beg3yrs

The power outlet in the bathroom does not have enough capacity for a Water Pik. We know this first-hand. Those outlets are designed for low current-draw devices like a small electric razor or a toothbrush battery charger. Your Water Pik might run for a few seconds but you won't like the sound and then it will stop. On our cruise packing list is a long light-weight extension cord for our Water Pik. Kind of a pain always taking it out and putting it back for dental hygiene time. Hey but at least we've all got healthy teeth and gums as well as fresh breath!

I'm glad this topic came up. We've done the UST on the R class, Jewel class, Dawn class and Grand class ships. Somehow we haven't done the Royal class UST yet but next year, fingers crossed, will definitely try the new Sun class UST if it's offered.

I believe the white medallions are given out during the whole inaugural season. To me signing up the the inaugural cruise is dicey as any kind of slip in delivery to Princess and someone else booked later is now on the inaugural cruise...

I've only seen pickup of anything once back in 2009 in Buenos Aires. There was an "Emergency Notification" that check-in could be done the night before at one of the local hotels. We hoofed it over there and did that. Given the pandemonium at the Buenos Aires cruise terminal, that was a good thing. We just went through the Buenos Aires cruise terminal on Jan 4 of this year and it would have been much nicer to have done all that the night before. But I've digressed ... I haven't personally seen any opportunity to pick up cruise cards or medallions since 2009.

I was initially confused by this as well. When you board you will already have a credit for all the excursions you've paid for. Then there will be a charge for all the booked excursions and then your 10% credit is on there as well. Once the cruise commences, if a port is missed or an excursion is otherwise cancelled, the excursion charge and the discount drops off your portfolio but the credit for your payments remains. All is good.

It will be just like the pre-medallion days when they were pre-printed and ready at the port.

We have the Plus package for a cruise in June. It was booked last year in August. Went to the App today to finalize the medallion order and it wanted to charge us the $10. Rather than go tilt at windmills and after having medallions delivered too late to be of use, we decided that picking them up at the port will be just fine. Ha ha! We'll just wear some old black medallions initially at check-in to make sure we get into the correct lines...

I've noticed that toward the end of longer cruises my feet disappear when I stand up.

No but you can join them in their line.

Another thing I've heard about gift cards in general is that the redemption rate tends to be between 70 and 80%. If that's true about Princess gift cards, they can be sold all day at a 10% discount and Princess still makes a profit. So, I don't think Princess / AARP would stop the discount deal unless the redemption rate rises too high.

I printed 20 pages of gift cards last month on the Sapphire Princess at no charge.

OK, my TA advised me they're usually released in January. We're now a week into February. Just disembarked the Sapphire Princess and the Future Cruise Consultant was wondering if they're going to be released at all. Anyone know more than this???

And then of course is the mess when their shipping company screws up big time. Last cruise we received notification the medallions were shipped in early December for a January 4 embarkation. Tracking the medallion shipment showed them coming from Singapore and arriving in Carson, California around the 17th of December. There they sat until December 28 when they starting moving again. They arrived at our home on December 30 around 1 PM. Our flight for South America departed at noon that day. Needless to say we had to get medallions at the port. In the case where Princess thinks you already have medallions, they won't be prepared at check-in to hand you a set. After the spend extra time searching, even though you tell them they're sitting at your home 6,000 miles away, they'll make you the old cruise card with which you can board the ship. You then have to take those to Guest Services to get new medallions made. After all that, there are two points: 1) It will cost even more time at check-in if Princess believes you should already have your medallions and 2) If they now charge you $10 and they screw up, good luck getting your money back!

As long as the ship's Internet is working, yes, you can go online to the AARP site, and purchase the cards. Then you need to receive the emails from AARP which sometimes is quick and sometimes takes up to a day. Multiple times I'd receive 4 of 5 cards in email quickly and then it was multiple hours before the remainder showed up. You will then have to get the PDF files referenced in each email and print them at the Internet Cafe. From there, Guest Services will accept them. There's been one report that you could email the files to Guest Services and they would print them but ... that wouldn't be my preference. Too much out of my control there.

I did exactly that before the cruise. It was that unplanned visit to that darn Effy store that necessitated cashing in more gift cards. Anyway, when I used the gift cards before the cruise to purchase OBC the Princess rep as well as myself discovered there is a $1500 per booking limit of pre-purchased OBC. Not sure if that was because of using gift cards or not. As I said before, once on board, there was effectively no limit.

Go to the AARP.org website and look for the AARP Rewards link at the top of the main page. Once in Rewards, keep digging, they're kind of buried but they are there.

That was my experience on the Island Princess in November too. However now on the Sapphire Princess it's different. They showed me a stack of redemptions they had processed earlier. This is pretty much a warning to be prepared to print the card's file. I had to email them to myself and then go to the Internet Cafe to read my email and print them. At least there was no charge for printing, They will no accept files on a USB drive for printing.

Nope, they wanted the hard copy for their files. It was to add a new card for OBC. Went to the Effy store ...

I am currently on the Sapphire Princess and had to provide printed copies of the PDF file for each card redeemed on board. This is different from what I experienced on the Island Princess last November where I could just provide a list of numbers and the PIN codes.

We will always check EZ Air for flights. I'd say about 80% of the time we are using EZ Air and the rest we are using FF miles or there's a better deal purchasing direct with the airline. Found that international flights are the best deal, especially if you're booking business class. Domestic flights aren't much of a bargain but have found that sometimes booking first class is worth it as you get a higher baggage allowance that offsets the price difference. Booking as soon as flights open up IMHO is the key. Then keep watching for price drops. Found they can be volatile for a couple of months after opening up but seem to stabilize after that with prices tending higher as one gets closer to the flight date.

Regarding the post a ways back that stated something like Covid can kill you but Noro only lasts a couple of days .... A few years ago a CC member died from Noro on a cruise. It was the wife of a wondeful couple always wore matching Hawaiian shirts. Really nice folks, we met them in a hotel and cruised with them as well. I think he was Richard. The whole thing was tragic. Anyway, Noro can kill so taking precautions is still a good idea even if it's more rare for a death than Covid.

DW who is celiac was even able to partake of the Chef's Table on our last cruise. Just let them know when you sign up.

On our previous Island Princess cruise in October and November we cashed in something like 12 gift cards at $500 each for a total of $6000. If there's a limit, it's higher than that!

I completely understand that it's not always possible to fly in a day or two before your cruise departs but this situation illustrates yet another risk of flying in on the day the cruise departs. Personally before this I had only considered the possibility of delayed flights causing one to miss the ship. Now here's another reason to try and arrive a day or two early. If the airline changes its schedule, you've got plenty of flexibility.

This ^^^ You're not the first to worry about this name mashup but it's been around for quite a few years now and seems to be the way most airlines do it these days.