sunviking90

Good Morning Dailyites, and thank you to all who contribute each day. I read it daily and always enjoy.

Thank you to @Quartzsite Cruiser and @StLouisCruisers for the great pictures of today’s destination.

With a British mother I was raised on tea and remain addicted to this day. @grapau27 thank you for the information. This is a good reminder for many of the things we buy these days. We get our tea now from a local company Murchies, (worth a visit if you’re ever in Vancouver or Victoria). I hope it’s ethically grown, but now I will check to make sure.
We eat a lot of salmon in this house when it’s in season. Love wild sockeye.
It’s a rainy day here in Vancouver and as our most recent cruise ended on Saturday, I’m still trying to get motivated to finish unpacking. 
Have a great day everyone. 

Thank you for posting this, but I don’t see your experience with EZ air a “rip off” but rather a cautionary tale. I personally wasn’t aware of the cancellation terms, but as it is a consolidator it makes perfect sense. That’s why the payment terms are also much different than booking direct, and cancellation at 45 days on refundable fares. In most cases this is much better than booking through the airline, but your post shows the downside of this. 
We used EZ air for the first time recently when we were unsure whether to fly home from Anchorage after a transpacific, or to add on the next cruise to Vancouver where we live. I booked flights through EZ air so we’d have a way home regardless, and when the second leg of our cruise went on sale I cancelled the flights before the 45 days and booked the cruise.

There are pros and cons to EZ air, and your post definitely shows the downside.

Good Morning to all the Dailyites! 
Thank you for all the Victoria Day wishes from our American friends.

We were actually in today’s port of Miyako 3 weeks ago today. This was our first trip to Japan and loved it and the Japanese people. 

On arrival at the port we had many locals out to great us, including schoolchildren and dancers. When we left many townspeople lined the port to wave us off. (Very poor picture taken from the dining room shown). This happened at multiple ports in Japan and warmed our hearts each time.
This is a small town which suffered flooding and great losses in the tsunami  of 2011. In the years since they have built amazing infrastructure to protect against this happening again. 
We walked about 10 kilometres passing a lot of the new building to get to Jodogahama Beach. It was a beautiful sunny day. Sorry I don’t have any pictures of the town area.

 

Last week it was $15 per day (with elite discount, so $29.99 without) 24 hour period if buying one day at a time. If buying until end of voyage it came out to $12.50 per day for elite.

Thank you for doing this. I’m sure it will be helpful to many.

On 5/14/2024 at 10:35 AM, Ombud said:

Yes ... it's the ENTIRE minibar for 1 bottle of wine from a small list, sometimes Charles & Charles Rose is included but more often not. If you'd like a sampling of what to choose from look at the pre-order wine list at anything under $55-$60 (or so I was told last month) & (while you're there) pre-order 12 bottles water for $7.08 if on a low sodium diet

On Royal Princess last week, we replaced with a bottle of wine, but kept the sparkling water and regular waters. Our room steward did this for us. Like so many things it seems this is not consistent from ship to ship.

Glad you had a good trip. Thank you for your review.

43 minutes ago, Cruise Junky said:

I’m getting NCL right now but not HAL. Will keep my eyes open.  

Yes, sadly I only have NCL now too. Hopefully this hits the Canadian Amex cards soon.

We have been on the Royal Princess for the last 3 weeks and currently breakfast and lunch is served in Allegro, not Concerto. The Reserve class area is in Concerto at dinner time. 

We booked a cruise last year and received extra OBC for booking onboard. The cruise has gone down substantially and I was going to rebook/price adjust. What is the standard OBC received with purchasing the FCDs if they’re not used right away?I am assuming we will lose the bonus OBC we received but want to weigh the numbers to see if it’s worth it. Is there a PDF of the form anywhere as with Princess?

3 hours ago, RuthC said:

Impossible, actually, so HAL shouldn't even try. Let those of us who want peace & quiet have that, while those who want music use earbuds. 
Other than my cabin, the only place I have been able to find the sounds of silence is sitting on a deck chair on the promenade. The Pinnacle class ships doesn't even offer that. 😒

Well said Ruth C, as always. 

We haven’t been on the Enchanted, but we do like the Majestic for the Noodle bar, and the open to all forward Hollywood Club.

We usually book the “obstructed” balconies or deluxe balconies on Emerald deck in the bump out. We are currently on the Royal Princess (sister) in one of these and our balcony is pretty big. You’ll see the differences on the deck plans. These are under the “inside” cabin category when looking in the website. And also, there is no real “obstruction” on the bump out, except you can’t see down to the water completely but down to the promenade deck.

Nice trip report so far. I’ll definitely be following along. Enjoy your well deserved break. Transatlantics are the best!

This thread should be a sticky. No pun intended.

6 hours ago, no1racefan1 said:

It looks like they are underway and are deviating from their usual route by sailing west of Vancouver Island. Maybe because of scheduling issues?

As far as I know timing is everything when going east of Vancouver Island and especially through Seymour Narrows. That’s likely why they took the route west of Vancouver Island. 

42 minutes ago, thebronzeYVR said:

Hey everyone,

I hope this is the right place for this question! My partner, family and I are looking at a cruise in the fall, 4 nights from Vancouver to Los Angeles departing September 25 on the Grand Princess.

 

We are first-timers on a cruise, so thought the relatively short length would give us a good sense of if we are "cruise people". The price is also great, since it looks like the boat is repositioning from the Alaska summer run to more southern routes.. so here is my question:

 

Has anyone on here been on this (or similar) cruises? Will all activities (shows, restaurants, programming) advertised be available since it is on a repositioning run? Or will there be more limited offerings since it is quasi - off season?

 

Thank you so much in advance!

Welcome to Cruisecritic! We have taken a lot of these coastal cruises back when we were still working and really enjoyed them. As you say they are a good opportunity to try out “cruising” and see if it’s for you. They are different vibe than a 7 day loop or a longer itinerary, but certainly are not “less than”. We’ve had great guest lecturers and generally 1 production show on ours. Get to the production show 30 minutes early if you want to see it. They are popular. Buffet food, Main dining room etc will be as you would have on a longer cruise.
Enjoy your first cruise!

Thank you! Changed my iPad back to Vancouver time and all is well. I’ll just leave my phone with the ship time.  Interesting that the ship “IT” people don’t know this. It makes complete sense as we are having time changes every day for 6 days! 

Sorry if this has already been addressed lately. Did a search and nothing recent came up. We are currently on Royal Princess and I can’t log in to Princess. I’m not getting the “technical difficulties” page, but just getting auto logged out as soon as I log in. Asked at the IT place downstairs and he said it’s been an issue for the last few days. I think it’s strange that there’s been no mention on CC if it is truly an issue. A few days while using an eSIM in port, I had no trouble, but now on ship wifi I can’t log in. The “deals” page also comes up blank, likely as I’m not logged in so it has no location for me. 
Is anyone else having this issue, or is it an onboard issue?

There is definitely interest from me. I think a lot of us who are usually interested in these threads may be on our own repositioning cruises (‘tis the season!) and not reading the boards regularly. I know I only have internet in port via eSIM right now so am not reading daily like I usually do. 
Glad that you were able to get into Ponta Delgada. We stopped there in fall of 2022 and loved it. We had the best one euro cappuccinos from a kiosk in a little park at the top of the hill. 

I just saw your thread and thought to myself “April 13? How did I miss following @*Miss G*’s trip!” I’m so glad you were able to come back and catch us all up. We are cruising now, and I respect all of you who take the time to do these threads. Really enjoying it so far! 

This has happened to me before when logged in. I logged out and suddenly the pricing appeared for the cruise. Just an occasional glitch I think.

2 hours ago, Horizon chaser 1957 said:

So I just got off the phone with HAL at 24 hrs 10 minutes before sailing.

WE ARE CONFIRMED! And for $69 CDN per person, we’ve upgraded to a veranda cabin. Now to finish packing and water the plants! 🎉🎉🎉🎉
  @rj59, my fingers are crossed for you!

Congrats! Glad it worked out so well for you! Is this a 7 day inside passage? Sorry, I can’t remember which itinerary you had.

4 hours ago, Horizon chaser 1957 said:

Actually, they do give shareholders benefit on standby. We have it on ours - IF we sail. The difference is that shareholder benefit is a type of dividend, and the others are promotions.

@sunviking90, I agree with you. We are on last minute (less than 48 hours now) for a cruise we could have booked on sale 3 weeks ago. Reserving our favorite cabin on a Vista class for sure would have cost $30 CAD in total more than sitting here wondering where we’ll be the day after tomorrow. We wanted to test the program out. I’m glad we did, but in future we’ll just wait for the sales.

Well I appreciate you “taking one for the (local) team”, lol. Its is interesting to hear your experience with it.

2 hours ago, BermudaBound2014 said:

Other than solos, I’m not following the benefit of this program for 7 day Alaska (or any of the “bus runs”). 
 

These cruises are the same price (or Pennies more) than the standby program and you get a regular booking weeks in advance. Heck, in some cases it’s cheaper than the $49 offer.

 

What am I missing?

 

 

 

 

You’re not missing anything. You’re absolutely right. I can see prices in CAD cheaper than standby currently. 

20 minutes ago, PacnGoNow said:

Not uncommon for them to disappear about 48 hours prior and they may reappear today or tomorrow.  Sometimes they show up on the web version of the App.

I wouldn’t worry about it.  You can bring this up with the DRO or hostess at the MDR where you booked on the first evening.  Hopefully, they will show it in their system.

 

Have a great cruise!

Thank you! You’ve put my mind at ease. 😊