jenf22

Has anyone gotten the credit yet?  My charges have cleared, but no credit yet.

Side note - another offer popped up today that is 10% back (up to $20) at grocery stores.  Got it on my card, but not my husbands.  So now I'm adding more offers to his card to see if I can get it to pop up.

We're getting Plus for all of us on our cruise later this year - 2 adults and a 17-year old.  May or may not be worth it but wanted to try it once.  None of us drink alcohol and my husband is really the only big soda drinker.  But I like the idea of good coffee every day and some mocktails here or there.  The cruise itself was so cheap I figured "why not".

My one beef with all the "math" on these threads is the $25 per person per day for wifi.  I really don't think a family of 3 or 4 would pay $25 per person per day, they would get the 4 device plan for $45 per day and split it up.  When I do my math, I use that number.

13 minutes ago, Stockjock said:

How much OBC could you buy online?  As mentioned, for me there was a limit of 9 $25 OBC certificates, which is only $225, aka not enough to trigger the offer.

I did $225, then $175, then $100 to get to $500 total.  The offer says you can do multiple orders.  It hasn't shown up on my AMEX card yet.  I read somewhere OBC bought this way could take a couple of days to post.  I'll let you know when it shows up.

6 minutes ago, ORV said:

That makes no sense at all. These offers are generated by the merchant, why would Celebrity put a stumbling block in the way of using the Amex if they're trying to entice people to use it? 

It was because it was a group booking through the TA.  The TA is a big box company who doesn't accept AMEX.  Stupid, yes, but that's their rule.  I ended up buying OBC on the Celebrity website.  Should trigger the deal.  I'll post back here when it does.

1 hour ago, Stockjock said:

FWIW, I called Celebrity and while I could prepay gratuities, I could not buy refundable OBC.  Oh well.  I am booked via a TA, fwiw.

I called Celebrity to pre-pay gratuities.  The agent added them to my account but said I needed my TA on the line (since it was a group booking) in order for him to take payment.  He did say my account showed an over payment but he couldn't discuss it with me and to call my TA.  Called them and they showed a $680 over payment so they called Celebrity.  After 20 minutes conferenced in with my TA and Celebrity they discovered Celebrity had applied some person named Evan's $1330 payment to my booking!  So that covered my $648 in grats and still left an overpayment.  In the end they fixed that and they would only let me pay the gratuities with my AMEX if the TA gave approval.  TA called a supervisor who told her 'no'.  For the love of Pete!  So I had them remove the grats and I'm back where I started.

I think I will try the link to buy OBC and see if I can make a couple of transactions to get to the $500.

1 minute ago, Stockjock said:

That's what I was thinking.  Prepay my gratitudes and buy some presumably refundable OBC.

I wish I could just prepay the grats but I used a TA so I would have to get them to add it and they are that big-box company that doesn't take AMEX 😞  So I think my only option is the OBC.

Side note - I had it on my Blue Cash Everyday card but it was not on my husband's card.  Typically, these offers show up on both.

22 minutes ago, RichYak said:

Buy refundable OBC.

If I buy OBC will they put my gratuities against it?  That's the only thing left to buy for our cruise coming up.

On 2/29/2024 at 10:04 AM, FRMPEI said:

Thanks! Going to create screen captures of above and create a new note on my iPhone for upcoming  March Silhouette.

 

Regards,

Kevin Reid

Hi.  I'm sailing on Silhouette next month and wanted to see if you could give an update on the TV streaming situation.  We're looking at getting a cheap $10 Samsung remote so we can change the source and use our Firestick.  Did you have any luck getting your device to stream to the TV?

Thanks!

I got the $100 back on $500 on my card, but not on my husband's.  We have a cruise coming up near term so everything but gratuities is paid for.  Anyone know if I buy OBC using my AMEX card before sailing, will that OBC be used for my gratuities?  Thanks!

18 hours ago, teecee60 said:

 

 

I just couldn't resist. The pic is not the Northern Lights... it's the Milky Way galaxy. 😉

My profile pic is the Milky Way, there's a NL panorama if you visit my profile page 🙂

17 hours ago, help32250 said:

Jen ---

First of all, I LOVE the backdrop Northern Lights in your profile!

Thanks!  That's from Alaska.  SO MAD at myself for missing them last weekend when I could have seen them from my house!

I did end up booking this Spain TSE cruise.  Occurred to me the kiddo will be in college in 2026.  50/50 as to whether or not classes will start by 22-Aug. So we'll see!

Thanks for getting this one on Princess's radar!

13 minutes ago, help32250 said:

For those of you that are just reading my postings for the first time, I literally dragged Princess kicking and screaming into doing these cruises AND changing them to reflect this Cruise Critic Community's desires and preferences ... all while making money hand over fist.  And everything that I told them and forecast would happen ... did.

You think you could get them to schedule an Iceland/Greenland TSE cruise for 2026?  Please?? 🙂  I think our plan for 2026 is to try and be in Reykjavik for the eclipse.  I was really hoping to see Greenland while we're in the area (ideally before the eclipse so the kiddo can start school on time in mid-August).  I'm hoping maybe NCL will have something once they get around to releasing their itineraries.

We were fortunate enough to be able to drive to Nebraska in 2017 and then Texas last month.

I only noticed 1 cruise that listed Iceland.  Did I miss others?  I see there is an Iceland/Greenland cruise in 2025.  I was really hoping to be in Iceland for the 2026 eclipse and I would LOVE to see Greenland.

Bummer.  I signed my husband up for it on our July Silhouette cruise.  Kinda figured he would be cooking a steak... especially for $60.  Thanks for the review!

18 hours ago, ladychater said:

I shouldn't have to be "diligent.". It would be ever so simple for Princess to label the food.  Then the servers and customers would know what to eat and what not to. 

Our last Princess cruise we were at the buffet for lunch and my son comes to the table with fried rice with tiny little shrimp in it.  My husband loves fried rice but is allergic to shellfish.  I got up to find him to make sure he didn't get any.  I then went to the Asian section where the fried rice was.  It was labeled "Fried Rice".  I asked the server there and he said "oh sometimes it has shrimp and sometimes it doesn't".  I mentioned they might want to consider labeling it "contains shellfish" for those times it does.  Crazy they change the item but not the sign.  Lesson learned for us I guess.

18 hours ago, drwbrt said:

Another large batch of menus have been uploaded. https://www.supervaluebros.com/menus

Thanks so much for the menus and your review!  We're doing the same cruise in October.  Can you tell me what nights were Italian Night and the Chef's Dinner?  I apologize if I missed it.

1 hour ago, DCGuy64 said:

I would, too, but I'm curious: why do you say "once-in-a-lifetime"? Are you suggesting all of the passengers are unable to book such a cruise in the future? Many people on Cruise Critic take trips multiple times a year. I wasn't aware most of the people on that sailing were on their last cruise ever. Is that true?

Actually I said "my once-in-a-lifetime".  I made no suggestions as to the other people who book cruises.  We have WAY too many places on our list to spend a ton of money and vacation time to visit the same place over and over in the hopes to see the one thing we hoped to see on our first visit.  But thank you for reminding me why I try not to comment on Cruise Critic posts.

I would have been devastated to have my once-in-a-lifetime trip to the waters of Antarctica significantly altered AFTER we had boarded the ship.  We had the Star scheduled for Iceland/Greenland in June of this year.  A few weeks ago (maybe a month) NCL replaced all of the Greenland ports with Norway due to "weather".  We decided to cancel and booked something totally different on Celebrity for this summer.  What is discouraging though is NCL is still selling the same Iceland/Greenland itinerary in 2025.  At this point I'm not sure I would book NCL for Antarctica or Greenland in the future.

I read on CC somewhere recently about cruiseplum,con.  You can see a graph of prices since the cruise was released.  Otherwise, you can do mock bookings to watch the fares.

I love having a little alarm clock.  We use this one.  I like that it isn't smart like the phones and won't change the time on us in the middle of the night!

Amazon.com: Digital Travel Alarm Clock - No Bells, No Whistles, Simple Basic Operation, Loud Alarm, Snooze, Small and Light, ON/Off Switch, 2 AAA Battery Powered, Black : Home & Kitchen

I also would suggest a non-surge protector plug too.  There are never enough outlets on the ship.  We have this one:

Amazon.com: Multi Plug Outlet, Outlet expanders, POWSAV USB Wall Charger with 3 USB Ports(Smart 3.0A Total) and 3-Outlet Extender with 3 Way Splitter, No Surge Protector for Cruise Ship, Home, Office, ETL Listed : Tools & Home Improvement

I realize I was not the one asked but we did a lot of New Zealand excursions through Viator when we were on Celebrity Australia/New Zealand in January of this year.  It was an amazing trip!

I agree with your comment about the coffee!  We discovered on our last Princess cruise if we did 1/3 coffee, 1/3 milk, 1/3 water and then added about 4 little flavored creamers the coffee was sort of ok 🙂  Worst coffee at sea!  BUT if you paid for a latte it was great!

We travel with this kitty:

Amazon.com : Cat Lamp,GoLine Cute Kitty Night Light, Gifts for Women Teen Girls Baby, Night Lights for Kids Bedroom, Cute Christmas Kitty Silicone Nightlights for Children Toddler. : Baby

He's got multiple colors and we just leave him on in the bathroom all night.  He's squishy so he doesn't take up much suitcase space and he recharges via USB.  He's enough light so we can use the bathroom but doesn't mess with our night vision like the full light does.

2 hours ago, DCGuy64 said:

I'm interested in this thread because we also would like to do an Australia-New Zealand cruise in the next couple of years. I agree with @Seafan22 that NCL's pricing is much higher than some others, notably Princess and RCL, but even Celebrity. For me, one HUGE caveat is that most of those cruises are EITHER Australia OR New Zealand, not both. For the most part, the New Zealand ones start in Australia (Sydney or Brisbane) and then spend most of the time in New Zealand, with 2 days of cruising each way. The Australia cruises are only Australia. The only exceptions I found were with HAL and I've read that's mostly an older crowd. The advantage with the NCL Spirit is that you get 4 stops in Australia and a bunch in NZ, too. Given the distance from the USA, ideally we'd like to see some of both countries instead of just one. Also, NCL's site doesn't go beyond 2024 and due to other plans for 2024, we'd like to look at 2025.

We did Celebrity this January, starting in Sydney and ending in Auckland.  It did have one stop in Melbourne, but all the other ports were New Zealand.  We did talk to some folks on one tour who were on the Spirit.  We chose Celebrity because it was cheaper than NCL and we thought a better itinerary since it wasn't RT Sydney.  We prefer NCL over the other lines we've cruised (except maybe the Oasis class RCL ships).  We did Princess for the British Isles last summer because a similar NCL itinerary was crazy priced.  Like you guys, I don't get their pricing.

We couldn't get our travel router to work on Eclipse in Dec/Jan this year.  I've never had a problem with it on NCL.  I wondered if our router was too old.  Anyway, thanks for the tip about the Pixel 7!  We got our son one for Christmas, it would have been great to have used it on this last cruise.

We did a Princess excursion to Mont St Michel in July 2022.  For us it was absolutely worth it!  There was a stop at a convenience store both directions for a potty break.  Mont St Michel was extremely busy and it was so hot the day we were there, but hands down a highlight of our trip.  Such an incredible place!