biker1972

It appears that you really want to go since you have your flights. If any of us knew when or even if you could get the guaranteed lowest price for a cruise, we could set up a very profitable travel agency. Booking calls for faith that you will be charged a reasonable price for a great cruise. Things could go badly at either end in that someone else might pay less for the same cruise or that things on the cruise go badly and you have a virus for 3 days or worse. Personally, I have had to cancel 2 great cruises purchased at the very lowest prices (booked within days of being listed) because of pre-cruise accidents. Take a risk, book the cruise and never look back.

Yes, the Summit has a basketball area on deck 12. But the two ships are vastly different. I have to believe that the Anthem would appeal to the son and daughter way beyond the BB court. But then the Anthem is more of a destination, itself, while the Summit is a wonderful way to be transported to Bermuda. Perhaps that is why the port stays are different.

You can book with Dyea Dave for no cost thru their web site. They only take cash or checks paid after the excursion. Very accommodating.

Always remember that the price from Princess is per person and that travel insurance from someone other than Princess can cover your entire travel package including pre cruise hotel stays.

Owning a condo also means accepting that the condo association is free to establish its own rules and regulation based on their declaration. Not many condo owners will challenge rules that they have voted on and agreed to. You might have an agreement in place with a condo owner in January but in July a condo adopts a new rule that outlaws short term rentals thus putting you out of your rental. Just have a backup plan.

Connoisseur tours with Princess include most meals as well as a dedicated tour director. In Denali there are 2 tours through the National Park Service using an outside contractor with modified school buses. The longer tour is included in the connoisseur package and is called the Tundra Wilderness tour (TWT). Any Princess package that includes the shorter Natural History tour can be upgraded to the TWT. For an up charge Princess now offers a meal package with their non-connoisseur tours. All this really means is that you can get essentially the same trappings with any of the Princess cruise tour packages so you can now better fit what you want to do to what they offer.

Your review has set me on the correct road again. Forgot how much food I could consume when I rode across Canada. Something like 6 whole lobsters in PEI at a lobster dinner. :eek: Back on the bike every day for the next 5 months to get in shape for my next cruise. :D If the food is as good as your review was entertaining, it will be wonderful.

Don't know if anyone mentioned the veranda for the CC1 cabins on the Infinity, but you are in for a treat. The six of you will have plenty of room to enjoy the veranda since they are the best ones other than some of the suite verandas around the entire fleet of ships carrying passengers (not just Celebrity). Enjoy.

Wishing on a star: I'm surprised that you seem to have negative thoughts about Princess in going to Alaska. Glacier Bay is by far the best part of the Alaska coastal cruise. And Alaska is far, far more than the coast and Anchorage. To say that you have been to Alaska only having taken a cruise and gone no further than Anchorage is a mistake. Be sure to arrange for a trip into the interior, either DIY or with a tour company, or a cruise line. For me, I have found the best of all worlds and have scheduled a northbound Princess cruise tour followed by a southbound cruise with X thus seeing all of the coastal glaciers and visiting each of the ports twice. And I don't make that long flight involving Anchorage. :D

However, if it were a b2b cruise, you would qualify for Elite on the second half. I know that doesn't help you but for others it might.

They had the $25 pp deposit around Black Friday as well. I now have 2 cruises reserved for $100 and it certainly looks like I will book another one or two. Got the email this AM. :D

Acts of war as well as self-inflicted injuries are not covered. Psych problems, since they are hard to diagnose, are generally not going to be covered except by medical coverage. Go bonkers on the cruise you probably have coverage for treatment through your travel insurance but it will be secondary, helping to pay expenses after your primary pays. So if the op went bonkers because of something a crew member did and the op was put in an institution during the cruise, the insurance might pay something. But getting the cruise cost back not going to happen. :rolleyes:

Also note that there will be port days which will most likely mean that the ship will cruise in the dark and tie up during the day. Where the ship is docked will make a difference in sunlight to a veranda. Only sea days should make a real impact on consistent sun.

I have used a personal planner from Celebrity. I have her extension number and when I need help I call and enter her number. If she is on a call I can leave a message and expect a call back. If she is not working she posts her return time or gives a number for another agent. It is a good system and gets rid of hold times and I feel comfortable since I am dealing with the same person cruise after cruise.

You might also need to realize that your air reservation is with an airline, and not RCCL. Choice Air is a booking app and service but the flights, schedule, and seating are controlled by the airlines. Choice Air did nothing that caused the change in schedule; the airline did. The people working the Choice Air desk might be able to resolve this, but you might also be looking at change fees charged by the airline. If the metal got changed, the seating configuration may be such that "premium economy" is not set up on that particular plane. Since you are dealing with a TA, you need to have that person contacting the airline to see what options are available. Depending on how much time was involved in the schedule change, you might be able to make a change without incurring fees. If you think of Choice Air as a kind of Cheapo Air (a consolidator) you might realize that their service will be marginal at best and non-existent at worst. People use Choice Air to save money but often believe the advertising hype about the kind of service they are going to get. From a practical point you are the only one that has your interests front and center.

Asia and Australia have become very large markets for all of the cruise lines. The issues caused by this require more berths sailing in these waters. This is being addressed by new builds and fleet re-deployments. As more ships come on line, there should be more itinerary choices to move to when charters occur, but there will always be charters. Affinity groups can make for fun cruises, prices are generally higher, and are more profitable for the cruise line. From a business standpoint, charters will always score ahead of normal cruises.

You will never notice that your cabin can sleep 3. Ships can reach their capacity and still have cabins that can hold more guests than booked. Ships have far more berths than the legal capacity of the ship which means that many of the cabins that can accommodate 3 or 4 guest sail with only 2 guests (or even only one).

It is never wise to secure any account with a debit card, be it a hotel or a cruise line. Use cash or a credit card. Too many times money gets blocked by the vendor trying to protect his interests and then he fails to unblock said amount ( or even double posts the amount) so you have no access to that amount in your debit account. If using cash, Princess should tell you if you are close to depleting your cash deposit. You can also give Princess a credit card to pay for your on board spending and then the last day go to guest services and pay in cash (they do accept travelers checks) and thus avoid any credit card charges.

2017 is a long ways out and I am expecting that the deals will show up sometime during the 2016 season. I did book 2 cruises for 2017 when the deposit was $25 pp and will monitor the sales as we go along. About the only thing that can be done.

A certain amount of space is given to the kids' area when the ship is constructed. What area would you suggest the club take and utilize when there are more kids on board than the space will hold? The many projections that are done when creating and deploying a fleet give Princess the best, but not perfect way, to maximize their profits on each cruise. Since cruising is a year round business, there will be many times when the kids' club is hardly used and other times, as you have found, when it is pushed beyond its limits. It would be nice if Princess had a contingency plan for those times when the kids outnumber the space allowed but there is doubt that an acceptable area could be found for the overflow. What area should they use, in all seriousness?

If the charge were to say the name of the agency and not X, you might have cause to worry. When agencies collapse for whatever reason and X did not get payment, you still owe and then have to make a claim with the CC company.

When in 6143 I only noticed the 10 inches of extra width at the foot of the bed. I liked being surrounded by suites and having the butlers and top stewards working the area. While the teak balcony was nice, the aft view and a somewhat larger balcony did sway me to the aft C1's over the C1's on 6.

It seems that some of the perks do not show up on the invoice/confirmation until closer to final payment. (This is true for some of the older confirmations but might not be true for cruises that are being booked now) I booked an Alaska cruise for 2016 shortly after bookings opened, getting an Aqua stateroom with the All-In perk program (their designation) and only the OBC showed on the confirmation. When I called to arrange a train transfer, I asked about the perks and was told that they were listed on X's side of the computer output but not on my side yet. Check your confirmation/invoice for AI which indicates the All In perks.

Because of the altitude, 3 days is way to short to enjoy the stay with the risk of altitude sickness being very real.

A number of interesting comments have been made about pricing of re-positioning cruises. Thinking of X and their costs, it would seem that operating several days without a port call would be more expensive than sitting still for 10 hours every day. I would think that is one reason why they are willing to raise prices for these cruises. We know that those of us who consume alcoholic beverages are not able to get packages for these cruises because X is aware that there is more opportunity to drink thus lowering their profit on a drinks package. No one seems bent out of shape over this cruise cost yet as soon as anything else goes up in price, people notice and remark about it. With the "Go Better; Go Best" promotion X is making pricing far less transparent so that it will become more difficult to compare prices now and in the future. Looking at what I paid in the past, while interesting, does not change what I am willing to pay today or the value that I get from something.