travelbug615

I appreciate your blog so much and am taking notes. I wonder what are the standard things you take with you when you go off ship at ports? Are you carrying a backpack? What are your thoughts on drinking/eating at third world ports? Do you always take your passport with you in port?

Thanks,

Sailed with the bears this past October. The bears did hang out at the aft pool, but that was no problem. They did not display public affection anymore than any the hetero couples. The only thing that I saw was a homophobic intolerant man who must have had too much to drink, got upset when in the crowded atrium, people were looking at jewelry on sale, and this intolerant homophobic man thought a bear, who was just looking at the jewelry, got too close to him. The intolerant man raised his voice and was looking to start a fight.

The bear left the area, but in my opinion, the intolerant man should have been the one to leave, as he was in the wrong.

I would happily cruise with this group again. A group of college spring breakers on the other hand, would cause me to rethink my booking.

Happy Sailing,

Thank you. We leave on the Emerald in 3 days. I really enjoyed being able to view the patters.

With much appreciation,

Thank you for your reply

The forward Vista Suites on the Amsterdam are marked as shower only. I have searched but can not find a photo of what these showers look like. I would like to know if they have a lip to keep the water in the shower area. We have stayed at many an European hotel with showers that have no lip and hate to have a wet bathroom floor.

Also does the shower have a retractable clothes line?

Would love to hear any reviews of these cabins. This ship, the Amsterdam doesn't seem to have many cabin reviews on CC.

Thanks for any input.

I have searched the CC threads and can not find how much the self service laundry on the Amsterdam costs. Looking into booking a long cruise so laundry will need to be done multiple times. Any info on if you need change to run the machines, or if you can use your card to charge the self service laundry would also be appreciated.

Thanks for any help.

Thank you so much for taking the time to share your cruise. My husband and I plan to do the 2018 world cruise. I have already made a couple notes from what you have written so far.

Will be following your blog as well.

Thanks for all the replies. I started working on a spreadsheet to compare all the WC ships on cabin size/ queen or king bed/dining/attire for dining/ smoking/internet/on board activities etc... After I rate the ships to how they suit our needs I will then compare the sailing itineraries. I hope that the top choices that appear in ship and itinerary will match.

With the limited choices and lines seeming to use their oldest ships for WC, I don't think I am going to find the perfect WC sailing. So I am going to have to decide if ship features or ports visited are more important to us.

I do realize that we will be among the youngest on a WC. We are not age prejudice, but realize that on board entertainment is geared for age demographics... I am now guessing that all the lines are going to be geared for the same demographic on a WC.

From the work I have done so far, Regent seems to have a lot of what we want on a ship. A couple of people suggested Oceania, but the Insignia has such small rooms/bathrooms. My husband is 6' 3" which makes a small room/bathroom even less appealing. Holland allows smoking on balconies, which doesn't appeal to us if the balconies next to our have smokers.

Again I do appreciate the input and hope that this thread will help someone else as well. We are not picky or intolerant people in selecting a vacation room. However with spending 100 plus days in the same vacation room, we want our choice to be a good one.

Would love to get input on picking the right WC ship. We are a couple ages 54 and 64 who are looking for a true WC that goes around the globe. We have cruised HAL and Princess. Princess being the best fit of the two. In looking at what ship/line to choose for a WC, I am stumped.

We usually get a minisuite or balcony room and would want equivalent.

We want more ports and less sea days.

We don't drink, we don't care about free alcohol

We are not foodies. We are more interested in healthy food versus gourmet

We want to have cheap internet available on board

We are interested in learning based lectures not shopping based lectures

We are interested in a younger demographic of passengers.

We are "nerds" not "partiers"

My husband thinks a larger ship will give us a smoother ride and a better chance to have fellow passengers and entertainment that we will enjoy. However the larger ships seem to have fewer ports and more days at sea.

Our last Princess cruise had poor entertainment in our opinion, but we liked the mix of passenger ages.

We are willing to look into different cruise lines to best meet our needs

Would appreciate any input.

Thanks everyone. I will book that flight. I will be traveling with my sister and we both can carry our own bags. However, I have read some postings that self embarkation does not run smoothly mainly due to pushy passengers. So we may just do regular embarkation.

Love all these forums and everyone taking time to help one another!:)

Will return from an Emerald Princess Cruise on Oct 29, 2015. I am doing my flights independent of Princess. What is the earliest flight time I can confidently make? I see that the Emerald Princess is the only cruise ship listed on that date at Port Everglades. There is an 11:50 am flight out of FLL, can I make that if I don't get to disembark early? I am worried, I won't have an early disembarkation time, since I didn't use Princess for booking my flight.

Thanks for any assistance you can give me.

Thanks for all the information. I have not cruised for several years and wondered what had changed. Is room service still no charge?

What non alcoholic drinks and food items are not complimentary on Princess?

I have a question about disembarkation from the Star Princess in Vancouver, BC. We are traveling with another couple who has a red eye flight out of of Vancouver the day we disembark. We however will spend a night in Vancouver and fly home the following morning. My question is how best to arrange our plans to allow both couples to spend the day together, without having one couple wasting time waiting on the other couple. We both will need a place to store our luggage for the day.

If the red eye couple uses Princess to take their bags to the airport, but doesn't use Princess for transportation to the airport what time are they going to get off the ship? Will Princess let them wait to claim their bags later that evening?

We are debating using Princess to book us a room and provide transport to the airport the following morning (which would mean we would be driven on a bus to the hotel(four seasons). Then we would have to arrange a meeting place for the other couple to meet us, and I have no idea what time we would be taken to the hotel. This is the cheaper option for us.... but time is money I don't want to waste the only day we have in Vancouver.

Our other choice is to book a hotel ourselves and disembark and either see if we can store our luggage at the hotel early or pay to store our luggage at Canada Place, which would require us to then pick it up later in the day and check into the hotel later. Again I have no clue to disembarkation time- would we be the last ones off the boat since we have not arranged for Princess to provide transport? What time would that be?

Has anyone else been in this situation? If so what worked for you. Both couples are from the US- so lots of roaming cell phone calls to meet up are going to be expensive.

Thanks for any assistance :)

We will be disembarking the Princess Sun in mid June. We will stay 1 or 2 nights before we catch an early morning flight from YVR to home. Does anyone have recommendations about where to stay in the city and the logistics of catching an early morning flight at YVR. We are US citizens and will be traveling to the US.

Staying at the airport seems easy for the flight home, but I don't know about doing sightseeing from the airport area.

Thanks for any help.