beg3yrs

Hmm ... I beg to differ Chief. Starlink's satellites are not geosynchronous with spot beams, they are low-earth-orbit (LEO) birds with various orbital inclinations. They do cover the oceans quite well. It's actually the reverse for coastal / territorial waters as some governments have not yet given permission for Starlink ground / maritime terminals to operate.

We take a water pik with us and it's not the rechargeable one. Tried that and it was just too clunky, didn't hold enough water and the stream wasn't strong either. You will find water piks have polarized plugs (one blade is wider than the other) that won't fit in the bathroom receptacle (note the one in the photo has blade receptacles the same size). Even if you try an adapter (which we did, once), as others have said (and even yours truly in another thread), the bathroom receptacle doesn't supply enough current to properly drive the water pik. Our solution is to take a looooonnnnngggg polarized extension cord and run it across the cabin when we use the water pik. Kind of a pain but it works.

I have personally seen this in the past as well. Don't know what the criteria is to get an airline reservation ticketed though. We generally travel AA and have had some flights ticketed early but recently they get ticketed 45 days or less to flight time.

One of our comments on the post-cruise survey was that it was way too clunky. Looks like enough of us complained!

Jalapeños would be great. Italian sausage seems to be missing too.

Kilts are often seen on formal nights on cruises out of the UK and IMHO are perfectly acceptable. While I'm a second generation born-in-the-USA Yankee, my heritage before that is Clan Johnston and I'm all for wearing kilts. One of these days I'll spend the big bucks to get one and all the trimmings in my clan's tartan.

My experience is that you need to call and that's fraught with peril. If you don't get an agent who knows how to apply GCs to excursions, HUACA (hang up and call again). My first call was with an agent who did not apply the GCs correctly and I ended up being overcharged. On my second call when I discovered the error, the agent almost got it right. On my third call I got an agent who knew what to do and fixed everything. I don't bother paying for excursions ahead of time with GCs anymore. In the big scheme of things, for me, the big savings are paying for the cruise and air (yes I know they're not for air but my TA has always applied them). The hassle of calling for excursion payments isn't worth the savings, especially as we already get 10% for our CC level. All that said, sometimes if I want an excursion that I'm confident won't sell out by embarkation, I'll just book it on the ship and pay with GCs there. Caveat that excursions often increase in price as the sailing date approaches.

Maybe, just maybe, there's a Chef's Table happening that night. I've seen the Chef's Table event displace tables before.

Good point. While I'm sure there are drawings and plans that show how many tables of each size and their locations in the tri-level dining room, getting all that sorted for the App could take time. They may have to break it into three separate rooms, one for each level, as each level is supposed to have a different ambience. Also, when they start actually furnishing the rooms, the drawing layout may be different from the actual one.

I too get the same Dine My Way error. I also tried to book excursions a couple of days ago for the Sun Princess June 1st, 2024 sailing. Can't do it yet. Although they excursions are populated, when I go to book I get a "Passenger Error". An agent at Princess told me excursions can't be booked until 180 days out. While I know that's not completely accurate (a have booked excursions on the Discovery for a cruise that's over a year away), I didn't bother to argue.

And I really appreciate you coming back and letting us know all is OK. When I read your post I immediately went and checked my security photo. It's terrible but it's still the one I supplied a year or so ago.

Has anyone mentioned how the project is doing with respect to schedule?

Wasn't saying to only follow what Princess says on their website. There have been times where the Princess documentation requirement is more stringent than those of the countries being visited. I'd always go with the most restrictive set of requirements.

All these posters refer to official government web-sites but ... what does Princess say in the Important Notices section on the cruise personalizer for your particular sailing. They're going to be the ones who will let you on the ship or not.

That's gonna be the first thing we do when we board the new Sun Princess in June of 2024!

We sailed the Sapphire Princess from January 4, 2023 through February 6, 2023. We too had a window table for two in the Savoy and Asif and Lawrentiu seemed to be battling to be our headwaiters. Both were great. Anyway, please tell Asif that Scott and Charlie say hi. And, if you get a taste for Indian food, Asif will put together an amazing meal for you.

Had a situation on the Island Princess last fall somewhat analogous to this. We sailed a B2B2B originally booked in a regular balcony cabin. The upgrade fairy smiled on us for only the first leg and we were upgraded to a full suite (maybe hitting 500 days had something to do with it but all staff deny that). Anyway, we enjoyed Club Class and the Sabatini's breakfast for two weeks and then had to revert to regular service for the next two legs. Needless to say we had been very friendly with the CC wait staff and also made some nice acquaintances with other CC passengers. Several times we were invited by these passengers to dine with them in CC. It always turned out to be a table adjacent to the CC area with the CC wait staff attending to us. That service really is a cut above.

Yes of course. Took BA once in business and won't do that again. Old and tired would be the description for the cabin and just tired for the attendants. Service was marginal and food was dismal (well, it is British 😉). PHX is always considered but mostly doesn't work out for us. LAX does and when it doesn't, DFW typically wins.

I agree with the posters here. We often take the direct flight from LAX to LHR for a cruise. While we start in Tucson and could fly through a more eastern city, we like the direct LAX flight as it's longer and we sleep more! We insist on business class due to the lay flat seats. EZair will get you a good deal. Not only that, you'll get more and heavier bags allowed at no extra charge. We too fly in so we get three to four nights in England before embarkation. And yes, pre-book a private car service if you're heading to Southampton. Nothing like a driver meeting you outside of baggage claim with your name on a sign board who then helps you schlep your luggage to the waiting car. Be sure to let the service know you're cruising so they'll book a large enough vehicle for you. As said earlier, three to four nights works for us to help get over the jet lag. After a day we're ready to explore and get sundries we don't pack because they're large and heavy (Listerine comes to mind here). In Southampton we mostly walk (but have been known to go too far outbound and so we either take a cab or an Uber back to the hotel). It's a nice little town with plenty of shops, restaurants and pubs plus some museums and the ancient city walls still exist which are kind of cool. All this makes sure when we do get on the ship, we're ready to go with very little residual jet lag!

This might be your problem: Screenshot from AARP Rewards Terms and Conditions

I'm not LACruiser88 but was on the Sapphire in January and February for 32 days. Yes!

And then you have to avoid the trail cameras hunters use to track game ...

All those displays in front of every cabin door are in fact, Samsung tablets. Close examination reveals they all have front-facing cameras. So now you know, there are hundreds of cameras in the passenger corridors! 😱

Getting a little judgmental?

I have heard the average redemption rate on gift cards is around 75%. So, selling them at a 90% of list is still a money making endeavor. Of course I suppose members of Cruise Critic are blowing that rate up to near 95%.