sunviking90

Likely a 14 day? Port fees and taxes are very high on Alaska cruises. They easily double any “deals” I see on the 7 day one way sailings.

I fear you’re right, but I hope not. I love a good soak in a tub.

Ruth is correct as always.

My experience with Princess is that if the ship has sailed in the UK previously, I have asked for a kettle and received one. The last time was on the Emerald Princess Panama Canal. Just asked the steward. It can be hard to get water hot enough for tea otherwise, Room service hot water is not hot enough for a “good” cup of tea by the time it arrives. On the Volendam in December one of the Lido hot water dispensers was out of order, so they had a large plastic one set up…..nowhere near hot enough. The other hot water dispenser was often empty.

Also eagerly awaiting more posts 😊

Another retired gen x-er here who also started cruising on a 20,000 ton beauty (RCCL’s Sun Viking) I enjoyed your intro and I’m looking forward to your reports already!

True. The Seattle ones seem to book up more easily. A lot of first timers especially will pick Seattle for convenience over other considerations.

CTV app has a “flashback” section with the Partridge Family episodes. I haven’t checked yet if they have that episode on it, but will today. There’s also a great Columbo Episode filmed on the original Sun Princess “Troubled Waters”. I don’t think Columbo is available in Canada right now tho.

Interesting article. https://www.cnn.com/travel/how-the-love-boat-transformed-cruising/index.html

True. Our best cruises ever!

They usually come as “private fares” but my PCC has said the Alaska ones are resident offers. I haven’t had any this year, but the fares showing when I log in are very good. My lowest prices right now come up if I go into the “Canada Super Sale” promo.

We get “resident” offers every year at good prices for May Alaska cruises on Princess, HAL and Celebrity, so I don’t think they have as many far advance bookings. A lot of the Alaska cruises combine with the cruise tours, even HALs 7 day insides, but May 5 is a little early for cruise tours so that may be another reason for high availability on it.

Fingers crossed 🤞🏻

I think we are on the same cruise as you. I also noticed this, but not too worried. We’ll all be in the same boat (ship 😉). It so happens that that date is our anniversary so we’ll probably go to a specialty restaurant one of the days. I also have the issue that my reservations are attached to a long cancelled duplicate booking and won’t appear in the new app and no one seems to be able to fix it, but have reassured me that the reservations are valid. I’ve just screenshot them all in the old app in case there’s an issue. If your reservations are the same time daily as ours are, there shouldn’t be a problem.

I’ve had the same issue on any Volendam sailing I’ve looked at in the last few days. Thought it was just me.

They’re allowed, but you have to use a cup or mug to fill them in the buffet, rather than directly. We always bring our thermal cups.

Bon Voyage Everyone! Great itineraries 🚢

I actually like that menu. The Salmon Poke bowl especially looks good. Agreed the menu is very much like HAL lunch which is the same every day. We didn’t mind it at all on HAL. I pretty much eat the same thing every day for lunch at home, lol. As long as Princess doesn’t copy HALs dinner menus. Very meh, weird choices and mostly accompanied by corn for some reason. We actually chose Princess for a 54 day cruise for the itinerary, and we couldn’t imagine eating HALs mdr dinners every day.

Thanks for clarifying. 😊

On the Volendam recently I believe there were 2 Mariners lunches back to back. We were at the second with other 3 stars from what we gathered. Not hosted by anyone and no awards. My 100 medal was had been left in our room the day before. I would assume the 4 and 5 stars had officers attend and medal awards, but not sure. The lunch was very good. I didn’t mind not having my medal “awarded” as we don’t like attention generally, but I thought it was odd that there was no “host” for the luncheon. I would have at least expected a 1 minute blurb from someone about thanks for your loyalty, etc. The last one we attended was probably 8 years (we’ve been 3 star a LONG time) ago, was hosted, awards presented, etc.

It looks like it has another 7 day inside passage cruise on Sept 18before starting the South Pacific cruise on the 25th.

Gosh, you could almost fit the Zaandam in one” cheek” on the Icon! 🤭

This! Fancy time signs and everything. It’s the only port where we’ve seen this. Lesson learned, which I guess is what they want.

There was no mdr embarkation day lunch on our Volendam cruise in November and when ai asked was told there were too many crew changing over for them to staff it that day. We did have it on the Koningsdam in January, so it seems like they have it unless they are short crew.