sunviking90

We found the americanos and the brewed coffee at IC on the Royal in January to be poor. Makes it easier to accept the demise of the coffee card. They just announced a partnership with Lavazza so maybe that will improve it. I’m bringing Starbucks’s via on our next cruise.

It sounds like you’re talking about when you disembark on Sunday? It’s a no. It is even sometimes printed in the last patter (or whatever they call it now) not to take food off. Last time we disembarked at in Fort Lauderdale there were dogs too. They’re looking for drugs not sandwiches, but still. Stay strong. Been there.

Texasjones, thank you for coming back with a very well composed reply. A lot of your ire seems to be directed at Princess corporate HQ decision making, but I think these decisions are made at a ship level by the management there. This is the only explanation for the consistent inconsistency from ship to ship. A recent poster said they were given 15% of their cruise fare in FCCs when they missed 2 of 4 ports on a Hawaii cruise. I have read of others receiving $200 to $300 OBC, etc. Like so many things it seems to vary from ship to ship. Personally we have missed ports many times and have never received anything except port charge refund once. I didn’t actually know compensation was ever given. If you are still on the ship and unhappy with what you have received, continue to ask for more from guest services or the hotel manager. Once you leave the ship it’ll will be too late.

Good Morning to all the Dailyites! Well it looks like our sun is gone for a bit as It is rainy and 4-7C today. Not a fan of shellfish, but I took some nice wild sockeye out of the freezer so it will be a fish Friday here. I haven’t used crayons in years, but remember the thrill of a new box. I always hoped for the Crayola 64 pack with the built in sharpener, but mum said the 24 pack was good enough, sigh. The quote is a good one, and imagine a world where we all followed that! Have a good day everyone!

I wonder if it depends if you order through the app or by phone? App is set with charges?

One of our favourite cruises to date was to Quebec City and the Atlantic provinces. I’ve lived in Canada all my life and never seen anything east of the Rockies. This part of Canada is so lovely! It was October and we were blessed with good weather generally. Here is Quebec City (and yes, I know I’m veering off of the thread, but maybe that’s a good thing?)

I want to express my condolences to you and your family. What a heartbreaking situation. I have no advice for you, but I think you are in the right place as there are some very knowledgeable and experienced people on this forum.

Thank you to all contributors for another Fleet Report and Daily to brighten the morning. It’s a crisp and sunny 4C this morning and promises to go up to 13C. (Sorry, it’s too early for me to translate to F). Any day without rain here, is a good day. A walk in the park is a great idea. I have a great doctor and am fortunate that I don’t need to see her very often. We’ve never been to Greece, but it’s on our ever growing retirement travel list! Best wishes to all.

I haven’t used one in the Caribbean, but have in Europe and in the US. As long as you purchase one that has coverage there (you can usually select areas) they should work. We also use it while docked and tether off of my phone rather than use the ships slow wifi.

Oh Canada!

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A recent poster did a wonderful trip report from the Crown Princess to Hawaii. The ship missed 2 of the 4 ports! Maui and Kauai were both missed due to weather, and I saw no comments on expected compensation at all. It happens.

Good Morning to all the Dailyites! Once again I’ve had my morning chuckles at the cartoons and memes posted. Fran Lebowitz also makes me chuckle. I always appreciate a dry wit. As kids we wanted to visit Hawaii ever since we saw the Brady Bunch episodes. How lucky I am that I’ve been able to do so now a number of times on cruises and land vacations. A wonderful place to escape a rainy Vancouver winter. While Kauai is our favorite island (and I’ve thrown a picture in) we are always happy to have the opportunity to spend a day or two in Honolulu. We love visiting the classic Royal Hawaiian and Moana Surfrider. The pictures with Diamond Head in the background are from the Moana in January while on our Royal Princess cruise. We also finally visited Pearl Harbor this time which had been on the bucket list ever since I saw “From Here to Eternity”. What a moving experience.

I’m very sorry this happened to you and must have been very disappointing. We’ve missed a ports due to weather twice on HAL and only got back port charges. It honestly never occurred to me to expect anything more as we all know and it’s been repeated often that the cruise contract gets you from A to B and nothing else is guaranteed. I didn’t even know of the possible travel insurance compensation. Nice to know for the future. I would have been really disappointed in the situation, but pretty happy at $100 OBC. And don’t think I’m a Princess super fan. I’m still waiting for a reply for my complaint 2 months ago when our 15 day cruise had only 7 days of food and shortages were rampant.

Generally I would agree with you and having managed a business, I would be the first to realize how damaging accusations can be. Having said that, this is not a one off or an occasional thing, but a regular occurrence on HAL ships. I have not booked another HAL cruise since my last extremely unpleasant experience trying to prove post cruise that I didn’t drink anything from my minibar. I don’t think this is “intentional” and I don’t blame the front line crew at all, but regular overcharges like this certainly show a lack of will on the part of HAL to train properly, or to put procedures in place to prevent this. They don’t seem to think it’s a priority. The other concern would be are the crew members getting in trouble when overcharges and errors are reported. I hope not. Why do these corrections always have to go through the beverage department and can’t be handled immediately?

I agree. I have a real issue with guest relations being unable to remove the charges themselves. Instead a message has to be sent to the beverage department. I experienced the same problem last year. I won’t even get into the HAL minibar erroneous charges that showed up after we disembarked which took me 3 days and about 8 hours on the phone to fix! However on our recent Princess cruise (not perfect in other ways) a couple of beverage charge errors were fixed immediately by guest services themselves. Loving the trip report so far. You have inspired me to book our first visit to Japan next year!

Thank you! I do occasionally go down to the port to see the ships so I may just do that! Hopefully it will be nice weather and you’ll see our city at its best! Enjoy the Volendam. I haven’t been on her but we are planning to soon (while she’s still around).

We cruised this route years ago on the Veendam (Columbia River I think?). It definitely felt like a “River” cruise with the shoreline very close on both sides. We disembarked at a container port in Portland and HAL had no transportation arrangements or transfers of any kind so we were all left there wondering how to get to the Airport. No Uber in those days!

Thank you to everyone who posts daily! I have never contributed but enjoy and laugh out loud at the memes and cartoons every morning, A great way to start the day! Every day is respect your cat day in our house. Today I respected her by getting up at 5am when she was crying for breakfast. She’s long haired and doing a lot of eating and grooming lately which means something is coming, and it won’t be a stuffed shell! It’s a cold, but clear morning here in Vancouver but should be sunny and warm up to 15C, so it’ll be a good day. Have a lovely day everyone!

Yes Vancouver suffers from being only a “seasonal” cruise port and the requirement to clear US Customs before boarding. They also seem to be using a lot of the convention centre areas as terminal waiting rooms now. We live here, and are never sure where to go! Still the best place to start your Alaska cruise though! I love following your trip reports Norwaylady! I was in Norway years ago when I was 18 (my sister married a Norwegian) and would love to go back.

This thread has provided me with a lot of amusement. It reminds me a little of one a few years ago (not sure which cruiseline) where someone posted that they like to bring their “pre-loved” clothing and shoes as donations for the crew. Yikes!

Yes, while not “robbed” depending on interpretation we had a bad experience last year with a cab there. We usually use Uber/Lyft and decided to go old school and use a cab. Never, ever again! Uber or Lyft from now on!

Thank you. It sounds exactly like what I thought it would be!

My CVP is promoting them on her social media page. What type of coupons are these? I’m not familiar with them.

I think the real blame here is on your travel agent. Knowing you were a first time cruiser especially they should have made sure you were aware. I am a very experienced cruiser (probably more than 30 over the past 30 years) and I sometimes book guarantees. Sometimes I like the thrill of seeing where we’ll end up and the price is usually good. I’ve almost always been assigned better than I booked, and if I didn’t like the location have been able to change to another cabin in the same category. I recently booked a quickie cruise on another line and was assigned exactly what I booked and the lowest category within that description, lol. Win some, lose some. The price was right. I suspect the cruise lines may be hoping to get more on “bids” for cabins rather than upgrade guarantees anymore.