emairs

You obviously want the Marriott rewards points. The Sears card has no annual fee.

Yes, I collect Marriott rewards points, but I also make a lot of foreign transactions. I'll see how the free year goes before deciding whether or not to keep it.

Sears MasterCard which is provided by Chase Bank of Canada does not charge the 2.5 or 3% admin fee. I just made a purchase in the US in US$ and was charged exactly what the Bank of Canada said the exchange rate was that day. I understand Sears is looking for a new provider so don't know how long this will last.

I have a new Chase Marriott Rewards Premier Visa card which does not charge foreign transaction fees. It's free for the first year and $120/year thereafter.

I've used it a couple of times already for $US purchases, and plan to use when travelling to other countries.. I've always been annoyed with the extra fees charged by my other credit cards.

I was under the impression that you could update your information (including new passport number) online, as long as your current passport has not expired.

Great, if this is the case.

The hard part would be remembering to do it.

Don't know if this was mentioned, but your passport must be valid in order to use your Nexus card.

Also, and this is very important, when you renew your passport, you must go into the Nexus office to update your passport information.

We learned this the hard way. We didn't even think about it, after renewing our passports. We had to go to the Nexus office before our next trip, and were told that you are only allowed to make this error once. Next time it happens, your Nexus card is taken away, and you can never get one again.

We bring flowers on board every time we cruise. We've never had a problem.

Spindrift:

My daughter and son in law are on this cruise. They report that the weather has been almost perfect. They have had a couple of choppy sea days, but still nice enough to sit by the pool. Today they are in Fiji. They are having a wonderful cruise. Don't worry about your friends!

It appears that perhaps that perhaps the higher the balcony, the greater the soot problem. We had a suite on Emerald deck on the TA, and had no soot problem, other than the occasional flake.

Has anyone used "Facetime" through the ship's WiFi? I spoke to a friend who recently travelled to Europe. This is how she connected with family through her Ipad.

I don't know about Oceania, but I was on a recent TA on the Royal Princess. I was able to use FaceTime to speak to family at home. The connection wasn't always the best, but it did work. It's worth a try.

We are, and thank you so, so much for it! :D

We've photographed that veranda personally several times since (friends of ours are devoted to that cabin) but none of our efforts convey the sense of spaciousness that your does.

I hope that your husband does not mind being famous....:rolleyes:

He doesn't mind at all!

Feel free to use the picture any time!

7130 is slightly narrower than the typical Penthouse, and the walk in closet suffers as a result. The saving grace is the HUGE L shaped Veranda, which is actually larger than the Oceania Suites above.

 

 

Hope that this helped-

Enjoy your cruise!

Hi Jim & Stan:

I see that you are still using my husbands picture! It certainly was empty back there on the maiden TA!

It's nice that there is also furniture at the back now, as we discovered on our Rome to Rio cruise last year. We were actually locked out on the balcony at one point. We were sitting at the back. Our attendant came out to talk to us. She then locked us out. Luckily, our next door neighbors were in their cabin and we were rescued😊

Was your balcony partially covered? Thanks.

No, it was uncovered.

Sorry, the photo seems to be upside down. Don't know how to do this!

Does anyone know if E729 also has a soot problem?

We were in E728 on the TA, and other than the occasional flake, we did not have a soot problem. We spent a lot of time on our balcony - relaxing during the day, and having friends over for happy hours and sail aways.

Actually emairs...one specialty dinner was due to cruising in the suite, another dinner was from Platinum Amex Cruise Privileges and the last one was from our internet TA that we have used for the past 8 years. Our teenage children who were in the Deluxe Balcony beside us received only 2 gratis dinners....One from Amex and one from our TA.....suite benefits did not extend to them...except when we enjoyed our amazing breakfasts on out huge verandah. :)

I thought that it was too good to be true:(

Actually, the Royal Princess allowed us to use our 1st gratis dinner on our second night, as we were overnighting in Venice and did not want to return to the ship for a "free" dinner. I explained this to Sabatini's.....no problem. Our other 2 gratis dinners were in the middle of the cruise and the last night. Worked out great!

Are you saying that suite passengers get three free specialty dinners? If so, when can you book them?

We were on a Norwegian fjords cruise in July on Infinity, with my brother and SIL. I made the mistake of booking them into one of the renovated cabins at the very back of the ship - 3144, thinking it would be a lovely, quiet spot. What a mistake that was. There was noise every night, which kept them awake. They called several times to complain, to no avail. We suspected that the noise was coming from the galley.

I would avoid this cabin at all cost.

You're right! :o It looks as if there are still 6 D4 aft balconies on Emerald and Dolphin decks on the Princess website. Marina, Riviera, Aloha, Baja, and Caribe have been changed to 4. Very strange! I wonder if that's permanent.

Ok, now I'm really confused!

Since our cabin is now E728, something must have happened to the D4 E728. I wonder why that is not reflected on the deck plan.

It's corrected on the Princess website. My D4 balcony room on Baja is gone, gone, gone. :( I also wasn't notified and was only prompted to check "My Princess" by reading CC.

Our original cabin was E726. It is now E728, but still showing as E726 on the Princess website.

Does anyone know where to find an updated deck plan of the Royal, if one exists?

The Princess website is still showing the old one.

We have still not received any notification of change to our cabin number from Princess, nor has our TA.

Thank goodness for Cruise Critic, our main source of information.

We have an S2 cabin - E726. I just checked my personalizer due to this thread, and our cabin is now E728. We have received no notification of this change in cabin number.

I checked the deck plans, and it's still showinhg as E726.

Hello emairs - a bit of light CC board cruising has led me to your post and I thought we should just say hi as we are to be neighbours at the end of the month! We are in 7133. In fact it seems there will be a little gaggle of CC'ers 'down the back' as Dino2067 is just across the hallway.

Look forward to meeting you!

Adrian & Elaine (from the UK)

Hi Adrian & Elaine:

That's great. We look forward to meeting you too!! We'll have to get together and party in the aft!!. We're sooo excited.

Eli & Bill

Have a great cruise emairs - it is getting close now. Perhaps we will meet up again on another TA

Well Mark, your cruise is even closer -in three weeks. Have a great time. Please let me know if you find out anything about our balcony. There is a lot of speculation about it - whether or not it is as large as it appears on the drawings.

Regards to Alison. We would love to cruise with the two of you again in future.

We have 7135 on the other side on the March TA.

Can't wait!!!