Casualcruisers

Not sure if this applies to Princess as I’m on Celebrity, but just got this notice today -

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I’ll waive to you as we go by. Our cruise starts in Sydney and circles New Zealand over X-mas and New Years - hoping you guys put on some good firework displays 🙂

Still another 452 more days.

My CC covers some med and dental, plus emergency evacuation… but the med amounts are low. If that’s a concern, Def get the supplemental insurance, just make sure it has the coverages you are after.

I like switching to a TA for the extras they throw in like OBC and in some cases cash back after the cruise. I still go to the cruise site to do all the planning myself first. I haven’t purchased separate insurance as my CC covers most cases for me. If you have a good travel CC you might check what they will cover for trip cancellation (you will need to charge the trip to the card for coverage).

Do you pay the 20% gratuity even if you have gratuity included in your package? I assume the 20% would still apply but just on the $3 overage?

My wife and I don’t drink a lot and the standard package was more then enough. At dinner, we let our sommelier know what package we had and she would make recommendations within that. I didn’t know you could just pay the difference, I might have tried a few more options but Def would not upgrade unless you drink a lot and only like top shelf.

Great information and pics! My wife and I are booked on Edge over Xmas and NYE down in New Zealand for Dec 2023 into 2024. Question we have is, can anyone give us an idea of how many kids will be on the cruise?

I’ve only sailed on Celebrity once and used FBC. As our trip was over a year away when booked, the airlines changed things multiple times on us. Biggest issue I had with FBC was they kept saying they would get to my change in 90 days initially, and on the last change they were telling me in 30 days, when my flight out was just 28 days away. Needless to say, everything worked out in the end but Celebrity site never showed my flights correctly. I relied on the Airline page to know what I actually had booked.

My wife and I booked ours initially over a week in advance to make sure we could schedule. we got into London ahead of schedule and went to the site to reschedule for earlier that day. There were a lot of open slots and we were able to pick a time just one hour away and got it over with (that was three weeks ago). I’m guessing as fewer people require the tests now, that the schedules will be wide open.

I’m assuming they did contact tracing to some degree, testing members of the same party / group and maybe shared dining table? But that could be wishful thinking. I can’t imagine 3% of the people self reported, especially if they were asymptomatic. My next cruise isn’t for another 461 days (not that I’m counting). I think by they are going to look at this like any other cold or flu and stop calling it out.

Just got off the Silhouette a week ago. We had reports of over 3% testing positive and they were quarantined in their rooms (not moved). Just a few doors down from me was a couple of rooms and we watched the medical staff all gowned up in plastic going in and out. we figured any room that was posted do not disturb for 3 plus days in a row and stacks of room service trays outside was part of that 3%. But there was no notice on where the rooms involved were. At least the capt gave announcements and they switched to mask requirements in the theaters and recommended everywhere else in doors.

I have PP through my CC and I have been very underwhelmed with it. There seems to be no lounges for most domestic airports (US) and when we traveled to London the one lounge they had was at capacity at 9am so we couldn’t use it either. I’ve had better luck burning a few airline points for a day pass into their lounges. I hope PP expands in the future or it holds little value to me.