twinkle toes

If you had the choice to go on the royal or the regal for your next cruise, which would you choose, and why?

In St. Lucia now. No flooding. Did have a little water dripping from the roof of the lounge area in front of Le Bistro, but nothing major. They had it cleaned up the same evening.

I am on the Gem now. Captain is wonderful, went thru storm, 100mph plus winds, 40 plus foot waves, did fine. Were indoors first day and a half. You will find videos posted soon enough. Many were taking them. In Antigua. No damage.

For those of you that want to take advantage of buying into the CCL stock and getting OBC for your cruises, this looks like a good time to buy. I don't know how much further it will go down, but it has gone down around 10.00 per share since I purchased in November.

I also own several pieces. My big beef is the "crap" they are pedaling as art. I a, not into the modern stuff, and I feel like they push Peter Max and Tarkay (spelling) WAY too much.

Can you tell me what you mean by "stack the discounts"?

I bought my stock yesterday on Scottrade. Today I received confirmation on their website. I printed off this confirmation and sent it to Princess today. I then called them and asked them if they could speed up the processing as I have a cruise that departs on the 25th of this month. They put me on hold for about 5 minutes, and when the agent came back on, she said everything was taken care of and that my OBC was in my account on Princess.

I just purchased my stock in CCL earlier today. My Scottrade account says that the transaction is "unsettled". Does anyone know how long it takes them before I can print off verification to send with my Shareholder form to get OBC?

The airlines and cruise lines were down this morning thanks to the incident in Paris Memories fade, so unless there is another attack it should rebound quickly.

Wow, talk about a cruel thing to say..."thanks to"?

CRAP!!! I have been watching the price of the CCL shares for the past 2 days and was going to buy them when I got home from running my errands. Unfortunately, I was delayed and now I can't purchase and have proof of ownership until monday, the 16th. Our cruise leaves on the 25th. Have I "missed the boat" timewise to get OBC credit for my cruise???

Uh oh...we are getting onto the Grand the same day you are getting off. We have a 12:15pm flight out of SFO on the 10th of December. We booked and paid for Princess transfers on their website. They allowed us to book the transfers, but the place where you list your flight information did indicate that we were risking it. Am I able to cancel the transfers and get my money back since we haven't left yet, or will I be penalized because of the shortness of time before our departure?

I just got my bank verification back, and funded the scottrade account. I figure I have until the 11th before I have to purchase and send in the proof of ownership. I'm going to just watch it for a few days and see if for some unknown reason it dips.

Great!! It is a 15 day cruise, so that means $250.00 :)

I just opened an account with Scottrade. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to use the Instant Verification option, since it wasn't working properly. I instead had to do the 2-3 day verification. I talked to a guy at Scottrade and he said I would be able to buy the stock for sure by Friday. Do you think this will be enough time if my cruise leaves on the 25th?

I would like to purchase 100 shares of CCL stock to avail the OBC for my upcoming 15 day cruise. I would prefer to not have to go through a stockbroker. Can anyone tell me if CCL allows you to buy the stock directly from them? If so, please give the page link as I haven't been able to find anything on their website. After reading everyone's stories about their stock, it seems a no brainer that I should own it if I intend to keep cruising!

Grimsby,

It is a 15 day cruise, thus $250. Since I am on pain meds that don't allow me to drink, I cut a significant amount off of my OBC in the bar bill area.

Wow, that is great!! We wouldn't obviously be getting the 100+ shares as an investment, but just to get the onboard credit. We usually don't get in on the sales, so the only OBC we have would be the shareholder credits. We are doing a 2 week hawaiian on November 25th. If we buy shares this week, would we have enough time to get in on the $250 OBC? So do I read it correct that if I was using the OBC for the casino, and prepaid my gratuities, then if I had winnings in my account over $250, then I could cash it all out and it wouldn't be seen as non-refundable for the first $250 of the winnings?

So I take it then that Shareholder OBC is non refundable then?

What happens if you have credit left over at the end of the cruise?

My daughter gets queasy sometimes onboard, and she just whips out her seabands and puts them on. In 5 minutes, she is feeling just fine.

I am surprised that nobody has mentioned the fact that it is also a good idea to use hand sanitizer BEFORE you start eating, thus the pocket bac. There are many things that one picks up off their plate and eats with their hands (bread, grapes, etc) without thinking about the fact that MANY people manage to get into the buffet line without washing or sanitizing, and we touch and handle an average of 10-15 handles in there before we sit down to eat.

I used the term ghestapo in a positive way, not negative. I remember watching Hogans Heroes as a kid, and they always acted very professional, and took their post very serious, thus the reference.

I hate ALL hand sanitizers. Can't stand the feel of them or the smell. When we started cruising, I was able to fix that problem by going to Bath and Bodyworks and sampling all of their Pocket Bac scents. They have one called "Pumpkin Frost" which is now discontinued but can be bought on ebay. This scent for some reason doesn't leave the alcohol smell, and because of the little beads in it, doesn't feel slimy like the stuff Princess uses. I carry the Pocketbac in my pocket and once I get up to the ghestapo manning the purell station, I whip my Pumpkin Frost out and put it on. Most of the time, the person there wants to smell it and ends up having me squirt some on their hands because it smells and feels so much better than their stuff. Problem solved.

Does anyone know anyone that will be cruising on the ocean during the 27/28 night that could take a picture of the supermoon with the lunar eclipse? That would make such a lovely picture from the top deck. What would be better was if the captain could cut the lights to the top decks for a few minutes (pre announced of course) so that camera buffs could get that unique shot.

Blkspy,

I wonder if this was the same couple??? I guess I should be a little more technical in my writing. In Illinois, we have "Assisted Living Retirement Homes" which ALSO house people who are "independent", but want to live in the same community so that they don't have a big transition when the need eventually arises. The couple we sat and talked to were quite old, but I didn't ask how old. They LIVED on the boat. The wife told me that they didn't always stay in the same cabin, and went wherever the boat went. I believe it was the Crown we were on when we met them. They knew ALL the staff, and any time any of them came around, they hugged them and called them by name.