Mary loves to travel

49 minutes ago, SCX22 said:

 

Right but shareholder's and military OBC have no bearing on the cruise fare.  Doesn't matter what the cruise fare was, it appears on the folio as long as the award criteria is met.  

 

Also for the type of OBC you speak of, passengers have been known to cash out at the casino.

Think of all OBC as a form of "sale".    When one applies for and receives those OBC, it is accounted for.    Whether it's out of the advertising budget or what have you, the money is accounted for.    There are strict accounting rules governing this.   

1 hour ago, SCX22 said:

 

That's fine, but am I inadvertently making the pool smaller by making the CA pool smaller for wages and bonuses by paying my CA with promo OBC?  What I can't wrap my head around is promotional OBC isn't real money; it's Princess Cruises currency which has a one to one exchange rate with the US Dollar, that only exists on shipboard folios for use while on the ship.  How does this get put in the pool if it doesn't exist as real money?  Princess can't pay their crew with OBC, they have to pay them in US Dollars.

OBC is real money & must be accounted for.  
People like to feel we’re getting some sort of a deal.   
Princess could drop the price by say $100 per person and call it a Sale.  Or, they can keep the price the same and offer $100 OBC - basically giving you back $100 of your fare to spend *with them* any way you like.    
By dropping the price, you might spend that savings in port on a private excursion, souvenirs, or food.   Or simply keep it in your pocket.  
By giving you OBC Princess guarantees that $100 gets spent with them. 
 

When you pay for your cruise, they book $100 as an Account Payable and the rest as income.  
 

13 hours ago, EDVM96 said:

Well, and how do you know, if you never did the ships excursion for comparison?

 

🤦‍♂️
 

Now, if course you’re right - I didn’t do the exact same excursions to compare.  😀

But we have taken plenty of excursions, both Princess and independent.  We also will go off on our own.  There are many times the Princess excursion is the best option, especially when going a long distance.   

For the Iceland excursions, for us, being in a group of 16-20 works really well.  
That means an independent excursion is better for us.    What I liked about Iceland Everywhere was the options given at many stops.   For example, Siggi (the owner) would drop off at the top (say of a waterfall), tell us he’d be there for a half hour, then drive to the bottom and be there for another half hour.    Those who wanted to walk, could.    Others could see the view from the top, get driven down, then get out for another view.   He did a great job of making everyone happy.  
 

Hope this helps 

Mary

On 5/26/2024 at 2:19 PM, mahasamatman said:

When they changed their pricing structure, they claimed they wouldn't be dropping prices, so people who booked earlier would not get burned. That's apparently not happening.

I don't hear mention of that anymore; suspect it didn't work out as they'd hoped.

People like sales.

I second Iceland Everywhere - we did our excursions with them in Akureyri, Grundarfjordur, and Reykjavik.    In Isafjordur we did an excursion with Arctic ShoreEx.

I highly recommend both operators.     Much less expensive than those offered by the cruise ship & far better excursions, too.

Mary

13 minutes ago, chubbypiggy said:

I used my FCD and booked a cabin for the 2026 Sapphire Princess 15 days 8/19/26-9/3/26.  Several friends decided to join us; they don’t have any FCD.  After they found that cruise, at the left top of the page with the pricing and itinerary, it advertises “$99 Deposit”.  During their booking, they got to the page where it shows pricing for each person, and to book, need to click “book now” button at the end.  On that page, it asked for $800 deposit.  They really want to join us, so they continued and booked with an $800 deposit.  They wondered why it advertises as “$99 deposit” but ended up having to pay $800?   Anyone encountered similar situation when they booked the cruises on this new sale?

Same.   Annoying but we went ahead and put down the deposit.  
 

We did a 12 day British Isles on the Regal last May!    Wonderful cruise and ship.  
Enjoy 😊 

Any thoughts about cabin location for this eclipse cruise ?

11 hours ago, sharon_pei said:

Thank you all for your inputs. I double checked the shore excursion section of Whittier and there is no standalone transfer offered. There are only combo tours: Portage Glacier Scenic Cruise & Drive with Airport Transfer, 26 Glacier Cruise & Anchorage Transfer, Turnagain Arm, Wildlife conversation center and tram with airport transfer. Nothing else, but all these tours wouldn't make sense to us as we need to get to airport around lunch hour to pick up our rental car. I know i can book a third party transfer, but thought the transfer provided by princess will be worry-free on a hectic disembarkable morning. 

The basic transfer from ship to airport is under the "Flights" tab in your cruise personalizer.   Just scroll down past the EZair section, and you should see "Transfers".

We have booked transfers in the  past without using EZair.

Mary

I’m guessing they weren’t able to get enough entry tickets to the Last Supper. 

42 minutes ago, rbtan said:

CPAP is considered medical equipment & not included in the hand held item category. Hopefully you have a battery back up not all transports have sockets.

thanks.    DH only uses it at night; so should be able to just plug it in while at the lodges.

19 minutes ago, con3 said:

We are leaving in 2 weeks for an Alaska cruise tour. My husband has a cpap and likes to bring it in a small rolling suitcase. I was wondering the same thing. Especially wondering about the train portion. Hope it won't be a problem!

Would really appreciate your feedback after your trip.  
 

enjoy!

Mary

3 minutes ago, azbirdmom said:

No problem taking the CPAP in addition to the one published item.  We keep our CPAPs in rolling backpacks.  If we carry them on the bus we can always find an empty seat for them.  But in our experience the bus drivers typically offer to open the chamber on the bottom of the bus for those and other larger bags that folks carry on.  Your luggage travels separately so there is always a lot of room on the buses.

oh, perfect!!

Thanks very much 🙂

Mary

13 minutes ago, VikingRob said:

I do not believe that they are included in your one carry on and can be carried on separately. I know I read this somewhere but cannot find it. I will keep looking. 

 

Kim

 

I am hoping this is the case.   I had no luck searching, but maybe didn't look hard enough on the Princess website.     Otherwise, we're trying to figure out how to make this work.

Thanks!

Mary

We're looking at a Princess land first then cruise Alaska tour.   In reading the luggage details, each person is allowed ONE handheld item onto the tour bus with them.    Is the CPAP machine that one item?

What have other CPAP users done?

Thanks,

Mary

7 minutes ago, wolfie11 said:

67?  Depends on whether you were turning around at Stony Overlook or at Eielson.

that sounds like a pretty big difference!

we're debating whether to go soonish, or wait until the road is cleared.

Mary

On 4/19/2024 at 1:24 PM, Thrak said:

We do the land tour first so we can unwind on the southbound cruise. Both times we started at the Fairbanks lodge. They provided breakfast the first day and we then went on included excursions. The attached document is a bunch of snips from our Travel Summary for a 15 day Connoisseur Escorted Tour. I did it in a hurry just now so hopefully didn't miss a day or double a day or something dorky like that. Lot's going on here at the moment so I did it in a hurry. However, even if I messed it up it should give you an idea of what is included. Also, I will attach a link to an old post by @caribill which is one of the factors that helped us decide on this type of tour in the first place.

 

TRAVEL SUMMARY PORTIONS

Travel Summary Snips.docx 52.53 kB · 6 downloads

 

POST BY caribill

 

 

EDIT: Be aware that the Tundra Wilderness Tour can't go the full distance at the moment as part of the mountain slid off and took the road with it. It will be quite some time before they can "replace" that portion of the road.

 

I see now they are doing a "turnaround" at Mile 43, due to the Pretty Rocks Landslide at Mile 45.

How far did the Tundra Wilderness Tour go before the landslide?

Thanks,

Mary

5 hours ago, Mark_K said:

That’s pretty much gobbledygook for a person without much history with the Princess board and its acronyms.

PCL = Princess Cruise Line

MD = Maitre D'

DRO = Dining Room Officer

DMW = Dine My Way

TD = Traditional Dining (2 fixed times nightly)

DR = Dining Room

Just now, carnabombers said:

We certainly do get charged the onboard gratuity. We have to nominate to not be charged. 

On Australia based cruises?

On 4/4/2024 at 6:23 PM, carnabombers said:

In Australia ……

 

The fares we pay for cruises are more than what Americans pay which annoys me as well. Anyway, I would prefer that cruise lines actually pay all their staff a better base wage, include that in the actual price of the cruise and then dump the gratuity payment   

But, you’re exactly getting your wish!   Australians indeed have the “better base wages” included in the actual price of the cruise and there is no gratuity charged onboard.  
😊

I sometimes run into various issues with the Princess website.  Often, trying another browser solves it. 
 

Mary

We did our cruise in January, made it to the Falklands, and did the Bluff Cove excursion.  
it seems they are only working with cruise ships; there wasn’t a way to book independently.  
 

Bluff Cove was wonderful!!

The ride out was smooth, as they used the pandemic shutdown time to fully pave the road.
We saw plenty of Gentoos and Kings.    
Highly recommend, especially if you can’t do rough 4x4 rides, or prefer not to spend 7 hours.  
 

Mary

The spreadsheet approach is really useful.  We do something similar. 
 

The key point the OP is making is that the intangible benefit — be it convenience, a break from thinking about spending, or a feeling of luxury — isn’t worth zero.  
“Doing the math” lets you see the price of the intangible.   Especially on shorter cruises, the intangible benefits may be worth it even if the math says otherwise 😊

50 minutes ago, memoak said:

They already have now that shops are sailing full. Our offers used to contain up to $1,000 free play per person now it is between $250 to $400   Also plus package is rarely included

That is quite a change!

On 4/11/2024 at 4:42 PM, memoak said:

Remember those people who gamble a lot are paying 30% to 100% less in their cruise  fare than you did

Sure.   But, on average, it still works to the cruise line's benefit, or the casino offers would change.