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On the larger ships, Princess needs to open up the public center area and have it span a longer distance. The Piazza looks too crowded and cramped on the Sun Princess. Royal Caribbean pioneered this with their Royal Promenade concept and it really works to disperse the crowds. Carnival followed suit on their Excel Class and it works.

If you didn't book a post cruise hotel and purchased the Princess transfer on your own, you have the option to cancel the Princess transfer and make your own way to YVR. SkyTrain is a really quick and easy way to get to the airport. Recommend finding a place to store your luggage; Pan Pacific used to do this at minimal cost and there are places that will store your luggage at cost until 5:00 pm around the port. Another option might be to purchase the Hop on and Hop off bus excursion when on the ship. Your luggage will be taken to the airport and kept in storage and you will be responsible for picking it up there. HOHO bus will pick you up at the port and vouchers for the SkyTrain will be provided as your transport to YVR. You pay for the convenience when choosing this option. Last Princess bus transfer to the airport usually leaves at 10:00 am, which is too early for your flight.

On Royal Class ships, the two ways to get a larger balcony is to book a premium balcony or to choose a cabin midship in the section with the curvature. The only way to get a larger bathroom on these ships is to book a Mini-Suite or higher, where there's a tub (Mini or Suite) a full shower with door (Suites only).

Tried to e-mail my CVP today and received and auto reply e-mail stating, while she is in, ALL CVPs are in mandatory training 5/6 and 5/7 and will resume their normal schedule 5/8.

Planks is gross. You really can't do proper BBQ on a cruise ship. Chefs rely on liquid smoke and a sickeningly sweet BBQ sauce to make the meat seem like BBQ. The meat is baked and then charred a bit on the grill. The best part of the menu is the banana pudding dessert. Just my opinion.

Same process, but low morale and unhappiness of workers makes the outcome a toss up. You need to check for the confirmation e-mail before you disembark. If purchased through the App, confirmation e-mail usually comes within minutes.

The meat has gotten more tender since the restart, but the flavor ranges from not beef at all to tastes like liver.

Wouldn't let the grumpies ruin your expectations. It's the holidays and it the time of the year that's meant to be spent with family of all ages. The cruise will be great!

If you ever go to Future Cruise, you should always preface you conversation with "I'm not interested in the Princess Promotions Packages." These packages are now a hard sell by the ONE staff because if they don't make their quotas, they don't get paid. The old blood didn't realize this when they accepted this position and many are trying to leave. The newbies are ruthless. Wish the US's consumer laws were as strong as Australia's and New Zealand's because Princess Promotions are banned from selling these packages to residents of these countries and these packages aren't even offered on cruises in these regions. O.N.E. staff are looking for their next victim. Future Cruise still has a short list of some pretty good deals if you can make them work into you schedule. Other than that, the only thing worth your time is purchasing FCDs and even that can be done through the App, bypassing Future Cruise all together.

The Medallions aren't activated until you physically check-in at the port. Until then, they are useless and don't do anything. This is done so there are no stowaways who didn't present ID/don't have the proper documents for the cruise. If they were active at shipping, theoretically, someone without proper documentation could walk past security and scan their Medallion at the gangway and gain access to the ship. A cabin will for sure be assigned before check-in time.

Right, but you booked GTY. You're missing the "OR BETTER" part of booking a GTY. Wait for Princess to assign you a cabin before reacting. What if Princess wanted to upgrade you with the GTY booking, but instead you placed a bid and won? Then you missed out on a free upgrade.

This isn't a Princess problem. It's your anxiety getting to you. Wouldn't jump the gun. Just because you don't see availability, doesn't mean that there isn't non accessible availability in said category. You could be upgraded at no cost. The ivory tower has the infinite wisdom on this subject. That's how GTY bookings work. Another situation is that there could be move over offers put forth and those willing to accept will produce availability and you will be assigned one of the cabins that those people have freed up. Not sure where your gripe about the bidding system comes from because no where does it say in the bidding system that you're guaranteed to win. If you can pay the max bid now, you should have considered higher categories when you booked. When you max out category bids, the total fare comes very close to paying the full fare of higher categories. Patience is a virtue.

Fare fluctuation is normal with EZAir. The prices can change minute to minute, morning or evening. Is the airline Delta? Delta is notorious with releasing inventory to EZAir far in advance and then renegging on booked EZAir reservations as the flight date gets closer and their inventory management realizes that they sold a seat on prime time flight for too low. Happened to my parents FLL to SFO via ATL. They booked their Delta flight with a 2 hour connection in ATL 6 months prior. 3 months before they were supposed to fly, they got an EZAir notification that they had been moved to a later ATL to SFO flight with a 5 hour layover in ATL. Not happy, they called EZAir made a stink and EZAir reinstated their original flights at no extra charge. Had they not made a stink, the flights with a 2 hour connection would have cost them and extra $300 pp through EZAir.

Years ago, Santorini was amazing. Now, it's bombarded with tourists. No joy for me at all. Even before the pandemic, Fira was an absolute zoo. It's a shame if people didn't get to see it before all the overtourism.

You won't be missing anything. Santorini is more of pain than a pleasure as a cruise ship passenger because you get dropped off at the bottom of a cliff and you're at the mercy of a cable car with not enough capacity, donkeys, or a path full of donkey dung to get to town--all of which are terrible options.

My tastebuds detect a chlorine/metallic taste in the ships tap water. My reason for not drinking the ship's potable water is hygiene. Regardless of the signs put up in the buffet, someone will always shove their water flask under the spout and refill directly from the dispenser. Some decide to refill from pitchers in the buffet and the pitcher spout touches the lip of their flask. This happens whether you see it or not. Some people fill their flasks from their cabin bathroom faucet. If you check the aerator of your cabin faucet, you'll find a build up of gunk, which you have no idea what it is; it could be dried up toothpaste or soap buildup. A no go for me. I always drink sealed bottled water when on a cruise ship.

Another way for Princess to pinch a penny out of customers and justify their package fares. Remember when Princess had cruise cards and there was no choice but to pick up at the port? It wasn't a big deal then, not sure why it would be a big deal now.

Tip in Euros or don't bother tipping. The hassle of doing the FOREX conversion and the FOREX fee at the conversion shop/bank isn't worth it for the person on the receiving end.

Princess will send a paper notice of the water shuttle hours the night before the arriving into the tender port. The notice will tell you what time the last shuttle is for the night, what time the water shuttles resume the following day, and that you should make plans to stay in town for the night if you miss the last water shuttle to the ship for the night.

OP stated SOU is out. So either LHR or LGW. See below...

Princess recommends the earliest flight to be booked is 7 hours after the published arrival time of the ship (for LHR). If you follow that, that would mean, the earliest flight you should book is 14:00. Lines at LHR can get crazy at times so I would heed Princess's advice. You also can't predict the traffic conditions. Southampton is quite far from Heathrow.

The way that Princess packaged the Plus/Premium fare packages is like they created solutions for non problems. Before these packages all you really need was the drinks, wi-fi, and crew appreciation. Now, they throw in all of these ancillaries (some of which Princess just made up, like the "Premium Desserts" and "Juice Bar") to try and make make the value of the packages go up. Not to mention they failed to take into account that adding these aspects require more manpower. I feel so sorry for the crew at Gelato and Coffee and Cones who have to make these sundaes that most passengers don't even finish. Even if they do finish the toppings and ice cream, I've never seen anyone lick the chocolate drip off the rim of the glass.

It's really hot and humid the further the cruise goes south, like 90° with 80 to 90% humidity. Being from a dry, temperate climate, we found ourselves running towards air conditioning every time every time we've done a Panama Canal cruise. We couldn't stand being outside for very long and were melting in Panama City, Cartagena, and the Central American ports (except for Cabo and Puerto Vallarta). When we did had a balcony we seldom used it because of the heat. We did the Panama Canal in an interior cabin this past January. It was the coolest cabin we've ever had on a Panama Canal cruise because the sun didn't beat down into the cabin. IMO, (obstructed) oceanview will be fine.

Pre cruise, if your loyalty level is correct in the App, the App will reflect a wifi purchase price with the 50% Elite discount. If not, you can try calling the 800 number and see if the person on the other end will adjust the price to reflect the discount. If your loyalty is incorrect in the App and purchase the wifi pre cruise at full price, then, yes, you will have to get your discount as OBC. You can wait until you're on the ship and connected to intranet, which for most corrects the loyalty level in the App and the App will also automatically reflect the discounted price.

It's because the Princess experience doesn't appeal to most Millennials. All in all, Princess ships feel like floating retirement homes. The overwhelming sentiment of Princess' current demographic is that they don't want to cruise with kids. Millennials can scrape up enough money for an experience if they really wanted to do it. Millennials cruise on RCCL and Disney, and their fares are even higher than Princess.