bbum

1 hour ago, Thrak said:

 

What type of BBS did you have?  Most here where I live were WWIV boards.

Honestly it was so long ago I can't remember what software I ran, but it was likely written in basic. I ran it for a computer society. Message board, file access, and info on upcoming meetings, etc.

5 hours ago, Thrak said:

 

Had a '65 but it was really a 64 1/2. The one with no backup lights. Sold it for $500. Yeah, I know...

My first car was a 64 1/2 as well. Traded it plus 1k for a 69 Torrino GT convertible, way back in the day. Now my 'toy' is a 70 Challenger R/T convertible and my daily is a 16 Mustang GT convertible. Love them both.

CC name is from when I ran a BBS back in the day and my handle was beachbum. That was taken so I went with Bbum.

Just wondering, we took an upsell to a full suite as well and I know they used to give you a specialty restaurant diner on the first night for those in suites, do they still do this, or is it now just the balcony breakfast? We've had the balcony breakfast a few times before when in suites and I think we just asked for the Champagne after the first one and went to Sabatinis for breakfast after that. 

If you can do early walk off the line up for immigration should not be too bad, although that's not set in stone.And if you are able to manage your luggage for a couple of blocks over to the waterfront station you can take the sky train right to the airport, which costs about $4 a person, and takes about 30 minutes and no worries about traffic. So if all goes well you should be ok for an early flight. On the other hand the later flight will be a much safer bet and the Vancouver airport is quite nice. As stated above a lot depends on what day and how many other ships are in port the day you disembark.

I can recall reading a post where someone mentioned that if your folio number doesn't change your coffee 'card' will be honored through out the b2b. Now on all the b2bs we've done the folio number hasn't changed (remained in same cabin if that makes a difference) and our stateroom account and internet minutes have just rolled over to the next segment. We are on a 29 day in the fall which could have been booked as a 14 and a 15 and are planning on trading in our first mini bar for coffee cards, so I guess we're due to find out.

Bbum

I just received notice from Princess that the 25 and 35 day were cancelled. In the cancellation notice the obc offered was this: 

VOYAGE REDEPLOYMENT - NOVEMBER 14, 2020 - PACIFIC PRINCESS

Please be advised that due to deployment changes, Pacific Princess' 35-day Tahiti, South America & Panama Canal Grand Adventure voyage departing November 14, 2020 has been cancelled. The deposit paid on this booking can be transferred to any new voyage, including Pacific Princess' 10-day Tahiti & French Polynesia voyage departing on November 14, 2020. Should you decide to rebook to this or any other sailing, you will receive an onboard credit of USD $50 per person (credit applies to first two guests on the booking; replacement cruise must be booked by June 30, 2020). We will be reaching out to you directly to discuss your plans, or you may contact us at 1-800-774-6237 (North America), 0344 338 8663 (United Kingdom), 13 24 88 (Australia), or 0800 780717 (New Zealand). If we do not hear from you within 30 days, we will process a refund of any payments received to the original form of payment. We sincerely apologize for any disappointment this cancellation may cause and look forward to welcoming you aboard another Princess cruise in the future.

Bbum

We are booked on the 35 day cruise to Ft. Lauderdale as well and I just talked to our personal vacation planner at Princess and she said that the 26 day to Sydney isn't in her system and is going to talk to a supervisor and get back to me, so I will update when I hear something.

That is cutting it really close but if you land at 2 I would suggest grabbing your luggage, go up to level 4, purchase tickets (about $8 per person) at the kiosk, get on the Canada Line (I believe that is what it's called) and ride it all the way to Waterfront station. Waterfront Station is the end of the line. The ride takes aprox. 26 minutes. From there you will exit Waterfront station, turn right, walk about 2 blocks make another right, and you are at Canada Place where the ship is. I think it's cutting it a bit close, but we've done the Canada Line to Waterfront station a few times and it's quick, cheap, and no worries about traffic problems, but you will have to manage your luggage for a couple of blocks on your own.  After taking the Canada Line I wouldn't take a chance on a ground transportation, as you never know what the traffic will be like in Vancouver.

We have rebooked several times when a price drop came about or a better obc offer came around but the last time I looked into rebooking to take advantage of a little more obc we ran into a slight problem. We always book direct with Princess so I handle all the bookings. However the last time a little more obc was offered on a future cruise we are booked on, which was offered while we were on a cruise as a promo, I tried to rebook at the future sales office and get the extra obc, but ran into a slight snag that I hadn't encountered before. We were booked in a mini suite for the upcoming cruise that we were trying to get the extra obc on and would not have had a problem rebooking it and getting the extra obc except the mini suites on that cruise were sold out with a waiting list. So if we had cancelled and tired to rebook, our mini suite would have automatically been assigned to the next person on the waiting list as soon as we started the cancel/rebook process, and we would lost our mini suite and the only option that was left was the lowest cat balcony and we would be put last on the waiting list for a mini suite. The extra obc wasn't worth losing the mini to us so we hit the brakes. In most cases I don't see this happening too often, but be careful if making changes, make sure there are cabins still available in your category. I was so glad the Princess rep caught it before she went ahead and did the rebooking because once started it's a done deal.   

We've only done this once and we checked with the pursers desk, as was mentioned above, and there was a princess shuttle bus available for those moving over to another Princess ship. We were told where to meet and went together to pick up our luggage, then proceeded to the shuttle bus, the driver loaded our luggage, and when everyone had arrived on the bus were were transported over to the next terminal where we did a normal check in. So I suggest you check with the pursers desk during your first leg of your cruise and they will be able to inform you.

Computer or DVD player, Hard drive loaded with movies, HDMI cable, a lot of patience fiddling around to find the HDMI port on the back of the TV (a stiff drink and a mirror may help) and you have movies on demand.

My suggestion and what I always do, is book a cabin I will be happy with and tell the Princess CSR to mark it 'Meta' upgrade only. That way I'm not going to lose the cabin I chose and the only upgrade that would be offered to me would be to a completely higher cabin (balcony to mini, mini to suite, etc). If I can't book the cabin I really want I will book something I can live with and then keep a close eye on the cruise online and if the one I really want opens up, I'm on the phone to Princess and switched over. I've never had a problem switching cabins. As many may have noticed nowadays there doesn't seem to be as many upgrades as there used to be, but more so upsells, which in some cases are good as well, as we've taken a few, and let a few go by.

We were also in A726 corner Vista Suite on the Island, and took it as an upsell, on a 21 day full Panama transit, and were a bit worried from all the negative reviews, but after stepping foot in the suite we put those to rest. It is a fantastic suite. It is by far the nicest suite we have had on Princess. Loved the wrap around balcony, although we didn't use the side part much. There was some quite noticeable vibration when docking in port, but other than that the vibration didn't bother us a bit. I would book this suite again in a heartbeat. We also found the Island to be a very well run ship with a very happy staff, keeping in mind this was in April 2017. We didn't have any trouble getting seats at the late shows in the theater. I can't comment on any time dinning as we had traditional. We never felt overcrowded in the public areas, as some people have commented, but perhaps that was just us.

I think they should honor all the old cards with no expiration dates on them as those were sold and bought in good faith that they were good for the number of punches on them regardless of which cruise/date they were purchased on. We haven't heard anything official from Princess as to how they are going to deal with the old cars yet, but hopefully this will be the case. Now my take on what they should consider is selling a tiered coffee card, such as a 5/10/15 punch card that is only good for the cruise that you are on. That way if you are on a short coastal cruise you may opt to buy a 5 punch card and when the cruise is over toss it. If on a longer cruise buy a 10 or 15 punch card and once again when the cruise is over, the card is over. If you're not sure you will consume 15, then purchase a 10 and if you need more then purchase an additional 5 punch card. With this in play it would completely eliminate Ebay sales, if Princess thinks this is a concern. The cards could be color coded much like the soda stickers used to be, with a different color for each cruise, so no cheating there, for free brewed or carry overs. As it is now if Princess doesn't honor carry over on old cards, I will be buying everyone in sight a free coffee on the last night to use up my unused punches, so at the very least someone will benefit.

Don't get too excited over new TV's. When I was last on the Caribbean Princess I was able to connect my Nikon camera to one of the HDMI ports on the TV.

Recently on both the Regal and the Royal with new LG TV's you no longer have access to HDMI ports, the remotes are much smaller and do not allow you to change HDMI ports on the TV with their new custom software.

 

Hard to even get a hand in behind the TV

The new remote

 

 

Howard

Perhaps with a universal remote and this little video:

you might be able to access the HDMI ports. Then again you might get your fingers slapped by the good tech folks on the ship. Also I have lifted the wall mounted Tv's off the wall to access the HDMI ports. It's quite easy, and the sets are very light, just need someone to plug the cables in while you hold the set, then just pop it back on to the wall brackets. Worked for me.

At some point when all the bugs are ironed out I don't think there will be a choice. The biggest mistake Princess made in the roll out was to advertise cruises implementing the new tech, when it wasn't fully functional, leaving those who were looking forward to it disappointed . It's like any new tech, some people just don't want to have to bother with it. Remember how many threads were started when this forum (Cruise Critic) changed format? People have adjusted and accepted the change and life goes on. And if you're worried about being tracked, that is a reality of today. Do you realize that just being on this forum my tracking blocker (Ghostery) is now blocking 9 trackers from Cruise Critics? It's very hard to get away from these days.

On our last 2 cruises on the Star and on the Island we received two small bottles of water each day without having to ask. Probably has to do with your steward, if he knows about the perk or not. If you don't get them I would simply let your steward know about it, in a nice way of course, as he/she likely isn't aware of the perk.

Unfortunately they don’t swivel.

 

 

 

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But they do come off the wall quite easily, and they are super light. Just get your traveling partner to plug the cable in while you hold the tv, then put it back on the wall. I've done this on two wall mounted tvs on Princess.

Yes when you enter the terminal just let the person that greets you know that you are traveling together and you should have no problems going through check in and boarding together. This has been our experience in the past, if it's changed I certainly stand to be corrected.

Bbum

Got them on the Island in April and on the Star (October/18) . Seems to me it's a bit of hit or miss, depending on the ship. We never use them so it's not a big deal for us.

There were no insults that were made by me. Just factual information concerning the shortchanging of a benefit that should have been allotted to those that deserved it for sailing many times on Princess.

I take it that you would have been satisfied with a few horderves & some wine if you qualified.

btw- I don't watch commercials. :D

Yes you are right you have every right to voice your opinion, but I don't think that the Captains Luncheon/Cocktail party is a benefit. We assume there will be one, as there always is one, but as I mentioned before, it is up to the Captain whether or not one takes place. It is not part of any contract, or not in any documentation. It seems to me that under the circumstances that the Captain deemed it not fitting to have one on that particular day, and perhaps it wasn't feasible to reschedule, so something else was arranged. The OP was just expressing their opinion on what they considered was a more than adequate offering as a replacement, and you have given your opinion as you have every right to, so time to give it a rest.

Simply it's a cheapened gift compered to what everyone else receives on all other cruises.

If a few horderves & a glass of wine satisfies you & the OP, then everything was wonderful but I wouldn't classify it as outdoing herself. If it were her family involved Princess should have someone else to fill in for her position.

A Most Traveled cocktail party is only a few hors d'oeuvres and a couple of drinks, it is nothing like the luncheon. The only thing that they got 'screwed' out of was a picture with the captain and perhaps a chance to chat with the captain and some other officers if they were there. The last MTP cocktail party we attended we spent a whole 20 minutes there, had a quick chat with the captain, a quick drink, and passed on the weird hors d'oeuvres. I personally think that with the circumstances the CC department passed along a very good will gesture. Another thing to keep in mind that it is up to the Captain whether there is a luncheon, a cocktail party, or nothing at all. It's all just a good will gesture to honor loyal passengers, not something that is written in stone or in any passenger contract. It's just a good will gesture.

On our last cruise in a full suite we had asked to be linked to another couple for late traditional dinning but once onboard we noticed that we were seated at different tables so off we went to see the Matre De who got it fixed but also noticed that we were in a suite and told us we could also use the club class dinning for dinner if we wished and actually wanted us to try it. I think perhaps because the club class dinning is fairly new they want to expose people to it, but regardless you can still choose whatever dinning options you would like if in a suite. If you choose a traditional dinning time and decide to go to club class for whatever reason you are only holding up a table in traditional dinning if you had asked for a table for two. If you are seated at a larger table you would not be holding up a table, although it would be a courtesy to let your table mates know you were not joining them so as to not hold up their dinning. We used the club class a couple of times on our last cruise for lunch, and at the entrance they ask for your cabin number and they have a list, so as long as you are on that list you are entitled to use club class dinning, and I believe all suite cabins are on that list, although we did not use club class for dinner dinning so not sure if our cabin was listed on that list, but from what I believe I was told I would think it would be. To be completely honest I think club class dinning is over rated but that's just my opinion, am I'm sure many others would dissagree:)

I remember when the lobster tails were bigger than the shrimp!

Keep in mind that everyone's experience and expectations on a cruise will vary widely, I will add my 2 cents about the Island. We sailed on a 19 day Panama Canal last April in one of the new aft suites and we loved not only the new suite but the whole ship. We never felt overcrowded, and we never had a problem getting seats in the theater for ourselves and another couple together. We had late traditional seating for dinning so I can't comment on the anytime dinning. For some reason it was a very friendly passenger crowd onboard and the crew was honestly the happiest I have ever seen on a Princess ship (32 cruises). We did not miss the wrap around promenade deck and didn't hear too many (actually none) complaints about it. One nice thing was the promenade deck is quite wide and has a few full loungers on it if you are early or lucky enough to snag one. We dealt with the Captains Circle rep, the Internet folks and we were fortunate enough to meet the captain, and very much enjoyed meeting with everyone. It seemed like a very well run, happy ship. Now that may change as staff changes but I wouldn't cross the Island off my list if the itinerary was what suited my taste and my timeline, especially if you haven't been on it since the refirb, give it a chance. Then again like I said everyone has different expectations of what their cruise should be. I too was a bit leery when we booked from reading some bad reviews but I was very pleasantly surprised.