NavyVeteran

Is this excursion from Juneau as a cruise port on an Alaska cruise? If so, the Alaska CruiseTours FAQ would not be applicable. The CruiseTours FAQ only describe the pre-cruise or post-cruise land tour - not the cruise itself or any excursions from the ship. The correct reference would be to the Shore Excursions FAQ. The description of the Mendenhall Glacier Helicopter & Guided Walk clearly describes the weight surcharge. It clearly states that you are required to purchase two tickets in advance and that you will receive a refund onboard for the difference between the full cost of the second ticket and the weight surcharge amount. However, the website does not allow you to purchase the second ticket. I am looking at that specific excursion on a booked Alaska cruise. It has two places for me to check "Guests you can book" for DW and me - it does not provide any way to purchase a third ticket for the two of us. You could try calling Princess, selecting the book shore excursions option on the phone, and hoping you get someone on the phone who knows what they're doing (Good luck). The Special Notes and the Shore Excursions FAQ both say "Helicopter excursions are not refundable unless cancelled by 12:00pm on the day after embarkation." If you haven't resolved this issue before then, you will need to go to the Shore Excursion desk onboard as soon as you board to resolve this before the cancellation deadline.

The cruise starts and ends in Vancouver, so of course you would have to get off the ship in Vancouver.🙂 You may not need to get off the ship in Whittier, however, if US customs and immigration is handled when you board in Vancouver.

Advantages of upgrading on board: Since it is not included in the fare, you don't pay additional insurance cost. You can use OBC to pay for it. Advantages of upgrading pre-cruise: Since it is included in the fare, it may be commissionable to your travel agent (I'm not sure). If your agent gives a rebate, the higher fare may (?) mean a larger rebate. Since it is included in the fare and its cost is included in Princess Vacation Protection, it is included in the insurance refund for days in isolation. When DW and I were isolated for 3 days of a 12-day cruise, we received Princess Vacation Protection refund (cash - not FCC) of 1/4 of the cost of the cruise.

Princess does not have a per bag price. They have an itemized list of prices for each item. Unlimited laundry as available at no charge if you are Elite or are in a suite. Princess also has self-service laundries available at a small charge for use of the machines.

Cancel for any reason insurance may not be needed. If your physician documents that it would be unsafe for you to cruise, this could be a medical reason for cancellation. If you do this, make sure that the physician's note documents the fact that you did not know you could not cruise until now. At the time of the operation, he thought you would be healed by the time of the cruise. This could be important in case because they don't pay any increased penalty if you don't cancel as soon as feasible after the condition that keeps you from cruising. In your case, this should not apply, since you didn't know the condition would still be a problem at the time of the cruise until the last week when it hadn't healed as expected. But this needs to be clearly documented by the physician.

Princess will sometimes offer free third and fourth passenger fares. However baby is second passenger in this case. If Princess offered a lower baby fare, then adult and baby in cabin would pay less than adult by herself paying single supplement. That wouldn't make sense as long as Princess is charging 100% single supplement.

Welcom to Princess. Unfortunately, you are not credited double days for single occupancy. You are credited double cruise credits but only the actual number of days. You need either 5 cruise credits or 50 cruise days to become Platinum. As a single, you will have 6 cruise credits after 3 cruises, but the days do not double. Look at the fine print at the bottom of the Membership Benefits page under note 3: "Princess Captain's Circle Double cruise credits for booking and sailing in a full suite (mini-suites excluded) or sailing at the exclusive occupancy fare are effective with sailings beginning on or after December 7, 2008. Cruises only, and not cruise days are doubled. The exclusive occupancy fare is for solo guests occupying a stateroom alone and who paid the single traveller supplement."

I think it proved just the opposite. They showed a number of spaces available. I booked 2 spaces. The number was reduced immediately by two.

Princess drink packages are available as soon as you board. However, the choice of drinks is limited until you leave Texas. Because of Texas law, all drinks sold in Texas have to be purchased from Texas distributors. Princess has a limited selection available in a limited number of bars until they leave Texas jurisdiction. Several of the more expensive drinks you would normally get with Premier will probably not be available until you leave Texas.

I have booked an excursion that showed fewer than 20 available. The number was reduced immediately after I booked.

Just because more than five are visible as available on the website does not mean that more than five are available. For example, the may be 20 available on the website but Princess may have sold 15 guarantees cabins of that category. Once five more are sold, they are sold out, since Princess needs to keep enough to assign all of the guarantees. They can sell more than they have in one category if they have more available in a higher category, since they can accept bids to move some up (or give a complimentary upgrade if they don't receive bids). Also, Princess cannot sell every cabin on the ship. They have limits on the number of passengers in each muster area. If they sell a lot of third and fourth berths, then they can't sell all of the first and second berths.

How do you know this? Princess may have sold guarantees in this category, so the list of available cabins is not the number of available cabins.

You don't have to wait until you're onboard. If you booked through a TA, you need to contact the TA to add the transfers. If you are only interested in a post-cruise transfer, you may wait to book onboard if you wish. The price may be different, however.

Would either your son or his wife benefit from the Plus package? If one of them would benefit, it might make sense for one of them to book in your cabin with the two of you having Plus and the other one to book with the baby in the other cabin. On board, Guest Services can program any of your medallions to access the other cabin. You just need to have an official occupant of that cabin with you when you make the request.

Yes, you will pay a corkage fee if you bring the bottle to the dining room. However, you can bring a glass of wine to the dining room at no charge. They have no way of knowing where the glass came from.

According to the Princess deck plans, all four aft lifts go down to the Ketchikan Dining Room on Deck 6 (unlike some other Princess ships). If she wants to go back to the cabin after dinner, aft would be fine. However, if she wants to go anywhere else, it's a long way from aft. It is a really long walk from the aft dining room to the theater. DW has mobility issues, and we have found it is generally better to get a cabin midship. I suggest you look at the deck plans. Look at all of the things you think she may want to visit (theater, shops, bars, etc.) and decide which location looks more convenient.

We were invited to a most traveled cocktail party on an Alaska cruise roundtrip Seattle in 2013 when we were still Platinum (118 days and 11 cruise credits). But we haven't been invited since.

I don't believe you need to do anything, but you should double check your folio onboard to be sure. The excursions should all be charged to your folio. The credit card payments should be listed as refundable OBC. The credit card payments should no longer be attached to specific excursions. The shareholder OBC should be listed as nonrefundable OBC. Princess always uses nonrefundable OBC first before refundable. As long as your total charges are more than your total nonrefundable OBC, you should receive the balance back after the cruise.

Princess provides the minimum age requirements in their Cruising with Family & Kids FAQ: As long as both people under 21 are traveling with a parent or legal guardian, the two people over 16 can be in their own cabin. So you do not need to swap onboard. If you wanted to swap, the medallion would not be problem. Guest Services can program a medallion to open additional cabins if requested - and authorized by a guest in that cabin. If you want to book Princess Plus or Princess Premier, you would need to do so for the first two people registered in a cabin. This is probably the main reason two book the 18 and 20 year olds in their own cabin - so that the guests in another cabin can have Plus or Premier. Even though the younger guests will probably want wifi, you won't have to pay it. The one-device wifi plan for Plus or the four-device plan for Premier is for one or four devices per person at the same time. You can share these logons as long as you aren't using more than one - or four - at the same time. If you book Premier in one cabin, you should have enough devices for them to share, and you may be able to do with just Plus if you're not all online at the same time. Remember this is just for Internet - you don't need a plan to use the onboard network. If you book two adjoining balcony cabins, in most cases you should be able to get the steward to open the divider between the two balconies. You need to check to make sure that this works for your cabins, since there are some that will not open. You could also look at getting a balcony for you and an inside across the hall for the two kids if you were looking to save some money.

You can still use it on an excursion, even if you book the excursion before it's available. The excursion will be charged on your onboard folio, and the credit card payment will be refundable OBC. So you will use the nonrefundable OBC to pay for the excursion onboard, and the refundable OBC from the credit card payment will be refunded if not spent on something else.

You cannot book the excursions at the new price until after you cancel them at the old price. The system will not let you book two multiple excursions at the same time. You have to cancel first and then rebook. If you cancel and immediately rebook, the credit for the cancellation will be used to pay for the rebooking, so you will not need to pay anything by credit card to rebook. If you paid for all of your excursions with credit cards without using OBC, then you will receive a refund for the difference to your credit card. If you paid for some of your excursions with OBC, then you will receive the refund back to your OBC.

The Princess terminology is misleading and technically incorrect. You definitely do need wifi to use OceanNow. However, wifi is free. Internet access is not. Princess refers to MedallionNet Wi-Fi as a single term. Wifi is the network protocol that allows your device to connect wirelessly to the shipboard network. This access is free and allows you to use the app to order drinks (if you have Plus or Premier or pay the one-time OceanNow fee), to check your folio, and to access all of the other onboard options of the app. MedallionNet is the Internet connection that you have to pay for if you don't have Plus or Premier. In summary, to use the app onboard, you need wifi (free) but you do not need MedallionNet (not free).

One other point. Some excursions have multiple times. You will need to make sure you both book the excursion leaving at the same time. Then show up together to get tickets.

The Plus and Premier cruise fares are refundable only per the same refund conditions and timelines as the rest of the cruise fare. Therefore you would lose the appropriate percentage of these add-ons if you cancel during the penalty period. Therefore their cost needs to be covered by insurance. Prebooked excursions (except some specific special cases such as flights and hotels) are fully refundable prior to the excursion cancellation deadline onboard, so their cost doesn't need to be covered by insurance. If you purchase Plus or Premier onboard, then it isn't part of the cruise fare and isn't covered by the insurance. The disadvantage of purchasing pre-cruise has already been mentioned: It increases the cost of your insurance in order to get the additional coverage. If you have Princess Vacation Protection, then the increase is automatic. If you have third party insurance, you would need to contact the insurer to increase the coverage - if you do not, then you may not be covered for your entire fare. There is one advantage of purchasing pre-cruise and paying the additional insurance that hasn't been mentioned. I purchased Premier pre-cruise for a 12-day cruise last year and paid the increased insurance cost. DW and I were isolated with COVID for the last 3 days of the cruise (1/4 of the 12-day cruise). We received a full refund of 1/4 of the cruise fare from Princess Vacation Protection for the isolation days. Since Premier was included in the cruise fare covered by insurance, this refund included 1/4 of the cost for Premier as well as the rest of the cruise fare. We received a refund even though I was able to order beverages under the Premier plan using Ocean Now or room service during the three days of isolation in my cabin.

Yes, the only way to get credit is to cancel and rebook the cancel. They don't re-price excursions. The only risk is that you may not be able to rebook if the cruise is sold out. When you cancel a shore excursion pre-cruise, they don't refund immediately. If you immediately rebook, then the refund is applied to the rebooking and not refunded. Note that if you cancel a pre-booked shore excursion, you don't necessarily receive a refund of the same amount charged to your credit card. You receive a refund of the amount paid in onboard currency (either US or Australian dollars depending on the cruise). This refund is converted to your local currency at the time of the refund. I have cancelled several excursions on Australian cruises and lost money because of the change in exchange rates between Australian and US dollars between booking and canceling the excursions.