lx200gps

Keep in mind that folks with higher airline status or flying in business have limits of 70 lbs, not 50, at least on Air Canada. I also don't think Princess have weight limits, beyond the sizing rule that luggage has to fit within the X-ray machines

Sorry, I was only slightly generalizing. Smoking was far more prevalent on the Equinox than we have ever experienced on Princess and was happening in many areas on the ship that would have never been allowed on a Princess ship. And yes, people WERE smoking in the eating/drinking area on the pool deck. Clearly the crew is not enforcing their own policy.

I'm sure it's obvious to most folks, but if you have NEXUS, doing Arrivecan is a waste of time. On our return to YUL a few days ago, the NEXUS terminals were down so we walked up to a surprisingly friendly and chatty CBSA agent. After handing him our cards, I mentioned in passing that I had done the Arrivecan, and he proceeded to give me hell, albeit in a friendly, joking way, that if you have NEXUS, you do not have to bother with Arrivecan.

We've sailed three times on Princess in the last year (Enchanted once and Sky twice) and left the Celebrity Equinox just last week. A few comments on the above comments: 1) The "live" TV on X is a bit better in that it has a good number more channels available than Princess. Sadly for us, most of the extra channels were sports which are of no use to us. The VOD movie offerings on X were pathetic, far fewer than Princess 2) It may have been just the crews on the Enchanted and Sky at the time, but we found the "crew attitude" on the Equinox to be far superior to the crews on our recent Princess sailings. Noticeably happier, more engaging with passengers etc. The Princess crews just seemed tired and overworked. Of course, the officers were everywhere on X, we even ran into the captain himself many times, walking the ship, eating with fellow officers in the buffet etc. On one of recent Princess trips we never even HEARD the captain on the PA let alone ever saw him. 3) Somewhat related to the above, we also noticed that the Equinox was much better staffed than any of our recent Princess trips, though hopefully that is improving now on Princess. There were always a lot of waiters in the MDR and the specialty restaurants, no long waits for food and drink as we had on our Princess trips. We ate mostly in Murano, TG and Sushi on Five and the staffing levels were fantastic. Bar waiter service was a bit thinner but still good. On our last trip on the Enchanted, I well remember there being exactly one waiter for all of Crooners. 4) One BIG negative on Celebrity is the amount of smoking allowed on the ship. People smoked in outside areas all over the ship, including in the Mast Grill on the upper deck 5) Further to what some others have said, we find X is much more expensive than Princess in an apples to apples price comparison, to the point where they are off our list of possible cruise lines. We're back on Princess in October, on the Discovery out of San Pedro. It will be interesting to see whether they have progressed since our last trip this past February on the Sky.

Had exactly this happen to us returning into YUL a few days ago. Those few of us in the NEXUS lane gave up on the terminals and walked up to the CBSA Agent at the desk and handed him our cards. He filled in a yellow piece of paper with our details and waved us through. It seems non-functioning NEXUS terminals are something they are familiar with.

Quite probably. This particular TA has offered those books during their Sale for many years, I just haven't yet received all the confirmations, documents etc yet as the bookings are very fresh. In any case, when they removed the BOGO deal for first night Specialty Dining and replaced it with a bottle of wine (pretty pointless with a drink package), the booklet has little value for us now. Some folks did seem to like them though.

Sorry, that wasn't clear from your wording.

The "deal" seems to vary according to the date of the sailing. The sale is simply what Princess are asking, less a few hundred, plus OBC. For sailings between this October and into 2025, the farther out in time we go, the less the deal seems to be. For our Oct 2023 sailing we saved a ton when we re-fared, but when I asked for pricing into April 2025, the offered pricing was little better than what Princess were offering. The major difference is in the OBC being offered. Still, we saved a lot by re-faring and making one new booking. One thing that I can't find mentioned in our new paperwork is the Coupon Book, hardly a great loss if it's not given out.

We actually just booked the sailing immediately following, 19 October 2024 7 Day, through the 3 Day Sale. We saved about $400 over what Princess were showing for our desired cabin, and the TA threw in $225/pp OBC as well. Looking forward to the Sun, can't wait.

FWIW, our TA with this agency just re-fared two of our existing trips to take advantage of the sale. She saved us a bit over $300CAD on each trip and added $US400 in OBC for each trip. She added one new trip for us, for October 2024 at a price about $300CAD less than on the Princess site and also added the $US400 in OBC that was not available on the Princess site. That being said, the prices they are offering for 2025 sailings aren't that much better than Princess, though they are still adding the $400 in OBC.

We disembarked from the Equinox a few days ago, and yes, the WiFi with the Premier plan is pretty good. I can confirm the ~4.5Mps number as well. One thing I found particularly good, relative to other ship WiFi systems I've used, is how "consistent" it was day to day regardless of passenger load.. Our trip was to the ABC Islands, so 2 sea days there and back. Typically, on other systems I've used, on a sea day with the ship crowded with passengers, MANY using WiFi, the performance would degrade noticeably. Not so on the Equinox last week. Even mid-day on a sea day, the download speeds were still a pretty consistent 4.5.

The closest "hotel zone" near Port Everglades is the 17th Street strip, right on the northern entrance to Port Everglades and there are some excellent bets in that area. Our two usual hotels are the aforementioned Hyatt Place (and check out Valuetrips to make our Canadian $$$s go farther) and the big Renaissance nearby. 17th Street has lots of restaurants and last-minute shopping in the immediate area as well (Publix supermarket and the ridiculously cheap Total Wines for example). Unfortunately, 17th Street pricing is VERY cyclical and in peak season pricing can be eye-watering when converted to Canadian dollars. A good fallback area with good local infrastructure but slightly lower pricing is Dania Beach, just south of the airport but still close to PE. If you are traveling in prime peak season, another good and cheaper option is Plantation. Farther from FLL and PE but the pricing is relatively stable and doesn't explode in peak season like the other areas.

Just disembarked from the Equinox a few days ago at PE. There were two "formal" nights but compared to our usual Princess cruises, there were noticeably fewer people dressing up. We spend most of our time in the lower decks near the restaurants, bars etc, and I doubt I saw more than a few suits and no tuxes on the two Chic nights on our sailings. As mentioned previously, Smart Casual is the order of the day on those nights.

Actually, our upgrade success rate isn't great, but isn't bad either. We're seeing maybe 30% success rate on getting bumped up to either PE or Business using eUpgrade points, and that's on pretty popular runs like YUL-FLL, always going down, never coming back. Yes 25K is lame but the perqs like priority everything are wonderful in these trying travel times. Gotta love getting Zone 2 boarding and having our choice of overhead bins ;o) Good point about the hijack, signing off. Let's get back to cruise talk ;o)

Having been Elite or SE for decades, it was a big letdown to drop down to "lowly" 25K status when I took Freedom 55 retirement, but Aeroplan continues to a HUGE benefit even now. My Infinite Privilege card confers 25K status, which is still enough for many of the perqs, like priority checkin and Zone 2 boarding, free bags, lounge access, Buddy Pass, eUpgrades etc. The outrageous cost of the card is more than offset by the benefits is confers. Even long after retiring, we still never pay for airline tickets beyond the surcharges, the only caveat being that we have to usually fly in the back, as Business or Premium is an inefficient use of valuable points. We also limit ourselves to North America, which makes the use of our points most efficient, If we do travel to Europe, it will be on paid tickets. I agree that general points accumulation from other methods works, but for us, AP is fine as Air Canada almost always is our preferred way to go.

I certainly have been using the AC website, I was only checking the PDF Timetable to confirm that, at least June through September, there are three flights a day. Unfortunately, that doesn't help me with next Feb, and I suspect that you are correct, there may only be one flight a day during the winter. Sadly, our only option to make this cruise is to endure the joy of a transfer through YYZ. At least our NEXUS and Aeroplan status will help with some of the lines, however little it will help.

Welcome to Cruise Critic ;o) For most people, the Princess coverage is quite limited and can "beaten" easily by other insurance products. The only benefit that is worth it for many is their Cancel For Any Reason clause, which will allow you cancel a trip for ANY reason up to just before you travel. You would then receive 100% of the non-refundable cruise fare back as an FCC, where most other insurers offering CFAR coverage only go to 75-80%.

I've checked AC's PDF timetable and it does show three flights a day between YUL and LAX, but when I look for our dates in Feb on the booking site, only one shows as available (our flights for our trip in October are long since booked, no issues at all). I doubt that the other two flights for Feb are not showing up because they are sold out 8 months in advance, that seems a bit extreme. When I check numerous other dates in January and February, only one direct flight per day shows up, so perhaps they simply haven't populated the schedule with the other flights yet.

Yup, since we retired 8 years ago and stopped flying the world, our account has slowly inched downwards. All to frequent credit card spending, and the churning of credit cards, has kept it alive, but it is slowly dwindling. Between SWMBO and I we are down to little more than 400K points between us. I see an AMEX Platinum card with a 100K signing bonus in my horoscope ;o)

My big concern now is that AC seem to have cut way back on the YUL to LAX flights. We have one for this October and there were, IIRC, at least three non-stops available to choose from. Now, there only seems to be one per day around that date and it's not well timed for a cruise disembarkation, leaving LAX at 8AM. Folks living near the center of the known universe, the GTA, have a LOT more options.

I'm pretty sure you're correct. The Buddy Pass Ts and Cs on the AC/Aeroplan site are not very helpful in trying to link their usage with something like EZ Air. We'll probably use the pass and forego E Air, as it does save quite a few hundred dollars. The loss of some of the EZ Air perqs like easy cancellation, change etc are offset by us booking AC Flex fare, our Visa Infinite Privilege card and our Aeroplan status.

No, it would be both of us using EZ Air, or me booking direct with AC and we apply the buddy pass for SWMBO. Either way, it would be a guaranteed, paid for seat, no standby. The buddy pass is through my Aeroplan card, one per year and expires soon. The fare with the buddy pass is technically $0, but by the time we add taxes, surcharges etc, it ends up "costing" $99. Still one hell of a deal, especially for a long-ish flight to LA.

I'm looking at EZ Air for a flight from YUL to LAX early next year. EZ Air is actually a few hundred less than direct with AC for the same flights, and EZ Air's flexibility etc is excellent. I have a $99 Aeroplan Buddy Pass I need to use/book before mid-July and would like to apply it to this flight to save about $600 over the AC price. Has anyone used a Buddy Pass in concert with EZ Air and if so, how was it applied. Booking directly with AC there is a box to select using the Pass, but of course not on EZ Air. The cynic in me says if I call EZ Air they will say "No idea, talk to Air Canada, and if I call AC they will either say "No idea, talk to EZ Air", or more likely "What's EZ Air".

We had visited S On 5 for Sushi early in the trip, and one of the waitresses mentioned it to us. I can't remember whether it was mentioned in the daily newsletter or not. The menu was a formal three course offering, but when we sat down, the waiter was quite free with the food and offered to just bring us tasting sizes of every entree and main course to try. Worked out very well, everything excellent, though the fish curry was a bit "tough". My wife generally doesn't like Indian but decided to give it a try and loved the experience.

Very definitely inconsistent. The Maitre'D was quite firm that it was not covered by the package so I didn't press the issue. In any case, it just meant we had an extra night in the TG to use up our 4 package dinner ;o)