Paula_MacFan

Thank you all for the responses.

I thought about putting this question on the Alaska board but it's really specific to our upcoming Princess cruisetour so I'm posting it here. We have the Denali Tundra Wilderness tour booked for our May cruisetour, and I've read reports that a boxed lunch can be ordered in advance. I've also seen on the park concessionaire's website there's a form you can fill out to order the lunch in advance. My question is this -- do they have a way to pre-order the lunch from the Princess lodge, or do you have to do it yourself through the concessionaire? The concessionaire's website has a form to fill out but says you should drop it off the night before. We aren't planning on being in the park the day prior so I wasn't sure if the Princess lodge would have ways to order for people staying at the lodge. I know they provide a simple snack box on the tour as well, and yes I know that the Natural History Tour is the default tour and we've already upgraded to the Tundra Wilderness Tour. And yes I know the road isn't open the whole way yet. Just wanted to get some feedback from anyone here who has ordered the boxed lunch in advance. Thanks

That's where we went too on our last rocky cruise. There were so many people there who felt queasy the waiters were going around with ginger ale for everyone. Hope you get relief soon!

Agreed! Galveston is our preferred port for Caribbean cruises as we are from the midwest so it's an easy travel destination. We are going on the Regal in 6 weeks, but after that I doubt we'll go again anytime soon. I was disappointed they weren't offering some new itineraries too. Maybe some Eastern Caribbean routes or even Panama Canal with a smaller (non Royal class) ship. Carnival has a Panama Canal cruise from Galveston but we've never been on that line. They are offering the same old thing unfortunately.

That's why we take reviews with a grain of salt. Sometimes I think people have unrealistic expectations or didn't bother to do any research or reading in advance. We've even been on excursions with people who literally have no idea where they are going. Oy! We always make the best of it no matter what 🙂

For people like us the cruise is all about the ports, getting out and seeing things we normally don't in our everyday lives. We treat the ship as a floating hotel rather than the destination. So while for you the 'main point of a cruise' is to relax, for others it's to see the world. I can lounge around at home, or at a domestic resort hotel, but I can't see foreign ports everyday. To each their own 🙂

We had an aft cabin on our last Alaska cruise and have another one booked for May 2024. We love aft cabins for any itinerary, but especially for Alaska where the temperatures can be cooler. Due to typically less wind it's more usable than cabins on the port or starboard sides, at least in our experience. We are really looking forward to our Alaska cruise and asked our CVP to mark the cabin as no upgrade 🙂

Also on the Island September - October and got cans with our Plus package. Initially we didn't ask specifically but sometimes that's just what the waiter provided. As the cruise went on and we realized we were not being charged, we started asking for cans so we could have a few in our cabin fridge. I really appreciate finally having cans included as I like Sprite Zero, and in the past you could only get it onboard in cans and wasn't available from the gun.

I initially booked the day flights opened at 330 days out for our European cruise, and was able to immediately book seats. This was on United. We have flights booked for another upcoming cruise to Alaska which I also booked the first day available at 330 days, and was able to select seats for all flights coming and going. Those flights are on Delta and Alaska airlines.

Per the Princess website: https://www.princess.com/en-us/cruise-deals-promotions/plus-premier-cruise-packages Drink package only: https://www.princess.com/en-us/ships-and-experience/onboard-experience/food-and-dining/beverages See FAQs at the bottom of the link for purchasing onboard.

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Your questions have primarily already been answered, so I'll just chime in with general comments. We used EZ Air to London in September for a European cruise and saved quite a bit over booking on our own. We flew United first class Polaris both ways and it was wonderful and totally worth the money. Just the lounge access for pre-boarding and layovers, onboard meals, no checked bag fees, and other included perks made it so much more civilized. Our fares were not much more than premium economy, and having the extra room and perks on a long flight were great. We used the United app to manage our flights and were able to choose seats at the time of booking, and order meals in advance on the app. We got all flight and gate notices on the app as well. I watched our fare prices every day, and was able to re-fare a couple times when prices dropped. That is one of the best perks of EZ Air IMO -- the ability to refare with flexible fares if prices drop. My experience has been for domestic flights EZ Air isn't that much different in pricing, but for Europe it really seems more cost effective. We flew in 5 days early so we didn't have the worry about missing the ship, but for people cutting it close the benefit of Princess getting you to the ship could be important too. I don't see any downsides to using EZ Air to Europe but maybe others will chime in. I've heard some horror stories of people who swear they'll never use EZ Air, but mostly those seem like airline issues to me and not specific to EZ Air.

From the Princess website:

Agreed! We love the Regal and have a cruise booked for next month. We've been on that ship for other Caribbean and New England cruises as well. My one pet peeve is the Princess Live venue -- it's a waste of space IMO and I miss not having Explorers. That is one of our favorite venues on other ships and Regal doesn't have it. Now it sounds like they are taking away the Club 6 area as well for more casino space. Oh well, a day at sea is better than a day at work 🙂 We still consider the Regal to be a 'newer' ship as well. Our last cruise was on the Island in September - October, and we found her to be in good shape too albeit an older, smaller vessel.

Exactly! Last minute weather changes are understandable. 'Congestion' at ports that have had published schedules for months -- not so much.

Unbelievable. How did you discover this? It's nowhere near as dramatic as your issue but I've been annoyed with Princess lately as I discovered they made changes to booked excursions and didn't bother to give us any notice either. I just stumbled across it in the personalizer. I hope you make your ports even if they are out of order, and am curious as to what the reasoning is. You know the port schedules are done months in advance, it can't be they just discovered a crowding situation.

We pick specific cabins by locations we love, usually aft, so I always ask our CVP to mark our booking as 'no upgrade'. They have always done it for me and we've never had an unwanted upgrade, so I assume whatever system they have is working.

That would be way too late for us, we like to eat much earlier than that. I'd probably be ready for a late night snack at that point 🙂

Nice review! Thanks for taking the time to post it 🙂 Sounds like you had a good time.

This is my question too. We sail next month and prepaid for CG. So at the end of our meal we're going to get a bill for the 18%? At this point I'd consider switching to Ultimate Balcony Dinner or whatever they're calling it these days. The money is about the same now and we'd get more bang for our buck (pictures, flowers, etc).

On the Princess website under the Dine My Way option, you can click on 'try our web version', which then takes you into a screen that looks just like the app version screen where you make reservations. I've been able to make reservations both in the app and using the web version, and the reservations show up in both places. If I misunderstood your question then my apologies.

We liked that venue too and it seemed under-utilized on our last Regal cruise.

@dns65 Did you enjoy your Classic Italy Cruise Tour? We're thinking of booking one on the new Sun for fall of 2025. I'd love to hear any feedback you have on the trip. Thanks!

Per the Passenger Contract from the Princess website: I see you're from Australia; you should probably check your specific Passenger Contract to ensure it's the same there as the US.