chrismch

How do you check a specific cabin size since they say a range? The deck layout isn't helpful.

Sounds like most are taking shuttles and not parking. Will be interesting to hear about the parking. We've now decided to drive in a day early before our cruise to at least see some sights as we've never been to the area before.

We booked the Holiday Inn at Kemah

Since this is a new port for Princess, it will be interesting to see how it shakes out with the first few cruises with parking and shuttles. Please give us your feedback when you return.

We'll be on this ship in a couple months and it was nice to see advance photos that aren't professionally staged.

I do recall from past cruises on Princess that the buffet gets a little tight at times, but I can zip in and out when others are dawdeling and get what I want. I dawdle at times myself and don't mind someone zipping in for one thing and then out of the lines.

It's odd that the design is so poor, since the space ratio is usually better than RCL and Carnival.

Princess starts in Nov of this year, but I see that NCL doesn't start until Oct 2014. Still shows parking for 1000 cars - for ships that hold 2000-3000 passengers. Wonder how many fly in vs drive in? How much of a zoo will it be with double that amount of passengers coming and going the same morning?

For the locals, any updates on additional parking yet? I believe Princess starts bringing in ships next week to add to Norwegian porting there.

You made some excellent points, although I doubt any changes will be made about bringing on alcohol. That and excursions are the prime money makers for ships.

I like room service for breakfast but unsure of ordering something hot. Were the eggs hot when they arrived?

How long does it take to get out into the open water?

I looked at Google maps and it only looked like their was one pier - unless the building in front is really long.

We'll be driving to the port - which will be a first for us in TX as we usually sail out of FL. Never seen that part of TX before, but will only be there to drop off the car and get on the ship in Jan 2014

Please check out...

http://www.neworleansonline.com/neworleans/seasonal/cnos.html

That is one of my favorite time of the year to be there... free concerts in St. Louis Cathedral, free food tastings, Christmas parades, free music down by the riverfront mall, caroling in the hotels, and folks dressing in period style on the weekends.

Also check out restaurant.com for some food discounts. Only make sure the restaurants are still there. We had some great new options we hadn't tried before in the Quarter.

If I'm at a beach I want to be either in the water or relaxing with a beverage so the idea of a cabana where I can lounge about all day does not appeal to me. So here's my questions...If I just want to snorkel spend time drying off and then having lunch, where can I do this? We're tendered directly to the beach location, right? Where can I snorkel about without bumping into a ton of people? We'll be bringing our own gear.

We will be arriving in Stanley on March 3 and in reviewing our ship's excursions on penguins it says

Seasonal penguin migration in certain areas might prevent operation of this tour between March to April. In the event that the penguins are no longer present, guests will be given the chance to substitute an alternative shore excursion.

So are penquin sightings low that time of year? Should I consider some other excursion?

If penguins are still in abundance which tour would be the best choice... Sparrow Cove, Bluff Cove or Rockhopper penguin tours? Unfortunately, we are only scheduled for 6 hrs so the ship doesn't offer the Volunteer Point tour. The site link on this thread says that needs 7 hrs.

Also I was confused about the postings about a bus that takes you out to one area where you have a 5 min viewing? That's a bit short or was it a mistype?

Re: Alamo rental...Did you drop the car at the airport and then they took you to the port? Or did you drop the car at a port location?

In January I checked into Enterprise online and saw a note on their site that said they no longer offer free shuttle service to the port. I also called to confirm with them locally in FLL that this was the case and they indeed confirmed that it was. At that point I didn't care as their rate was 1/3 less than anyone else and thought it would still be a great rate even with the taxi fare to port.

Unfortunately, I didn't book then hoping the rate might drop - it didn't. So now my best rate (which is higher) is with Thrifty or Dollar at the airport. At least now I can get a free shuttle to port if I book with them!

Never had more than 2 sea days in a row and now we've booked a transatlantic crossing. So, what are some ideas to pass the time on all those sea days?

Wow, that was a harsh review! I don't doubt that you were justifiably perturbed with your cruise experience from your cabin & dining experience. However, looking at your profile it doesn't look like you cruise all that often or post that often either so it is hard to understand how you feel about cruising overall.

Unfortunately, cruiselines have done some cost cutting measures through the years. I've noticed this with each new cruise I have been on with Celebrity. I loved my first one on Summit in 2004 and thought Celebrity would be "our cruiseline." However, the on-ship management has proven problematic on subsequent cruises.

We've had both good and bad cabin attendants but have never had the cabin experience you have described. My biggest concern has been with management's response to complaints. When you get no response from the front desk and you aren't given access to supervisors with other than promises and no results; this is not good PR. On our last cruise it took 5 days to get a visit from a supervisor to visually see and hear (it was sound related) the nature of our complaint. It was finally resolved at the end of the cruise. So we are trying one more Celebrity cruise.

Any customer service company who is truly concerned about their PR will address problems and handle them promptly. However, if they have mass appeal and just consider their company as a standard commodity they will let problems go unaddressed until there is a landslide exodus. Hopefully that will not be the case with Celebrity. If it is the other cruiselines will happily pick up the business.

There is a local walking tour about 1 hour that is offered 2 x daily in front of the Waterford museum in town. You don't book in advance, just show up. The tour guide is a hoot and gives an interesting history of the town. I think it was $15 each. Rick Steve's mentions it in his guide book. The Waterford Factory tour is breathtaking see the craftsmen quality which I loved, but enjoyed the walking tour much more and then the tour of Reginalds Tower - a round building where the walking tour ends that dates back to the 900's and is still in use.:p