jeromep

I agree with hitting a local ATM to get local currency. I was going to give the same advice. Depending on your bank, there are peculiarities and variability in how every bank handles debit card operations and transaction processing. Providing your bank a travel notice is a must, and you need to do so long enough before your total vacation for them to place those dates in the system. Most fraud monitoring systems on card processing networks are using a form of AI to make decisions about the legitimacy of each transaction. Those systems take into account if there is a travel notice. Some banks only want to know that you are traveling and a range of dates so that the system can stand down the fraud protections. Some banks need to know all the countries you will be in because their system only stands down fraud protections for specific locations of card use. Some banks have hard policies against card transactions in certain countries, typically countries which are on a U.S. black list of some sort and countries which harbor fraudsters and financial criminals. A travel notice will not remove the block on transactions from these countries, and an institution is within its rights to not unblock for any customer countries they consider blacklisted, either by law, or due to unusual financial crime risk. You will want to have a thorough talk with your bank about the travel notice, what it will allow while you are traveling and what limitations you can expect. It is also important to note what your daily ATM transaction limits are for your card. Those limits are enforced in USD. Since the Euro trades higher than USD, plus any fees for the exchange, you need to have a high enough limit in USD to accommodate what you are withdrawing in Euros. Time of day can also have an impact on international debit card and credit card transactions. Most banks have downtime each evening on their various computer systems to accommodate regular maintenance and overnight data processing. During this period there are "stand-in" transaction limits, which are usually very low, to allow some debit card transaction processing when the host computer is unable to tell the card network the actual available balance in the subject account. If you are trying to use an ATM and it is late night or early morning in the U.S., you may be attempting to transact during the "stand-in" period and a large value cash withdrawal might be rejected. You may want to ask your bank about their "stand-in" card limits when data processing systems are down overnight so you are aware of how much headroom you have when you may be transacting when the U.S. is asleep.

As with any networking inquiry my response is give it a try. Where others have not had good luck, you may. I'm not aware that the onboard WiFi intentionally bars the usage of VPNs, but overall network conditions, along with the speed of the Internet may hamper successful usage.

Tides and available gangways will impact what level you embark on. There are watertight doors on multiple levels of the ship, all the way down to the waterline for tender service. If the port has high enough and flexible enough gangways to embark you on a deck level where they don't have to open a watertight door, they will, however, if tides and gangways won't safely reach an open deck access, you'll enter the ship at one of the lower sets of watertight doors. Like @antsp, I'm curious as to why you wish to know this.

The Grand Princess has been a head scratcher for me for a few years now. Back in 2011 it went in for a long and involved dry dock in which the biggest change was removing the "shopping cart handle" Skywalkers from the rear of the vessel. The subsequent Grand class ships that have the shopping cart handle, Golden, Star, Caribbean, didn't have a weight issue with the structure as they re-engineered it and made it out of a lighter material, (I think it was steel on the Grand, making the vessel stern heavy, and was changed to aluminum on the subsequent sisters, correct me if I'm wrong). After Grand got modified, her seaworthiness was significantly improved, adding easily 20+ years to her service life. However, since 2020, Princess has sold off the Golden and Star to P&O Australia and kept Grand in the fleet and is the oldest ship in the Princess fleet. I am pretty sure that the Grand was last dry docked in late 2019 or early 2020, I recall it was in Portland, OR at the Vigor ship yards getting refreshed. There is some documentation out there that was captured by an on-board entertainer who had some time to do photos in between his dry dock tasks and exploring Portland. It was an extensive dry dock with lots of public area refurbishment and refurbishment of crew areas, too. Obviously Princess wants to keep this ship in the fleet. But again, I'm trying to figure out why? Could be an issue of depreciation, the cost of removing Skywalkers, tidying up the area in which the structure was removed from the vessel and then repurposing space on board for a night club, was no doubt very expensive. They may be on a long (20 year?) depreciation cycle which is forcing them from an accounting standpoint to keep the ship in the fleet until the work is fully depreciated. Maybe it is more emotional, they don't want to send the class leading ship out to another cruise line until they have most if not all the Grand class vessels replaced with newer ships? Either way, I'd want to be on a newer vessel that has newer and more amenities, especially for that length of voyage. The biggest drawback of the Royal class ships is the lack of an indoor pool option (except for the Majestic). So, on those cooler days at sea, pool will be unusable, but hot tubs will probably be fairly popular. If there is rain, everyone will be indoors. The case for the Grand is going to be the indoor pool and the wrap-around promenade, and maybe smaller passenger count. The case against it is going to be its age (25 years), fewer dining venues and amenities, and possibly older feel with a bit more wear and tear in places. The Royal isn't a spring chicken anymore (10 years old), but has more dining options and more amenities, and probably less visible wear and tear.

Remember, the Dine Your Way system relies heavily on Medallion and the Medallion app on your phone or mobile device. Dining reservations are easily accomplished through the app, no need to "pre-program" dining for your entire cruise weeks before you are even on board.

I'm not sure how @Rick&Jeannieadvice is incorrect. Looks like you dial it like any domestic long distance number. I poked around to identify the area code and prefix. 661-593 is Santa Clarita, CA. This makes sense as Princess' headquarters is Santa Clarita, CA. My guess is that calls to the ship switchboard go through the PBX (private branch exchange, basically a universal terms for any office phone system which handles calls coming in from the public telephone network) at Princess' headquarters, and then get bounced out of headquarters to satellite phone or maybe via VOIP over the satellite internet connection to the ships. The phone number suffix, the last 4 digits identifies to the PBX which ship to route the incoming call to. So, call routing would be a long distance call from wherever the caller is, to Santa Clarita (661), then to the Princess PBX (593), and the phone systems sees the last 4 digits and routs to the proper ship. I'm not sure how toll charges would apply. Generally, if you are calling a number with long distance toll charges in excess of what your normal toll rate is, the system routing the call would have to announce, and you would have to agree to those tolls before the call is connected. The way this page at Princess reads, it sounds almost as if there are no additional toll charges for the caller in excess of what they already pay for long distance. So many of us now have phone plans that include long distance calling, or land lines which have included long distance, that even long distance calls these days aren't charged. I say point your kids to the page that Rick&Jeannie provided and call it good. A better option than all of the above would be ensure that your mobile phones are set up for WiFi calling with your cell provider. Then, get an Internet package on board and have your phone connected to the Internet at all times. With WiFi calling, anyone dialing your number will have their call routed over the Internet to your phone and it will behave as normal and your call will be carried over the Internet and onto the WiFi on board. This also works great when in a foreign port and you hop onto WiFi at a restaurant or resort.

Did you try your booking number and last name? I wanted to make sure that this issue was or was not occurring, at least for me. I just logged into Princess with no issues. The good news is that this isn't a boilerplate error message. Seems like they understand that it is affecting some accounts, but not all. I can't speculate why some accounts would have an access issue, but it is not impossible. Possibly an issue with underlying databases that hold customer information. I'm also not surprised that they have asked customers to not call them while they address this. CSRs in a call center are not going to be able to assist customers that are having access issues, at least until the technical issue is resolved.

I think that offering CC or Reserve Collection, or whatever they want to call it, as an a la carte "upgrade" to all cabin classes would be a nice idea, however I think that would create an issue with all the benefits of CC dining over regular MDR service. I suspect that demand for CC dining if CC were opened up as an any-cabin upgrade option would outstrip the dining rooms ability to service that many cruisers in the same manner as they want to. Depending on demand, the only response I could think of would be to take a whole dining room and dedicate it to CC dining. With Dine My Way replacing the old traditional and anytime dining, that dining room at the rear of most ships on the low deck that you can only get to through an elevator lobby, and used to be used for traditional dining, could become the new CC dining room.

I log into the Princess site every few days as we have an upcoming cruise and I'm doing some research for future cruises. I've rarely encountered any login issues, and when I might, it is usually very early in the morning or very late at night, presumably when they are conducting site maintenance. This error message cannot be verbatim from the site? I have never seen any site developer use this kind of casual text for an error response. If this is the exact text of the error message, I suspect that you are not on the Princess site, but possibly a site that a fake or a spoof site. If the site is a fake or spoof site, be very careful, as fraudsters might be trying to harvest login credentials or other information from unsuspecting users so they can commit frauds or get involved in ID theft.

I like doing math every now and then. So, assuming that you are double occupancy, that is an increase of $33/day for a CC mini-suite, above what you have already paid. You'll get two half bottles of wine, in your cabin, one white, one red, more advantageous cabin locations, generally amidships, but the real star of CC is the CC dining area in the MDR. In my experience, no waiting to be seated, generally an interesting additional menu selection or selections in CC, generally a faster paced meal. This means more flexibility in terms of what you do with the rest of your evening. If you dine early, you'll be able to get to the early show, with plenty of time to spare, if that is your thing, because your meal won't take 2 hours. I'm hearing of very long meal times in the MDR for some reason, with people commenting that once seated dinner is often 2 hours with lots of dead time between different courses being brought out. I think you have found a good deal. I'd take it.

Some of the other poster comments here I'll repeat, because they are so important. We cruised a number of years back with a 22 month old. Big difference between an infant and a toddler, but ours was still in diapers, and was getting food picky, and only drank milk from sippy cups, so we had to be prepared to handle cleaning those items. More on how we handled sippy cups later. Traveling with very young children, you must bring everything with you that you need or anticipate needing. Diapers, at least twice what you normally use in the normal time frame of the cruise. So, if your cruise is 7 days, think of how many diapers you go through in a week, then double it. In fact, triple it. We brought along two huge sleeves of diapers on our cruise, it was 10 days, and brought back most of them, but we were glad we had all that we had. Same for wipes, and carry the same overage, just in case. You'll find that you probably use more wipes than diapers because you end up using the wipes for cleaning up other things than babies. Baby OTC meds, you must bring everything you think you may need, so pain killer/fever reducer, stuff for upset stomachs, etc. Anything you have used before with your child for sicknesses. I'd recommend carrying a small, electronic, thermometer, with you, also. And think beyond what you have experienced so far with your child and bring other items which may be useful. They don't carry children's medicines in the stores on board. Also, when cruising right now, pack with you any OTC adult medications you think you may need on the cruise. Better to have it with you than having to go out looking for it or visiting the medical center at great expense. You'll need a small "umbrella" stroller. And I highly recommend some kind of portable crib. We had a substantial umbrella stroller, I think it was from Echo, so heavier and longer than your typical umbrella stroller, but still something you could get strapped to your back and carry on and off ship or on and off airplanes. We had our own crib for our daughter. It is from a company called Guava Family. It is specifically a travel crib/play pen. The cruise line can provide a crib, but we liked having our own. Same thing, it packs down and you can put it on your back. It is also much smaller than a roll-away crib, so more room in your cabin to move around. Food is the one thing you don't have to worry much about. Contact the cruise line before the cruise, or work through your travel agent, and they will ensure that they have baby food available to you from the MDR. In fact we were asked about our need for baby food by staff in the MDR, but our daughter was well past baby food at that time. The MDR is super flexible and was able to put up off-menu items for use for our daughter. She would reliably eat chicken and potatoes and some fruit, and they would get her a chicken strip (hand breaded, very nice), some fries and some diced fruit most evenings for dinner. We dined in the Crown Grill one evening and they were able to do something very similar for her and we fed her off menu. But if your child is eating baby food, let Princess know well in advance and they will provision for it. Do carry fruit snacks or other packaged foods that your daughter enjoys with you. We carried fruit snacks and some granola bars on board as "emergency" food and on a couple of shore excursions our daughter enjoyed those things while we were waiting or in between meals. Our daughter consumed a massive amount of milk, still does. We brought along a bunch of sippy cups. To keep them clean I found Bounty paper towels that are impregnated with Dawn dishwashing soap. I found a 6 pack of these on Amazon, paid more than I should have, as they have not been made in years, and brought a roll of them along on the trip. We had a suite, and that suite had a wet bar and I was able to use the sink at the wet bar to clean her sippy cups with the soapy Dawn impregnated paper towels. You got them wet, and you had more soap than you could imagine. We had no issue keeping the sippy cups clean and prevented them from getting funky. We would order a pitcher of milk most mornings from room service and we would keep it in the fridge in the room and use it as we needed. If you can even find the Dawn Bounty paper towels online, they are super expensive but you only use a sheet to clean up a bunch of cups, so very efficient. Suites (and mini-suites) have a full tub, so we didn't have to bring with us an inflatable tub to bathe our child in. But that is good advice and I see it often on the boards. The showers in regular cabins on board Princess ships are ridiculously small. Most other cruise lines have significantly improved their bathroom configurations over the years to make the showers marginally larger, but also to put in glass shower enclosures and not rely on shower curtains. Princess still lags behind here. I've opted for Princess Premier on the next cruise, mostly because for the expanded number of concurrent Wi-Fi devices. I also drink a lot of coffee on vacation, whether a cruise or when we are out camping, and the specialty coffees and brewed coffee are pretty good. If you drink two specialty coffees and 3 or 4 cups of brewed coffee (often decaf) each day, it adds up fast. Into fountain pop? Adds up fast. Canned pop? Adds up fast. I also wouldn't mind having a beer or two without looking at the price and cringing. We also have some OBC on our next cruise, but we are certain to use that up booking some expensive shore excursions. The new Premier with the added options, like the exercise classes are attractive to my wife. It's expensive, but makes the cruise more all inclusive than if you opt out of Plus or Premier. If you opt for Plus or Premier, there is little reason to bring on board bottled or canned beverages. You cannot share Princess Plus or Premier. If you get it for yourself, your spouse will also have to have it. Sharing drinks, if the crew catches wind of it would get your package canceled with no refund. Your child will be tied to you and your family members all day long. There is not much for a 9 month old to do on board. Others have pointed out most of the restrictions, no pool time, no baby sitting service on board, kids clubs are for over 3 and toilet trained. My in-laws came with us on our cruise and they were a super beneficial. They spent some time taking care and watching over my daughter while my wife and I could do other things. They would meander around the ship with her, take her to the buffet, etc. I've cruised as a DINK couple many years ago and more recently with children. When you cruising as just a couple, there are no limitations on what you can do or be involved in. The moment you cruise with young children, it changes the cruise experience, a lot. It is still a great way to travel, and because you come home to the same home many nights in a row, you can relax a little more, spread out a little more, but you'll find that there are a number of things you can't do on this vacation because you have a little one. If your parents are willing to play doting grandparent a bit and take care of your baby, for a few hours every now and then, you'll find that you and your husband will be able to do some DINK things, like couples spa treatments, or a dinner out at a specialty restaurant, go to a show.

1. is a cruise line organized back-to-back. Voyage of the Glaciers is a one way voyage, either northbound, Vancouver to Seward (Anchorage), or southbound Seward to Vancouver. A great number of the cruisers on board on the northbound will be disembarking the ship and will be going to a Princess Lodge for a few days. On the southbound a number of the guests will be arriving from the Princess Lodges and finishing up their vacation on the southbound journey and catching flights home from Vancouver. Your cruise will embark you in either Vancouver or Seward (???) and you'll disembark where you started. I suspect you'll be embarking in Vancouver, but don't know. When you get to the end of the first leg of the cruise you will be temporarily disembarked, processed through customs and then reembarked. There are legal reasons this has to be done based on federal law. I have a feeling that the return leg of the cruise is going to be a repeat of the first leg, but in reverse. Plus you'll see a lot of repeat in the food that is served on board. 2. To be honest, if you can swing the price I think the cruise tour is going to be more interesting, you will see more and have a more varied vacation and adventure. Seeing inland Alaska I hear is just as spectacular, if not more so than visiting the glaciers and fjords. I apologize for not going out and looking up the dates and cruises to see what is on the itineraries. You have certainly provided enough information to do so. I may come back here with more details after doing some research, but other chores need to be done first.

All good points on those Plaza deck interiors. I hadn't given them much though, mostly because if you aren't staying in those areas, you don't go down that passageway. I'd avoid B407, 408, 411, and 412 as they are directly across from cabins B405, 409, 406, and 410. Those are adjoining cabins and you'll have family groups in those cabins. They may be perfectly polite, or there might be a lot of coming and going and activity. I'd opt for an interior in the B328-B341 range. About equidistant to the elevators and the cabins across the passageway are not connecting rooms or anything particularly special. I'd suspect normal passenger traffic. Are you working with a travel agent? I strongly recommend that first time cruisers, and especially those that are sailing single, work with a skilled travel agent. A skilled and successful travel agent might have some pull to remove or reduce the single supplement you might be paying for the luxury of sailing on your own, and can provide great perspective on excursions, work to book your flights and pre/post-cruise hotel and other things. They might also have access to special pricing for better cabins at the same price as your are paying for an interior. They can also babysit your booking, and if prices change in your favor, they can reprice your cruise for you. While I don't want to disparage the large travel providers, like the one run by the famous warehouse club (they are a good travel agency, but they are a call center travel agency). What you want is an individual that is a travel agent that is passionate about cruising, has plenty of experiencing cruising, and has a book of business that gives them some caché to get competitive pricing from the cruise line.

I've done the galley tour before and noticed the visual assembly instructions. Reminded me a bit of the graphics that fast food joints use in their kitchens. All of the photos in the thread have some similarity, the belt line of freckled chocolate, some quantity of stacking of chocolate swirls and macaroons, it's the dome that varies. Is it shiny and green, or is it just chocolate brown, how about matte green with a chia like surface? "Cha-cha-cha-chia. It's the new Chia desert from Princess Cruises. Rich velvety green which is sure not to match with how it actually tastes. And random stacking of other pastries in our kitchen. How about some curls of white chocolate and a really small macaroon. Little dabs of sweet sauces on your plate. You'll love it. Princess Cruises, come back new."

You are correct, the two cabins do face a fire door (open unless closed by staff or automatically due to an alarm condition), that enters into the elevator lobby from the passageway. This is the central elevator shaft on the ship and is directly above the Piazza. Ideally people should use their inside voice when talking in the passageways, so noise should be at a minimum, but not everyone is so inclined. The elevators themselves are not noisy and crowds congregating around elevator lobbies usually doesn't occur on the hotel decks, but on decks that house dining and entertainment. The location of the rooms is great for quickly getting to other places on ship. Just pop out your door and grab an elevator or head for the stairs. I really don't think you'll have any issues with this.

Me thinks there is a tremendous amount of variability in what is being presented under the same name on board. While the stage entertainers all go to California to learn their production shows before getting to the ship (at least Princess used to make a big deal about stateside training for production shows), it seems like food prep is not given such detailed training.

I'm a little sad that pub lunch may be on the chopping block. I've had it on all my past cruises and it has always been satisfying. Sometimes excellent, often times just ok. To be honest there aren't a lot of authentic Irish or British pubs where I live, so I don't have a good frame of reference for what is good or not. We have a townie bar in town called McGuire's Irish Pub. Small place, feels like it is constructed out of about 3 singlewide mobile homes. Has decent soda bread, and their bubble and squeak is good, if not authentic. About 8pm the dining room, which is like 4 4-top tables, closes down and a flashing "cocktails" sign is turned on outside. That is your signal that the party has started. I'm not sure why I'm sharing this, but to reinforce that I don't know what constitutes authentic. I doubt there are any authentic pubs out there that have a flashing neon "cocktails" sign that turns on at 8pm, and guys in jacked up Dodge pickups trucks all show up to get their drink on. I'm looking forward to pub lunch and high tea on my next cruise, hope they have it.

I've received refund checks from Princess for unused future cruise credit when we were not able to book a cruise in the window. They outsource their refund process to a third party data processor. It is basically the equivalent of corporate bill pay. Horrible practice. Our local power company, Pacific Power issues refunds to customers using a service called ClearExchange. It is basically the great grandfather of Zelle and run by the same organization. So, if you are registered with Zelle at your bank, Pacific Power only needs to know your email address, they issue the refund and you have it in minutes. Biggest issue is they are doing refunds to customers who are not yet registered with Zelle, and so they have to register for Zelle with their bank. The good news is that once registered they get their funds instantly. I'm shocked that Princess hasn't contracted with ClearExchange to be able to bridge corporate refunds to the Zelle network. That would be so much better than contracting some third party to write checks and mail them. Electronic payments are always better than checks.

The new Princess Plus and Premier are on sailings after 2/20. So, my TA is going to go looking for the coding closer to 2/20. The OP, who's sailing is on 2/12 wouldn't be affected by the new pricing or new features. However they do want to upgrade to Premier, so, I can understand wanting to get that all taken care of before the cruise begins. Honestly, should be an easy change.

What is your grandson interested in? That is an important consideration. Does he like things that "go"? The excursion on the White Pass & Yukon in Skagway is a winner. Great tour guides, spectacular vistas, interesting trivia about all the sights along the way, plus a ride in a restored vintage rail car. Give him a digital camera and have him take photos. Sure he probably has a cell phone that will do that, but a decent task specific digital camera will let him do better composition. Is he outdoorsy? Are you up for a hike? There is a pathway up to Lower Dewey Lake, overlooking the train tracks at the port and where the ships dock. There is also an Upper Dewey Lake, but I'm not sure how the path is to get to it, and how far that path is in addition to the path to Lower Dewey Lake. You can get directions and advice from the park rangers in town. The scenery is spectacular, and you'll end up burning a lot of calories. Be careful the trail is minimally maintained and has a lot of switchbacks because you are basically going straight up hill. Lower Dewey lake is large and you can walk around the whole thing. I think it is about a mile to walk around it. Again, spectacular scenery and great exercise. You can locate the lake on Google maps or Google Earth. When you are done with that hike you will be tired, you will want to do nothing more than sit by the pool or in the hot tub for a couple of hours. But it is well worth the hike, even if you don't walk around the lake. In Juneau, getting a bus tour out to the Mendenhall glacier is not going to be that exciting, but once there it is another place with amazing outdoor views. The visitors center is also very nice with a lot of information about the glacier, and glacier related science. Going back to the boy that likes things that go, the tram up to the top of Mt. Roberts is very cool to ride, inexpensive, and again, great views of the channel below and all the cruise ships in port. The lumberjack show in Ketchikan might be a winner. There is a lot going on, it is physical and pretty fast paced. Going back to the things that "go" theme, a duck tour might hit the spot. They are amphibious buses. The best part is when they drive into the water and you meander around on the water. The amphibious buses they use in Ketchikan are new, purpose build rigs, not the old WWII surplus amphibious trucks which have gotten a bad reputation for accidents due to age and maintenance. I mention all the things that "go" because when I was his age, I liked things that go and frankly, still do. Princess does a great job in Alaska. On board there are no water slides or flow riders, but Princess has a good reputation with their kids clubs, they are very thematic to Alaska, and in the summer months there are usually enough kids on board that he may find a group he wants to socialize with in and out of the club hours. Royal Caribbean has a lot more youthful entertainment on board, but I'm not sure if that is what he wants or even needs. Plus, if it is cold outside, it will be really cold trying to use a water slide. Pools are freshwater and heated on Princess, and plenty of hot tubs, so even if a day or evening is a bit cool, pools are still usable. Speaking of pools, all the lines do this now, but Princess has Movies Under the Stars. They put special pads on the loungers and hand out blankets, along with movie snacks and show a movie. It's fun, but again, in Alaska, can be a bit cold.

I strongly recommend a cruise tour. You are looking at a cruise that is a bit like Princess' Voyage of the Glaciers, which are one way northbound or southbound cruises going from Vancouver to Seward or vice versa with an additional land tour to one of Princess' lodges in inland Alaska. There is a lot of variety in terms of combinations of land tour, lodges and cruises. My preferred approach would be to start the vacation by flying to Alaska and having the land based portion of the cruise and then completing it with a southbound cruise and flying home from Vancouver. Anytime somebody says "bucket list" to me, the first thing I ask is, do you have a good travel agent? Bucket list travel, especially something which may have a lot of moving parts, flights, land tours, cruises, etc., really do benefit from having an experienced travel agent, a real person that you get to know a bit and is your one and only contact for booking this trip. It is enticing to think you can do all this coordination on your own, but I've found TAs to be invaluable in doing all the leg work to ensure that your flights dovetail with your cruise with plenty of time to accommodate for delays with air transport, and finding pre and post cruise lodging that is convenient to the port or airport, and much much more.

As @lovecruzin and @trivia addict pointed out, if you are looking for wineries, Woodinville is the closest place, and that will still require a rental car and a drive. There are a number of branch locations of wineries in Seattle proper, but you don't get the winery experience, just the wine. If you want to see where most of the grapes are really from, and where most of the wine making occurs, you have to drive at least to Yakima, and a little farther into the Yakima Valley, or farther than that into the Columbia Basin. You'll often see Columbia Valley listed on bottles of wine from Washington. No such place exists, they are really referring to the Columbia Basin. What sounds better on the a wine label, especially when you are competing with the various valleys in California, Columbia Basin or Columbia Valley? Real Washington wine country is a 2.5 hour drive from Seattle, at Interstate speeds, and if your husband is serious, the trip will be worth it. Booking a hotel room in Yakima, or the Tri-Cities (Kennewick, Richland and Pasco) as your jumping off point to visit wineries in the region will work out well. If you really are planning on arriving to the area 4 days ahead of the cruise, you have plenty of time to get away from Seattle and see some of the rest of Washington State and visit wineries and their associated "estates". The smaller wineries in the Yakima Valley and in the basin put up some very unique and limited run products. I strongly recommend that you check out Treveri Cellars. They are the only sparkling wine producer in the valley and one of the best producers hands down. They do have a Seattle tasting room. http://www.trevericellars.com/ I strongly recommend opening up Google maps and finding Yakima, WA. From there go southeast along I-82, and if you are zoomed in enough on the map you'll see little winery icons pop up all over the map. Most of the valley wineries are located a few miles from either side of I-82. As you get closer to the Tri-Cities you'll see wineries spread out all over. You are then in the Basin. There are other ways to work your vacation. You could fly into Pasco, rent a car, visit wineries in the basin. Drive to Yakima, stay a night visit wineries in the valley, then drive to SeaTac, drop off your car, and pick up Amtrak Cascades at King Street Station to go to Vancouver.

I-5 doesn't always cooperate and traffic is usually a headache. From Pier 91 or 66, you have to snake your way on surface streets through Seattle to get to I-5, then you have to deal with whatever traffic is backed up on the bottle neck that is I-5 through Seattle. A really good rideshare, shuttle, or taxi driver will avoid I-5 from both cruise ports and will head down hwy 99, which basically dumps right into SeaTac. Speed limits are slower on the 99, it has traffic lights and intersections, but traffic can be significantly less. However, I'd budget for at least an hour of transit from the ship to the airport, and then determine your acceptable flight times from that. I'm not including the time to go through customs and retrieve your luggage. So you'll want to add some estimate of that to the curb-to-curb travel time. Taxi or Uber/Lyft from the port to the airport is your best bet. Shuttle services suffer from the hurry up and wait nature of gathering an unrelated group of people together for transit to a single destination. Every shuttle I've ever used, there is one party that doesn't have their stuff all together and they hold up the shuttle while they figure out whatever it is that is bothering them.

This exact issue, upgrading and managing the ever changing status of the Princess Plus or Princess Premier, is why I transferred my booking to a TA. That and I also had a number of issues with canceling cruises and the status of "trapped" funds during the events surrounding the illness that I shall not mention, and my CVP at the time was not super accommodating or knowledgeable about how Princess was going to handle canceled bookings during "the event". If I have to face canceled bookings again, I'd at least like to talk to somebody familiar and who's will do the leg work for me. I booked before the number of included items increased and the prices increased on Princess Premier (and Plus for that matter). And frankly, I had 3 different Princess cruise vacation planners in a 2 month period, and when I did contact them for something it was 24 hour turn-around on email, and they were never available on the phone. Consider that I had the same CVP for about 4 years and I considered them like a TA, but with all the shuffling of support staff shore side at Princess, I don't feel it is my responsibility to make up for their lack of staffing by waiting on hold or getting a call center worker that is reading material off a computer screen. End of rant. That said, the travel agent that was recommended to me looked into the feature changes and price increases related to the packages. While we were going through the process of moving the booking from Princess direct to TA she did some more research on the upgrades and on her end found that the "coding" necessary to upgrade to the new features at the new price weren't available yet. She has flagged my booking in her work as needing to be examined at a later date to ensure that the most complete Princess package is on my booking, something I shouldn't have to worry about again as my TA will just handle it when appropriate. Sure, trust, but verify, however I'll chat with them again in a couple of months and ensure that it is all taken care of. So far, my experience working with a TA is far superior to working with Princess direct.