CantanaLobo

we just cruised princess. hated the food. very bland. no flavor, no sugar in desserts?? we heard several people say they are ALL cutting back? no more chocolate midnight buffets?? no more chocolates on bed on Holland? is all this true??

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What I found funny when I got the "Emergency Notification" is that we have Princess transfers. Do they want me to print off the notification and give it to the bus driver?

For our November 30 cruise, the email has the same as Mary Ann 2 listed except ours has instead of Carlos Oscar:

The entertainers move around, and those who were on one cruise may not be the ones scheduled for the next. The movies and production shows also change, but not so much.

"So why book the air with Viking in the first place? "

Cruise air routing roulette is not an issue specific to Viking. See http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=530322.

As one wag put it: "Time, patience and money to spare... fly cruise air!"

As for the fees, the airlines love to charge people that change their minds. Either beforehand with a fully refundable/no change fee ticket (check out Y-class fares sometime :eek:) or after ticketing via the change fees. They'll also charge you to standby for an earlier flight on day of departure if you happen to get to the airport early (unless you have status). I'm surprised they don't charge you to change your seat assignments.

Be that as it may, I'm glad you enjoyed your cruise. You won't make the same gamble with regards to letting the cruise line pick your routing on your next cruise, so that one will be even better.

Maybe if Princess called them French balconies, people wouldn't get upset?

They sure are tiny. I think if enough people vote with their feet, the next new build after Regal will have bigger balconies.

We've bought trip insurance and never needed it. We'll continue to buy it and hopefully never need it. We primarily get it for the medical/medivac coverage. We buy insurance to cover the cost of a Bad Thing that would too expensive to deal with. I can afford to cancel the cruise and not get reimbursed. I might be really, really sad, but it won't cause a financial hardship. The cost to treat a burst appendix in a foreign country and the cost to medivac back would cause a hardship. I view the other stuff like trip cancellation/trip interruption as nice-to-have if the additional cost isn't too much.

Ultimately, you need to decide the likelihood of something happening, and are you willing to pay an insurance company to assume that risk, or is the chance of it happening small enough that you'll self-insure. Lots of people go on cruises without having a burst appendix or something else requiring medical attention. All our cruises have been like that (knock on wood). For us, we're willing to pay to push the risk off on an insurance company.

... Your ship will stay 50 miles off the coast most of the time, to avoid California's costly green laws. ...

Burning more fuel to get out there. At least it's "clean" fuel for those additional miles that they would not have otherwise sailed :rolleyes:. The law of unintended consequences strikes again.

Maybe the demographic of people willing to go to Vancouver does more on-board spending that the Seattle r/t demographic, and hence is more profitable overall than the Seattle r/t even with a higher Seattle fare?

Just my WAG.

The "Unlimited Soda & More" includes non-alcoholic cocktails, e.g. Virgin Mary, Shirley Temple, Roy Rogers. We always get this package. I love the choco-banana smoothie.