Bedruthen

I do feel that customers in the UK don’t get the same level of service as American customers receive. We mistakenly ticked the upgrade box when booking and have had a torrid time trying to get the contact centre to understand that we want our booking changed to no automatic upgrade. The U.K. does have its own contact centre, but calls always seem to get rerouted to the States, who ar not familiar with our booking terms. Only last week, I was verbally told that I could cancel my booking within the first 24 hours and my deposit would be refunded. That is complete against U.K. booking conditions where deposits are non refundable, no grace period. Good luck with your calls!

We took the 360 experience on Discovery earlier this year. It was a formal night, but only two gentlemen were in formal dress. The rest were pretty casual. Please don’t worry about it. The experience is worth every penny and we thoroughly enjoyed it, far too much to worry about what we or anyone else was wearing!

We have a cabin booked on Regal Princess on dolphin deck at the aft of the ship, D731 . It is adjacent to a void and I wondered if anyone can tell me what it is, and if that is likely to be a source of noise. We could possibly move to D729, but that puts us nearer to the smoking area on starboard promenade, which might be worse. Advice and thoughts welcome!

We did the whale watching independtly in Juneau. There were people on our coach who had also booked the Mendenhall Glacier as part of the same trip. After 2 hours whale watching in the cold and rain, 15 of them were begging to be allowed back on the coach rather than endure another hour at a glacier!

You forgot to mention the midnight wake up call to see the Northern lights! Yes Victoria was a shambles. We queued for half an hour before deciding that by the time we got off, we would had to start queuing to get back on. I mean what is the point of arriving at 9 pm and having to be back on board by 11.30pm. That is not a port call, it’s a restroom stop! We had cabin R732, which we wouldn’t take again. We were in D732 last cruise and it is a much superior location. R732 has a large balcony but no shelter and because it’s higher there was light from the navigation lights and deck 16 above, plus the odd slap from a wet flag when it was raised. The cabin above R732 has its entire balcony above the sleeping area and it felt that the people occupying it were dragging the deck furniture around all day and flushing the loo all night. Have never had intrusive noise before like it. We loved Alaska, but with four or five ships in every port, it felt too over whelmed. We will go back, but independently. Finally a shout out to the onboard guest speaker Michael, he was an awesome speaker, both informative and entertaining.

We did just this on Discovery last week. Yes they will bring you pats of butter, but it’s the same product, just harder! Tried to tell us that they make their own butter. Come to think of it, I did hear mooing one night, but just thought my beef was just a bit rare.

We were on Sky transatlantic November 23. The WiFi was remarkably stable and I don’t recall any issues in using or accessing it

That’s definitely worrying as we had no email, nothing. I will have to bring the credit card receipt with me. They have certainly taken the money!

We were on Sky Princess last November, sat in the Princess Live! area. Over two weeks, we witnessed three separate incidents where people physically fell on a step in the venue. One lady took a particularly nasty fall. If you walk into Princess Live! and walk parallel with the stage, there is a small step about 2/3 way in to the area which goes up into another sitting area. It is poorly lit and if you are carrying a drink and trying to avoid people seated, it is very easy to miss. Princess must know this.

We certainly do! We leave SFO on 25 April, then plan is a couple of nights Napa valley, then 2 weeks to drive along scenic coastal highway up to Tillamook, then 3 nights Portland, 2 nights Olympia, 2 nights Seattle, then cruise. Then returning via inland route, bit more unsure of that leg! Probably stay Portland for one night, then down to Ashland, Redding and then staying in Palo Alto for 4 nights to take train in to San Francisco and use rental car to visit coast, maybe Big Sur, Monterey. Fly home 28 May. If you have any recommendations please reach out. It’s our first and last trip to West Coast so hopefully I have captured the highlights, (apart from Olympia National Park area, but something had to give)

We stayed at the Hilton garden hotel in Wall Street in November 2023 , which is very handy for the ferry pier, an easy flat walk with luggage. You can walk the short distance to the pier the evening before if you want, buy two single tickets, they are valid for one month I think. Then you are set for the morning. It really is so easy and it’s a very short walk from ferry drop off to the ship, a couple of minutes maybe. It’s so easy, I don’t know why more people don’t do it! Do not stop at the Wall Street Inn, I cannot recommend it at all.

Thank you to everyone who helped with this enquiry. Yes we are renting a car, but we start and end our trip in San Francisco. The one way rental charges outweigh the cost of parking for a week. We finally got a response from Seattle cruise park and have booked our parking. Rather alarmingly, they have issued no paperwork so how they will know we have prepaid, I have no idea ( and no, they didn’t require a car registration plate!)

It’s not unusual. You are paying for convenience. Personally we love to make tour independently and in 20 years, have never had a problem. We have taken the train to Florence and Rome from the ports, hired taxi and driver for the day, and mimicked many of the cruise line tours for significantly less. All the cruise lines rely on their passengers innate fear of the boat sailing without them to sell their tours and price accordingly.

Thank you to everyone who replied and especially for the fab photos. We decided to go with 5192 rather than the wrap round balcony, as the internal cabin looks much more spacious. All booked, just two years or so to wait!

Thank you for the photo of the deck 5 balcony. I hadn’t picked up that it was completely sheltered by the deck above. Not sure that I like that! Would I be right to think that with the corner aft, the side balcony is more open to the sun? Do all the aft cabin decks aside from deck 4 , have that overhang. Given a preference we would go for part open, part shaded

You're right. Though that one also booked up almost immediately after launch.

We have the choice of cabin numbers 5190, 5192 or 5196, for a two week cruise in the Med. It’s clear that these cabins all have a different internal layout, with 5190 being narrower and generally smaller, however the smaller internal space is compensated by its huge wraparound balcony. As this will be our first time in grills, we don’t know if a larger balcony is important as there is the separate grills open area. In our normal balcony cabin we use the balcony a lot as we don’t like the proximity of other sunloungers on the open decks, but maybe it’s okay on the separate grills open spaces? Would welcome any input as to which room you would choose and would you sacrifice the internal space for the larger balcony?

we are booked on this cruise. The cabins were fully sold months and months ago. However we will be cancelling our booking so at least on will become availabe!

our agent has phoned this morning. Cunard will not release any of the Princess Grill cabins that are available on the separate legs for booking on the combined 21 day. So anyone wanting to book Princess Grill on 21 day cruise, there is no availability.

Except it was the longer 21 day segment that we wanted to book. The cruise was then divided in to a 7 and 14 day.

This is probably it. The Princess grills were available in a limited quantity (1 cabin!) on the 14 night cruise but none on the 21 day combined. I’m pretty disappointed as it would have been our first grills experience and, if we had enjoyed it, would probably have upgraded in the future. Instead we are just feeling really cheated by Cunard.

I was on the phone with my agent at 12.50. She tried getting on system early. The cruise we wanted to book was showing all the P2 cabins waitlisted. When bookings opened there were no Princess grill cabins available at all on their system so she rang Cunard. How can cabins be waitlisted before cruise even goes on sale? Cunard couldn’t or wouldn’t explain. Whilst she was on the phone, I was also trying to find availability. Nothing, nada. No cruise for us then. I can only surmise that other cruise agencies had some sort of block hold on the Princess grill cabins. A pretty disappointing experience.

Yes you can, that’s the easy part. Getting them delivered to your room, now that’s a different story. Took us four days on the last cruise.

That’s not a bad idea - I will try it with the rental locations detail in San Francisco and see if that gets me past the booking address. Cheers!