Paula_MacFan

Interesting my tracking has an update as of 1/4/24 at 12:49am; however, TODAY right now it's 1/3/24. Time travel must be a new perk. Must be China time. 😋

We sail 1/21 and received the medallion shipping notice email today. I was pleasantly surprised and expected it would be closer to sailing. We have Plus so didn't pay extra. Our last cruise in September we picked them up at the pier in Southampton.

This feature has been in place for awhile now. Some shoreside merchants accept medallions as payment. It's been discussed on CC before -- you can do a search as I don't want to hijack this thread. But I think it's been in place for over a year at least.

I'm not sure if you're looking at June 2024 or 2025, but our late May/early June 2024 cruisetour has been sold out for months. Also all the excursions we have booked have either been sold out for awhile or if they are still available, they have gone up in price. My advice if you are looking at 2024 would be not to wait too long to book. I know there are still cruisetours that can be booked but prices are only going up. I've read that Alaska bookings are very strong and some excursion/tour providers are already booking for 2025. Good luck in your planning 🙂

You can reinstall the old app. I did that yesterday and everything was still there just like before. I'm going to leave both on my phone until after our cruise in 3 weeks.

In other social media online forums the official Princess channels are being bombarded with the same questions/concerns that are being raised on this forum. I'm pretty sure they are aware 🙂

Do you still have the old app on your phone with the original reservations? I have both on my phone and the reservations are in both versions correctly. Maybe check the old version and see if there's a difference? Also I take a screen shot of my reservations after I make them 'just in case'.

Same here, just popped up in my email inbox.

Thanks for the heads up! I just downloaded it and everything looks fine for our cruise in 3 weeks 🙂 Dining reservations show up correctly too.

We don't sail until early June (cruisetour is last week of May) and our Hubbard Glacier excursion has been sold out for several months. We booked it at $299 and it went up to $339 in the Personalizer a few months ago and has been wait list only for quite awhile. Also every other excursion we have booked has gone up in price anywhere from $10 to $50 per person.

https://www.portofgalveston.com/80/Cruise-Lines-Schedules There are port schedules on the official Port of Galveston website for 2023 and 2024. Scroll to the bottom where it says 'Cruise Calendars'. For our Regal Princess cruise on January 21, 2024, it shows Terminal 25.

I stand corrected as well. I didn't do a search for world cruises and was thinking just TA. I should know better as I just went on a cruise on the Island 🙂 My apologies.

Agreed. There are a lot of strange things about this, but doing a search on the Princess website reveals no TA cruises starting in Italy for April 2024.

https://www.nps.gov/dena/index.htm See the 'Alerts in Effect' at the top of the page. There's also a lot of other good info on the park website.

I like the feature of using the app too, no more standing at the future cruise desk or dropping off a form and hoping it gets credited. Does anybody know if you can use FCDs on an existing booking? I was thinking you could, but things have changed so much over the years I wasn't 100%.

Use the card to hang on your door the night before. Be forewarned it's been our experience they always come earlier than the time selected 🙂

I got this email yesterday about Caribbean and other bookings for 2025 & 2026. I was able to book a Panama Canal cruise this morning. When I did a search for 2026 Caribbean cruises I get 26 results open for booking, as per screen shot attached.

My reservations are still showing up. Not that this helps you now, but I take screen shots of my reservations in the app 'just in case' and also of my credit card payment. Better safe than sorry 🙂

Ha! Glad I wasn't the only one. I thought I was losing my mind there momentarily 🙂 I had a cruise picked and was in the middle of selecting the cabin when it suddenly said 'pricing not available for this cruise'. I didn't realize it was Elite day until later -- we're Platinum -- and I just had randomly been looking at some Panama Canal cruises.

Thanks for the nice review. We spent 12 days on the Island in Sept/Oct and our experience mirrored yours. We found the ship to be in generally good shape and had a great time. I would also echo your comments about voice levels in the public areas. During our dinner in the Crown Grill one evening we heard a grown man speaking like Donald Duck throughout the entire meal. Happy holidays and safe travels home.

Probably just supply & demand? Our May 2024 Alaska cruisetour has been sold out for months, and the price of the cruise alone has gone up too. Several of our excursions have been sold old for months, and the ones that are still available have gone up anywhere from $10 to $50 per person. I've heard 2024 & 2025 bookings are really strong, and some tour operators are accepting reservations for 2025 already.

I looked at the 2 excursions that I think you're referring to in Genoa. The Discovery Family version has '30 minutes for refreshments at a local cafe' and is one hour shorter in duration, while the other tour has '1.5 hours for lunch at a local restaurant' and the whole tour is one hour longer. I would surmise the 'local restaurant' isn't as kid-friendly as the 'local cafe', and with the shorter time may be more kid friendly on the Discovery Family version.

Here's what the Princess website says about the Discovery Family excursions, and the link. These tours are supposed to appeal to kids 3 - 12 years old. We've never done the Discovery Family ones but we have done the Discovery Exclusive ones which typically have behind the scenes or other special features not available on other tours. I'd probably compare the details tab to see what specifically is different about the tours, that's one thing I like about the Princess website over other cruise lines' -- the detailed descriptions for travel time and time at each sight on excursions. https://www.princess.com/ports-excursions/

Here's a map from the Princess website which shows the route Royal Class ships take vs other smaller vessels in the fleet. Note the 'Royal Class Ships Route' in black in the lower right corner, that shows those larger ships must sail farther west around Vancouver Island. In the list of ships in your example, the Royal Princess would be considered 'Royal Class'. You can also see that Glacier Bay is farther north of the Inside Passage on the map. We have a Sapphire Alaska cruise booked and are very much looking forward to it. There are many positive comments and reviews here for that ship. Good luck with your planning.

Glad you were able to make the best of it! Thanks for the review.