InAlabama

Thanks for the wonderfully detailed review. We haven't done the British Isle itinerary (yet) but are doing a west bound transatlantic this Sep. Your reports have confirmed our choices of sailing from Southampton vs. Le Havre, spending time pre-cruise in France and selecting a tour in Belfast.

Tim & Mary Lou

They are changing a couple of cabin designations. Deck 16 Lido Deck, cabins L105 and L106 will change form Premium Mini-Suits (M6) to Mini-Suites (MF). Plus a few other cabins, but I didn't notice anything else.

Thanks for reminding me about this. I just checked and apparently I signed up for the 3-5 weeks option. However, I don't ever remember receiving an email offer. Also, I wonder why they don't allow you to select 2 or all 3 time options? I changed it to 1-2 weeks out of curiosity to see if that makes any difference. With retirement on the not so distant horizon we might be more "available". ;):cool:

I agree it would be nice. If you have a traveling companion you can set up different time options on the others account.

You'll enjoy retirement, its GREAT. :D

One time we went out of 2 and came back into 19 - don't know if it was a change or we just didn't know enough to know about it...took the shuttle, and it took maybe an extra hour to get back to 2 and on the road.

 

next time we knew that was going to happen, and use the cruise port park and ride - which worked out well for us, if that had to happen

 

now this was on the same ship(s) - not going from one to another

Yes, that is why you need to check the port schedule, berths are assigned well ahead of time. We met another couple doing the same B2B Regal/Crown itinerary and moved their car from the lot near pier 2 to one closer to pier 19 during the transfer. Then they had to find a way back to the new lot when we returned to pier 2. There was no ship at pier 19 that day so there was no Princess shuttle.

Log into your Princess cruise line account. At the top menu bar you should see an icon to "Sign Up for Special Offers"

Also select the "My Account" tab add then the "Captain's Circle" drop down menu. Select "Standby Program" and you will be able to choose your notice period i.e. less than 1 week, 1-2 weeks, or 3-5 weeks.

As others have stated, finding someone that actually knows what is going on with transfers can be difficult. We transferred from the Regal, pier 2, to the Crown, pier 19, last January and there was a shuttle. After several attempts we were given instructions on where to catch it, and although the shuttle by-passed a group waiting there we were able to flag it down. The driver didn't really want to take us to the other pier but we got on anyway.

You will have plenty of time, we did a late walk off and still had to wait at checkin for the second cruise as they didn't open the doors until about 1045. Depending on how many ships are in port on your transfer day, you might get lucky and be able to walk between piers 2 and 4. You might also come back into a different pier so plan ahead by checking the schedule at https://pevvesseltraffic.broward.org/webx/

I doubt Princess will care. Yes I think you will have plenty of food to go around, but room for the three of you depends on your cabin/balcony.

We had a breakfast, courtesy of our daughter, and it turned out to be a rainy day so we had to bring the small table from the balcony into the cabin to hold some of the food. We ended up with breakfast on the bed :)

Based on information from another thread on Cruise Critic, we just purchased this one from Amazon for our next trip.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B073ZDH43X/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

A plain PowerStrip is fine, but many people have reported a having Surge Suppressors confiscated.

Iv'e seen them offered a couple of time on cruises longer than 5-7 days. They are VERY BASIC, people show up with phones, iPads, point-and-shoots, and DSLRs with $1,000+ lenses. Some talk about lighting others about posing; heads should be tilted up to avoid that turkey neck.

If you are experienced photographers go to the class (usually on a sea day where activities are limited) to meet and mingle if nothing else. You might find someone with a lens that you have been considering or you can help give advice to the beginners. It is usually only one, maybe two, Princess photographers so they can get overwhelmed with question on menu settings etc. They shoot with Nikon and that is what they know best.

Yes you will probably be given a tour of the Platinum Studio and offered an opportunity to sign up for a sitting. No pressure, just information. The GoPro lectures on the other hand are done almost completely by using GoPro provided Powerpoint presentations and video clips. If you have a question about the GoPro cameras (sold on board) they are fairly knowledgeable about settings and operation.

We are now booked on her too. Now to confirm our excursions. :):):)

Welcome aboard. The roll call seams to be in a weird place but you can find it here: https://boards.cruisecritic.com.au/showthread.php?t=2497799&page=18

Hoping for good weather in St John's. We made into port four years ago on the Ruby, but the Royal had to pass by the following day due to rough seas. The channel in to port is beautiful but narrow.

Tim

We are booked on the Royal this year. The big draw for us is St John's, DW was born there.

Onboard you get "Tracy's Crab cakes" lots of breading from the grill on deck. The Crab Shack in the Horizon court is a fun experience, you get a steamer bucket with a mixture of crab, shrimp, mussels, etc. On shore at Tracy's Crab Shack you get CRAB!

Thank you so much InAlabama! :-)

Two more questions...

1) Did they have Puppies in the Piazza in Skagway, and if so, what time?

2) Do they have the Belgian waffle bar by the pool at breakfast time?

Did you say puppies? Yes we had them on the Emerald in Skagway from about 3 to 4 down in the piazza.

Don't know about Belgian waffles we never went up to look at Breakfast.

For us it did take a little longer than other ports. How much longer really will depend on how many ships are in port that day since they all use the same terminal. Drop your bags with the porters and then you will head into a reception hall. From there you will be sent in groups to Canadian security (think airports), once through that you will head to US Customs. If you have Global Entry you can save a lot of time there. Only after you clear customs does the line split off into their respective cruise. Because of choke point at US Customs there is almost no line at Princess Check-in

Another thing to remember about EZair and flight selections. If you are wanting to do some pre- or post-cruise traveling you can fly weeks before or after, and you don't have to use the default airports. Current example: from my home airport the oneway economy fare to Heathrow on 12 Sep is $283, but if you wanted to see some of Scotland beforehand you can book direct to Glasgow for $298.

There were 26 additional arrival airport options. We doing the TA from Southampton in Sep but flying into Paris about a week early to visit Normandy, etc., and separately booked a direct flight from Paris to Southampton for less than $100 each to catch the ship.

Is there a reason you didn't book Economy Plus directly through EZAir?

As was stated by someone else, I don't think you can book United Economy Plus directly through EZAir. I did look at some alternate routings on other airlines that were significantly higher than what we booked. Besides if you could book "Economy Comfort" or what ever it is called, you would have to pay that up-charge for every segment.

Our flights are Huntsville to Paris and returning New York to Huntsville, $361 pp Economy. Going direct to the airline websites the costs were excess of $2,000 at the time. We change planes in Dulles going over and Charlotte on the return and the only segment that was long enough to worry about was the Washington-Paris, the other three legs are all less than 2 hours. Yesterday the upgrades to Economy Plus cost me $179 pp, this morning they were only $155 but as I write this the cost has gone back up to $179. Upgrading the rest of the flights would have been an additional $140 each.

You can lock in your EZair tickets at any time by simply calling Princess. Once you have done that though, they are considered "Restricted tickets" and you are unable to make changes. Essentially it you then have the same restrictions as if you had purchased the tickets directly from the airline.

I am 87 days from cruising and worked with Princess yesterday to "ticket" my reservations with United. Once that was done I was able to go on the United website and upgrade our seats to Economy Plus for the seven and a half hour flight to Paris.

Only saw it one time on a Princess cruise, and that was a time when we really didn't need to do any laundry.

One thing to consider is which set of locks do you want to see. The Coral will use the old locks (largest ship that can use them) and the Emerald will use the new larger locks.

Thanks for sharing.

If you are not interested in visiting English tourist spots this trip you can fly into Paris, see the city and country sights for a few days, and then catch a flight from Paris direct to Southampton. We switched the embarkation port for a Sep transatlantic from Le Havre to Southampton one day late and saved over $3K. Several folks on our cruise also switched with some taking the ferry from one of several French ports to Portsmouth and then hiring a cab to the cruise terminal at Southampton. We booked our Paris to Southampton flight through Air France for less then $100 each and that included a checked bag.

If you book your flights from the US with Princess EZair, I think you can fly into Paris and out of London for the return.

But Wait, I need a Peter Max!!!!

We went the opposite way, Regal to Crown, terminal 2 to terminal 19. There was a shuttle but expect to get a lot of "I don't know" answers when you ask. My advice is to get off the first ship earlier (think 10ish) rather than later (when they kick you out) as the shuttle service will end when they think the crowd has died down. Princess knows how many passengers are making the transfer but the ground operation isn't very efficient or organized in this regard. You have plenty of time if you have to resort to a taxi because they won't even let you check in until 1030 or 1100. Make sure you get to the correct terminal, we met a nice couple waiting in line and after talking with them for 5-10 minutes they realized they dropped their luggage at the wrong spot. :')

Before you go, check the port schedule at https://pevvesseltraffic.broward.org/webx/. On our trip we had people move their cars from the parking lot near terminal 2 to one closer to terminal 19 only to discover that the Crown departed from terminal 19 but returned to terminal 2.:mad:

No. There are movies but you have to watch when Princess decides to run them.

The "BEST" place to see the glacier is from the small excursion boat (if your itinerary has one). We are recently off the Emerald, Vancouver to Seattle, and took the Tracy Arm Fjord & Glacier Explorer. Definitely not cheap, but worth every penny to us.

We had to go up the Endicott Arm, vs Tracy Arm due to ice, but besides getting much closer to the glacier we saw numerous whales on the ride into Juneau. What a sight indeed to see four Humpbacks do a full breaching and wave goodby with those long fins.