MacMadame

I'm doing this cruise but in Jan 2025! Except in my case the Coral is stopping in Cartegena and a similar cruise at the same time is going to Aruba. My rationale for picking this cruise is that I absolutely wanted to go through the Old Locks. Plus, I prefer a smaller ship. (I don't go on a cruise to race go-carts and all the other newer extras. Well, I wouldn't mind some water slides. LOL) Finally, I didn't want to go to Aruba but I wanted to go to Cartegena. Because of Romancing the Stone. Yes, I know it's silly, but there you go. Finally, our cruise ends in SF and that's where we live! It just makes everything simpler to not have to get ourselves home when the cruise is over. Plus it feeds into my fantasy of re-creating an immigrant moving from the East Coast to SF via the Panama Canal. (When I learned about the PC in Elementary School, that is the picture that came to mind and I decided right then to go through the Panama Canal one day.) Coral Princess is scheduled for another refurbishment in the Fall of 2024 (Oct, I think). So just in time for my cruise! The others have answered about Crooners. And the Aft Balcony cabins not existing (that made me sad). I think there is a Roll Call thread for the April 2025 cruise that you might want to check out.

I've seen lists of classes that include yoga. (And possibly Zumba but I'm less sure about that.) Maybe it depends on the ship? They have spin classes too. I particularly remembered that because that's the class I would want to take. 😄 You are confusing the beverage package with the fare package that includes the beverage package. The beverage package costs more ($76.70) than the fare package that includes the beverage package ($60). I know, it's weird. They obviously don't want people to buy the beverage package. 75%. That's what Princess tells people. And they don't pull numbers out of the air. They pull them out of a spreadsheet. LOL (Actually, it's probably more sophisticated so a computer model.)

Thanks! I would expect that so it's good to hear. I like the pink stuff in my tea. I think it's got a bit of a sharpness to it that goes well with the taste of Black Tea.

No Sweet n Low? (The pink stuff)

I am thinking about this bag: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C9Z9BG6G/?coliid=I12RRBA95QCA01&colid=ELIG6WTKTQ75&ref_=list_c_wl_lv_ov_lig_dp_it&th=1 Or this one: https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1725611-REG/national_geographic_ng_e2_5168_camera_backpack.html I want to use it as a carry-on and add a swimsuit and change of clothing as well as the camera equipment and a MacBook Air and both bags seem like they are set up for that.

And yet Princess offers doggy-bags without being asked. I think they are better equipped to judge this than either of us.

That's what the mini-fridge is for. Also vvvvv So I guess Princess doesn't think it's a health hazard after all. 😉 It's tasty on a sandwich.

Your first bag looks like what I used to lug around with me. 🤣 I have looked into the Point & Shoots and my iPhone 13 Pro is just as good, if not better than most of them. So I'm going to use that (or something newer if I upgrade between now and then) for my knock-around camera and bring some sort of DSLR (well probably a mirrorless one with an adapter, but they don't seem to have a hand acronym) to put my long lens on. Now I just have to figure out which of the bazillion Canon mirrorless camera bodies is the best for my needs.

I'm taking a cruise in a little over a year and we have no excursions for Puerto Vallarta either. It's weird as all the other stops have them. My theory is that they are negotiating a contract of some sort and the excursions will magically appear once everything is signed.

No, it's not that simple. No matter how careful you are only to order what you think you can eat, sometimes there is food left over when you are done. Anyway, why shouldn't you take it with you? The food is included and you can eat as much as you want. So what if you eat half your steak at dinner and half for lunch the next day?

About to go away for the weekend. I'll check and get back probably on Tues. Anyway, this deal isn't as extensive or revolutionary as people are making out. It just says if you buy a cruise within a particular time window (which ends this month), they guarantee the cruise won't cost less later. There is nothing about if you buy it outside of that window or for cruises in 2026 or this is the way things will be forever. It's a short-term deal probably to juice up the bottom line for this quarter.

Yes but normally when I go to a restaurant, I get an iced tea which is apparently included. My husband will get a soda which is not. Don't drink beer or wine. When I am at a place like Disneyland, I will have one cocktail a day. Will I do that on a 16-day cruise? I don't know. Probably not unless there are lots of cool specialty ones I can't get at home. (That's why I get them at DL -- they have seasonal ones for a limited time only. LOL) Even then, that's a lot of drinking for me. At this point, I'm thinking that if I stick with my Plus package, I won't have to worry about whether or not I'm spending too much and should have just gotten the package. Instead, I can worry about whether or not I'm getting my money's worth. 😄

Mine is down again. I've already missed one refare because my Princess VP ignored me. And it's too late to transfer to a TA by a few days. SMH Unfortunately, I've already started paying for my cruise with AARP Gift Cards and I'm nervous that if I cancel and rebook, I won't get them back properly. They already said that they *will* have discounts near to sailing if they have empty cabins but only if you pick a Guaranteed Cabin. i.e., they pick the cabin for you. It's right in the announcement. Off to find a PVP who isn't a lazy SOB... 😄

So it sounds like the Ocean Now menu and the Room Service menu are different. Does anyone have samples or can speak to why you'd want to use Room Service (i.e., something really cool that is only on that menu) if you've paid for Ocean Now?

Hey, I have a spreadsheet. We can be friends. LOL Because hearing what people are doing and why brings up points I might not have thought of myself. Such as buying the water package instead of getting bottled water through the Plus fare. The math is not complicated. What is complicated is predicting what you will want to spend money on. Never having been on a Princess Cruise, never having been on a cruise over 7 days in length (16 days), or with so many sea days (more sea days than port days), or any cruise in over a decade (so much has changed), I have no idea how things are going to go. I'm used to cruising where all drinks but alcoholic ones are included, where there are no specialty restaurants and only two seatings for each meal, etc., etc. It's really hard to know how many drinks we'll drink that aren't included, if we'll even go to casual dining, etc. I've read here that they also have some big slices of cake that count as specialty desserts. They sound like a variation of the Motherlode cake at Claim Jumper. It's not cheesecake but it is cake. 😄 ETA forgot to answer the question! We are currently with the Plus package but I waver between downgrading to Standard or upgrading to Premier. I know, that's all the choices.

But she didn't pick a guaranteed cabin. She chose "pick your cabin" but wanted to be in a section with none available. So this is some in-between option between guaranteed and select your own. It sounds like she's on a waitlist of some sort. @teddie2 I would talk to a Princess Vacation Planner and ask them *exactly* how it works.

Oh, good idea!

Just because you didn't like them doesn't make them less recent though. 😉 There were definitely some good movies on that list. Of course, I know that because I've *already seen them*. But maybe when we cruise, there will be ones that are both good AND recent! LOL

Sea lions like to swim with people. The first time I swam around the Santa Cruz pier (I live near there), a sea lion followed me around the pier and then swam under me when I got near the beach on the other side. Freaked me all the heck out! Other times, I swam too close to the pier and they all swarmed under me to keep me away from their food. 🤣 Anyway, Google says there are excursions in Cabo to swim with sea lions. Maybe someone who has been on one will post about how it went.

Really? The Flash came out in June -- only 4 months ago.

They can! My iPad has that and I have a "cell phone" plan for it. It's because I mostly use it while traveling and can't count on there being wifi available such as on a long car trip.

It's weird because all the other ports have them and I've already booked the ones we're interested in (Doing a non-ship excursion in Cartegena and booked that too.) My roll call has 2 posts. Both by me! 🤣 I'm guessing it's too soon for a lot of discussion. That's part of why I posted here instead. Thanks! I think I saw that at one point but then I couldn't find it because now I go through my booking for everything. I didn't realize PV was on Mountain Time. I assumed it was on PT like California (where I live) and Tijuana and Cabo (the only two places in Mexico that I've been to). I'm very excited about this cruise! When I was a kid and learned about the Panama Canal in school, I imagined sailing through it on my way to a new life in California as many settlers did when it first opened. 🙂

If you purchase internet, would you be able to connect your Kindle to it and download that way or is their internet limited in some way and won't connect to everything?

Did you have an internet package or just the ship's wifi? If you only had the within-the-ship wifi, your cloud uploads wouldn't have worked. But you should have seen an error message when you tried to upload. Unless you were counting on them to upload automatically. But even there should be a message when you open the Photos app (something like "Unable to backup")

But they could do that with any theme. I read that White & Gold was started in '22 to celebrate some Princess-themed reality show that I had never heard of. They broadcast 4 episodes on CBS before the plug was pulled and the remaining episodes were dumped on Paramount+. The show was not renewed. Therefore, I would shocked if they don't pick a new theme sometime in the next 6 months. But definitely before my 2025 cruise. 😉