not sailed HAL. 8 Princess cruises in 18 years, 3 in the last 3 months & another in 2 weeks w/ BFF. 7 Celebrity cruises in the last 10 years, 3 since last summer. Also have sailed RCCL, NCL & DCL. I rank Celebrity on top & Princess a close 2nd. Both have excellent food & service; both feel a bit more refined than other lines. Caribbean--we never had issues finding night life on either cruise. AK--Discovery Princess. much more sedate evenings We find all lines to be more alike than different & have found things we love & don't care for on every ship. Give Princess a try!

Who is Michael? Do you mean DuVaul?

We were also on this cruise. Our 8th Princess cruise in 18 years. Have also sailed Celebrity, RCCL, NCL & DCL. We find Celebrity & Princess to be similar in great food, great service. Medallion app--meh. Yep, I much prefer Celebrity's app. I just take a pic of the paper daily activities to have on my phone. Easier to read plus I have hours of everything. Plus on our July Princess cruise & this one, others drinks appeared on our bill even tho we had drink plan. Bizarre. (they were removed) The room--we find bathrooms on most lines to be fairly similar in size so not sure on that one. We prefer the larger closet/'dressing room" area to a sofa. Yes, the room area is therefore a bit smaller, but we like the privacy added by that area when each of us is getting dressed. We find when we have a sofa we tend to toss clothes on it! Balcony seemed similar to most regular balconies on other lines...so again not sure. We thought MDR was great & buffet was ok--we too are not fans of the layout. We loved the activities staff. We would hit 4:30 trivia, go to dinner & catch the next trivia after! We thought Rock Opera & Spotlight Bar shows were both terrific! So that seems to be subjective. The violinists were excellent as was the band with the great female vocalist, imo. We find lines to be more alike that different & have found things we love/don't care for on each & every ship. We would sail them all again--except not DCL. The price doesn't reflect a better product imo. Guess we shall see you on Celebrity!

Had them on Caribbean Princess in July & Discovery Princess week before last.

Request an egg crate topper--GAME CHANGER

Funny...we are in our 50s & always find music from 80s on Princess ships...

Just got off the Discovery week before last. Really loved it. It is our 8th Princess cruise, 1st AK. Aunt & uncle in 70s & us in 50s. Dawes glacier was GORGEOUS. Discovery ticks all your boxes, imo--tho I CANNOT attest to kids club. VERY few kids on our cruise. If you go in the summer I'm sure you will see many more. We found it very very casual--a few dressed up at night but most did not. We did Inside Passage, Ketchikan, Dawes glacier, Juneau & Sitka. (Skagway got cancelled & Sitka subbed). We loved them all! Aunt & Uncle just wanted to wander towns--so many wonderful local shops. Next time we want to hike or do some wildlife viewing, tho we did see whales, otters & seals from the ship.

Well, I'm sure following her has cost me some $...but it DID save us checking bags on our last trip! Did 7 day AK cruise plus 1 day Seattle & 2 Vancouver in carry on & personal item! Wore everything except 1 dress, 1 top & swimsuit (I was GOING to hit the hot tub...)--I found AK cruises to be very casual. https://www.travelfashiongirl.com/ I also follow her on FB as well & followers post a lot of great info. I love her packing tips & her capsule wardrobe guidance. But, yes, you will find SO many suggestions to buy! Enjoy!

We sailed Caribbean Princess in July & Discovery Princess in Sept, both were lovely. Dont give up on Princess! BUT Celebrity is wonderful too!!

It has been a few years since we sailed RCCL. I have been offered a free cruise via URComped. Trying to determine the actual cost & if it is worth it. Thanks!

Good to know! I have the pricing so will check it out.

We made an open booking on our cruise last week to take advantage of the OBC offer. We then received a casino offer for free play on a future booking. Can we combine these 2 offers?

FLL 6 sea days Portugual 2 sea days Brest, FR Sea day Rotterdam Brussels London

OK, we will book the 2:30 flight--would the ship transfer work for this flight time? He can get a room that night in Omaha to sleep before driving home...10PM in Omaha he will have been up about 20 hours...(if my math is right...)

It is Fort Lauderdale to London.

Oh, yes, learned a long time ago to push ALL the buttons. We normally save a few bucks & go a bit aft/forward near those elevators. But DH's aunt & uncle prefer central so we deferred to them this trip. Reminds me we do it for other reasons besides a few $--also gets us a few more steps each day!

The Regal Princess does not have OV. It is $700 more total for a balcony over INT. We don't mind INT...but DH said for $700 get the balcony. Is it worth it other than a bit of daylight? We are rarely in our room anyway...

I relate. We sailed the Caribbean Princess in July (PRETTY full) & I tested positive when I got home. I would have never known my symptoms were so mild...I have elderly father so tested out of precaution. It just reminds us how extremely virulent COVID is. 2 of our kids have gotten upper respiratory infections in the last month (daughter TWICE). Now that we aren't being as vigilant, everything is trying to get us! The only place we found crowded was those middle elevators--MOST of the time. I cannot IMAGINE those when full!

We are set to dock at 6AM in Southhampton (I realize that doesn't always mean you can walk off at that time) DH would like to catch a 12:15PM flight from Heathrow home. Is this possible? (there is a 2:25 one as well but it gets him in a bit later) Thanks!

Thanks for sharing. Embark the 19th so hoping most issues resolved by then!

Yeah, our investment on CCL & NCL is down $500 from our initial investment in June. But we have already gotten $550 in OBC with $100 more in Dec & $250 more next spring so I'm good. They had certainly been a little up & a little down since then but admittedly this one was a little painful to see.

It is those tiny interiors but with only 1 sea day & bumping up to OV was a big jump in price... Heck a room is really only for showers & sleeps...we survived it once....

We currently have NCL Breakaway to Italy & Greece August 2 next year with our young adult kids. It isn't a LOCK yet for them yet...so many unknowns with them at that point in their lives. I figure I can change the name on the room for 2 if they can't! We got such a deal I hate to let it go (benefit of COVID bookings). Booked via casino (Ceasars partner)...$8K for 5 of us for 10 days including air. Hell of a deal.

OOPS--forgot casino! VERY smoky--I had to wear a mask to be comfortable. No bar--I love to sit at a bar playing video poker. We played poker tournaments twice--each paid 3 places. I managed to go out 4th both times.😳 We played A LOT of .05 Super Times Pay Video poker. Racked up 4x the points we earned in July just playing .25 video poker. LUCKILY the last night we decided to head to casino for a bit of last playing about 8:30 instead of staying for a game show...they were closing the casino & cashing everyone out! Dealers had thought they would be open until 11!! So needless to say we truly only spent about $100 each all week! We were offered $300 free play each on a future cruise! (more than his uncle who earned 2-3x more points than us--NO idea why!) I went ahead & did an open future booking as well to take advantage of that offer too. We were looking at 2 week Panama Canal in April...tho now I am vying more for a TA cruise to London at the same time...I may sent DH home for golf league while I catch MSC in Barcelona for a TA back to the states! I can pay for both those cruises for LESS than that Panama Canal cruise (probably can cover the 3 nights hotels too!)

Final thoughts. We LOVED AK & cannot wait to do it again! AK IS more casual than even the Caribbean...most wore their comfy warm clothes, few "dressed" for dinner. Weather was lovely. Cold during glacier viewing on balcony but not TOO cold. Light jackets in ports. Typically I wore light joggers, tee & jersey cardigan around ship. Last day got warm & the shorts came out. Vancouver was GORGEOUS--shorts & tees. Service as always was wonderful. But it might be the first cruise in a long time where we didn't have servers/bartenders who always recognized us & called us by name. The ArriveCAN app...we did it. We stopped in Guest Services to show them the QR code as we hadn't seen our steward to show him (we were told to Friday I think). They didn't get our names or anything. We NEVER showed it again anywhere! Was very odd. Frankly getting thru Vancouver port was easier than getting out in US--didn't even show our passports! (we did have to fill out a form to turn in) Oh--one more minor complaint. Major design flaw--apparently not just this ship??!! We asked to have the balcony divider opened between our room & aunt/uncle's room. It opened right in front of the door of our slider...covering half of it!!! It was a squeeze to get through the opening to the balcony! Why would they not switch the slider opening to the other side? (Yes, they could have made a slightly smaller desk for better configuration...) In no way ruined our cruise, but the logic escapes me on that one! Sapphire is my next cruise--4 days 80s cruise out of LA w/ BFF in 2 weeks. DH & I have: Celebrity Equinox (S. Caribbean) in Nov with cruising friends we met in 2018 NCL Encore (Caribbean) poker cruise in Dec. Carnival Miracle (Hawaii) in Jan--1st Carnival. It was free, so worth a try.