huskerdan25

I'll let you know

Interesting because I have been wondering about this in another thread as I am trying to decide whether to take the ship excursion or do on my own because of the difference in price and the additional luau options available if you book directly with them. From what I can tell, the ship excursion would be their basic package with would be $75 and then $20 more for transportation which ends up about $14 cheaper than the ship excursion which I believe is $109. Not a huge difference but you wouldn't have the option to select their more expensive plan if you book through the ship.

I will be interested as well as to whether you would get a $15.40 refund per person (110% of the $14 difference) back from Princess. If so, then I probably will do the same and keep my booking with Princess. I have decided that for peace of mind, it would be better to take the excursion with Princess rather than do it on my own to ensure we get back to the ship in time for a 11pm departure.

Thanks.

The best gifts we have gotten were just recently when we booked our Jan 2019 14 day cruise on the Royal. Both of us got the AIBP as well as our gratuities paid. The cost of the cruise was exactly what we would have paid booking directly with Princess without the gifts. Considering this is a 14 day cruise, when you add up the cost of the AIBP and paid gratuities, our gift amounted to about $2000 which is huge in my mind. This was our first booking with this online TA and we most likely will continue to use them for our future cruise plans.

Redhrtz, thanks for your input and sharing your experience. I have been leaning towards just going with the ship excursion for peace of mind but just wanted to see if others had done this on their own and had issues getting back on time. We rarely take ship excursions but I think this time we will.

Thanks.

Sure it can be done cheaper, but not cheaply enough to outweigh the benefit of being on the cruise excursion that guarantees you get back to the ship one way or another.

Thank you for your opinion.

Has anyone actually done this luau on their own versus through the ship and found you were able to get back to the ship on time without much concern? Or is your recommendation that we go with the ship excursion to do this luau?

Thanks.

I guess I should have checked the Germaine's Luau website. Looks like the luau ends at 8:45am so it seems that we shouldn't have a problem getting back to the ship in time for a 11pm departure. If we use their transportation which is $20, the original luau package would be about $13 pp cheaper than through the cruise ship which is minimal in my opinion but by going on our own, we can choose another luau package if we want to.

For those who have done this on your own, did you use their transportation or did you take a bus or taxi there and back?

We will be on the Grand Princess in Honolulu on Sunday, January 28, 2018 and want to go to Germaine's Luau. There is a ship excursion at the cost of $109pp. Obviously, the benefit of doing this through the ship is that we know we will get back to the ship on time for a 11pm departure. Can this be done cheaper on our own and we can still get back to the ship on time?

For anyone that has done this on their own, was the cost lower enough including transportation to make it worthwhile to go on our own instead of taking the ship excursion?

Thanks for your help!

Dan

I like it! We have only cruised Princess and really have no plans to "jump ship" to another line. Of course one can't foresee the future. I like it that your review and comparison seems fair and unbiased. While, like I said above, I don't plan to sail another line it's good to hear comparisons with what I know. I realize that I tend to come off as a Princess fanboi (no, it's not a typo ;p) and that is somewhat true as Princess is what I know and what makes me happy. That doesn't mean I think every other cruise line out there is "bad". It just means that the line we started with seemed to fit us and falls in the financial area we can manage to pay. I'm certain there are other lines that offer much (much!) more but I simply can't afford to even think about them. (Heck, I'd probably need to invest a ton of cash in a new wardrobe just to consider some of those lines!) I am extremely grateful and continually shocked that we are able to cruise at all.

 

Thanks again for what seems to me to be a very fair and impartial comparison.

I'm with Thrak here as far as Princess is the line we started with and fell in love with cruising with and has always provided us what we want in a cruise vacation. We haven't tried NCL but have had two cruises with Celebrity and I probably should have done a similar review to compare our experiences. It is helpful to get an insight into the experience on multiple cruise lines. We loved Celebrity for many things but Princess is our first love and we have never been disappointed with our Princess cruises.

Thanks for your excellent review and for sharing your experiences.

We got one towel animal on a Celebrity cruise once and while it was cute, it is no big deal to us. Would rather our steward focus on keeping out cabin clean than hoping to have a towel animal waiting for us after cleaning.

I just checked with booking the same cabin category for the same cruise directly with Princess and got the exact same price as the price from this TA but I get the AIBP for 2 for 14 days and free gratuities. If the prices on this cruise go up for the June 20 Sip and Sail promotion, then I couldn't have gotten a better deal. I am stoked to get such a deal and again, thank you for letting us know about this.

Thank you for the heads up on this deal. I had booked our 2019 14 day cruise on the Royal with the $1 deposit special. I cancelled it at a loss of $2 and rebooked with the AIBP, free gratuities and reduced deposit and the cost of the cruise didn't change. Worked out to be a great deal for us considering the cost of the AIBP per person for 14 days and the free gratuities. This may become my regular TA going forward.

OBC for Veterans! Every little bit helps.

 

THANK YOU, Princess!!!

 

:cool:

Definitely agree with this. Appreciate being appreciated by my cruise line of choice! Both my wife and I qualify and getting $500 OBC for being veterans combined for a 14 day or longer cruise is just amazing to us.

Thank you Princess!!

Another vote for Michelle and Island Wings. Had an amazing flight with Michelle a few years back and was worth every penny! Loved that we stopped in the middle of a mountain lake during our flight. A MUST-DO in my humble opinion!

Found it: http://www.cruisecritic.com/price-drop/

Thanks Blondilu. Didn't even know about this. Nice that they is a way to get informed of price drops without having to check manually on a regular basis.

Dan

Did you book directly with Princess? If so, find a TA who offers discounted fares who doesn't charge a fee for changes if Princess' fare should decrease. You can authorize your TA to transfer your booking over to his agency. Our TA typically discounts 10-12%...that would save you in the area of $600-$700 if your TA did the same.

 

You don't mention your cabin category. Would you consider a lower category to save some money?

 

Good luck...

 

Lew, can you email me at huskerdan25@msn.com? I have some questions I would like to ask you that can't be asked here. Thanks, sir!

Dan

Booked 14 day Caribbean East/West Adventurer Jan 19, 2019. Have been waiting for a cruise to get back to Roatan which is one of our favorite ports because of a place called Little French Key! Very excited to get back there on the Royal!

Hi everyone. Returning to Princess after a couple of cruises with Celebrity and very excited to get back to Princess, this time on the Regal. Doing the 14 day east/west Caribbean cruise in late January, our first cruise longer than 7 days.

I have heard a lot about how small the balconies are on the Regal/Royal and have seen some pictures as well. Have never done the Ultimate Balcony Dining but we have $1100 in OBC for this cruise and I wanted to finally do this. Are the balconies big enough to do this comfortably? We will be on the Aloha deck. Anyone with experience doing the UBD on the Regal or Royal, please let me know what your experience was. Much appreciated!

Dan

My family of 9 went on StingRay Sailings and it was the highlight of our cruise! When we got to Stingray City, there were much larger boats and groups and we were happy to have such a small group (15 I believe). You won't be disappointed if you take Stingray Sailings on their catamaran!

Why do we cruise and why with Princess?

I can't think of a more relaxing way to travel and go on vacation than cruising! I love being on the ocean and for me, the cruise ship is the destination and the ports are icing on top. Love sea days when I can do all kinds of things or do nothing at all. I can unpack and know that for the next 7 days, my room, my food and my entertainment are all with me. I don't have to pack up and go from place to place. For me, total relaxation.

Why Princess? Princess is my first love, the first cruise I ever took back in 2006 after years of dreaming of taking a cruise. It was on the Sapphire Princess and met and exceeded my expectations. Princess fits me like a glove and now that I have taken a couple of Celebrity cruises, I am even more convinced that Princess is perfect for me and my wife. We will cruise again with Celebrity but will always look for a Princess cruise first.

Love (no particular order):

veterans OBC (appreciate the love for us veterans)

chocolate desserts

ice cream

international café

specialty restaurants (reasonably priced compared to Celebrity)

pizza

itineraries

ships

always have had great service

good bang for the buck

loyalty program

As you can see from my signature block, I have sailed mostly on Princess and Princess is my first love. But I recently started to cruise with Celebrity (upcoming cruise in January on the Reflection for the 2nd time).

This is just my opinion. I believe the two are more similar than not. The things that stick out to me for Princess are small and would not make me decide not to cruise with Celebrity again. Love the pizza, do believe the entertainment is a bit better and I absolutely love the ice cream on Princess. But I can't stand the bathrooms on Princess. Tiny and you feel violated if you bend over and touch the shower curtain :) The bathrooms in the balcony cabins on Celebrity are excellent! Also, the standard balcony cabin on Celebrity seems to be similar in size to the mini-suites on Princess with the standard balcony cabin on Princess being smaller.

I don't find the food to be much better on Celebrity and agree with the buffet on Princess being larger with more selection.

Love Sabbatini's on Princess and feel the specialty restaurants are similar between the two lines.

We will continue to sail on both Princess and Celebrity as we always purchase future cruise credits on each line after each cruise. Great to have two lines that we really enjoy and we always have a great cruise vacation on either.

I love the Miso Salmon at the Aqua Spa cafe! Thought it was offered daily but it is not so I will mark down the days it is offered so I can get it again!

On a couple of occasions I have put down cash for my onboard account instead of using a credit card. Both times I put $600 in the account and ended up getting money back at the end of the. cruise. When you check in, let them know you are putting cash into your account instead of using a credit card. You will direct you to go to the customer service desk onboard to put money in your account.

No need to stress.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

We were on the same cruise as the OP and our experience as far as the crew was much different. I plan to post a review of our first Celebrity cruise in the next week but Celebrity has a great product and we absolutely loved the Reflection. We got non-stop greetings and the staff everywhere we went was outstanding and friendly. I'll be more specific once I get my review out.

We just came off the Reflection on 1/25, our first on Celebrity, and we absolutely loved the ship! What a beautiful ship!! I am working on a review write up but we would not hesitate to sail on her again and have in fact booked the 10 Caribbean cruise on the Equinox for next January! We had done 6 previous cruises, all on Princess, and while we will continue to cruise with Princess, Celebrity is now our new favorite cruise line. Thanks to all of the crew on the Reflection for an amazing cruise vacation and we can't wait for our next Celebrity cruise!

Part of the problem is sometimes the business is too quick to reward the complainer. Just recently, we went to one of our favorite restaurants in Denver called the White Chocolate Grill for desserts with our friends, one who has to eat gluten free. We got the desserts and in the gluten free dessert, there was a tiny egg shell in it. We let the waiter know about it and was told that they would make another one which was perfectly fine with all of us. Next thing you know, the manager came over, asked us how things were and we all said that everything was great, that we just had a small issue with the gluten free dessert. Well, he pulls out a card for $25 which basically would pay for all of our desserts and they made a new one. We never asked for anything and would have been happy with the dessert being re-made which the restaurant offered. While we were happy with the way the situation was dealt with, we were never planning to ask for our desserts to be free as all of the other desserts were amazingly good.

People make mistakes and when they are willing to correct them, I am fine with that. I don't expect to be given something free or feel entitled to be given something to fix the situation. Good customer service is someone recognizing and fixing the situation without me complaining that I should be rewarded beyond having the situation fixed.

There are plenty of reputable online TAs that don't charge for cancellations. Get a new one.