lx200gps

I wish I could remember how far in advance the shows start to appear in the app. When they do finally get loaded, they are sometimes hard to find given the strange and challenging presentation of the Journey Timeline on a tiny cell phone screen. All I can advise is to keep checking in regularly, and when you do, scroll L/R to find the specific day, then scroll L/R again to the 7:30PM mark, then start scrolling down; eventually the evening's Theater show will appear, whether it's the big production show, or the comedian, or the singer etc. Sometimes the "big show" is far down the calendar, so keep searching. You might also want to check in regularly with your sailing's Roll Call, perhaps someone over there has been checking as well and will announce when the shows are posted.

Valid point, thanks. It makes sense that they would refund cancelled bookings to the stateroom account and not the CC. Problem is, I'm very hesitant to cancel any of the bookings beforehand, as I can't be sure we would be able to re-book once on board. In the past, we've never had any issues booking all our specialty restaurant dinners upon embarkation; every timeslot and date we wanted were always available. On the Enchanted is September, we had huge problems doing that, few of our desired times and/or restaurants were available. We'll have to see how things are on the Sky next week.

I've just finished booking eight Specialty restaurant dinners for our next two cruises, and will probably book a few more once on board (Crown Grill seems unbookable close to cruise date). As per the norm, our credit card was duly charged, and of course I knew that going in. Visa charged 1.41 as a US to Canadian exchange rate. When I go to the P website, given when we booked these trips, I can buy OBC at 1.25. If I were to buy a few hundred in OBC now, is it possible to drop by the PSD upon embarking, have the credit card charges reversed, and pay for the meals with this OBC? The credit card/Princess exchange rate delta is not insignificant. Thx..

Well.we're on the same ship just a few weeks ahead of the OP. Odds are very good that what we have in our planner is what they will see when they board a few weeks after us. We were on the Enchanted in September and the shows then were identical to what we are scheduled to see on the Sky next week. same days, same shows, same times.

We're on the Sky next week out of PE, Eastern Caribbean w/Puerto Rico. Our formal nights are the first sea day, day 3 (embarkation day being day 1) and day 6 (disembarkation day being day 8). There are two showtimes, 7:30 and 9:30. The two main shows are Rock Opera on day 3 and 5 Skies on day 5.

I just finished booking 6 Speciality restaurant dinners in advance for upcoming trips (and have to make two more on board after embarkation), and was charged at 1.41 by Visa. Given the 1.25 exchange rate I get when looking to pre-purchase OBC for these two trips, it would probably save a few $$$s if I paid for the dinners using OBC. Question is, I can't remember whether it would be possible for us, upon boarding, to head to Guest Services, cancel the credit card charges and then immediately pay for the dinners using the cheaper pre-purchased OBC. This question gets asked a lot here on CC but I can't remember whether it's possible or not.

We will be using Tiles for the first time later this week, for flights in and out of Fort Lauderdale. Based on your experience with Tiles, what kind of accuracy do you get from them, IOW how EXACT are they in showing the position of the bag? I know from having tested ours that they can show the location within maybe 100ft +/-, but I'm wondering what your experience has been. Thx

Keeping in mind that mentioning TA names here on CC is strictly verboten, yes we have a great TA who is cruise specific. She works for the large cruise travel agency who have storefronts on pretty much every corner, certainly here on the West Island. Her agency handles all the cruise lines, and ours knows Princess very well, though she admits she and her family are RCCL kind of folks ;o) Her agency gives us OBC over and above what P give us, and her agency is large enough in the travel industry that we collect their "frequent traveler" points which gives us a free hotel stay every few cruises or so. Note that they are not just cruising but handle other modes of travel as well, such as hotels. We deal with their (subsidiary?) which are franchised cruise specific agencies. I wish I could tell you who they are, but them's the rules.

You're about to be inundated with a lot of responses, probably split about 50/50. In our case, using our TA is a no-brainer, in that we get a few little extras from her Agency that we don't get from Princess. The biggest reason, however, why we use our TA is that, these days, even reaching Princess can be trying, so if someone has to spend an hour on hold trying to reach the Mother Ship, we'd rather it be her than us.

We always do self-walkoff, though on Princess never yet on RCCL. I strongly suggest you do the very earliest walkoff you possibly can, otherwise, as CruiserBruce says, you will find yourselves stuck in long lines in the terminal, at Customs, in the taxi line etc.When we do self walkoff, we try to be among the very first in line to disembark, even if our flight is a long way off, usually getting into the self walkoff line as early as 6:30AM. That way, we are among the very first in line at customs for the facial recognition cameras, and have no problem finding a taxi. Port Everglades has moved to facial recognition, so clearance through customs is almost instantaneous once you actually arrive at the camera. You will still probably find elevators on the ship a challenge, though not as bad as if you were disembarking later. We also usually have a big suitcase and a rolling carry-on, so we strap the small one to the bigger one, thereby only having one rolling suitcase. That guarantees we have one hand free and so are allowed to use the escalator in the terminal, and not, as sometimes happens, being forced to queue up for an elevator as they demand people using escalators have one hand free. In our experience, there definitely will be a few hundred folks doing self walkoff, so it pays to be at the head of the line...

...or us former lowly Platinums who make up the rear of the first cohort to arrive at the Sanctuary. ;o) We're about to board the Sky next week, which will be our first time trying to book the Sanctuary on a warm-weather cruise as Elite. It will be interesting to see how it goes...

$40/pp for a full day, $20/pp for a half day, and $30/pp for a full day if booked for the entire cruise. That's vitally important. Make sure you board as early as possible, as there will be along line of folks, such as Suites pax and Elites, who board first who will be at the head of the line. Folks who board at 1PM for example and race immediately upstairs have little chance of getting a decent lounger as the folks like us who boarded at 11AM got there first.

We generally just flagged down a waiter when we wanted to order. Given how short-staffed they were, it sometimes took a while to get our drinks (I can remember having exactly one waiter for all 50 or 60 people in a packed Crooners for example). I didn't want to go near the bar to order, with every bar stool taken and half a dozen others standing behind them trying to order, the bartenders were absolutely overwhelmed most of the time. Hopefully things will be better when we board the Sky next week

Don't think it's changed. We tried ordering from the app for the first time on the Enchanted last month. Not only could we not figure out how to "customize" the order with specific brand requests, but there were some drinks that simply couldn't be ordered via the app as it didn't appear on the list of available drinks.

FWIW, as the cruise date approaches,, the OP's Princess Travel Summary document will clearly state the address of the departure. It will still continue to state "New York (Manhattan or Brooklyn) but right underneath it will list, as the address, Brooklyn Cruise Terminal, 72 Bowne St, Brooklyn, NY". That's what ours read last month for a trip on the Enchanted Princess, out of Brooklyn.

Our Minibar setup came from our newly-acquired elite status and not from us having the drink package, so yes, we were easily able to swap it out for soft drinks. We never had a minibar setup as platinum et al, so there was nothing to swap out back then. The options for cans is pretty much what the ship normally has in the bars and restaurants. We ended up with a mix of Diet Sprite for her and regular Coke for me. Other can jump in with their experience with other soda brands.

Exactly what we did on the Enchanted last month. Our room steward was nearby so we asked him to swap out the little bottles, (useless for us with the Premier Package) to diet sodas. A few hours later, he'd set everything up.

Generally about 60 days out, give or take a day or two. Note that Princess generally does not observe Arrival Groups and you can pretty much show up whenever you want.

I just checked the next launch dates for the big Artemis 1 launch, and all three windows fall right into the week we will be on the Sky Princess sailing around the northern Caribbean, Nov 14, 16 or 19. Obviously none of these dates are guaranteed, given the problems they faced a few months ago with their first attempts. Interestingly, since this is a "moonshot" and so the launch windows are very narrow and specific, these three launch windows are all late at night/early morning. This will mean the launch will be the biggest night launch since Apollo 17 in 1972. With a 38 degree orbital inclination, the launch will be heading NE away from us unfortunately Some quick and dirty calculating given our known schedule/itinerary has the Sky about 500Km SE of the Cape, in the middle of the Bahamas, for the first attempt, a huge 1600Km distance just off the DR for the attempt on the 16th, but actually sailing back to PE for the last attempt on the 19th which would put us perhaps 250Km away. Does anyone have any experience with seeing large launches (say Shuttle flights) from such distances? I vaguely recollect reading reports that the Apollo 17 night launch was at least visible as far north as New York, so if it happens while we are off the DR, about the same distance, it would be pretty unimpressive. But how about from the central Bahamas or just off the coast of south Florida? Any ideas on what we could expect? Thx.

Just did exactly that. Our existing one year coverage ends on Nov 18 at midnight, and our flight home from our next trip lands at 5PM on the 19th. Therefore, we would not have been covered AT ALL for the entire trip. I incorrectly assumed that we would have been covered up until the expiry on the 18th, but as you point out, you have to be covered for the entire trip, not just most of it. A simple call to Blue Cross paid for the one year renewal, as well as a two day extension to our existing plan. I figured I would add two days rather than just the one we needed in case we were delayed coming home.

? I just checked their website and that particular store shows 49 different whites and 78 reds, and blushes, sparklings etc. Can't say how many are in stock at any given time (hopefully a better in stock percentage than Princess ;o) but they do seem to offer a wide selection unless you're after first growth Bordeaux. https://shop.sprouts.com/shop/categories/270

Fair enough, I was incorrectly generalizing based on experience around North America. I should have been more specific. Thanks for the clarification.

To book the Sanctuary, you will want to board as soon as you possibly can (and I mean as EARLY as you possibly can), then race upstairs to the Sanctuary without making a single stop. You can only book on board, and there will be folks with higher Princess status who are permitted to board before you, so they will have first crack at the limited number of Sanctuary loungers. Best of luck, the Sanctuary is wonderful. Re formal nights, a tuxedo is definitely not required, though perfectly acceptable should you choose to bring one. These days, the majority of passengers don't go beyond "smart casual", and the number of really formally dressed folks is slowly diminishing.

We stayed at the Hyatt House right next door a few years ago. Per Google Maps, the nearest Publix is quite far away. There's a grocery store called "Sprout's Farmer's Market" a 7 minute walk due east along Sterling Road, and their website claim they sell wine. As to getting to PE, check with the hotel, in our experience most hotels in that general area offer shuttles to the various PE terminals for a modest fee.

We disembarked off the Enchanted Princess in Brooklyn in mid-September, as early walk-offs, so around 7AM. There definitely were taxis there at that time picking up passengers, though I remember remarking that there seemed to be fewer taxis in evidence than we would have seen, say, at Port Everglades greeting a ship of that size. I can't say what the taxi situation would haven been a bit later in the morning. We were fortunate to have parked our car a few feet away, so we didn't need a taxi, though my enduring memory of that disembarkation experience was walking past a screaming match between a taxi driver and an incredibly obnoxious passenger who desperately needed to get to the airport because they had booked a ridiculously early flight and were upset the taxi driver wasn't moving fast enough. Just a suggestion, perhaps you can find a Roll Call for a ship that has recently arrived back in Brooklyn, and ask one of the arriving passengers.