lx200gps

Methinks you're not a TD customer ;o) 2FA with them is absolutely by cellphone/SMS, no Email. Even accessing the system at home, I will will occasionally get a pop-up demanding a verification by text or phone to my cell, necessitating long trudge to find the phone elsewhere in the house. .At least Aeroplan allows 2FA verification by email, but not the Green Machine

Same here. We dine at Bistro at least twice on each sailing where the ship has one. Post-pandemic, food and service there have always been better than Sabatini's, and far superior to the CG. Not keen on the exposed location (sure do miss Crooners), and the food may be too exotic for some, but for us, it's always been fantastic. The fact that it also seems to be less crowded is a big plus as well.

+1 for sure, great location next to the Renaissance and canal-front.

Great idea, I've started to look into that as well. I can find a one-way Delta flight YUL to LAX through JFK :o( for the day before our cruise, fully refundable at an exorbitant price, but it seems worthwhile. I'm not sure I trust Air Transat or Westjet for this, and Flair is off-limits

My worry (having YUL-LAX flights in mid-October) is that while these regulations make AC responsible for taking care of us, that doesn't mean that they will be able to get us to where we need to be WHEN we need to be there, as in meeting a cruise ship for example. AC may be on the hook for compensating us if a strike causes these disruptions, but AFAIk they fly probably tens of thousands of people every day. Finding a timely new flight on another carrier for all of us is pretty much impossible. I'll need to check our various other insurance coverages to see whether a labor action is cause for re-imbursement of an expensive cruise fare.

Yup, same here. Excursions Reservations page loads but when I click on the individual port to see the excursions, nothing happens.

Quite correct. Our hotel of choice on 17th is the Renaissance for that very reason and depending on the room, the views of the port can be quite good. Keep in mind though, that the construction of the new Convention Center right across the street may slightly hinder the view depending on crane placement. The Hilton Marina is probably slightly better due to its sight lines, as was Pier 66, though I'm not sure of its status, and whether it has re-opened

Yup, it's dead easy alright, as long as the car rental office is open. Not only is the Enterprise office very conveniently in the Crowne Plaza, but the CP itself is a 15 minute walk to the ship though the hotel probably still have their shuttle on embarkation morning. I guess you may not want to walk if you have three little ones to contend with ;o)

Interesting development if Princess is actually stationing sommeliers in the restaurants. We never saw any when we were on the Sky last Feb. Did it actually improve the availability of the wine service, i.e. if you bought by the glass, did he/she refill easily and quickly? That's one thing we loved about X on our recent sailing, the sommeliers were everywhere and were quick with the refills. From the way you describe things, the new "sommelier" on Princess is just a waiter dedicated specifically to wine (beverage?) service. Also, it would be nice to hear from other recent sailings on other Princess ships, are sommeliers being rolled out fleet-wide or is it just a pilot project on the Sky? We'll definitely be watching out for them on the Discovery next month.

That's an understatement ;o) In the weeks before our recent trip on the Equinox, I was checking the pricing for an equivalent balcony cabin for our sailing. We had originally paid a little over $4K when we booked a year earlier, but just prior to sailing the going rate for an identical cabin on our sailing went as high as $9K and seemed average about $6K. It sure paid to book ahead in our case.

On a related note, if one pre-books SD restaurant reservations, has their credit card charged immediately, then goes to Guest Services once on board to have the charges reversed (so as to use OBC), exactly how are the charges reversed? Are they credited back onto the original credit card, or are they "reversed" by the issuance of more OBC? IIRC I've seen mention that it is the latter, and as we have TONS of OBC for our upcoming trips, I'd rather pre-pay on my CC them have the charges credited back to that CC, I don't need any more OBC.

You're very welcome, have a GREAT trip.

According to Google Maps, once you have arrived outside T6 onto the "sidewalk" where the cars are dropping off and picking up, it looks like it's about 300 meters to the right, on the arrivals/lower level, basically the next terminal over

It's mentioned in the LAX web site, hopefully this screen shot comes out:

Terminal 6 (Air Canada?) is about a 15 minute walk to the LAX-It lot, or a short shuttle ride. Note that there is supposed to be a taxi stand just down the terminal, somewhere near Terminal 7, eliminating the need to go to the LAX-It lot for a taxi. If Ubering, you would need to go to the LAX-It lot unless you opt for the very $$$ Uber Blacks, who are allowed to collect at the terminals. We are arriving at LAX for our October trip and will be taking a taxi from Terminal 7 to our hotel in Torrance the day before the sailing. I figure hailing a taxi from the terminal will be easier than trying to get an Uber or taxi from the busy LAX-It lot.

That was my thinking as well, but I assume that the wines offered in each dining venue are physically located in the venue. If I was in Sabatini's and ordered something from the vast MDR menu, wouldn't it have to be trucked in from a distant location in one of the MDRs? The wait for wine service in the restaurants is slow enough without a waiter having to walk 2000 yards to get us our glasses from a completely different location.

We've sailed Princess 4 times post-pandemic, and while the wine situation was very bad in the early days of the restart, with lots of OOS, we have noticed it getting progressively better with each successive trip. Although we're not wine snobs by any measure, we prefer to stretch the limits of our Plus or Premier package and order the most $$$ wines by the glass. On our last trip, in Feb on the Sky, there was not a single "sorry, we don't have that one any more" to be heard though I'm sure they occasionally run out of a few items. On a related note, I noticed how the wine lists in the MDRs were always far more expansive than in the SDRs. In the CG, Sabatini's or La Mer, the wine list was little more than a page or two, while the list in the MDR was many pages long and included the very $$$ bottles as well. And on Celebrity this past June, we were treated to the ever-present sommeliers in all the dining venues. Sure never had to wait for a re-fill unlike P.

Never flown in or out of it, so can't say, I've always "used" Pearson. Heck, for three Km I'd have simply walked it ;o)

Keep in mind that the new Porter terminal is at YHU, St Hubert airport, south of Montreal island and not a very practical option for anyone not living on Montreal's "south shore". It's a 50Km drive from YUL.

Unless things have changed, the Enterprise car rental outlet in San Pedro is physically in the Crowne Plaza hotel and the Hertz operation is literally across the street. Please make sure the Enterprise office is open on the day you plan to drop off, or make sure sure that if they are closed they allow unattended dropoffs. I seem to remember they and Hertz had somewhat limited hours when we used them a few years ago.

No worries, I hope you find a good deal. In our case I had booked it far enough in advance that I got a very decent price. The time of year also makes a huge difference as well, seems like our Feb trip falls into a low season so the price we got was pretty good. Best of luck.

Same here, every time we've picked up our Medallions (most recently last Feb), it's never taken more than about 120 seconds to walk over to the counter and collect them. I think that a lot of people just seem to get very excited about receiving them ahead of time, but it never made any difference to us. Currently though, I believe there is another reason why some want them mailed. Princess recently "simplified" their check-in system (Blue, Green or Yellow Lane) and AFAIK, unless you have your Medallion mailed to you ahead of time, you will always default to Blue Lane even if all your other information is correctly updated in the system. That certainly was the case for us for three of our upcoming five trips. Even though I had all our data correct, we went from Green Lane "down" to Blue Lane because our Medallions are being collected at the port. Judging from some of the reactions here on CC, that seems to really upset some people, but it sure makes no difference to us. Even when they start shipping up here, we'll probably still opt for collecting them at the port.

Quite sure that's true, Amazon.com is a different beast entirely and I hardly ever use them. When I use Amazon, which I do a hundred+ times a year, it's always from .ca. I still get free shipping, even when the item has to be physically sent from the US, which happens about 10% of the time.

FWIW I buy a LOT of stuff from the US, and shipping costs from south of the border have absolutely exploded in the last few years. Shipping the same item, over the same distance, between the US and Canada, and between from the US two points in Canada, is far more expensive if coming from the US. Actually, I would have estimated that the $US15 for the Medallion package is probably not that far off the "normal" shipping rate. I've recently been quoted $US65 for a small-ish box shipped up here from LA, for example. Ebay is off my list for excessive shipping costs, and that's why I love Amazon Prime so much, for it's free shipping. Is the Medallion still shipped in a boxed package the way the original marketing videos showed a few years ago?

Thanks for the heads up, looks like a great option for us. I just priced our upcoming flights to FLL for October, long booked with Air Canada. Only $12,500 with the return being the day after disembarkation due to the 8AM flight, and two stops to boot. Not even sure if it's Business Class. As broberts said, they sure don't want cruise passengers ;o)