sandyoftheseas

I would recommend private tours.  You can get in and out of the ports quicker and tailor the tours to your needs/wants. Make sure that the private tours will get you to the next port if they miss the ship. In saying that  they are very good with knowing when the tour needs to end to  get you back in time and if they frequently got back late they would not be in business long. If you decide to do the tour of Paris I would go with the Princess tour because of the long drive and Paris traffic.

I have a wrist/ankle wallet they also make  a waist wallet both on amazon.  It is a stretchy piece of fabric with a zipper.  I don't use it for my medallion I usually use it while on land tours for a small amount of money and lip balm. 

We also wanted to become elite before our Panama Canal cruise so we booked a 1-day cruise with me solo in a suite and my DH in an inside solo. I ended up getting an upgrade to the Owner's suite but, my husband got the best deal he went from an inside cabin(which of course he never planned on staying in) to the Owner's suite😊

I agree with the above post.  I know it's available on Royal and Regal.

How about everyone getting together and going to a specialty restaurant one night? 

In my experience the only time you can't open the balcony doors between the cabins is when there is a fire wall between them you can tell this by looking at the ship diagram and seeing the diagram of a door in the hallway and the jump in the cabin numbers like between E125 and E201 and between E335 and E401.  

Thank you for your quick replies!  I have a follow-up question.  Can we change the address JUST for the medallion?  They still want the flyers and cruise atlas to come to their house in Michigan.

Is the Regal Princess medallions sent or do we get them at the port in Fort Lauderdale. My concern is that MIL and FIL will be cruising with us on Regal Princess in January.  They live in Michigan but are snowbirds from early December to April and will be in Florida for our cruise in January.  Since they have their mail  forwarded from Michigan to their Florida address will they get their medallion in time for our cruise?  

I read on this board that Princess was going to be more strict on having only official service animals on board.  It sounds like that is not true in this instance.  A trained service dog would not bark, be aggressive or use the hallway as a bathroom.

I just received mine 2 days ago.

You might want to check out the website cafepress.com they print any logo and they have a lot of different things to choose from  t-shirts,posters ,banners,hats and many more.

How about assessing a fee to the people that show up late.  Print it in the turn around letter and if someone is late the cruise line places a fee on their on board account maybe that will make people arrive in time.

When we were on a 12 day British Isles cruise May 2018 if you did the spa tour they gave you a discount.  If I remember right it was $229 pp.(I think the regular price was $250)  You could only reserve it for the entire cruise but if you did a spa treatment you could use The Enclave before or after your scheduled appointment.

We have booked B2B cruises with my FIL who gets the military OBC. We booked each cruise separately not as one cruise and he received OBC for both cruises.  In the amounts as the above post shows.

kruisey-  You may want to go in your roll call board and see if anyone wants to join you and share the cost.

I just checked my past cruises and we did The Enclave twice on the Royal Princess and you could only purchase it for the entire cruise.  The ships that offer the thermal suite my have a daily rate.

You can't buy a day pass for the Thermal suite on the ships I have been on.  You could only purchase it for the entire cruise.

The Sanctuary- You can buy a day pass I think it is $40 for a full day and $20 1/2 day.  I don't know that for sure because we book for the entire cruise.  Some ships you can book for certain days on embarkation other ships you need to be there at 6am on the day you want to book.  

As far as the MDR food we feel most  of the dishes and good to very good.  the same with Sabatinis. but nothing to rave about.

I can not comment on the drinks as we don't drink that much.

I am glad that the embarkation has changed.  We boarded in South Hampton May 2018.  We has to wait in the general boarding line  (about 1 hour wait) till the line split to go into the elite line.  We asked the employees about elite boarding and they stated there was none until you get inside.  The whole process was a mess!  The xray scanners kept malfunctioning and the passenger ramp kept disconnecting to the ship so they would have to remove everyone on the ramp and have them return to the pier reattach the ramp and start again.  We eventually had to embark via the crew ramp. The entire process took about 4 hours.

I can not comment on the group size of the cruise tour in Australia but, when we went on a British Isles cruise we stayed in London and we did a tour of Stonehenge on the way to embarkation.  The tour was no associated with Princess.  We were picked up in a van and brought to a meeting point where other vans were and got on a large bus to do the tour.  I am just guessing that your tour will be very popular and will probably involve a large bus for transport.  You can call Princess and ask but, you never know if their answer is the correct one.

fishywood-Thank you for your quick reply.  I will look at the end of the year for cruise tours.

riffatsea- Thank you  We definitely plan on spending some time on land in Japan.  We plan on doing the cruise tour or an independent tour company.  If we don't like what Princess offers we will probably go with asia highlights tour company we used them in china any loved that you could tailor it to your interests.  We prefer a tour company because it is so stress free and if anything goes wrong they can help you.

I have done a search on Princess and I see cruises for Japan in the beginning of 2021 but, no cruise tours at all.  Are they just not available  or am I just to early and they will show up later?

We do not reserve them in advance.  We see what the weather will be and go from there.  It is true they can get hot but, we leave the back part up a little to get air flow.  If you plan on renting one try to get on the first tender and go directly to the rental booth.   One time it was sprinkling rain and the beach was empty but we stayed on the island and enjoyed the beach and stayed dry under our clam shell.

We were on our Australian cruise in 2012 so it was a while ago.  I am glad they offer anytime dinning in Australia at least on some ships. Anytime dining is our preference but, traditional dining can be interesting depending on your tablemates.

There was no any time dining on our Australian cruise either.

If you do a private tour you could PROBABLY do both this is what happened to us.  We had a private tour scheduled for the Giants Causeway and our plan was to have the tour drop us off at the Titanic museum at the end  but, our ship was supposed to arrive in Belfast at 8am but arrived at 10am instead.  After the Giants Causeway they dropped us off at the Titanic museum we took pictures outside and went inside at 5:05pm  only to find out the last time you could get tickets was 5pm. Next to the Titanic museum was the SS Nomadic which was the tender boat that took John Astor and the unsinkable Molly Brown  onto the Titanic.  We toured that instead.  I would have enjoyed the Titanic museum but the SS Nomadic was also very cool.