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Kids under 12 are half price in specialty restaurants. If you do not think your kids would eat the offerings, you can take them for free if they eat off the kid's menu (it's the same kid's menu every night in all dining rooms). Both my kids have cruised since they were under a year old - my now teen LOVES Crown Grill and will devour anything from the menu. My 11 year old just wants a cheeseburger so has always eaten off the kid's menu free of charge.

Oh dear...

If the wifi cooperates...so will I! I'm planning on posting as much as possible, so feel free to ask specifics/remind me once I'm on the ship.

UPDATE: Refund just hit my account for the difference between what I paid with pax 1/2 with Plus to pax 1 with Premiere and pax 2 with no package. So Princess and I are financially even and all of the packages/booking stuff is correct. I have to say, after battling for months to get refunds/FCCs corrected, etc on cancelled bookings I am VERY impressed at the speed this was done (particularly as it seemed to be a multi-step/complicated procedure judging by the number of confirmations I was sent during the process). Kudos to Princess on this one. To be honest, if I ever decide to upgrade the package again, I will likely just do it for both - even though DD wouldn't get any added benefits, I only ended up saving about $100 and it seemed like a lot of work for that! Mind you, this is only a 7 day sailing. I'm not sure the added cost for a longer sailing would be anywhere near worth it, but I will be sure to report back on my take of the upgraded package!

I will be easy to spot - look for the parent doing anything in her power to embarrass the surly teens trailing behind her. Lol. Actually, my DD is the easy one to spot - very blonde, very curly hair. Can't miss her!

I just need to make it through 3 more work days until it's vacation time! Unfortunately, the three work days will be 12 hours days, so it's going to feel like a work week 😜 Why is it that, whenever folks in the office realise you will be on vacation, they suddenly urgently need something - something that they haven't seemed to need before, and likely wouldn't need if you hadn't announced vacation plans, and likely won't need anyways. Is it just because they're jealous that they aren't going on vacation and need to make you suffer a little before you leave? Like a bad, lasting memory of work to remind you of what you have to come back to? Anyway, that is my work right now - putting out multiple fires (that only seem to be burning because I'm heading out), making sure everything is caught up on, and hoping that nothing urgent comes up while I'm gone (I have pre-warned them that wifi access may not be the greatest where I'm going...) In other news, DD is THRILLED that Canada just announced a holiday on Monday to mourn the passing of the Queen. Not because she particularly liked the Queen, but because it's a day off schoo, which means now she is only missing three school days for the trip (Friday was already a day off for a Pro-D). Sadly, it's only a "Federal" holiday, so most of us here in BC will not get a day off with pay and it will still count toward my vacation time. I wonder if they will show the funeral onboard? Does anyone else get that mixed emotions thing when they go on vacation? Totally excited, can't wait, but also anxious, stressed, overwhelmed at all the stuff I still need to do. I have notes scribbled on post-its all over the house. I'm trying to pack for Alaska weather, when it's still Summer like temps outside, and I'm trying to make sure the kids are packing things like sweaters as opposed to beach gear! I THINK I have everything I need, but guarantee that, come Friday, I will suddenly realise that I'm missing something. Feel free to throw out those "MUST HAVES" in case I've forgotten something!

Sled dog camp is in Skagway!

UPDATE: Another thing to check off the list - just noticed the refund for the pre-paid specialty dining has gone back to my credit card. I cancelled and rebooked using the Premiere Package dining credits.

It's CAD for a mini suite for 7 days...

The sled dog camp is an absolute must of you like dogs – you are taken to a camp in Dyea where the dogs are trained to pull sleds and keep busy in the summer months. You get to ride on a Unimog (an enormous vehicle that looks right out of a warzone) up to their training area and then ride on a (wheeled) sled with the dogs pulling it. Sounds cheesy and touristy? It definitely is. But those dogs are just so happy and excited to be doing this that my heart just melts. After the ride you get to pet the dogs that so graciously pulled around all these cruise passengers that have been at the buffet the past 3 days and then you head back down in your war vehicle to a presentation about mushing and training. After that is the highlight of the trip – you play with puppies. It’s amazing going back year after year and realising that the tiny, brand new puppy you held one year is now one of the dogs pulling you on the sled. It’s easy to know this as each litter has unique names – such as the cast of Frozen (Olaf was my favourite). These are also the same folks that bring the puppies onboard the ship for “Puppies in the Piazza.” Anyways, we booked this excursion again but this time, instead of doing the sled we are doing everything else and then making Smores. This seemed like a great idea at the time, as it was an afternoon excursion and we could just wander through town at our leisure beforehand. Best laid plans…without any notice (I literally only saw this when I printed out the travel summary the other day) Princess changed the excursion time from 2pm to 8:55am. So not only do I need to deal with grumpy teens that don’t want to get out of bed, but we will be eating Smores for breakfast. I may try to change this or cancel it or leave it as is. Again, we will play it by ear. Princess is really testing me – I love being organised and having everything planned to the second, but they just keep throwing me curve balls!

Shore Excursions: Since this is our seventy billionth time visiting Alaska, I feel that we have done every excursion out there, as well as done our own thing multiple times in all the ports we are visiting. Alaskan excursions are not for the budget conscious and, since this was kind of a last minute plan to use up FCC, it seemed kind of silly to book expensive excursions. Plus, who knows how the weather will be while we are there. We have been to Alaska in May, July, July, August, and September and have had both amazing and terrible weather in all months. Anyways, other than booking the Summer Sled Dog Camp in Skagway (which we do every time we are there) we have no real plans and will play it by ear.

I'm not 100% sure on the math still - the more I look at it, the more I confuse myself. Lol. I actually only have 2 girl teens and the other one (tween as they say these days - 11 year old) is a boy. I'm starting to wonder if they might be the only kiddos on the ship, since responsible parents have their kids in school - ha ha.

It seemed like it was only possible because pax 2 was a child - in the past (when it applied to all guests) I was able to get it removed from 3/4 as they were children but it was a struggle to get it removed from pax 2. I don't really understand why they had to remove the Plus package from the 2nd person, as I was more than happy to pay for that and just pay my upgrade (more revenue for them, too). I don't think it would be possible to get different package options if both 1 and 2 were adults as then you get into the realm of "sharing"....

This is how the final travel summary looks - it still seems to be missing gratuities for DD but there isn't an option to pre-pay them on the personalizer - just says they crew incentive has been paid as part of a promotion. The final price does indicate that I have paid for her, but I don't have any black and white proof of it. Otherwise, all appears to display as it should. UPDATE: I just relooked at this - overnight it must have updated as now I DO see the crew appreciation showing for all four of us. YAY!

For those that are curious: *Princess Plus/Premier cannot be changed once the guest embarks. The ship systems are unable to support the change at this time.

UPDATE: Since writing the above, I have received two more confirmations from Princess - each a little different. Now it all looks correct and everything is showing as it should, the FCC has been reapplied BUT I should be getting some kind of refund from what I paid when we both had Plus to the difference where DD has no package and I have Premiere. Out of that refund I will pay for the coffee/soda package and grats for DD. If it all works out, I ended up saving about $100 - worth it? Probably not. Should have just upgraded us both and been done with it. Lesson learned.

Standard, Plus, or Premiere: As the only adult travelling with kids, I always try to do the math before booking to figure out which fare would be in my favour. I like the drink package, not because I drink a ton but because I like not having to think about a bill at the end. Teens like the soda/coffee package, tween likes the soda package, we all need wifi, and obviously the crew appreciation will be paid whatever we go with. When I booked this sailing, the difference between the cost of standard and plus was definitely much more than $50 per day – not sure if it was some kind of website glitch or if the standard fare was some kind of promo/deal, but I went ahead and booked the standard and figured I would do the math to see if it was worth the upgrade to plus. After crunching the numbers, I decided to do plus for myself and DD (pax 1&2) and then purchase one coffee/soda package for BFF and one soda package for DS. The Elite price to upgrade wifi to 4 devices was $5 a day so that worked for wifi and then I would just need to pre-pay gratuities for BFF and DS. Doing it this way saved me around $150 over upgrading for all 4 of us. I called Princess and got the Plus added and then went ahead and made the purchases and pre paid grats. All looking good… Except just last week I started looking at the Premiere package – particularly the photo package. Back in the day, I also purchased the unlimited photo package and have so many amazing pictures from our many cruises. Sadly, that package has been discontinued, BUT it is part of the Premiere package. To upgrade myself and DD it would be an additional $350 and, honestly, the only added value would be the photos since all the drinks I enjoy are included in Plus and DD gets no added value on any of that as she is under drinking age. Admittedly, I had paid $101.50 for specialty dining, so I could deduct that and $35 for the upgraded wifi so I could deduct that. That would mean I was paying $214 for the photo package…maybe not worth it to most, but since my kiddos are getting to the point where they refuse to be in pictures these days I figured this might be the last time I could do this…Back on the phone to Princess and I was lucky to get a great rep because I casually mentioned that the upgrade probably wasn’t worth it given that pax 2 was a kid. She asked if I would like her to find out if it would be possible for just myself to upgrade – um, yes please. Unfortunately, as she put me on hold to check with a supervisor, I got disconnected. I figured that this was the universe telling me to hold on to that $350 and skip the upgrade. Imagine how surprised I was to receive a call back from the rep about half an hour later telling me that she had checked with her supervisor and the upgrade for just me was possible BUT in order to do that, they had to remove the package from DD AND there system was currently down so she couldn’t do it until it was back up and running. She offered to go ahead and process it when she could and then send me a confirmation. Sure, go for it. I wasn’t really expecting much, but Lo and Behold, an hour later I get a confirmation through. As I looked at it and got crazy confused, I began to wonder why I hadn’t just left well enough alone. DD no longer had any package. I had the Premiere package. Great. BUT the pricing looked really wonky. Nothing matched up with either the original booking with the standard fare or the upgraded booking with the plus fare and the difference in price went back to FCC, which was the sole reason I booked the cruise – to use those suckers up. As I was debating calling yet again to get this fixed, another confirmation came through. This one looked much better, kind of. This time the pricing matched in come ways, but the Premiere upgrade did not have gratuities added for me. In the Personalizer, it shows prepaid gratuities for DD but has the option for me to prepay…I think it should be the other way around? Plus, I still have a chunk of FCC back on my account, which I don’t think I should have. I’m guessing another call is in order to fix this, or maybe I just leave alone and figure it out onboard…

I don't think I have ever been asked to prove the kids had a package - even though they always did. Their drinks were always just put through on my package, unless they go to the bar and order themselves.

Mine never drank soda until they were teens, but those Choco-Bananas were worth getting the soda package for! Mind you, that was before it was a package and when it was just a sticker on the card!

If they want drinks for the kiddo it is far less to just add basic soda package and pay grats than to add Plus

With the new package addition came a change to the way you add Plus. It now only adds to guests 1 and 2 and you have to request it for 3 and 4 if wanted. So if perks aren’t showing for kiddo in personalizer then no perks are included for them.

It might look pretty, but still not sure how much it helps? Also, when using this function my phone gets REALLY hot!

Even Dine My Way seemed to cooperate this time...

It took a while, but that satisfaction at getting all checks and green lane ready...