Astro Flyer

I agree it will likely be Royal in LA. After we cruise on Crown around Australia in March 2025 we’re flying to Auckland to cruise back to LA on Royal. That cruise has 3 ending ports…Honolulu, LA & Vancouver for the Alaska season.

We’re booked on Crown in March 2025 around Australia from Brisbane and 2 days later sail Royal from Auckland to LA. Like when sailing Sydney to LA in 2009 that requires only one long flight. We’re looking forward to our clockwise circumnavigation of Australia. We have friends who are retired & divide their time between Melbourne & Tasmania and looking forward to visiting them at one of their homes.

My apologies…here’s the webpage link for their press release. https://www.carnivalcorp.com/news-releases/news-release-details/royal-first-sydney-princess-cruises-spectacular-royal-princess

From the Princess press release & additional info in the attached PDF. Royal Princess’ arrival in Sydney today marks the end of its inaugural 27-night transpacific crossing from Vancouver, Canada. The ship will sail from Sydney this evening on it first Australian voyage - a 10-night roundtrip cruise to Queensland, making maiden calls to Brisbane, Cairns, the Whitsundays and Port Douglas. Royal Princess in Australia.pdf

Beginning with Sky & also on Discovery the Princess Live venue has been changed from a TV studio to a lounge similar to Explorers on earlier classes of Princess ships.

Any Princess cruise I’ve sailed provided a minibar for each segment of a cruise. For example we booked a 28 day cruise that could also be booked as 7-7-14 day cruises & received 3 minibars.

Before their change in policy I’ve seen several great short notice fares emails around 2 months prior to sailing. However with airfare 2-3 times the cruise fare we didn’t book any of those amazing deals.

It’s a different Spellbound (I do enjoy their 🍷)…”Princess Cruises Unveils Spellbound by Magic Castle™” Spellbound by the Magic Castle.pdf

From Tiki Dave: “Instead of doing the Crown Princess for the late-September cruise out of Seattle, we will now be doing the September 16 cruise from SFO to LA, Honolulu, Pape’ete Tahiti, Pago Pago and ending up in New Zealand.”

Is your name listed first on the reservation? It’s been my experience for many years that when I’m the first name on a reservation and the SOBC application is in my wife’s name it goes to me. When we could talk to those issuing SOBC they always said it goes to the first name listed even when applying in the other passenger’s name who jointly owns the CCL shares.

Thanks 🙂

Sailed on Discovery’s first two cruises 18 months ago in a balcony & had the same comfortable luxury mattress.

☕️😋 They finally caught up with Celebrity…is it still made from concentrate or have they added the filtered coffee machines that use ground coffee like on the Royal-class ships.

For another issue about the combinability of SOBC & MOBC on a future cruise my TA even got misinformation from their Partner Support section who are there to help TAs. Princess does a poor job keeping their reps updated & it took several calls for her to eventually receive accurate information.

So do all us now get the cheapest rates…Casino? 🤔 That’s not happening but by increasing fares closer to sailing there might be more free or greatly reduced fares for gamblers to fill all cabins. As I recall RCI tried something similar within the past couple of years but think that failed.

You & I are on Discovery’s TSE cruise in April 2024 & had my SOBC issued shortly after booking the cruise in August 2022. That has been my experience since Princess began requiring payment to pre-book tours several years ago to use SOBC as a payment. Outside of North America such as for Australians have read posts that a within 90 day application timeframe is enforced.

For me the first clue that made me doubt the chat’s accuracy was providing the wrong effective date of September 2022…it was on 6/29/23 so doubt if that chat rep was a reliable source.

I don’t know the answer but here’s the currency used based on my Cruise Personalizer & Medallion app. At the current exchange rate, the AUD amount is about 1/3 less than in USD….$500 AUD is only $318 USD. AUD: OBC, tours, specialty dinner-$47/$53 USD: Tips (prepaying) Currently there is no Onboard Services pricing…it’s frustrating that Princess provides conflicting info about how the Oz cruises finances are managed.

We circumnavigate Australia in March 2025 and hopefully by then will have answers from those who booked in the US & are sailing exclusively within Oz instead of the conflicting info Princess provides. Whatever way it’s done would just like to know what we’ll experience to help with making our plans.

Searching online the cost varies from $53-$63 (plus tax) so at $79 (plus tip) the markup is comparatively reasonable. 🍷

Maybe you’re feeling some of the affects of the first north swell of the season from a massive storm dropping down from the Aleutian Islands. 🌊🏄‍♂️ “The National Weather Service says the first large, northwest swell of the season is expected to build rapidly on Tuesday and peak from late Tuesday through Wednesday. Surf is expected to build Tuesday to 25 to 35 feet along north-facing shores, and 18 to 24 feet along west-facing shores”.

Bob…happy to know that you & Holli are enjoying your hard earned retirement. It’s very disappointing that you won’t be going to Maui docking in Kahului…the island’s economy is taking a hard hit & needs tourism to recover. NCL’s Pride of America stopped Maui visits for several weeks but have resumed stops to help the local economy. That’s sad that Princess continues to avoid Maui & to not help with the island’s economic recovery. Buon Viaggio!

And those circumnavigation cruises on Princess quickly sellout. In early April 2023 we immediately booked the March 2025 around Oz as soon as it was available. Within about a month there was little to no availability and when there was availability it was at a considerably higher cruise fare.

I use a TA who also received the upsell offer in addition to me & my wife.

You should be okay at that time from MDR...you could check Google Maps on Monday at that time to get an idea about how long it'll take. For me, the 60+ miles to SP takes about 90 minutes on a weekday (60 minutes on a weekend). Checking this morning the delay was from the Valley southbound on the 405 until Mulholland but the remainder of the way it was 'green' so the approximately 25 mile drive from MDR shouldn't be too bad...maybe 30+ minutes using the HOV lane? We have an 1100-1130 check-in time slot & will leave home accordingly. Have a good flight.