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Packman1000

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Everything posted by Packman1000

  1. Can anyone who has been on the Discovery lately tell me if the washers and dryers, along with soap, are still free? We were on the Discovery last year and it was free but we know most of their ships are still charging with the tokens. We will be on her again in a couple of weeks.
  2. Even if the shore excursion desk will not allow me to book for the second cruise, if our OBC is combined as of the first day of the first cruise, I should be able to book online with combined OBC. Unless Princess shuts off on line booking a couple of weeks before a cruise. I assume the reason that Princess has these rules in place must be to get couples to spend more cash and make it harder to use OBC. And that they apparently don't apply rules consistently is very frustrating.
  3. I have called Princess excursion department twice and both times I've been told that I cannot use my OBC to pay for wife's excursions. TA told me the same thing. The first time, I asked to speak to a supervisor and was told I could not do this until I boarded the ship.
  4. We will be doing B2B cruises this summer in Europe. I have $350 more OBC than my wife has. They will not allow me to use my OBC to book an excursion for her until we are on the ship at which time our OBC accounts are combined. Will I be able to book an excursion for her, using my OBC, for the second cruise as soon as we get on the ship for the first cruise (assuming it's available)? If anyone else has had this issue, is there anything else we can try? We book the Plus package and so OBC is only useful to us for booking excursions (and we prefer private excursions versus Princess, unless we can use our free OBC).
  5. If you have to pay for the excursion with a CC, and you cancel, will they refund immediately on your card or do they just give OBC (which we don't need.
  6. Thanks for the information which was helpful for me to look up current flight quotes on EZ Air. When I originally booked the cruise, I was never made aware of any type of air promotion. In fact, I looked at airfare directly with the airline at that time and the price was about $30 less than EZ Air, but used EZ Air instead to allow me to delay paying. In hindsight, that will cost me about $500 since I could refare the cruise had I not used EZ Air. The moral of this confusing story is that I will think twice about using EZ Air again, especially on international bookings.
  7. Please tell me what you mean by submitting a "redacted" statement. Do you print your statement, black out confidential information, then take a picture of and upload it to the Stockperks?
  8. Hmm, according to my TA, they cannot do that now. I may have to push him a bit harder.
  9. This morning I found one of our future cruises for next summer had a reduced price of over $500 from the price we booked. So I called our TA and asked him to re-fare the cruise at the lower price. He wrote back and said that Princess could not re-fare the cruise because I received a "discount" on air fare through EZ Air. When I booked the air on EZ Air it was about $30 per person HIGHER than booking directly with the airline. But I used EZ Air since I could wait to pay later. If I want to get the lower cruise price now, I would have to cancel and rebook everything, including air. However I apparently can't see what the current price for the air will be using EZ Air until I rebook. I looked at the airlines current price and it is higher today than months ago when I first booked, which is probably normal as prices do rise. This is an international booking and the airfare is over $5,000. Anyone else ever see this kind of thing. Any suggestions or do I just forget about it.
  10. Advice please. We are flying into Heathrow in late June and will make a reservation with Blackberry Cars for transport to our London hotel. I believe I need to tell them what time I would like to be picked up. So how long might it take to deplane, get luggage, and get through Customs at Heathrow. If it makes a difference, we have US Global Entry status. Blackberry recommended 60 minutes, but that seems like it would be too short of a time. Thanks
  11. I understand the medical part of the insurance is a risk you wouldn' want to self insure. I also understand that many international cruisers, as well as others that travel overseas, buy a separate international medical policy. That might negate the purchase of a comprehensive travel policy.
  12. We are facing the same issue in a couple of days. If our booked flight were canceled or delayed, we would not get to our destination airport until 11 PM or later. I have been told that a Viking rep should still meet us at the airport (Viking air), however probably not after midnight. In that case we are told to call the ship and take taxi to the cruise port. I still wonder if the cruise terminal is manned. I can't believe they are open all night, but maybe.
  13. Wondering if everyone buys travel insurance. On our upcoming Viking cruise, the insurance quote I got from Tripmate (Viking) was 15% of the cruise cost. I declined and purchased insurance on my own for about 7% of the cruise cost, which I thought was still high. I know many fellow cruisers simply take the insurance directly from the cruise provider and at 15% that is too much. Most people sailing on Viking are likely well off financially, and can self insure. I have taken 33 cruises and bought insurance on all but the first 3 or 4. Have never filed a claim. That's a lot of money spent.
  14. Thanks for posting. Interesting. How much lower would the V price be if one dropped down from the penthouse veranda? Do none of these lines charge extra for taxes? I have never looked into Seabourn, but I might need to.
  15. Thanks for all of the advice. I've downloaded the apps for our airlines and written down all of the alternate flights with the layover information. I think I am as prepared as possible. The good news is that our outbound flight to Montreal is the first of the day for that plane so it should be clean and ready to go. Now if someone would fix the weather in Montreal, that would be great (does it rain there every day?). We are very excited about our Canada/New England cruise.
  16. Just looking for some advice with Viking air. In watching the news the last couple of days it appears there will be flight problems again over the July 4th US holiday. We leave on Sunday, July 2nd, for Montreal on the only non-stop flight of the day. Hopefully all goes well (thunderstorms are forecast). But if our flight gets canceled, or significantly delayed, I am preparing for what to do. Viking tells me to call their emergency number. I assume they will try to get me on another flight. There aren't many to choose from. All will have connections. All will arrive very late - some the next day (the ship will still be in port until 6 PM the next day). Other than working with Air Canada, the airline we are booked on, is there anything else we can do? I have been told to contact the ship if we will be getting there after 11PM. Advice? Love cruising - hate flying!
  17. Does anyone know if Viking (ocean) will allow us to roll our own luggage onto the ship or do you have to allow others to handle it. We have Viking air and transfers but will not get to the ship until evening and would like our luggage in the room as quickly as possible so we can change clothes. Our luggage would be 2 mid sized rolling suitcases. The ship doesn't leave port until the next day so missing the cruise isn't an issue.
  18. Thank you all for the info. Viking told me no bar soap, even though we had some on our river cruise last year. And they didn't say the umbrellas were in the staterooms, which makes sense as I couldn't imagine 900 umbrellas at the departure door (where I found them on our river cruise). My DW liked the info about sandals. I think we're ready to go!
  19. We sail in a week on our first Viking ocean cruise, though we have been on many other lines. I have tried to ask Viking customer service these questions but I wasn't too sure of the answers I got so I'll ask the experts here. 1. Is there bar soap in the bathrooms? I don't like the shower gel stuff so I need to know if I should pack some. 2. I know Viking has umbrellas on board, but do they have enough for every passenger? CS said they do, but 900 umbrellas is a lot! 3. I think I know the clothing rules for the evening dining rooms, but just the "no" stuff - no jeans, no bb hats, no shorts, no tee shirts. So is just a short sleeve collared shirt and long trousers acceptable? And are all the dining venues (except the WC) the same in the evening? Thanks for your help.
  20. Great. I'm getting on the Neptune in 12 days. Hope they clean the ship thoroughly.
  21. I wonder if leap year messes up there flight plan?😆
  22. I'm not sure what "final documents" are, but when we took a selfie on the Viking app and uploaded it, we got an email with our boarding passes. We're almost 4 weeks out from our cruise. We got our luggage tags a couple of weeks ago in the mail. Should we be receiving something else?
  23. I agree with Jim. Would like a nice Sea of Cotez and Mexico. Maybe a two week round trip from LA or San Diego.
  24. Why would it be necessary, or beneficial, to transfer to a TA after booking? I'm still trying to decide if booking with a TA or directly with Viking is better. Seems like a TA would provide OBC where Viking doesn't. But would a TA give OBC after booking?
  25. My DW and I will be on our first Viking ocean cruise in July. We did a Viking river cruise last summer and have done more than 30 ocean cruises, mostly on Princess but also HAL, Celebrity and RCL. Since Viking would be considered a premium line compared to our other ocean cruises (certainly a premium price), I am wondering what others think about why Viking can command that premium. I know from our river cruise that Viking on-board customer service is better. Though we are not foodies, we didn't think the food was 'that' much better than the others. Is it simply the smaller ships and better service that warrant the higher costs? I'm interested in your opinions and looking forward to our cruise in July to experience ourselves. Thanks.
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