sunviking90

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. 😊 
 

We board tomorrow. Just thought I’d double check our dinner reservations on the app. I had 22 days booked at the same time each day. App now shows NO reservations! Should be fun. They were there a month ago. 
I did screenshot all of our reservations in the old app at least if there’s an issue.

7 hours ago, CruiseDuckDuo said:

San Diego departures are repositioning to Vancouver and Seattle for the Alaska cruise season.  I think one of the Ft Lauderdale departures is Eurodam enroute to San Diego/Seattle, and the other departures are enroute to Europe.

This. There are no other sailings from San Diego from April until the ships go back down in September/October.

1 hour ago, cr8tiv1 said:

I stayed at the Pan Pacific for less than $1000 in September 2022.  I think it was even less than $400.  It's the Canadian fees that are outrageous.  

 

There is a fee (not suggested tipping) for the bell desk to come to your room, pick up your luggage, walk it to the ship, and "watch" that it gets loaded on to your ship.

 

Then you can skip the first step (drop off your luggage and go upstairs).  The Grand was the only ship in port.  We were seated in the first couple of rows by 10:30.  Boarded shortly after 11.  

 

It was all part of the "experience".  The Pan Pacific is the perfect place to do a pre-cruise stay.

 

Disclaimer:  A friend of mine is leaving out of Vancouver in September 2024.  Three ships in port.  No room at the "inn".  That's A LOT of passengers coming and going.

The fees are more related to that particular 5 star hotel than being “Canadian” fees. 

8 hours ago, VermeulT said:

Every cruise I want to look at comes up with unavailable or sold out.  I mean EVERY.  I cleared my cashe and changed browsers.  Makes it hard to see what the prices and availability really are.

This was happening for me too, until I logged out. Then everything was  available again.

We are fortunate to have many happy memories of land vacations in Maui. We usually stayed in Kaanapali so we were also able enjoy Lahaina. Our last visit was on the Royal Princess in January of 2023. I was so eager to get out of the heat and back on the ship, sadly not knowing I’d never see Lahaina as it was ever again. 
We almost went to Kapalua last January but just couldn’t bear driving past the ruins of Lahaina. 
We docked in Kahului on the Volendam last November and walked about 10 minutes out the gate to rent a car from Avis (in a small hotel). Very reasonable and was really nice to be able to drive down to Paia, Makenna, etc. There are really a lot of options when docking in Kahului. 
I could be wrong but I think the Royal Class ships are too large to dock there? 

Yes, just recently through my PVP. We were also able to keep our hefty OBC.

Bon Voyage! 🚢 

Have a great trip! It sounds wonderful, especially having your family with you.

We were very tempted in this itinerary, but we’re already committed on another cruise. Love the repositionings, but can’t do them all!