atobols

That's exactly what we do. It's hard to force ourselves to stay home and not drive over too early. We are always the ones getting there between 11 and 11:30. I want to get on that ship, grab a glass of wine, some lunch, and start my vacation!

We've only done 4 Princess cruises after Covid re-start. I had no idea we were supposed to say we wanted the same table. We've always shown up at our dinner time, usually 7 or 7:30 and then were shown to our table on the first night. On each subsequent night, they just asked if we knew our table and we said yes and walked right in. Maybe it's because we reserve a table for 4 at the same time and in the same dining room each night. Now that I think back, the couples in tables for 2 seated around us moved around quite a bit.

They didn't when we were in a mini-suite on the Ruby in November 2021. Of course, things may have changed since then. I'll be interested to hear this answer as we're sailing on the Ruby again this summer.

We took our boys on the 14 day Med cruise last July. They were 16 and 14 at the time we went. My kids are more into science and math than history. They loved the cruise but the highlights for them were definitely in the food, culture, and some of the history. If we went again, I would cut back on the touring we did. Our cruise had 12 port days and only 2 sea days. My kids were physically and mentally exhausted by the time we were done. They have requested to never do such a port intensive cruise again. It was also really hot and humid, which we aren't used to. One hundred degree days are fine but that humidity was our undoing. Also, private tours and guides are definitely the way to go. We did two tours through Princess and they were nowhere near as good as our private guides. The only advice I have is to maybe rethink the Pompeii, Herculaneum, and climbing Mt. Vesuvius day. It's hot (unbelievably hot!) and you start to lose interest in the ruins after 4 or 5 hours. We did much better with tours that allowed us to get out and see things for an hour or so and then get back into an air conditioned van to get a break from the heat before we went back out to see some more. The private guide for Knossos was a blessing. We had a small private van that got us there as soon as the gates opened. Our guide was wonderful in that she helped us to know what was really important and pointed out the fascinating things we would have missed if she wasn't there. She also got us to the front of the crazy long line for the throne room. That alone saved us at least an hour of waiting in line.

We choose to walk off with our luggage and we have always been off the ship and walking to our car between 8:00-8:30.

It's not so much the tent aspect, it's the tetris of trying to get everyone into that room setup. You basically have bunkbeds blocking the exit to the balcony. You have to climb over the bottom bed and then duck under the top one to get out onto your balcony. The end table that goes in front of the couch has to be shoved at the base of the normal beds in order to make a bed out of the couch. That leaves you about 6 inches to walk around the normal beds to get to the bunk style beds. If the two sleeping on the bunk style beds need to pee in the middle of the night, it's a minefield in the dark to get to the bathroom. I cannot stress enough how little floor space is available when all 4 beds are deployed. You barely have enough space to stand in between the 3 beds on the floor. It is doable with 4 full sized adults but you need to be prepared for how tight it's going to be. Storage is the least of your worries. Just stack things on top of every horizontal surface and get some hooks to use every bit of wall space you can.

I have no experience with the Discovery. We are a family of 4 and we usually do a mini-suite. We decided to try an aft premium deluxe on the Majestic. I hated that room and vowed to never go lower than a mini-suite again. The two additional beds completely blocked the door to the balcony. We could put the lower bed away by ourselves but we couldn't do anything with the upper bed that dropped from the ceiling. We had to duck under it to get out onto the balcony and we all hit our heads a few times. Hopefully, Princess realized how terrible that design was and changed it for the Discovery.

We're still working and have children at home so we haven't had the chance to do any of the truly amazing cruises. A. Best Princess Cruise - 14 day Med cruise with Turkey -July 2022 B. Most looking forward to cruise - The only one I have booked, 10 day Alaska in June 2023 C. Best trip, land or cruise - Camping tour of the western National Parks when our kids were little July 2016 D. # of Princess cruises - 6

Most of our private tour guides for our Med cruise asked to be paid at the end of the tour in cash and in euros. It's really easy to go to a bank ATM and grab some euros when you get to Europe. I'm sure you can get by without having any euros but it can also be a PITA if you don't have any. You really don't want to need to use the bathroom and find out you need some change just to get into the bathroom or to leave a tip for the attendant once you're done. You'll also use euros for small purchases at stores and tips at restaurants/cafes.

I was thinking the same thing. We like to kayak in Morro Bay and we always have otters floating along next to us. I've seen them lots of times in Monterey Bay from a scuba diving or whale watching boat but I've never kayaked there.

We saw a puffin floating by the ship when we were in Glacier Bay.

We took our teen boys on a Princess Alaska cruise in July 2019 and we're going back this summer. The boys will be 17 and 15 this time. We did: 1. Juneau - Whale watch and Mendenhall Glacier combo - The boys liked the whale watch because they got to see lots of orcas. We did junior ranger badges at Mendenhall (they collect all the national park badges) and then walked out to the glacier. We saw a porcupine sleeping in a tree along the way. The kids enjoyed that day. 2. Skagway - We rented a car and drove up to Whitehorse. They enjoyed the scenery for a little bit but overall, it was a long ride and they both fell asleep at various times. I wouldn't do that again. 3. Sitka - We walked off the ship and went to an eagle sanctuary and then over to Sitka national park. The boys enjoyed seeing the eagles and they did a talk and brought in a golden eagle for everyone to check out. My sons weren't impressed with the totem poles at the national park. They did love that the ranger showed them salmon berries and they got to eat tons of those. This year we're taking Grandma with us and we're doing. 1. Juneau - Whale watch and Mendenhall Glacier - We liked it enough to do it again 2. Skagway - Glacier Point Wilderness Safari 3. Ketchikan - Rainforest Canopy & Zipline Adventure

I love spicy food! We leave for our first Celebrity cruise in 3 days. I just realized that I have no idea on the availability of hot sauce. I can bring my own if I need to. Should I bring my own or will the ship have some available?

I've seen sriracha and tabasco at the condiment station. I think I've seen cholula but I'm not 100% sure of that one.

The vegetarian curries are usually really good but they are very mild. On our last cruise, there was a delicious onion pakora. The salad bar area is always good and has lots of options. I am not a fan of buffets but I have to say that Princess has stepped it up lately. There are quite a few times lately that the food is better in the buffet than in the dining room.

That's a really good point. We've been doing Princess cruises lately so I completely forgot about getting a key card.

This is our first Celebrity cruise and we seem to be getting random upgrades. We booked an inside cabin and got bumped up to a veranda. We ordered the classic drink package for adults and now Xpress pass says we have premium drinks. We didn't buy any drink packages for minor children and they're both showing premium non-alcoholic package. I've never experienced anything like this with other cruise lines. Is this something Celebrity routinely does?

We wanted to do La Paz and swim with the whale sharks last December but didn't have enough time in port. I contacted 2 or 3 different companies and they all said we had to be in port before 8am. Cabo Expeditions had tours leaving at 6:30 and 7:30. Dive Cabo's tour left at 8:00. That didn't work for our itinerary because we didn't get into port until 8:00. We ended up hiring a private scuba boat with Dive Cabo. We did two dives out by the Arch and they were great. We enjoyed it so much that we decided to go diving this November. Dive Cabo couldn't accommodate our port times so we're going with Cabo Private Guide this year. One day we'll make a point to pick a cruise that makes La Paz whale sharks possible.

We did the combo tour with Juneau Whale Watch in 2019. We did the 2:30 tour and the timing was a little tight. We did whale watching first and then hopped on the bus to go over to Mendenhall. I'm not sure of the exact time, but it was close to their closing time. I was scared we wouldn't be able to see everything because we only had about an hour there. It was plenty of time. We quickly walked up to the visitor center so that our kids could get their junior ranger badges. We walked out to the glacier, keeping an eye on the time, and were able to walk all the way down to the end and even wade out into the water a bit. It was a great trip. We're doing an Alaskan cruise in June 2023 and we've already booked the tour again. We're taking Grandma with us this time and she's going to love it!

IME it just depends on the ship. I had great success on the Ruby 11/21, good success on Majestic 12/21, and terribly experiences on the Regal 7/22. It might have been the capacity of the ship, the order to staff ratio, or some other behind the scenes problem I was completely unaware of. The app always worked and I could always place the order. It just depended on how long it took for my drink/food to show up. On the Ruby it was 10-15 minutes, on the Majestic it was 20-25, and on the Regal it was 45 minutes - 2 hours later. I would say to give it a try and see how it goes.

We were on the ship when it was filming. It's been fun reliving our cruise through the ship. I would never watch it if it wasn't for that.

I use wifi when on the ship and my regular google fi phone plan when off the ship for texting and data. I have sailed Canada, Mexico, and the Mediterranean without any additional charges. One of our teen sons was on a Verizon plan when in Europe and accidentally connected for a few minutes. It cost us about $30. They both got switched over to google as soon as we got home.

This will be our first Celebrity cruise. We've already booked all of our shore excursions using some of our OBC but we still have about $500 left. We're thinking about bidding for a MoveUp. If our bid of $450 is accepted, will they use our OBC to pay for it or will they charge our credit card?

We were on the Majestic in January. We had cabin A738. We had a soot problem. It got on the chairs and all over the floor. It looked like little black dots and it rubbed off on feet/shoes and clothes when you walked or sat on the balcony chairs. The soot problem was constant. The smell of the exhaust wasn't pleasant when it flowed directly over our balcony, luckily that only happened once or twice on our cruise.

We tried a deluxe balcony one time for our family of 4 and we hated it. I would definitely take the mini-suite over the balcony room. I have had the room under the pool deck and that was also terrible. The screeching of chairs being moved every morning was very annoying. The adjoining cabin wouldn't be a problem. We've stayed in those before and had no problems because of it. If it's at all possible to move to a better location of mini-suite, I would take that option. I'm not sure which I hate more, the deluxe balcony or the chair moving at 5AM every morning, that would be a tough call for me.