LeeW

Depends on whether you like Tang. Although often it is watered down Tang.

If the change is at noon you must eat quickly or the 1 PM reservation will be sitting in your lap.

No, the generic photos are not of your group. Things like drone view of the ship. These photos were often on a table in the photo shop and don't show up when you do a kiosk view of your cabin photos. Haven't seen them for a while, although I also don't look for them. Photo package includes any photos taken onboard or in ports with various backgrounds. You need at least one person in the cabin purchasing the package to be in the photo (although the photo studio can add in shots from minors in a second cabin). You do need to give the cabin number to the photographer when the photo is taken (and photos still might not show up associated with your cabin). Five or six people in a standard setting isn't going to cause a problem, but they may balk at a 20 person wedding photo that happens to include one person from the cabin.

Promotional credit (from a TA) can't be used pre-cruise. But we have found that excursions booked and paid for with OBC don't actually get charged until onboard - they credit the OBC and then bill each excursion to the account. Our experience with using a credit card is that it is charged immediately and the excursion doesn't appear in the onboard folio. OP - buy the excursion now with a credit card. The OBC will appear in your account on the second day and can be used for any onboard charges, like drinks, spa, gratuities or excursions. Your alternative is to wait and book onboard. While excursions can sell out there may be cancellations onboard. Prices don't seem to increase much on Princess onboard.

In past, all transfers were included. But you should be able to see your itinerary in your "travel documents" section of the cruise online. Ours show both transfers and where we have not booked a transfer.

Second cruise of Caribbean Princess, the stage didn't worked so shows were altered. Sky had huge VIP group so the Elite waiting area wasn't available and the Platinum lounge was jammed full for an hour after normal boarding. Don't try to get on early.

Two pieces to internet, satellite link and ship local network. Your speed depends on both. Even when I can get a decent connection on one side of bed the connection drops when the laptop is shifted to the other. Starlink doesn't fix this, just gave them an excuse to drop the Surf/Stream options and charge more for a single option.

We're with the "don't spend anything" group. But son and family like the water park. Current price there is $170pp for our cruises, so not sure he will pay that again. In any case, keep watching prices on your cruise planner for things like Beach Club and water park. They change a lot! And watch over holidays especially for price changes. You can always cancel and rebook to get a better price. If you buy with OBC the amount gets credited within a few minutes. With a credit card you will wait a week or so for a refund on the cancelled activity. Older granddaughter loves the jet ski excursion - she goes with her other grandmother. Snack shacks have great food. And the buffets really do a good job. Ships sometimes do miss Coco Cay, but not often. When the waves are slamming over the pier it isn't safe to dock (or walk).

Port will always report local. And different ships in the port may have different ship times, especially in Coz, Roatan and Costa Maya. We have seen as much as a 2 hour difference (on Allure). Costa Maya is the best location for pier runners.

You can ask your steward for the bag on a different day. Bag is actually the same, just a different billing slip with limited items allowed. Typically advertised around day 4 or 5 on a 9-10 night cruise.

Port schedules will always be local time. But if you get back too late because your watch synced to local time the next port is often Cozumel, so you have a chance to catch up to the ship. All aboard is almost always 30 minutes before ship time departure.

Great ruins, but over an hour on a dead straight road before the first junction (actually 45 minutes to the only bend in the road where the bus crashed a few years back). Isn't really any better in a van, but does get out there before the buses, so you can wander around the place without the crowds. Balancar tubing trip is also great, but 1/2 hour longer each way on same lousy road. Would not try to go to both lagoon and ruins. Would be a really long day.

Paid for ours when we did the booking with Club Royale. If you have a balance you might be able to do it online. Log on and scroll down to this cruise. If it shows a link to Pay Remaining Balance you can. If the link is grayed out it will show fully paid. If you booked through a TA (and Club Royale might be treated as a TA), the link won't appear.

Very limited seating around pool on Sky. And it is down in a well, so can be very hot down there. Heat can also blow into the cabin corridors around that pool. Also weird going to one of those cabins in full view of people around pool.

OBC is OBC - it is applied to your cruise account onboard. Depending on type it might be refundable at the end of the cruise, but that is it. It is just a subtraction from your account and they really don't care what you spend it on (except if you try to take it ALL out at the casino; search for OBC and casino if interested). OBC from Princess (stockholder, booking, military, past cruise goodwill, ...) appears on your account whenever they get around to applying it and can be used to purchase shore excursions before a cruise. You can buy excursions but not things like beverage packages or internet with it. Booking and military generally show up immediately. Stockholder has to be applied for each cruise. You won't see OBC when buying an excursion until you go to pay for it. Then there is an option to apply some of your existing OBC before you pay with a credit card. Royal Caribbean does this better - you can see how much OBC you have left at the top of the cruise personalizer page. Princess doesn't. Also be aware that some OBC is applied to one person in the room. You can't spend the other person's OBC without logging on as them or calling. OBC from travel agents doesn't show up until around day 2 of the cruise. Obviously this can't be used to prebook anything. Alaska has a ton of activities that are better when booked independently. See the Alaska board for ideas.

Hmm. Have taken that excursion three times and NEVER got back before the ship. Your husband and kids will be able to touch the lock walls as you lock down on the Pacific side. Ask the pilot about the dent in the Miraflores lock. But going to that visitor center from Colon is a long way away. They highly recommend you not leaving the port on your own there but other than a couple of standard cruise port stores there is nothing in the Colon port. A few years back they had a whole hanger-sized building with local crafts and food. Not open any more.

When lines are long the hosts "may" walk up and down the no-reservation line and ask if anyone wants to be seated now on a different floor. Usually the folks with reservations aren't asked (because they want a specific table), but they can also be handled this way. Doesn't work well on the first night but works very well later in the cruise.

Also look at the current cost of cabin classes you might want to bid for. Sometimes it is cheaper to just pay to upgrade than doing a bid. When cruising restarted a very low bid would win. Now it is taking more, assuming the cabin class you are bidding on has any cabins (say from people in those cabins moving up).

There are a ton of loungers everywhere with umbrellas and in the trees if you want more shade. All are free. Snorkeling is free if you bring your own equipment. They will loan you a snorkeling vest for free. Beach beds and cabanas tend to be out in the sun. We cancelled our bed on second cruise of B2B when we found out how many nice lounger locations there are. Cabana prices used to be $250-$400. Since restart they tend to be $1200 and up for 6 people. Now you can go to Atlantis for less per person, or a whole day at a theme park. Get off the ship early, stake out a group of loungers for the day, and buy the water park passes just for those who want them.

No Starbucks, but Cafe Lattitudes should be open 24 hours. Small pastries, cookies, ...

Plus 18% gratuity.

Medallion may or may not open your cabin door when you approach. I had to touch mine to the door panel. In theory you can order items onboard with the medallion app and they can find you to deliver them (drinks or food). Generally didn't work for me. At bars they will often ask for cabin number since many medallions are close to them and they can't tell which one you are. You will use the medallion instead of a card to get on and off the ship. We carry ours on lanyards. The biggest change you will notice is no more fixed dining. It is all Dining My Way and you can make reservations either through the app or on the web-based page:

Putting an excursion into the shopping cart doesn't buy it. So you might not have already paid for it. We NEVER book more than one excursion at a time - for one thing it causes refund problems if you cancel one later. Pick an excursion, go through the complete purchase process, including applying OBC, and then go on to the next one. And CaptainPedantic is correct - sometimes OBC is assigned to one or the other person in the cabin. You can either call to combine these for a purchase or buy excursions with both accounts and pay with a card when you don't have enough in that account.

They had them on first sailing of Sky in 2019. Yumm!

Older ships had a grill up on deck that served regular fries. When Sky first sailed in 2019 this was changed slightly to serve a signature burger and loaded fries. Looks like it still is like that. Still have the best fries at sea. Looking forward to getting the loaded fries again later this year.