SCX22

For what it's worth, the charm bracelet events might be worth going to because you actually get something physically in return for you attendance--the charm. All you get at the acupuncture, Medi spa, spa, and fitness related seminars is a bunch of hot air from the presenter. If you can bring along a sacrificial cute kid that the shopkeepers find adorable, you'll end up with a boatload of charms without having to go each and every event. My friend's 5 year old daughter ended up with all of the charms, and more, on day 5 of a 14 day cruise.

If you read EZAir's T&Cs at the bottom of the Air Notification e-mailed to you by EZAir when you made the airline reservation, it clearly states, "A fee, up to the full cost of the ticket...."

This still doesn't negate the T&Cs of EZAir.

Don't see how this is an EZAir problem. This is an unfortunate incident where you're needing to voluntarily change your air reservation. The terms are clearly stated when you book. If tickets are Flexible, you can change up to 45 days and you won't get charged for changes/refunds. If tickets are Restricted, no changes or refunds. Either way you're past both windows, so what did EZAir do wrong? Completely sympathize with your friends passport dilemma (at least you're not asking if he/she can cruise without a passport), but EZAir did nothing wrong.

The activity content will not be repeated, but the some of the activities will be repeated, i.e. trivia will happen every day but the topics will change, same with the enrichment. The game shows will tend to only happen once, unless one is really popular. In terms of theater entertainment, you will probably cycle through all of the production shows that are performed on the ship at the time you're on. Depending on how many sea days there are between ports, the guest performers might headline twice, different show on different night. It's becoming more and more common for the ED to squeeze in a repeat matinee show of a performance that was completely full. Princess menus cycle every 14 days, so you will definitely see the menu repeat a few days on your cruise. Not sure if you've been on a Princess cruise recently, but the lunch menus stay the same every day except for the soup of the day and one entree. Not sure how often you wear clothes in between washing, but the Guest Laundry will be your friend.

The national statistics being put out by the government doesn't account for the crimes that go unreported. That's the scary part. Many of the crimes committed by the cartels are swept under the rug. Those in office don't want to go after the cartels because they fear for their life. In addition, officials want to make it seem like their tenure is effective, thus wanting to report lower crime rates, which will get them reelected. To the original question... I've been to Cabo, Mazatlan, Puerto Vallarta, Ensenada, Huatulco, and Manzanillo in the past 6 months. Stay in the tourist areas and you'll be fine. You can rest assured that on an excursion, Princess will vouch for your safety. TBH, I feel more unsafe in some western states' downtown areas than the tourist areas of Mexican ports. You'll run across the occasional homeless person and druggie, but the problem is far more isolated than in US cities such as San Francisco or Seattle.

The Royal Princess arrived as planned. On it's itinerary it's scheduled to arrive 5/17 at 23:00. Passengers will be allowed to disembark on 5/18. Presumably, she required an odd arrival time in Vancouver due to the timing of the tides and this was the time that would allow her to shimmy under the Lion's Gate Bridge.

The Sapphire is the ship designated to South America since the restart. Star, which is no longer in the fleet, and the Emerald were the ships designated to SA until the shutdown. The Majestic will be doing a circumnavigation of South America from LA to FLL this winter because it's repositioning from the Pacific to the Atlantic and it's too big to fit through the Panama Canal. The 51 day cruise is a total of 3 segments--LA to Santiago, Santiago to Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires to Fort Lauderdale. It's a now or never situation until Princess needs to reposition a Royal/Sphere Class ship. Pricing is pretty fair for the 51 Day segment.

Not everyone has the same minimum bid amount. It depends on the fare you paid and the length of the cruise. It also depends on how many balcony cabins are available and the amount of the other bids you're bid is up against. If there are still a lot of balcony cabins left, more likely than not the minimum bid will be accepted. If there are few balcony cabins left, higher bids are more likely to win. (I personally, don't bid to upgrade, but have deduced this info from my friends experiences.) You should also look at the prices of balconies after final payment. If there are still balconies available, you can upgrade from oceanview and pay the difference outright. If you can afford to do this, you're guaranteed the balcony without having to wait for the 3rd party bid operator to respond to your bid. You really have to be privy on the fares after final payment. Sometimes it's cheaper to upgrade outright instead of bidding. You can cancel your bid all the way until it's accepted or denied.

The work around is once you're on the Excursions tab, right click everything and select to open each page in a new window. Once you're on the individual excursion page, add it to your cart. Close all the tabs you used for and relating to excursions and reload your Cruise Personalizer. Open the Payments tab and click on the Shore Excursions drop down to pay for your excursions. Had OBC that I wanted to use to purchase an excursion during the 20% off Europe excursions sale this past weekend and had to resort to doing it as described above. Long way around, but it worked.

A third option would be to book the Oceanview now and participate in bid to upgrade, in which you bid for a upgrade to a higher category, such as a balcony, after final payment has passed. If you choose this option and your bid is accepted, you'll be upgraded to a balcony, but you won't have a choice in balcony cabin assignment. It's not guaranteed that your bid will be accepted. Not sure how your TA knows balconies will sell out first. What if you book a balcony and in the end Oceanview sells out and there are no Oceanview cabins to downgrade to? Are you still willing to pay extra $2K extra for a Balcony in this situation or would you cancel the cruise all together? If you really want to follow your budget, I would book an Oceanview and watch the Balcony fares fluctuate.

It's just bad judgement on Princess' part. This isn't the first time. The Sun Princess inaugural was a disaster. Princess tries to pinch pennies, but in the end their decisions come to pinch them.

That's exactly what should have been done from the get go. This is a mechanical issue, not force majeure. RCCL takes the limelight with what they did with the Radiance of the Seas in the same situation because they didn't go forth with a cruise to Alaska in which they knew they couldn't deliver the full experience.

The propulsion issues occurred on the 05/07/24 sailing from Los Angeles to Vancouver with no ports, just to reposition. Princess was overly optimistic about the fix to the Sapphire propulsion issue when the ship got to Vancouver. At least RCCL with the Radiance of the Seas played it safe and cancelled the subsequent sailings to have the propulsion problems fully fixed instead of proceeding with an abbreviated cruise that missed many highlights of Alaska.

Princess is playing it cautious. Glacier Bay is a National Park and Princess has strict entry and exit times. Wouldn't be good if the Sapphire broke down while cruising the park. Not only that, the park rangers that board for the few hours at the beginning and end that do the enrichment/narration would be stuck on the ship, if it were to break down.

Move overs are for oversold situations. This is a mechanical problem and IF Princess was to decommission the Sapphire for repairs and cancel subsequent cruises, Princess's obligation, per the cruise contract, would be to refund the cruise fare and ancillary charges of those affected.

Let me preface this by saying, I book guarantee, DON'T bid to upgrade, but DO get the bid to upgrade e-mails. Wait for your cabin to be assigned. You might get a free category upgrade, and by bidding you might negate this. For example, if you booked an interior guarantee, and bid on an upgrade, and it's accepted, you essentially paid for an upgrade and might have missed out on a free upgrade. Also, if you do receive and comped category upgrade from the guarantee booking, higher categories will open up for bidding at a lower cost. For example, I booked an IF guarantee and was upgraded to BW obstructed. When my booking was still IF guarantee, I could only bid up to a Deluxe Balcony. When I got my upgrade to BW, I could bid all the way to a Mini Suite and the minimum bids for DW, Balcony, and Deluxe Balcony dropped.

Alaska tends to be a one and done destination for many. Lots of first and only time cruisers. Thus the high number of first time "blue" cruisers in relation to Captain's Circle. You have to sympathize with the passengers who wanted to experience Alaska for the first and only time. After this experience, wouldn't be surprised if these people were turned off to cruising for life. Also, RC did a much better job of dealing with the same situation when the Radiance lost propulsion this past April. While the Passage Contact indemnifies Princess from missed ports, it's pretty clear that Princess was overly optimistic about the problem with the Sapphire--no weather was involved.

Royal Caribbean handled this with more grace when the Radiance of the Seas had propulsion issues in April 2024. Not only did booked passengers get a full refund, but also FCC in the full amount of their cruise fare. Cruise was also supposed to go to Alaska. Instead of an abbreviated cruise, RCCL cancelled it all together. https://cruiseindustrynews.com/cruise-news/2024/04/royal-caribbean-cancels-radiance-of-the-seas-departure/

Make sure to remind the Dining Manager of the occasion. There's been a few cases that have been reported on this board of forgotten occasions.

YMMV... Having said that, I've never had a problem bringing food back to the ship. Have brought back lots of pastries from Southern Italy and Greece. On a Transatlantic, I brought back 5kg of bacalao in Lisbon and was never questioned. In Hawaii, I brought back papayas, cream puffs, fresh mochi, and pies with no problem. Beverages can cause some questioning, but it's always been to check if they were alcoholic. Got questioned in Honolulu because the I purchased 2, 24 pack cases of Hawaiian Sun from Costco, but they security let me through when they saw what it was. The Filipino crew bring back Jollibee fried chicken en masse when they're in a port with a location, like Honolulu and Vancouver. They literally take orders for their crewmates that can't make it off the ship.

Won't happen because the port workers aren't scheduled to work early. If the ships does happen to arrive early, which is highly unlikely, the ship will bob around the harbor until the proper time. The better question is which ship will arrive first to berth? In the the summer, there can be up to 3 ships in port in the evening/night to satisfy PVSA before returning to Seattle.

Grab a taxi van and split it with a stranger in the taxi line from the cruise. When we do this, at most its $30 total, so $15 per couple.

Very realistic, if you plan to make your own way to the airport. If all goes as planned, first groups will be let off between 7 and 7:30 am. FLL is 15 to 20 minutes from the Port Everglades WITH traffic.

Can't say I miss the food from the ship, but I do miss the action of not having to cook. One example is, Princess ships usually has some form of Mexican food at the buffet for lunch. It's lackluster compared to my local taco truck or taqueria. Same goes for Chinese food or In-N-Out Burger. I start to miss my local restaurants when I've been on a ship for too long.