Pansy2801

I was on waitlist for two excursions ( on Sun Princess this June),  for Barcelona and Gibraltar and was able to confirm both. For Gibraltar I received an email and had to pay in 48 hours but for Barcelona it just happened that I was on personalizer to look for other excursions and saw that there were availabilities. Check every day and also first thing when you will embark.

On 3/10/2024 at 6:26 PM, CanadianBurger said:

Interesting tale for dinner tonight. We went to the Reserve dining room around 7:20. There must have been forty people in line. Queuing for dining is one of my pet peeves on a ship, so we looked for options. Turns out, we still had our 7:30 “classic” dining reservations at Horizon Deck 6 from before we got the cabin upgrade. Headed down there, and waited only 3-4 minutes for a table. But we saw a massive queue for anytime dining on Horizons Deck 7 that went past the elevator lobby, around the corner, and down the hall. 
 

My wife only lasted five minutes after we were seated. I don’t know if it was being so far aft combined with the wind and seas, but the excessive rolling side-to-side motion was enough to overcome both bonine and her sea wristbands. We had to leave before she became ill. It did look beautiful. Sorry, I didn’t get a pic of the menu there. 
 

I love your Live. Should I understand that the movement is felt on deck 6 more than the upper levels? I’m asking since we have a cove balcony for our cruise in June. Need to know what to expect. Thanks.

Thank you memoak and cr8tiv1 for answering my question.

Can you tell me what is now Princess policy for days in isolation due to Covid  ? Is there any OBC or FCC and is anything you have to do in order to get it? Thank you !

I think you did not follow when  several members asked recently if you can bring water on a cruise that starts in Sydney. I don’t want to argue with anyone about water. But I hope you know that on this cruise the information is that you need to take on shore only original water bottles. And you can’t preorder them. Before you are on the ship you don’t know if there are available there. With temperatures around 80 degrees these days, for some having water is important. It is not about few $. 
Another question without answer was about embarkation lunch since this was a port day( the cruise started in Auckland few days earlier). That was the point.

Sorry. I mean Allegro not Alfredo. 

I did not have any questions when I posted earlier. This is what happened on Sunday and should answer the questions on embarkation time, embarkation lunch and how to bring drinking water on the ship. 
Steelers36, you answered questions that I had in the past, but if you are not on RP now you don’t know that on this sailing breakfast and lunches are in Alfredo and not in Concerto dining room. I am elite and I know what is the “ embarkation lunch” ( shrimps and avocado, salmon…)

I was in Woolworths on George street to get water. Maybe was not big enough but looking for water was not the main point in being in Sydney. And the trip to the port was more than few minutes longer but I guess is expected for taxi driver to overcharge foreigner tourists. I mentioned this only because I don’t know when exactly  the embarkation process started. But as I said we were on the ship before noon.

I am now on Royal Princess cruising from Sydney to Auckland. 

Since I asked few questions regarding this cruise that seemed different from other cruises I took, I want to update :

We were told embarkation at 3pm and then it changed to 2 pm.

We checked out from our hotel at 11 and took a taxi to the port. Being on Sunday we were told that we had to take a different longer route to the pier. Were able to leave the baggage right away. There were people in a line and others sitting on some benches. We chose the line since there were no sitting places anyway. But after maybe 5 minutes the line started to move quickly and before we knew it we were on the ship few minutes before noon.

The  “embarkation lunch” was served in Alfredo .

Since we were not able to preorder water, I got 2x1.5  litters bottles in a bag and sent them with the suitcases. They arrived ok. 

I also had few small bottles with us and they did not cause any problems. At one supermarket we went in Sydney I did not see packages of 6/12/24  smaller water bottles.

I hope that this can be useful to some future cruisers.

12 hours ago, Reina del Mar said:

I asked this question last time we cruised in Australia and received several different answers…we ended up just buying a soda package once on board.

 

This question is for passengers who have recently cruised from OPT in Sydney.

 

I know we can drink water from the ship’s taps so don’t need advice on that.  

 

There is no option to order bottles of water in my personaliser. Both TA and I have phoned Princess to try to order a water package. The only answer Princess UK come up with is you can order once on board…which I definitely don’t think is right.

 

I read on another forum that people have sent slabs of water to their cabin with their luggage…is this still possible ?? We are travelling for 26 days and although we have Elite mini bar set up, think we’ll need additional water and too mean to order bottled water at a bar or from Room Service.

I asked the” water question” not long ago (since we are  going to embark later this month from Sydney) and  nobody mentioned sending water with the luggage. I was advised that water can be bought in NZ ports from supermarkets.

I called Princess and was offered 3  gallons of water that we are going to find in the room. If this is not suitable drinking I can ask customer service to replace it with bottles or be able to buy bottles.

I am elite and will replace the minibar with 20 water bottles.

We’ll be  in Sydney few days prior to our cruise and definitely will buy water bottles for use. Whatever  is left will take in carryon.

12 hours ago, Reina del Mar said:

We received notification that the embarkation in Sydney for the Royal Princess February 18th cruise will start at 3 pm in place of 12 pm. Can anyone who received such a notification for a previous cruise tell me when in fact the embarkation started? Can you wait in the terminal or you are not allowed to? 

Thank you.

Thank you very much. I did reserve the window suite with $1600 deposit but I just wanted to know if I should be able to make the change while on board. I will go right away to buy the FCD and change the reservation. We had a window suite before but it was booked after the final payment and that is why I did not know what happens when only the deposit is needed. Of course we liked the suite perks 🙂

Can you tell me if a window suite can be reserved with 2 FCD, or it is necessary a larger deposit. There is a promotion today for $100 deposit but it was not possible to use. However I will be on a ship in 2 weeks and was wondering if I can change the reservation after getting 2 FCD. 
Thank you.

1 hour ago, Waynetor said:

I'm assuming this is a case where Princess is offering this to other people.  If so, if you arrive early you would be able to drop your luggage off early,  There should be Princess staff in the area that can provide you with current timing info.  If embarkation is set at noon, then check-in would at least be a bit before that.  

I don't remember the process, but the passengers on the ship need to clear Australian immigration so depending on how that is done, that could be part of the delay.  

Worse case is drop off luggage and go for a walk.

 

As a port day for most passengers it would be very doubtful the dinning room would be open for lunch

 

Thanks for answering my questions. I did not think that passengers need to clear Australian emigration. Now I understand why is the delay.
The cruise was offered as Sydney to Auckland. It was also one  Auckland to Auckland that will start few days earlier and we booked first, but then decided that is better even that the cruise is shorter since we have more time to visit both Sydney and Auckland . 

We are going to embark in Sydney on a cruise that starts few days prior from Auckland. 

The embarkation is supposed to starts at noon, but I was wondering if we should plan for an earlier start for our cruise since probably there are not (many) people who will debark in Sydney. Also, is it going to be an embarkation lunch or the dinning room will be closed since for many passengers it is a port day. 

Thank you !

Thank you very much for answering my question. I hope that we will be able to exchange the elite minibar for water to have before finding a supermarket. 

We can’t preorder water for an Australia and NZ cruise, but we can for a Mediteranean one. Are there in these countries any laws about this? I assume that we also can’t bring water bottles with us on bord. Thanks

18 hours ago, EllieinNJ said:

Now that you mention it I think I'm primary on my card.  The last two digits are different on our cards but we get one bill.  We do have other Amex cards but the Princess discount only shows up on our blue card.

After we made the payments, the offers disappeared from our accounts. So first I think that you should see if both cards have the offer. Use first on the card that is primary, and if you still have it on the second card it will give you the $175 credit. If not …. 

On 11/20/2023 at 7:03 AM, EllieinNJ said:

So I presume they only give you one $175 credit even if you both have the offer?

On 11/20/2023 at 7:32 AM, Cruise Raider said:

I believe if you have different accounts, you can both use the offer.  

We have two cards and each of us is primary on one. We both had the offer and each of us received $175. 

We experienced the same problem. We figured out a way to go around it. In Safari, go to Preferences-Websites-Content Blockers. Find princess.com listed, and turn content blockers off if it is on, or on if it is off. We had to repeat this trick for each excursion. 

On 11/17/2023 at 1:10 AM, Pansy2801 said:

For now the payment is pending, but I want to add that both my husband and I have the blue Amex and we both got the offer. We booked this cruise directly with Princess so I told the agent to use for each of us a $700 for fare (not taxes or insurance) on each of the cards and the rest on a third different one ( all cards these days offer incentives to use them ). We used an Amex offer few years ago and at the time we had a TA who also was able to use both offers. I will come back when I will know if indeed we save today $350 on this cruise.

I just want to report that I got $175 credited to my account. 

12 hours ago, Pansy2801 said:

I just used this offer for a final payment that was due in few days and I received email notification that I used this offer from Amex and will get $175 back. I asked the agent to use the $700 for the fare. I used a different credit card for the rest of the payment. I guess that the offer will be applied in the end but it worth trying if you have it . 

For now the payment is pending, but I want to add that both my husband and I have the blue Amex and we both got the offer. We booked this cruise directly with Princess so I told the agent to use for each of us a $700 for fare (not taxes or insurance) on each of the cards and the rest on a third different one ( all cards these days offer incentives to use them ). We used an Amex offer few years ago and at the time we had a TA who also was able to use both offers. I will come back when I will know if indeed we save today $350 on this cruise.

I just used this offer for a final payment that was due in few days and I received email notification that I used this offer from Amex and will get $175 back. I asked the agent to use the $700 for the fare. I used a different credit card for the rest of the payment. I guess that the offer will be applied in the end but it worth trying if you have it . 

In January, breakfast was in Sabatini every day including debarkation  day. 

Thank you very much for your useful answers to my question. Now I know what to expect.

We are elite and just booked for the first time a window suite on Caribbean Princess. What are the perks that we will get ? Can we have dining room dinner delivered? I saw a video of one of these suits that did not seem to have a regular size table.

Thanks