cruisequeen4ever

Such an outstanding cruise report; you’re a fantastic story teller! 😀 Thank you for sharing and hope you cruise and report again soon!

I’ve always booked on Embarkation Day, and my recollection is that they may offer a couple’s discount but nothing else. Our cruise is listed as $299 pp, too, and even though we were really wanting the Enclave, at that price, it’s a no for us.

My guess is after Princess read this thread, they realized some people received the free play who weren’t supposed to, and they pulled it back. Maybe it was originally a glitch.

I too had phenomenal experiences with all 3 Princess reps I talked to recently; they were knowledgeable, professional, helpful, and kind.

Choose a hotel that will hold your luggage and allow an early check in if a room is available without charging you extra. Many times, we have been given our room around 1:00 PM. Until then, you can either nap in the lobby or have a lot of fun exploring the city! Yes, you’ll be tired, but if you’re like us, you’ll also be super excited to explore, and adrenaline will see you through. Many a time we have spent 24 hours flying to Europe and hit the ground running because we didn’t want to waste time sleeping when we arrived. Hope it all works out!

Thank you for sharing the link!

I got hooked on cruises at age 8 thanks to the kids club on Holland America! Even though Holland America caters more to older people, young people can still have fun as long as they are not big partiers. As others have said, Christmas cruisers attract a lot more families than other cruises, so chances are, there would be at least a few other teens on board. What I’ve noticed on Princess is that the teens seem to gravitate towards each other and create their own fun regardless of the ship they’re on.

Years ago, when we had hoped to do this cruise but ended up having to cancel, we too noticed the small price difference between the 2 and jumped onto the 11 day cruise tour. Maybe you will explore the extra day, or maybe you’ll relax at the hotel if you don’t feel comfortable venturing out, but either way, $100 for an extra vacation day is worth it IMO!

I appreciate this thread as we will be sailing on her next year. Could those plastics type curtains have been installed in the staterooms on deck 6 since that was the isolation area at some point? Or are they in other decks, too?

Both itineraries are good, but the edge would be too the Horizon itineraries due to the ABC islands being so far away so a little bit more challenging to find on a cruise. Between the two ships, it was no competition to do the Horizon, but then you said the price difference. In the case of the price difference, I’d totally do the Glory cruise and have a blast doing the western Caribbean and visiting New Orleans. The fact that you have all those gift cards would help offset if you choose to do the Horizon cruise, but like you said, if you have extra gift cards left over, that just helps you towards your next cruise! Let us know what you decide and happy planning!

I’m sorry you missed PV. That’s so cool they did a goodwill bingo game for a free cruise!!! I think if all cruise ships and lines did that in a missed port situation, they’d have wayyyy fewer complaints!

Indeed! I look forward to retirement!

Good; I’m so sick of companies spending money on constantly changing names of roles and things. The butler term is regal and accurate.

I’m sure they wouldn’t allow it. Can’t he wait just one more year to go?

Good to know. Exuma is where I’ve dreamed of going.

Hooray for being home safely and now healthy! I know you’re very angry with HAL, but I honestly don’t believe they mean harm to their pax. They’re just given the protocols by corporate who are given the protocols by the Italian government. If the Italian government chooses not to abide by their own protocols, that’s their prerogative. HAL is just the messenger. I’m very glad Flight Ease took care of you, and you brought up a very good point about its merit during this time.

It’s totally understandable why this situation is rife with stress for you, but it has always been that when we choose to cruise, we are responsible for knowing the laws and requirements of the ports we will be visiting. We acknowledge that it’s our responsibility to research these things for ourselves as part of the terms. Certain countries’ current policies are exactly why we haven’t chosen certain itineraries for this year. We are not at the mercy of the cruise line when we step off the ship; it all comes down to the country in which we set foot. I hope everything works out for you guys soon and that your wife tests negative on her next test!

I really wish the new Caribbean offer included 2023 dates. We already have our cruise booked for 2022.

Where do you store it in a regular stateroom? We can’t imagine one fitting in anything smaller than a mini suite.

I’m sorry that happened. We had a fairly similar situation happen to us in Seattle when we needed the transfer to Vancouver. They said to get there around 9:00 or 10:00. We got there at 9:00, and we were on the last bus!! It left almost 3 hours later. It’s too bad they don’t advise that it’s first come first serve for bus appropriations, and you really should get there super early. I hope you end up having a fabulous cruise!

I’m pretty disappointed in the system having now read accounts of the actual bid amounts. If you were getting an actual deal, that would be great, like the upsells. I’ll still be curious to see if we encounter any good deals for our cruise, but it seems unlikely based on what pax have reported so far.

So sad and scary! I looked up Rose Island, and it’s one of the spots to swim with pigs. I really wanna swim with pigs, but I may pass now.

I think you’re all right that it’s being over-thought. At the same time, the stakes are high, so people just want to make sure they do it right to get onboard.

I can just see it. The person is hired, and his or her boss says, “your first task is to read the mile long thread about your job on Cruise Critic”. 🤣

They should have let you just keep the flight as is. 🤞 all goes smoothly!