jrobinso

Have fun everyone. I'm jealous I still have 102 days to go.

I believe Huatulco is still a port stop on some of the Panama Canal cruises.

We were on a 19 day Panama Canal cruise, partial transit. Round trip out of LA. Great itinerary. I wish Princess would offer it again.

Does anyone know why Huatulco was removed from the Mexico port stops? Went there once with Princess and really enjoyed it. Very pretty and laid back.

I was wondering the same thing. We loved our short stop in Huatulco several years ago.

We did the land tour after the cruise. We were relaxed from the cruise and enjoyed the change of pace with the land tour. The only problem we had was remembering to pay for our meal on the train and at the lodges!

My situation was to replace the battery but it still required the correct person to open a locked safe. We called the passenger service desk & it wasn't long until the person authorized to open it arrived & fixed it. I'm not positive about his job title but by reporting it to the PSD we got the correct person the 1st time & not with the 3rd crewmember.

 

I don't know who told you to call housekeeping but I think it requires a security supervisor to open a locked safe. I would think that very few crewmembers are allowed to open a locked safe.

I agree, it was crazy. It was about 10 pm, so we weren't in a hurry to disembark. We tried to laugh it off as each crew member would apologize and say they needed to call someone else. We do check each time after we close the safe to verify we put in the correct code, but on this occasion my DH did not have his glasses on. Anyway, no harm was done and I know the crew felt bad about the situation. Lesson learned, plus it gave us another amusing cruise story. I am sure we will be laughing about it for a while.

Just be careful when you input your code. I recently did mine in a hurry and without my glasses half way through the cruise and then couldn't open the safe! I got a few tries and then it told me to bugger off. I waited a while and it let me try again but I had the same result. I was about to give in and go to the passenger services desk and ask to have someone open it for me but I finally decided I must have fat fingered the combination so I tried a similar combination (after having to wait a while again) and it opened right up. I set it back to our "usual" combination again and was careful after that.

My DH did the same thing on our last cruise only he could not get the safe to open. We were told to call housekeeping . We called housekeeping and waited quite a while. Someone finally came, checked out our safe and told us we would need to call security! WHAT.....why didn't they tell us that originally! Security came (after another wait) they checked out our safe and told us they needed to have someone else open it for us...so we waited AGAIN. The third person was able to open it . Lesson learned....always, always, always take your time and wear your glasses when entering you code .

We have been wait listed only once for MDR and it was several years ago.We now prefer AD. Our initial wait list number was 180 ( about 4 mos before cruise) we enjoyed checking our personalizer every day to see if it had moved. I know we checked very close to boarding ( may have been a few days prior) and we were #5. We were disappointed that we would not get our preferred dining time. Not long after boarding we actually received a call in our cabin to let us know they had added another large table in the dining room. We were thrilled. I have to say that we had the best table mates ever. The table for 10 was made up completely of wait listed diners! Don't give up .

I agree with Coral, go with Glacier Bay, the sure thing. We have also been on a cruise to Tracy Arm that turned around because weather made it too dangerous to proceed. Glacier Bay is beautiful, you won't be disappointed.

Try to have your friends meet the room steward midafternoon before the muster drill. At that point they can ask the room steward to provide and extension cord, a gallon of distilled water (not sure if it comes from him, but he should know where for you to get it) and tape to tape down the cord. Show him which side of the bed (or which bed if they are twins) to put the cord to, and tell him you want it taped so nobody trips in the middle of the night. Some of the room stewards are brilliant and figure out to run the cord under one of the beds. Some are not so brilliant, but work it out another way.

 

BTW, never in my 30-plus cruises have they run out of extension cords. I wouldn't bother with my own. And a heavy duty one is too heavy to carry.

 

What I would worry about if they have ipads, kindles, etc. that need to be charged, is enough outlets. There are only one or two in the cabin which are accessible to you. I bring along a "squid," which is a type of electrical expander which turns one outlet into five.

 

M.

Thank you Mindy, (Rhydam and JF, too) for your input. I will pass the info along to my friends. I am very worried about them tripping on the cord during the night so taping in down and running it behind furniture is an excellent idea. I do think they bring IPads and Kindles so I will recommend they bring an "electrical expander". Thankfully they are driving to the port so they won't have to worry about airline luggage restrictions.

Our favorites have been at Crown Grill (Golden) and the UBD.

I understand the increased port fees for a canal cruise. What I was asking for is experience with price drops on the base fare. Supply and demand may also make that different from more highly available Caribbean cruises. My somewhat flexible rule is to pay less than $100 a nt for inside and $125 for balcony. However, I usually book about 4-5 months out and watch for sales.

We have a 10 day Panama Canal cruise booked for the end of October. If you go to the Princess site you can see what prices are for each category of cabin. Even though this cruise is more than 6 months away the suites are sold out and there are only 2 or 3 mini suites (without balconies) available. Balconies are running about $190 a night, but they are selling quickly too. I haven't checked the inside cabins. It looks to me like this cruise may sellout so there would be no reason to drop the price. The only other Panama Canal cruise I have done was a 19 day round trip out of LA several years ago (partial transit). I do recall a decent price drop several months before final payment was due. Keep a close eye on the cruise you are interested in. Booking 4 to 5 months out might be cutting it too close. Glad I booked my mini suite, if I had waited until 4-5 months before the cruise , I would be out of luck.

Cruising to Alaska out of San Francisco in July in a WS. We are cruising with friends that will also be in a WS. One of them uses a CPAP. Since there are no plugs under or around the bed what is the solution? Has anyone cruised in a WS and used a CPAP? Will housekeeping supply the long extension cord that will be required?

Thanks in advance for the input.

Thank you for posting this question. We have done several UBD's . The food and service has always been very good to excellent. We have a WS for our Alaska cruise in July and I was thinking we might want to book a UBD. I wonder what they use as your dining chairs since you won't have balcony chairs available.

Next month (April?)

Thank you. I'll stop obsessively checking the Princess site for a few weeks!

Looking to book Quebec to FLL (Houston?) in 2016. When are these cruises released for booking? I have been checking the Princess site daily!

Yes it is open durning the day, as stated above. Your 10 year old son will love the views.

Yes. I do it all of the time!

Thank you for the review. We will be doing a similar cruise in October.

Thank you for the review.

Cruiselover1951

Love this thread.

I'm not sure if you are an early riser, but we have found we have the best luck with the Internet on our IPads (in our cabin) early in the morning...6am or so. You might give it a try.

Thank you John and Patsy. Did you call Princess for that info?

Jan

We will be arriving a day early before our Alaska cruise out of San Francisco. We have decided to stay near the airport ( lived in the Bay Area as a kid and multiple trips to the city since then). I have read on several posts that if you take your hotel shuttle back to the airport you can pick up the Princess shuttle. Where exactly would we find the shuttle if we decided to do that? Has anyone else tried that. We will be staying at the Embassy Suites near the airport ( South San Francisco)

Thank you

Jan

Oh, I just noticed you are from Yorba Linda! That is where I grew up- my parents have been there for 35 years! Crazy!

My folks have been in Yorba Linda since about 1964. I bet we've seen each other at Costco or the grocery store. We have lots of family in Hawaii, so we visit often. In fact, we will be there this time next month! We've been "iffy" about doing a cruise there, but your review is making us reconsider!

Great review. I love your photos. I can't wait for the next installment. We travel to Hawaii alot but haven't done a cruise to Hawaii. Had you been to Hawaii before? Just curious, would you do a cruise or a land tour next time you visit Hawaii?

We did the 10 rt out of SF several years ago. It was a great cruise. Our itinerary included Tracy Arm NOT Glacier Bay. on our particular cruise we were not able to go very far in to Tracy Arm because of poor visibilty and weather conditions,in general. We have also been to Glacier Bay, which is wonderful. I might go with the Glacier Bay itinerary if you haven't been to Alaska before.I think I would just go with a balcony and for go the Mini. Lots of nice common areas on Dawn ( as I recall) to "hang out". An extra $$4,000 would buy lots of helicopter sightseeing tours!!!!