lx200gps

Thanks for the heads up. Our next trip out of PE is not until October, and sadly we aren't able to stay at the Renaissance this time. Seems a young lady named Taylor Swift is holding concerts in the area on the exact date we need to stay, and hotel prices in the area are astronomically over priced. Last time I looked the Renaissance was well north of $US500 (far more in our Canadian $$$s) and the Hyatt Place was just as bad. Fortunately, I managed to snag the Riverside for a surprisingly good price, but we will be back at the Renaissance next February.

I assume this is the Renaissance on 17th near Port Everglades? It's our preferred pre-cruise hotel as well. Great location and you can't beat waking up on embarkation morning, throwing open the curtains and seeing the fleet of cruise ships right next door ;o) What was the issue with the elevators, we've never had a problem with them, were they out of order? Love the Boatyard as well.

FWIW the last two times we boarded in PE we were on the ship by 10:30.

Absolutely. It's always a mystery to us at to why Princess choose to "relatively" ignore such a massively populous market as the US Northeast when their competitors embrace it. We would certainly love more and year-round Princess sailings from both NY and Boston.

Sorry, we'll have to agree to disagree on that one. Taking any public transport, particularly the train, is an absolute non-starter for us, particularly when carrying luggage. It is far easier to simply climb in the car and get out at our pre-cruise hotel a few hours later than to do the same thing by a convoluted train ride.

There actually are a few longer duration (10+ days) Princess "southern" sailings in or out of NY, but they tend to be one-wayers between NY and Fort Lauderdale so you would still have at least one flight. Pretty much all Princess return sailings out of NY (Brooklyn) are round trip Canada/ New England sailings, so heading north. Princess doesn't tend to do much out of NY in comparison with other lines like X, RCCL or Norwegian. NCL for example do a LOT of sailings out of the Manhattan Cruise Terminal to Bermuda, with up to three days parked at the Dockyard. A great itinerary. The other lines also do Bermuda out of NY or NJ. AFAIK the other lines also do some southern round-trips out of NY, Princess not so much.

+1 on that. We are doing our first sailing out of Boston this July, a Canada/New England trip. For us, driving to Boston is even easier than driving to New York.

One thing to keep in mind is that, as you can see in the screen shot above, Princess always state "New York City (Manhattan or Brooklyn)" even though in the vast majority of cases, the sailings will be from Red Hook in Brooklyn (which is of course technically in New York ;o). It's very unlikely that a Princess sailing will start and end at the Manhattan Cruise Terminal.

Perhaps go to the Princess site and search for sailings from New York during your desired time frame? Princess have tons of sailings out of Brooklyn (as well as Boston) mostly to Canada/New England. AFAIK, the main lines sailing out of NJ (Cape Liberty) are X and RCCL, Princess use Brooklyn almost exclusively.

Welcome to Cruise Critic. This is a strange issue peculiar to Princess, and nobody can figure out why they are confusing in this one issue. Their web site, and all their documents you receive for your cruise, will say "New York City (Manhattan or Brooklyn)", but it's 99.9% guaranteed that you will, as others have said, be sailing from Brooklyn. As a general rule with Princess, they use Brooklyn for cruises that start and end in NY, but use the Manhattan Cruise terminal on the Hudson as an intermediate stop when a ship visits New York. There are very few exceptions to this rule. Keep checking your documents and the Cruise Personalizer for your specific voyage though. IIRC, there will be one of your docs (Travel Summary, Booking Confirmation etc) or the Personalizer page showing the itinerary (Sorry, can't remember which) that will give the actual terminal you will be sailing from. It will still confusingly say "New York City (Manhattan or Brooklyn)" but will then give the street address of the BCT, confirming that you would be sailing from Brooklyn.

Excellent summary and clarification, thanks very much. Even when sailing from Brooklyn, we prefer to stay in northern NJ, then morning of the cruise cross the GW bridge, run down the Hudson and through the Carey Tunnel to Brooklyn and Red Hook. From your description, would that mean no fee IF we stay exactly on that specific route, both to and from Brooklyn to the GW Bridge? If we do decide to veer off into Manhattan into the "affected" area, would our EZPass transponder be the way the fee would be collected?

Yes, fully aware of the Ts and Cs. My latest renewal, two years ago, was for an unusual three years, not five, so when I renew this August, I will have to pay the fee out of pocket. At least it will be at the old rate of $50, and well worth every penny.

We also have the TD VIP Card. According to the TD web site for the VIP card: Enroll for NEXUS and once every 48 months get an application fee rebate8 No matter what the cost, NEXUS is hugely valuable to us, and we'd pay the cost even if our credit cards didn't cover any of it.

Google Maps says the distance from Logan Arrivals to the Black Falcon terminal is about 20 Min and 4 Miles:

That's pretty close, though the final tally will depend on what you decide to tip. We usually end up paying around $20 all in. One important note re taxis, there are plenty of posts here on CC about taxis in Fort Lauderdale (airport and cruise port) who try to gouge passengers by not using the meter and try to scam you with a flat rate, so make sure that when you board the taxi, you ensure they start the meter running.

That may have been me. I admit I'm not overly familiar with the intricacies of the various programs that I am a very long time member of, I was simply relating what I was told at a Canadian entry point at YUL on our return from a cruise. The kiosks were all down and we had to go up to a CBSA agent for manual processing. I casually mentioned to him that I had also submitted the ArriveCan info and he told me quite clearly that I did not have to do that. Fouremco's explanation above, as per usual, makes perfect sense.

Thanks for the clarification. Sadly, a 10 day on such a small ship isn't right for us, but if Princess would put a larger ship to Bermuda on a typical 7 day, with three days at the Dockyard, that would be great for us. As it is now, we're stuck with NCL for such an itinerary, with the Breakaway and the Aqua, but we would definitely prefer Princess.

Thanks. I was already aware that the Sky is sailing from PE, but I was referring to my earlier comment about how nice it would be for sailings from New York to Bermuda. Someone replied "yes, the SKY from Port Canaveral in 2025". It doesn't look like the Sky is sailing to Bermuda, at least not that I can see. Fingers crossed though.

Is that confirmed, or just speculation? PC would not be as good as New York (which we would prefer over Brooklyn), but if the Sky is sailing to Bermuda, we're all over that one.

No problem. Yes, it's a relatively quiet sub forum, but the folks over there tend to have a lot of experience with Caribbean dive and snorkeling sites. I've always had good advice.

You might want to consider posting this as well over on the Scuba and Snorkeling sub-forum https://boards.cruisecritic.com/forum/24-scuba-and-snorkeling/

+1 for sure. I'd love them to start sailing to Bermuda.

Montrealer here. As stated, you should have no issues making that late a flight, barring any major accidents, weather events etc. If you are lucky enough to be doing it on a weekend morning, the drive would be even easier. In recent years, Highway 20 between downtown and the airport has been heavily re-built with the addition of dedicated bus/taxi lanes, which greatly eases the drive time. Keep in mind that you will be clearing US Customs/Immigration in Montreal before boarding, so unless you have NEXUS/Global Entry, give yourself plenty of time for boarding.

We've become huge converts to booking, with refundable deposits of course, as early as possible, since fares generally seem to rise with time. Certainly every single one of our four booked trips is more expensive than we we booked it. I just checked the price for the few remaining selectable (i.e. not Guarantee) balcony cabins for our C/NE trip out of Boston this July. If we booked the same category cabin near ours, it would be a staggering $2000 more than what we paid. And we only booked this trip last year.

Fair enough. In our particular case, an easy 5-6 hour drive south to Burlington, MA then a short drive on embarkation morning to the terminal (early on a Saturday morning) will beat flying or trains any time. Given where we live, it will be much cheaper, and actually take less time and be far less stressful to drive the same distance, but I'm sure for folks who live near an airport or a train station, those modes of transport can work well too.