skynight

"We had to leave the ship at the home port - FLL - for 6 hours during turnover." This is not usual. Normal is all passengers that wish to remain on board must leave the ship in a guided group with a staff member, be processed through immigration and then re-board. You never leave the terminal. B2B passengers have the option of disembarking anytime after disembarkation has begun up to around 9:30am. Passengers selecting this option may re-board anytime after general embarkation has commenced. In your case there must have been some operational reason why you could not board for 6 hours. Cleaning, Coast Guard inspections come to mind.

Here is an explanation. A few of the important rules I read are: You will have to get your purchase receipt certified by the French customs officials at the port. Purchase must be 100 euros or more from a single store. You have to have your passport with you when you make the purchase. There are other specific steps. https://petiteinparis.com/vat-tax-refund-process-in-paris-france/

If both ships are at the mid port piers then you can just easily walk between them. There are around 8 mid port piers. If one ship is at the north port, lots of Princess sailings are at pier 2, and the other ship is at one of the mid port piers then you should take transportation. There may be a garage shuttle between the north port garage and the mid port garage. If there is you can hop on the shuttle. Otherwise you really have to take a taxi. You can walk, but it is fairly long walk, maybe a mile. I'm not certain if there is an actual pedestrian path between the north and mid port piers.

Special art for an access disc seems like a waste of funds. There are no extra on board benefits. Guess Princess will do anything to extract extra funds, no matter how small, from their customers.

Costumes - That's a no. If there is a deck party then many passengers will wear island shirts. However, many wear island shirts almost every evening.

Believe that b2b guests booked the next leg on the last day of the first leg. These passengers most likely had the same issue as you when initially boarding. Many ideas have been floated around. How would you handle a demand for maybe 50 spots by 100's of passengers? From observation the demand is highest in the Caribbean. Most other itineraries do not have such high demand.

$17/pp/day https://www.princess.com/learn/faq/onboard/onboard-experience/

Sherry and Port wines are not allowed/ They may be taken when boarding and returned on the final day of the cruise.

Uber, Taxi, private car service. Also group shuttle. Believe Prime Time still operates a group shuttle.

Cleaning is chemical free and without water. Something like the dry cleaning sheets you can purchase for your home.

NYC to Southampton, July 5, 2024 on the Island Princess. Believe this is a segment of a world cruise.

Have done both full and partial transits multiple times. The full transit is best if time and funds are not a concern. The sailing that makes a port stop at Fuerte Amador (Panama City) is a good choice. This gives you an extra day to take an excursion in Panama plus enjoy a day sailing the entire canal. In Fuerte Amador anyone can disembark. You can, if you wish, book private excursions at this port. The full transit has more ports, as expected, and includes better west coast ports. The partial transit enters the Agua Clara locks very early in the morning (6am or so). The ship then anchors in Gatun Lake until the authorities allow it to exit. Those on Princess excursions are tendered ashore in the lake. If you are not on a Princess excursion you are not permitted to disembark. Those on excursions are returned to the ship in Cristobal. Airfare for the full transit may be a little more expensive as you have to fly to/from different airports. Bottom line I enjoyed all my P.C. trips.

Craft sessions like those on Hawaii itineraries and on some others have a fee for the supplies. Uke lessons, hula lessons are no charge. Some fitness center group sessions have a sign up and fee. Use of the fitness center is no charge. What activities interest you? Maybe we can provide more accurate responses about those activities.

Have not stayed there so can't comment on the hotel itself. Have been to Ft. Lauderdale many times. The hotel is basically right in the busy beach front area which sort of runs from Las Olas Blvd north to roughly where the hotel is located. There are lots of restaurants, bars right along the Beach Blvd (A1A) that are in walking distance. July is off season. Expect hot weather and strong sun.

Your trip is considered Vancouver to Seattle with port stops in Seattle and Victoria. You are fine. You board at a foreign port with final disembark at a U.S. port. PVSA concerns itself with sailings between two different U.S. ports.

Laundry is normally slower closer to turn around day. The laundry has massive amounts of linins, robes, towels and such to prepare for the the next group of passengers. If you are paying for laundry turn around is same day or next day service depending on what you request. If you provide the cabin steward laundry say on early Thursday morning and request next day service you should be able to have it returned on Friday afternoon. My recollection was that the self service laundries were busy shortly after boarding with passengers that were on the land tours.

It is covered in the standard refund policy. Non refundable deposits are in the fine print on the bottom of the page. https://www.princess.com/plan/standard-cancellation-refund-policy/

Not really, but here is some information. Outbound the ship is heading southwest, port side morning sun, afternoon shade. On the return it's the opposite. Views are the majestic open ocean from either side. When docked. Honolulu there are views from both sides. Nawiliwili believe the ship docks with the port side to the dock, land views from the port side. Hilo, there isn't much of a view from either side. Lahina, is a tender port. Direction of the ship varies according to the wind, tides, etc.

Not to my knowledge. I try to search for theme cruises before I book in an effort to avoid them. Theme cruises tend to be the 7 day kind. If you book longer trips you have a better chance to avoid them.

I have been on similar group cruises. It isn't fun. The groups not only have sections of the ship closed for their special sessions, but members of the group tend to dominate other activities. Princess needs to advise all that a large group will be on board, and not hide it.

As yours is a holiday cruise there will most likely be a good number of youth on board.

Even if you can get onto the ship side tender, there are many ports where it is difficult to exit and re-board. Lahina is an example.

Call the Double Tree and the Crown Plaza. They both have shuttles, but don't know about the scooter question.

It goes by the voyage number. Examples. Two 7 day cruises booked b2b as a single booking number will have two separate voyage numbers one for each segment. Thus, two cruise credits. One 14 day Circle the Caribbean cruise will have one voyage number; one 28 day RT South Pacific will have one voyage number. Thus one cruise credit in both of these examples.

We sailed two b2bs on the Grand in 2009. Received the one credit at that time. At some point on a later cruise we visited the Captain's Circle desk. They converted the sailings to 2 credits each.