beachseeker

I think Carnival is the only one still sailing out of San Juan.

Carnival Valor, 2 Royal Caribbean ships, and Celebrity Summit

We have not sailed Princess since they pulled out of San Juan. We love starting in a warm port and prefer the Southern Caribbean ports so we have sailed with other lines and will be leaving out of San Juan with Azamara on the 28th. Our tickets to San Juan are only slightly more than our flights were to Ft Lauderdale over Thanksgiving. Sailed out of Galveston and New Orleans the last two years and both times the sea days were too cold to enjoy. IMO wasted days so we prefer San Juan. We are sailing again with Princess to Alaska this summer and looking forward to returning to Princess.

I guess I am not being clear enough. I understand now that any excursion during the land portion will be charged to our credit card. My confusion: are shore excursions for the cruise that are prebooked charged to our credit card now or will they be charged to our ship board card once onboard? The reason for my confusion is that when reserving an excursion for the land tour or shore excursion for the cruise both ask for our credit card and say the credit card will be charged prior to our first excursion. We have $950 OBC so gratuities will not eat it up nor will our bar bill but a couple of shore excursions in Alaska will for sure! If prebooked shore excursions don't go on our on ship account then I will go with all private excursions. Thus the reason for my questions. I have always had better luck getting accurate info on CC than calling the cruise line. Hope my question is clear now.

Under our cruise personalizer when we choose an excursion whether it is for the land tour or cruise, it asks for our credit card and says credit card will be charged prior to first excursion. We have a nice amount of OBC and hoped we could use it to pay for excursions. It has been awhile since cruising Princess, but not having to prepay shore excursions was a positive in our opinion. Trying to decide if that is no longer the case. Sounds like it is for the land part of the trip but what about the cruising part? We are planners so prefer to plan excursions long before cruise date and usually book private. But with this generous OBC and the $100 shore excursion promotion, we want to use some ship excursions. Unfortunately, the ones we are most likely to book with Princess are on the land portion.

The OBC you get on the cruise cannot be used for land tours. Sorry.

Thanks for the quick reply. Is that just true for excursions on land tours or all shore excursions? Haven't cruised Princess in a while. Last time on Princess you could pre book shore excursions and pay at the end of the cruise, using OBC that you had.

Have cruised many times but taking our first land and cruise combined in August on the Coral. Can we use OBC to pay for excursions that are not included on the land portion?

Were at St.Jean in 2011 and did not find chairs or umbrellas for rent. I will be returning on Nov.26 (counting the days). Trip Advisor said that Do Brazil restaurant on Shell Beach has chair/umbrella rentals. Photos seem to support that. We plan to walk there and check it out. Rentals on other islands are typically $20-$30 for 2 chairs with umbrella. If it's much more than that in St. Bart, we will sit on the sand. Will post our findings upon return in early Dec.

Will be there on New Years Eve so look forward to any info you can provide.

Our sail away is 10 pm out of San Juan on Dec 28th. Wonder what time our Meet and Greet will be scheduled for?

I've never sailed in a Signature Suite, so don't know this from experience, but I know I can order a full, hot, room service breakfast in my inside cabin. So I don't know why not in a higher cabin. ;)

Awesome. Thank you for the quick replies.

In a signature suite can you order a full breakfast through room service or is it only continental? Thinking about booking our first Holland American cruise on the Noordam.

There's a Chilean Reisling on the included wine list.

Had the Chilean Reisling several times last summer on the Quest and it was always complimentary at dinner.

I have been reading the posts on this thread with interest. I cannot decide whether the negative comments are coming from people who are really disgruntled or whether they are merely enjoying eliciting reactions from others .

We have sailed once (10 day Mediterranean) and have another booked NYE out of San Juan (8 day). We are paying considerably more for 8 nights but we knew that when we booked on board last July. The new enhancements were announced after we had booked the 2nd cruise and we were pleased that for the extra cost per day beer would now be included. DH doesn't drink enough for the beer package but it is a nice perk for it to be included. DH seldom posts on CC but was very disappointed on the three announced beer choices and did post earlier in this thread. So, in this case he was truly disgruntled (disappointed) enough to logon to CC and post.

We were very pleased with wines on our first cruise and if I can get my bloody marys, rum and cokes, and margaritas I'm good. I'm not a beer drinker but DH was very, very disappointed in the three choices. So, we are definitely expressing our displeasure and not just stirring the pot.

6 days!!!

Ican not see Tony on rollar skates or drag in the shows. wonder what they will do..

Tony was CD on the Quest in July. Didn't see him on roller skates but he was hilarious in drag. DH and I laughed til it hurt. It was our first time on Azamara but thought he was the best CD we had experienced on a cruise ship.

My roll call doesn't change page from week to week as I am the only one posting at the moment. :( so the page hasn't even turned yet.

We sail on June 27th and the roll call is still on page 1.

We just got off the Magic yesterday and our piano bar guy was Imani. He was decent, but he used a lot computerized back-up music that I didn't really care for. He was very personable.

We were on the Dec 26 sailing of Magic and went a couple of times but left quickly. Didn't enjoy his versions of familiar songs, really slowed them down. However, there was a crowd there every night.

We have sailed in 6 aft balconies, 5 suite cabins on Princess, Royal Caribbean and Carnival (Legend) and balcony on NCL. Carnival has been our least favorite. The room was much smaller and while the balcony is verrrry long, it is very narrow. The lounger had to be placed parallel to the railing and it was too narrow for dining. Princess has been our favorite, large rooms and much wider balconies. A751 on the Crown is awesome. That said, we are in a aft wrap on the Magic for New Year's cruise. It is a 9C cabin and the balcony looks wider. Hope so!! We love aft balconies.

Yesterday we received our Welcome Aboard Information and read about the two suitcase limit, then laughed because in the same envelope was three bag tags for each of us. We are doing the three day cruise on Sky, so not worried about luggage. But, we did get a good giggle over the contradiction.