Daniel A

Understood, but It's pretty rude to get people riled up and then leave them hanging no matter how long you're on CC. It's one thing to post on an existing thread and it's another to start a thread accusing the line of some malfeasance and then just let it drop. It certainly affects the OP's credibility and whether or not it's worth reading the OP's posts in the future...

I'm beginning to suspect this was all 'click bait.' I'm not particularly pleased with being misinformed....🤬

I've written about this before. I have found it frustrating to be on my balcony and faintly hear an announcement being made and it is only being broadcast in the hallway. I would run to open my stateroom door only to have the wind tunnel start blowing me out into the hallway, so I run back to the balcony door, shut that, run back to the stateroom door and open it only to hear the announcement saying "...thank you and have an enjoyable day..." I've learned to keep the stateroom TV on the bridge cam channel. It saves me a lot of running only to hear an announcement about some jewelry sale...🤷‍♂️

So, today is Friday. You wrote this at the beginning of the week. What is the final resolution to the matter?

Sometimes deals are offered for new bookings only, and those deals will not cover re-fares. Thus, the cancel and make a new booking process. As @KAKcruiser wrote, look before you leap...

Trust me daisey mae, Lil Abner wouldn't want to see what I've seen. 🤢

How about all of the women in their onesies at the breakfast bar in hotels? Talk about still being in your PJs. 🤣

I was considering taking a cabana on my next HAL cruise (35 days), but 'Alex' just disabused me of that notion. Thanks for the heads up, Alex. I do hope there are no VIPs on that cruise though.

I agree that most of us don't read the entire passage contract, but if we run afoul of any of the terms and conditions in it, then that's on us, not the cruise line to make it good. I believe Princess was being more than generous and this is the thanks they got...🍋 🍋🍋

I just looked at my check in information for my booking on the website and the last part of check in is DOCS, I was able to print my luggage tags months ago, but I got this message above the "print boarding pass" button (it is currently grayed out): "Check-in complete. Provided your final payment is received, Express Docs will be available approximately Wednesday, *********,2023 . You will be notified or please revisit Online Check-in." @Augustsunshine - try looking at the DOCS page and see if it tells you there.

I also was wondering if instead of blasting out techno 'music', the VIP was blasting 'music' with sexually explicit, sexist, and/or bigoted lyrics for everyone else in the area to enjoy. Would 'Alex; still say it's ok? If he can do it there, why not in the MDR? 🤷‍♂️

@Don Kehote - Your 'rant' is entirely justified. Don't give up on this. There has to be a reasonable accommodation for the quiet enjoyment of a day at sea. If you can, I would send an e-mail to Jan Swartz complaining about the special treatment of one passenger over another. @julia was correct, he's no more of a VIP than you are. They probably think that because they refunded your fees that the matter is settled. So what 'superb service' did you recieve???

Could you please reply to this thread after you board? I wonder if they'll have a VeriFly lane for enhanced protocol cruises. TIA

Does anybody have more recent experience in San Diego? I sail in February and the sailing does have enhanced protocols, but I don't want to waste my time trying to set up VeriFly if there is definitely no longer a VeriFly lane in San Diego. TIA.

That's why I used the modifier "usually." 😉

How do you know when Princess got the copy of the child's passport? The child was only months old to begin with. When Princess gets the passport copy, they only use the country of issue and passport number to electronically transmit required passenger manifests to government agencies, not to confirm the d.o.b. of the PAX. Combine the fact that the father had been a Princess employee (note the past tense) and that the father and family are now banned by Carnival from future sailings and also re-employment, there's clearly more to this whole story than the father's giving out. After all, he started his whole diatribe by saying he and his family were put off on a "remote island off the coast of Africa" when in fact, he was put off in Tenerife and transported home by Princess. He didn't even put out his Tik Toc video until well after leaving Tenerife. Dad lacks a good deal of credibility and is getting more attention than he deserves IMHO. It's also interesting to note that this story has only circulated on the internet, and not in mainstream media. Mainstream media usually checks the veracity of stories they put out and none of them seem to be interested in the story even in light of how the media loves to bash the cruise industry with sketchy stories.

Did you use the bannisters when you were walking the stairs? 🤷‍♂️

Why do you think all of the passport information gets cross referenced with all of the booking information provided by the PAX? Do you know how much that would bog down the boarding process? All they are verifying is that the person boarding has a valid passport, not all of the data on the passport.

I often book cruises that do not involve air transportation. What if your client was disembarking in Spain in order to take a land excursion or to stay at a resort? No air information would be needed by Princess. Just don't complete the return air section of the Personalizer. I did a Panama Canal full transit where I flew into LA and drove home from Ft Lauderdale without any problems from Princess. My best advice is to give the client the pros and cons and let your client make the decision whether or not to stay overnight in Barcelona or to risk not making the flight in time on the day of disembarkation. FWIW, when I do need to fly home from a cruise, I find it to be a less stressful return home if I stay at least one night after disembarking. No worries then!

Yes, infants do need a passport for international travel. Of course, on a closed loop cruise, the infant could have used an enhanced driver license. 🤣 In all seriousness, I don't think passports are generally used to verify a person's age, usually it just confirms the identity of the individual boarding the ship.

I read the article you referenced with interest. The article consistently makes references to the unreliability of any "facts" or statistics. It does however state that it is Adult Flu and RSV which is filling up hospitals, not Covid. Relying on percentage of increases rather than percentage of population can be extraordinarily misleading. (As an absurd example, take a ship with 4,000 souls onboard. In the previous sailing, two people tested positive for Covid, but on the current sailing a family of six tests positive. One can claim that there has been a 'surge' in cases with a 300% increase whereas in reality, it is only 0.15% of the total population aboard. That would hardly be a 'surge' in cases.) The following quote from that article sums it up pretty well: For now, what happens next is anyone’s guess. The dominant variants—the Omicron offshoots BQ.1 and BQ.1.1—are worrying, but they don’t pose the same challenges as what hit us last winter. " Let's just keep our fingers crossed and continue to take reasonable precautions as we go about our daily lives.

I think the reason that the cost to cruise is now going up has less to do with inflation and more to do with Covid related cruise cancellation FCCs. As I understand it, those FCCs must be used by the end of this month. It would have been grossly unfair to offer FCCs to the customers who opted for them only to raise the fare and ancillary costs before those FCCs got used - thus costing them more to go on their replacement sailing. Nobody is complaining that they are now spending more money on a replacement sailing, just on new bookings. I think this was all to be expected.

It was their poor wording that had me wondering. If they said the test needs to be done at least three days before embarkation day, then it would have been much clearer. When they merely said 3 days before embarkation that left it more open to different interpretations. Whatever, it's all good now. 😄

Thank you for your post. Before I saw it, I had the following chat about this with HAL. I've attached a copy of the chat below.

If the test needs to be done within 3 days of embarkation, does that mean a test can be done on the 15th for a sailing that embarks on the 18th? Or would the 16th be the earliest that the test can be done?