sonnenschein

We have been elite cruisers for many years and cruise about twice a year on 14 day cruises in Princess mini suits. My elderly husband is not able to take these trips anymore due to his ailing health so now I have to cruise without him.

I would like to stay with Princess and wondering why they don't offer cabins for solo cruisers.On our longer cruises we see and meet a lot of senior ladies, all having to pay double and most needing to book inside cabins while spending twice as much. Would it really break the financial bottom line to offer some cabins for solo cruisers ??? Not all of us like to share or have friends who are cruise lovers.Norwegian is building 80 solo cabins on their newest ships, but none leaves from the west coast.Just because we are solo seniors doesn't mean we are not spending a lot of money on the ship, check out the bars and the casino.I feel a lot of money could be made by Princess catering to us, just give us some "solo" cabins and loose the upcharge.

On average I give the dining room a 3 and the buffet a 2.

I know we are not rating the specialty restaurants but I had such a good experience in the Crown Grill that I would give this one a 4 plus.

We will be on the Star on Friday for our 10 day Mexico cruise. On previous cruises we received our laundry back the next day (we are elite) now I am reading that it can take up to 72 hours. I am just sorting out my DH under shirts which he wears to bed and because he sleeps hot changes about 3 times during the night. Wondering how many I need to pack.:confused: It was never a problem before since we got our laundry back the next day. Could you please let me know how long it takes on the Star. Thanks a lot for your help, sonnenschein

Be aware, the nice shampoo and conditioner set is not available anymore,unless you are in a full suite :eek :confused: There are 2 bottle dispensers in the shower/bathtub, one has body wash the other shampoo/conditioner combo. Both of them are terrible stuff. Since Princess cut back on the nice toiletries many passengers bring their own hair care products and we bring a bar of dove soap.They still provide a small tube of lotion, but that is all, times of beeing catered too completely is in the past. All the cruise lines are cutting back a lot to keep the bottom line healthy:cool:

with every purchase I get a receipt and WRITE on the same what the purchase was for, never any confusion at the end of the trip.

We were recently in E728 (aft mini on Emerald deck) on the Star. It is above the stage of the Vista Lounge. Some of the shows were so loud that the floor and walls of the cabin vibrated. We could not go to sleep until the shows were over at night. Naps in the afternoon were not possible some days. I would never want this cabin again, very unpleasant!

 

Rick

You booked the wrong side, the minis on Emerald deck get booked very fast by cruisers in the know, they are covered and not far from the aft elevators. Always look at the deck planes before booking your cabin, you would have noticed that the cabins on port site are over the Vista lounge stage which has music and shows. Next time try the starboard side, these cabins are very quite and enjoyable. We used E719,723 and 725, even so these cabins are also over the Vista lounge, they are on the quite side of the lounge.:p

From past experience, no one wants to be denied boarding a ship that they paid big bucks to board. All the travel expenses, the cruise, etc., would make me not to tell the truth. Two cabins from us on our last cruise, crew from the infirmary wheeled out a woman out of her cabin (second day of the cruise). We talked to the husband and he said that she boarded the ship sick. Colds are easily managed and can be masked with cold remedies. I caught a respiratory illness on a cruise, I blame the air conditioning. Took me 6 weeks to recover. So, you can go on the ship well and come off of it sick.:eek: Never had noro though.[/QU

 

I got sick with respiratory illness on the Grand in Nov 2013 and it took almost 2 month to get over it. Just wondering if we were on the same ship as you. So far we been lucky not getting Noro after 30 cruises.

I am never doing Anytime dining. ;) The grief is not worth it! :D

good for you, enjoy your TD dining experience, I on the other hand love ATD, hate to be told when to eat by a scheduled time. We usually eat after 7:30 and have never waited longer than a few minutes to be seated.

Bathroom reading material and trash bin liner :confused:

Come back new??? If I had not brought my own products including a good bar of soap I would have come back DIRTY :eek:

That awful green stuff in the shower/bathtub will never touch my hair or body.

Princess should be ashamed of itself trying to tell us how wonderful the new stuff is. I don't mind cost savings for the company, but don't lie to us pretending you are doing us a favor with new and improved toiletries.:confused::confused:

on the ships we been on, Star, Grand, and Golden it was always served in the Crown Grill.

love love the Emerald deck minis on the starboard side, never smelled any smoke while enjoying the balcony. Stop worrying, you going to love the covered cabin :D, Next 2 cruises we are in E723 to Mexico and E725 to Hawaii Gloria:)

On every Princess ship I cruise on I always buy my Chanel #5 cologne. I get 10% off for being Elite and usually they have a 10% sale on the very first day of the cruise which gives me a great price with 20% saving total. Much cheaper than buying on land. Every time I "spritz" it on I remember the ship. And when the bottle gets low it is time to book a trip again LOL, Gloria:)

If you don't like cold weather cruising you picked the wrong month. It is still cool the first and last month of the year. We have cruised last week of June and also middle of July and had great weather, sunshine every day with temp in the high 70 to low 80 (almost to warm for Alaska) I also vote for Glacier Bay.

We are on the Star out of San Francisco on April 29-2015 to Hawaii. I feel like we won the lottery, so happy to be sailing with the best Hawaii duo again. The music you perform sounds beautiful, you make every body on the ship smile :D

Gloria :)

I am in E720 on the Golden next year. Like you I prefer the minis on starboard side. I too am hoping that the noise from Vista lounge will not be a problem. When are you sailing? Could you please come back to this thread after your cruise and let me know how the noise was. Or if anyone else has had this cabin on the Star, Golden, or Grand could you please let me know if there is any noise from the Vista Lounge. Thanks.

Happy to report on the cabin upon our return. We are not in this cabin until April 29,2015 for our cruise on the Star to Hawaii. I am still on the waiting list for E723 in case there is a cancelation.

We were in E724 on the Grand, and the bathroom and beds were on the left side. We didn't have too much trouble with noise at night, but the early morning Zumba woke me up twice.

Thank you, your answer was very helpful in that I know now that the E 720 mini has the beds in the direction we prefer. Since our cabin is a little more distant from the Vista lounge below I hope we would not get to much noise. Gloria :)

This is a question you should be able to answer yourself, if you have already been on minis on this deck. They'll be mirror-images to the starboard side cabins.

 

Also, since you didn't tell us the ship, there's no way we can answer you, even if we did know.

Very sorry I did not mentioned the ship (brain f..t) we are on the Star next April. So far we have only used the mini's on the starboard side E719 and 723 which have the bed and bath on the left side which works best for us. I have not looked at the port side mini's, so was not sure about the layout. Sorry to have bothered you with my "dumb" question. A short answer would have been helpful, thanks anyway, Gloria:)

We love the mini's on Emerald deck, always book on the starboard side to avoid the noise from the lounge below. For our next cruise to Hawaii the only cabin left was E720 on port side. Can anybody tell me if the bathroom and bed are on the LEFT side as you enter the cabin? Thank you for your input, Gloria:)

You can also buy some plastic reusable luggage tags from cruise critic and put you paper tags in them to protect them from the elements or ripping off. They are pretty inexpensive.

Or try Serendipity.com,great sleeves that last forever:D

I too would never use a Debit Card for my shipboard account. Heck, I don't use Debit Cards for any purchases, but just to get cash from an ATM, and I used to work for one of the largest Debit Card issuers in the US.

 

Why use your money when you can use the bank's money, interest free for a month, and if you time it correctly, for almost two months? Just pay off your entire balance every month and there will be no fees.

 

We use Cash Rewards Credit Cards from AMEX, VISA, and MC.

 

2% cash back on a $7000 cruise is still $140 free cash in your pocket. :D

For years I have told people to be very carefull how they use a debit card. I have never used my ATM card for purchases of any kind as a debit card. Only use the card to withdraw money from the ATM. Using a debit card while away from home as on travel by sea and land is frightening to me. The pin number protection is almost useless and can give access to your cash to any smart crook. Using a CASH back credit card is the right way to take care of your finances, as the previous poster has mentioned. Please folks don't use your debit cards unless you absolutely have to,these cards can give you a lot of problems.Working at a bank for many years I can tell you debit card horror stories :eek: and that is why I will NEVER use a debit card but love my cash back credit cards which I pay in full as soon as the bill arrives :)

My travel Agent is very popular in the greater Sacramento and Bay region. She specializes in Princess Cruises, her Husband Lugio is a Matre Di (sp?) on Princess ships. She runs free buses from many Northern Ca. cities to the San Francisco port and provides escorts on most of the trips. On top of all this she gives out a nice gift every day of the cruise and a private party with free drinks and snacks. Getting to the ship is super easy this way,we don't have to bother with transportation, luggage or parking fees at high prices. All this is free to us and she usually books between 400 to 600 people. We all love the convienience of getting to the port the easy way.If we have any problem on board her escort will solve it for us ;)

I might find another agent that can save me a couple of $$$,but at our senior age we don't drive to S.F. anymore. I am not willing to give up my free ride to the port, Princess is just becoming to greedy.:eek:

Should your April 2014 be April 2015?

Thanks for catching my mistake, yes it should be April 2015. Must have had a Brain hick-up. :p

We been taking the 15 day cruise from San Francisco to Hawaii for many years. Our last trip was November 10, 2013 on the Grand in a mini suite category ME.The price I am quoting includes the Princess travel Insurance on both trips. We are booked to cruise again April 29 2014 on the Star, same ME category, just the ship has changed ,otherwise it is the identical cruise.Except for the price nothing has changed.

November $4541.84

April $6906.84

Difference $2365.00

This is a very big increase,over 2000.00 more in less than 6 month,what is going on :mad: Unless there is a price reduction I will cancel and feel very sad. Don't tell me to book a cheaper cabin, I am trying to compare apples to apples and not different cabin categories.Have you also seen a big increase or does that apply only to the cruises to Hawaii? :eek:

P.S. government fees and taxes are also included in the above prices

If you are choosing to go in April on the Star you will leaf from the NEW port building in San Francisco which looks very nice and modern. We will be on this cruise and have cruised from S.F. many times before. Arriving after noon there has never been a long wait for us.If you like sea days you will love this cruise, I also wished we had more time on Islands but it is still one of our favorite cruise to go on. If you have the time and $$ try to get to the Bay area a few days before your cruise, it is such an interesting city to visit. And cruising under the Golden Gate is very special,bring a warm jacket it gets cold the first day and windy cruising below the bridge.

San Pedro has giving us a lot of trouble and I try to avoid it if I can. They have ONE rinky dinky elevator to take us and our luggage up to where you enter the ship. If you have walking problems or can't use the escelator you stand in line forever to get on the elevator coming or going.

For seeing whales March is a better month, have a wonderful trip,maybe I see you on the April cruise,Gloria:)