PTMary

6 minutes ago, pris993 said:

Different strokes for different folks, never participate in most of what you describe.  If I want to cruise on a Carnival ship, I will book it.    

 

I don't as well. But I don't criticize the cruise line for providing those activities for passengers who do. Tolerant people don't find those activities as something worth complaining about. There are so many other activities onboard that we ARE interested in that we have no need to complain about those we aren't. We simply avoid them and go about our lives. 

34 minutes ago, pris993 said:

It does not include trying to make a cruise a game show!  

 

Sure it does. Cruise businesses are for entertainment, not for essential transportation services. The entire concept of a cruise business is to provide entertainment to vacationers. This includes production shows in the main theatre, comedians in smaller club like environments, shore excursions, trivia and other games, swimming pools and water games, movies under the stars, etc. 

1 hour ago, Steelers36 said:

I'd be happy to check into this fare more as I did in Post #27 above.  Perhaps there is another fare code you don't see unless you have access to a good booking engine other than Princess.com which doesn't display all available fares.  I would need the ship and cruise date.  I don't necessarily doubt anyone, but I am certainly interested in knowing if there is a good agency out there that has better discounting than the two I have used in that past 6 years or so.

 

We booked this cruise 11 months ago. Hawaii RT from SFO Mar 12, 2023. Category ME. Today the price is $9,224 for other cabins in this category. Princess had it listed at $9,349 when we booked it. We are paying $7,299. 

There. I have given you all the ammunition you need to try to prove that I am making this up. 😈

BTW:  We always choose the stateroom next door to the next highest priced category room. That way we are just a door further than rooms that cost hundreds more. When we booked this the room next door, A220, was several hundred dollars more. Even today it's $9,816, almost $500 more than the room we are in per Princess prices, and about $2,500 more than we are actually paying. 

4 hours ago, Steelers36 said:

Well done is all I can say.  You are the first I have seen to be getting anything more than 15% of the Commissionable fare (discounts are always calculated off that fare as agents subtract the Non-Comm portion from the base fare and that amount is most often $25/day).  (In fact no one else has ever indicated getting as much as 15% with Princess that I have read).

 

BTW, I presume when you are doing a mock booking, you are logged in to Princess.com.  Otherwise, you won't be seeing the correct fare for you as a Princess customer.

Yes, always logged on as a Princess customer to ensure any loyalty benefits or specials will be factored in. 

The discounts we have received have also been with other cruise lines as well as Princess. I sometimes wonder why the TA's prices are so good, but don't question the results. I prefer not to "look a gift horse in the mouth". Or maybe "rock the boat" is a better saying? 😉

BTW: We are paying $7299 for a cabin that Princess listed as $9349. I calculated that as a 24.63% savings. That may have been our best deal yet, but others have been close. For instance, a 14 day Mediterranean cruise on Celebrity Reflection several years ago was pretty close in savings percentage. We're not wealthy, so these savings allow us to afford a higher category room than we would otherwise feel comfortable booking. 

2 hours ago, Steelers36 said:

Looking at the post I responded to, there is no way the numbers are correct because the implied discount is way beyond anything possible/reasonable.  Doesn't pass the smell test without more details.

They are possible. We use a TA that routinely provides around a 25% discount on the exact same cabin, ship and itinerary as the cruise line's posted price shown during a mock booking. The TA provides no other benefits, such as vouchers for specialty dining, bottles of wine, trinkets, etc. Just a discount, which is much better than unused gifts. Plus, they are very responsive to questions and requests for changes. 

You don't have to believe it. I still enjoy that discount whether you believe it or not. 😇

I've been accessing their website through Chrome on a daily basis checking prices by doing mock bookings and have not had any issues. 

4 minutes ago, Billish said:

Yes, I totally agree. 

However, we normally have breakfast, lunch, and snacks from the buffet, so we did seem to be spending a lot of time walking to the buffet and back.

And, sometimes I would bring my wife pastries etc from the buffet for her breakfast if she felt like eating on the balcony, so that would require me walking to the buffet and back twice. Once to bring breakfast for her,  and then again for my  cooked breakfast. 

 

On Princess ships, there is the International Café midships in the Piazza. That is where I go for snacks (AKA: medical treatments for my sweet tooth). 😁

5 hours ago, Billish said:

Not a criticism or anything like that, but I am intrigued by why you want to be as far forward as possible. 

The last time we had a forward cabin, we must have walked miles to the buffet and back. Good exercise I know, but I personally would not choose a forward balcony again.

But being forward means you are closer to half the ship, just like being aft means you are closer to half the ship. It's different halves, but both require a person to walk the length of the ship occasionally - the aft to the theatre, the bow to the buffet. Midships require a similar amount of walking, but sometimes forward and sometimes aft. Unless a person stays in one spot the entire cruise, no cabin is close to everything. 

We also prefer to be near the front of the ship, both for the motion, which we like to fall asleep to, and the wonderful sounds of the waves crashing against the bow of the ship. I never tire of that sound.  

We were able to upload images of the electronic vaccine cards that our state offers months ago. Did not have a problem and they are still visible on the Medallion app. 

We don't bring the original cards. We have the electronic cards on our phones and we just display them when needed. The electronic cards have a bar code that can be scanned to verify the authenticity if needed. 

Here is comment by a CC member that discusses what they had to do to get this problem resolved: 

I called Princess customer service several times about this and was always told "wait a few more days for the app to update". It never did. Two months later and the app was still incorrect and useless. Only the Medallion app department can help. It took several calls but I finally contacted a supervisor in that department who eventually got the problem resolved. Her name is Den Sombellion, or something similar (I should have asked her to spell it). She admitted that they know of these problems with incorrect ship and itinerary showing on the app and she promised to personally make sure my issue got resolved by the tech support people. A few days later she called and told me it had been resolved. All is well know. 

The customer service people you first talk to can't help, so ask to talk to a supervisor in the app department. Make sure you are transferred to the Medallion app department before asking for a supervisor. When I tried to contact Den a couple of days after she started to help me, the customer service person in the reservation department rudely hung up on me after claiming there was no such person at Princess and I insisted there was. I called back, explained who and where I wanted to be transferred to, and got transferred and was connected with Den. 

On 7/15/2022 at 3:13 PM, wowzz said:

And if everyone did that, the entire evening meal service would collapse.

Why should you have preferential treatment ?

When I cruise, I do it for my convenience, not for the convenience of the staff or even other passengers. I'll reject a table if it is unsuitable, and report the staff member who rolled their eyes if I caught them doing that. 

39 minutes ago, Flatbush Flyer said:

 

Oceania? Hardly "foo foo." Rather, just world class cosmopolitan cuisine (many being traditional standards). For example, enjoy French?

Oceania? Hardly "world class". I have had as good, and at times even better, at local restaurants!!!! I felt that Oceania was good, not great. The "cosmopolitan" descriptions may appear to be "world class" on the menu, but the result on the plates in front of us certainly didn't measure up to the expectations the menu promised. Many of the meals on Celebrity were just as "foo foo" (go ahead foodies, let yourself be offended again!), but they delivered on the expectations better than Oceania. And I speak from experience of having been on Oceania twice. 

BTW: For those of you who bristle at being called a "foodie", look up the description and you will see it is a common and positive description of people who are into gourmet food. Being offended is your choice alone. 

Duplicate post. Not sure how I did it, but it did. 😉

 We have cruised on six cruise lines - Azamara twice, Celebrity four times, Disney once, HAL twice, Oceania twice and Princess once. When I talked to my husband about your question we both agreed that the best food we have enjoyed were, in order: Disney, Celebrity, Oceania, Azamara, HAL and lastly Princess. We always do MDR and specialty dining on all cruises for the variety of selections and atmosphere they offer. Disney was excellent in both the MDR and specialties and we consider them to the the best. Celebrity and Oceania would rate second and third in both MDR and specialty, being very close to each other with Celebrity a slight edge. Azamara and Holland were fine in the specialty, but just OK in the MDR. Princess was hit or miss in the MDR and a complete disappointment in the specialties. 

Food is subjective. We aren't "foodies" who must have over rated foo-foo gourmet menu items to choose from. For example, some of the selections on Celebrity, Azamara and Oceania were too over the top for our tastes and seemed to be conjured up more for the appearance of the presentation than for good flavor and taste. But we always found something excellent to eat at every meal on these three lines. Disney was less pretentious, and always excellent. It seemed that everything they offered was appealing and desirable. It was always difficult to choose which meal to order. HAL was OK - not great, not awful. I guess I would have to say it satisfied, but not amazed. Unfortunately, with Princess, "amazed" was nowhere to be seen. It was more often disappointing than not. 

Please note that the higher priced cruise lines weren't necessarily the best in food quality and taste. The lowest priced, Princess, WAS the worst, however, so that may be something to consider. 

I hope this helps.

6 hours ago, MollySandy said:

I find it hard to beleive that there are no available Oceanview rooms on any cruise on Norwegian that is going out of San Juan in Jan - Mar of 2020.  Not one that I can find!  Are they truly all sold out in these cabins or are they holding on to them so that we book the balconies or inside cabins?

4 hours ago, JennyB1977 said:

It appears the only ship sailing out of SJ in those months is the Epic. According to the deck plans there are no rooms in the category OV on this ship at all. 

Well, I guess you conspiracy theory was correct. Since there aren't any oceanview cabins on EPIC, NCL is indeed forcing you you to book a balcony or inside cabin instead of an ocean view on that cruise! So sneaky of them!!! 

1 hour ago, ed01106 said:

..... ignore cb’s answer it is utterly wrong .....

 

 

At least he is consistent with all of his answers. 🤣

1 hour ago, gammite said:

i cruised the carnival dream out of new orleans in 2017.  we always book last minute and i could not argue with the price and the fact that would not have to fly to a port.  i had previously only cruised RCI with majesty as my first ship and nothing but freedom class ships after that.

 

we were warned not to do a carnival cruise.  we gambled and lost.  we should have listened.  

 

we made the best of it considering that we were on vacation.  but anyone saying that carnival and RCI are similar is not being truthful.  yes, both are floating hotels that serve food and entertainment but carnival literally does not have any wow factor.  (no pun intended)

 

everything was a step down.  ship, food, entertainment.  it was really sad.  and the dream is supposed to be one of their better ships.

 

we will never cruise carnival again short of some extenuating circumstances.

 

you have been warned.

Like you, my one and only Carnival cruise left me unimpressed. It is clear that some people's standards are low when it comes to what they find enjoyable on vacations. If it wasn't for these low expectation people, Carnival would have gone bankrupt a long time ago. 

3 hours ago, K32682 said:

 

You and I define self-reliance differently.  My definition does not include having to rely on being able to reach the port agent/ship and rely on them to retrieve my passport.  My definition of self-reliance is to seek all available alternatives to having to rely on others in potentially critical situations.  My preference is to rely on my proven ability to securely carry my passport than to rely on a complete stranger getting it to me should the need arise.  YMMV.

"Proven ability". That's cute. You certainly have an extremely high opinion of your capabilities!! 

So then is it safe to assume that when you travel you rely on your "proven ability" and fly your own plane that you have maintained yourself, and only rely on your "proven ability" and drive to and from the airports in your own car that you also maintain yourself? You know, so you don't have to rely on a compete stranger getting you there? Or do you go against your own advice and fly commercial airlines that are flown and maintained by COMPLETE STRANGERS, and take cabs, Uber, Lyft, limos or shuttles that are driven by COMPLETE STRANGERS to get there and back? 

Your lack of trust in only one tiny segment of your life is quite peculiar. I would call it a phobia, bordering on OCD. But, as you are fond of saying - YMMV. 😁

So sad to see commercials for cruise lines on these forums. (See my post below)

45 minutes ago, DarrenM said:

Right Now I like a drink, but I cant stand folk getting wrecked and ruining things for everyone else.

 

Try celebrity. It was the perfect mix. Well it was for us.

Celebrity would be my recommendation as well. More upscale than the average mass market line, with generally a middle age clientele, a sophisticated but not too sedate atmosphere, and is absolutely not a "party boat" vibe. 

On 9/9/2019 at 2:47 PM, Flatbush Flyer said:

If food quality matters to OP, there's only one choice- Oceania.

I have enjoyed excellent food quality on Celebrity and Disney. It is ridiculous to think that the "only one choice" for decent food is limited to just your favorite cruise line. Your bias for Oceania is clouding your advice - as it always does. A rabid cheerleader's advice is always to be read with skepticism. 

5 hours ago, xDisconnections said:

You’re never too old for Disney.

Absolutely!!! We're 69 and 64 and are heading to Disneyland for three days in November. Just the two of us. We typically go there or to Walt Disney World in Orlando every couple of years or so. I've been to Disneyland over 50 times since it opened (yes, I am old enough to have visited during it's first year), and Disney World 6 or 7 times. Had great fun every time. Christmas time is our favorite time to visit the parks.

If a person finds Disney parks and ships something to look down their nose at, their ability to feel young again is severely compromised. 😉

2 hours ago, charmy98 said:

 

 We have used zip ties for the past 15 years never had a problem. Just remember to pack a pair of nail clippers in your handbag or carryon.

Same here. For us the zip ties are to keep the zipper ends together to prevent accidental opening, not to lock the suitcase to prevent theft. We aren't under the delusion that a cheap padlock would deter thieves if they really wanted to look inside.  

2 hours ago, sverigecruiser said:

 

I like that too!

 

I still think that it's nice to sit in the same seat a long time and watch some movies and drink Champagne! 

Not for me! Just as if hitting my head repeatedly with a hammer, sipping Champagne won't make it pleasant - even if watching a movie. 

Also, the only place you will be sipping Champagne is in first class. Most of us find the price of first class international tickets to be much too expensive.

14 hours ago, Heidi13 said:

While some countries may permit the use of portable consumer radios, the ones meeting N/American standards are not legal in many other countries. 

 

Example - the US/Canada standard radios are not legal in UK and all other EU Countries. Sure the chances of getting caught are slim.

While the risk of getting caught is minor, the risk of disrupting emergency radio bands is much more serious. With a range of 2 or so miles, they could affect on shore communications while the ship is approaching or departing a port. Any responsible person should not use them if they aren't 100% positive they won't interfere with important communications.