konatyme

Be sure to ask Guest Services to notify you if you want to be awakened if the Northern Lights appear. We did this and got to see them (although our cruise was in August and perhaps the time of year makes a difference in how likely they are to appear).

I guess we'll just have to hope we get a good mattress like Memoak. Fingers crossed!

Thanks to all!

We will be on the Crown Princess for 28 days in October and after reading several reviews about how bad the mattresses are, we are wondering if there's any chance they will be replaced before October. Has anyone heard anything about a scheduled dry dock or refurbishment for the Crown?

@mina I have the "deck of cards" martini recipes mentioned by Thrak. Here is the one for the Tropitini (which is one my favorites to make at home):

l l/2 oz. Capt. Morgan rum

1 oz. Cruzan Coconut Rum

l/2 oz. Creme De Banana

Chilled over ice and strained. Garnished with crunchy coconut and a zesty lemon twist.

Enjoy!

OK, so I guess I'm going to try to get the "new updated" app. Do I need to do anything special or just request an update on the app and hope everything for my October cruise gets transferred over? Will both old and new show on my phone, or just the new one? Thanks from a "not-very-techie" person!

Disappointed that it doesn't sound like the juices advertised aren't available on the Crown. We will be onboard in Oct. and have the Plus pkg., so thought we might give some of the juices a try. Wonder why this is only true on one ship??

Here's another vote for the path that goes to the "cultural" downtown area. We did this and really enjoyed it.

When our 10-day Mexican Riveria cruise went to LaPaz, we did an amazing snorkeling trip with whale sharks. The company picked us up by boat right at the ship, took us into town to pay, and after the excursion, the boat returned us right next to the ship. 

In 2014, we did an around the British Isles cruise on the Ruby and it was one of our favorite cruises. (We loved it so much that we've talked about doing it again.) We went early and stayed in London for several days to see all the sights there and were really glad that we did--so much to see there!

We did privately-arranged tours, rather than Princess ones. In some cases, (like Liverpool and Guernsey), we simply disembarked and walked around. For Cobh, we took a tour (with E-Bus, I think) to Blarney Castle (though we weren't interested in kissing the stone and just walked around the very scenic castle grounds), Charles Fort, Kinsale, and St. Colman's Cathedral).   In Dublin, we shared a taxi with some other cruisers to Trinity College to see the Book of Kells. From there, we were able to catch the HOHO bus to go around town (with stops like the Guinness Storehouse, of course!), then caught a taxi at Trinity College to return to the ship. We also did the Odyssey Tours trip from Belfast to Giants Causeway (and the other things mentioned in the post from karatemom2), as well as the same Discover Scotland tour from Glasgow. We did a WowScotland tour to Inverness, Loch Ness, Culloden Battlefield, Clava Cairns, and Cawdor Castle  (a really good tour!). At South Queensferry pier for Edinburgh, we took the train into town (following directions I found here on CruiseCritic) and then walked to the castle and around town.  From the LeHavre port, we had an amazing small group tour of the Normandy battlefield beaches, the cemeteries, etc. with Bayeaux Shuttles. (if possible, watch the original "The Longest Day" movie before going here.)

Thanks to the "heads up" from Mary Loves to Travel, we were able to get a nice price drop on our upcoming cruise, too. (With some help from our PVP)

We just did this and my husband had lots more OBC than I did. I talked to our PVP to get help with it because I thought maybe we could use his OBC for both tickets on the excursion that I was booking. The PVP is very, very good, but she told us that we couldn't do this due Princess policy (though she thought it wasn't made clear enough to guests).  In our case, OBC was used for all of my husband's charge for the excursion (and he had quite a bit left over); I only had enough to pay part of my ticket, so it used all my OBC, then I had to use a credit card to pay for the rest.

Thank you!

Everyone was so helpful with my question about Adelaide that I thought I'd give this one a try. We are trying to decide what to do in Broome on our Oct/Nov 2024 cruise. I see that Princess has a tour which is just a bus to Cable Beach, but that wouldn't get us to the Pearl Luggers Museum. They also have a tour for a pearl farm that seems to maybe include the museum, but I'd like to know if the local bus in Broome can also get us to the Pearl Luggers Museum or if we have to do a tour. I can't seem to find info that tells me whether the museum is in town or at a distance from town (and, if it's out of town, whether the local bus stops nearby). Thanks!

Thanks SO much to all who offered such great info about Adelaide. It's made our decision to "do" Adelaide on our own much easier and I'm confident we can have a great day!

We will be arriving in Adelaide aboard the Crown Princess on November 1, 2024, from 7 AM-6PM. We are considering a Princess shore excursion, but I think I've read somewhere that it's very easy to catch a train close to the port that goes into the CBD. I'd like to know if anyone has done this and whether it's fairly easy to get around once there (to places like the Central Market, Chinatown, the South Australia Museum, etc.).

Any advice/info that anyone can provide will be much appreciated.

We have a cruise booked for October/November 2024 and have all our dining reservations made. I'm assuming I will have to update the app since our cruise is so far out, but I'm really worried that we'll lose our dining reservations.

Depending on the time of year you cruise, you may have an opportunity to see the Northern Lights. When we went on the Inside Passage cruise in late August several years ago, we found out that we could ask Guest Services to call us if and when the Northern Lights appeared. (We had an inside cabin.) They called about 2:30 AM the next day, we found a fairly dark spot on the ship, and watched the lights as we heard whales blowing around us. It was awesome!

Thanks so much! Sorry I didn't reply to you right away; we were out of town and off the computer.

Thanks for the info, Capriccio. Our cruise starts in Sydney, then goes to Hobart, Melbourne, Adelaide, Albany, Margaret River, Perth, Geraldton, Broome, Darwin, Cairns, Brisbane, and back to Sydney. (There's also some scenic cruising in several places.)

Thanks. Although I have corresponded with several tours, I didn't think to ask if they changed their timing when a ship was in port. (I did state, though, that we'd be on a ship and they didn't offer any possibility of a change in timing.) I'll be sure to ask that from now on in my correspondence with private tour operators.

I've just started looking at tours for our around- Australia cruise Oct, 2024, but I've already found that our arrival times at some of the ports make some of the private tours impossible because they depart earlier than we arrive (or can get off).  Plan on doing more searching, but this is the first cruise that I've noticed this happening (and we usually do private tours, rather than Princess excursions).

We cruised LA to Sydney in 2008 and visited Auckland, Wellington, Littleton, Dunedin, and cruised the Sounds. The Sounds were indeed amazing and were a highlight of the cruise, so I would be inclined to say don't miss them. We did a wonderful private excursion from Dunedin and saw penguins in fields (with sheep!) above the ocean, as well as some very small penguins in another spot.. We also walked to the fields along a beautiful beach where we saw sea lions. It was a great day! We went to the museum at Wellington (can't think of the name right now, but it was very, very good.) Sorry, can't help you with Picton, Napier,  or Bay of Islands.

Totally agree with Thrak.

I agree that, for me anyway, the folio statements are almost impossible to figure out. I will save this explanation and maybe it will help next time!