Corfe Mixture

Many thanks everyone.

That is exactly what I believed, but the question was raised on our Roll Call and having said I did not believe that gratuities are added to the $15, I thought it would be prudent to check with folks who had done it recently to make sure that I was not giving incorrect information.

Kindest regards to you all.

Can someone who has ACTUALLY PAID THE $15 corkage charge at check in please confirm whether or not the charge does not attract an additional service charge.

Please don’t offer speculation, I am an experienced Princess client (who normally fly cruises and therefore doesn’t normally have the opportunity to take his own wine). 

I am aware that the figure of $15 is printed on in the pre-cruise boarding documentation without any mention of any additional gratuities and therefore don’t expect any charge, 

BUT

the question has come up on our Roll Call and we would like to hear a DEFINITIVE answer from someone who has BEEN THERE AND ACTUALLY DONE IT.

22 minutes ago, waterbug123 said:

 

If the HOHO includes actual admission at some places you plan to visit, then sure, get the ticket, just don't necessarily rely on the buses to actually get you from place to place.  (which I think is what you're saying your plan is)

No, not using the hoho tickets which include admission, simply see it as an easy, albeit slow, way to get to see the sights - all for less than the cruise ship charges for a night time non-hoho tour, which is included in our hoho ticket so mentally, for us, it is a night tour with two days free hoho thrown in (rather than the other way round)

Accept it will be slow but this is not something that will worry us when we are sightseeing and, if I need to get somewhere quickly, I will simply take the subway as you suggest. 

Seems to me that, thanks to the various replies I now have a win-win situation.

Night tour for less than the ship charges, thereby creating my break even point (though I could just purchase a night tour and save a few dollars). 

Ability to use the hoho whenever I want during our two day stay

AND

Ability to make use of the excellent advice on here about getting around efficiently when getting from A to B is the objective.

Many thanks everyone

CM

Thank you everyone for your very informative replies. 

Although I have visited NY on business (literally one night whilst passing through), and am familiar with the subway, we have never been as tourists.  

Ship is selling a night tour for $69 and our two day three route hoho costs $59 including a night tour and so I have decided to get a hoho ticket (for sight seeing value) but use the subway, or walk, as appropriate.

As many of you have indicated no chance of Crown (fully booked to end of November) or Pedestal (just a couple of days in October then plenty of availability in November).

As NY is our first port of call in US, rather expecting some delays getting off the ship and so have booked an 11h00 ferry.

Again many thanks everyone.

CM

Thanks guys,

You gave me good pointers to the way ahead.

Decision almost made. Do my own thing and get a two day hoho ticket, with night city tour, and a ferry ticket from Battery Pier. 

Only question now is do I use the subway to save time when going to Battery Pier, but that can wait until the day.

CM

Yup I understand that and normally do our own thing, but this time the contrast was so vast that I just wondered if I am missing something.

We are visiting New York, berthing in Manhattan for two days on Princess. 

My first thoughts were to look at doing a 6 hour ship’s tour on day one to Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty followed by an evening night coach tour of four hours.

Then use the Hoho on day two.

Cost of tours $129.99 to Ellis / Liberty plus $69.99 for night 

BUT

Looking at Gray’s HoHo, I can get a two day Hoho ticket Downtown (thereby stopping at Battery ferry terminal for Ellis / Liberty), Uptown and Brooklyn routes for $59.00 which includes a non-Hoho night tour.

My question is that it seems that I can do everything I want for $59 plus the cost of the Liberty ferry / Ellis / Liberty admission.

I know I will need to walk to the Gray line terminal which I think isa couple of blocks from Manhattan cruise terminal which I don’t see as a problem.

Even given the need to walk to the Gray line stop, the difference seems ridiculous, so my question is:

Am I missing something? 

I can get a ticket which includes entry to three attractions, including Ellis / Liberty but doesn’t say if that includes ferry for $144.00 but I’ll think about that option after I have worked out if I am missing something by not taking the ship’s tour.

Thanks in advance 

CM

Irrespective of your personal tastes, taking your own onboard AND WILLINGLY paying the $15 corkage charge makes excellent sense.

We are off for 24 days soon and I did this direct comparison with the onboard Wine List (well the most recent I have seen)

FIGURES IN BRACKETS INCLUDE 18% Gratuity.

Champagne

Nicholas Feuillatte $69 ($81.42)

I can buy EXACTLY the very same champagne for €25.90 in my local supermarket in France.

=$28.76 plus corkage $15 

=$43.76 saving $37.66 per bottle.

Veuve Clicquot Yellow Label $89 ($105.02)

I can buy EXACTLY the very same champagne for €34.99 in my local supermarket in France.

=$38.84 plus corkage $15 

=$53.84 saving $51.18 per bottle.

French White Wine

Pouilly Fume 2017 $46 ($54.28)

I can buy the same 2017 vintage Pouilly Fume for €11.95 from my local supermarket in France and EXACTLY the same Pascal Jolivet Pouilly Fume 2107 for €19.00 from my local wine merchant.

=$21.09 plus corkage $15 

=$36.09 saving $18.17 per bottle.

I can also get Pascal Jolivet 2018 Sancerre for the same price, though there is no Sancerre showing on the Sapphire Princess wine list I have.

Macon-Lugny 2016 $38 ($44.84)

I can buy the same Les Charmes 2016 vintage, on special offer, for €6.71 in my local supermarket in France and EXACTLY the same Albert Bichot Les Charmes 2016 for €15.27 from my local wine merchant.

=$16.94 plus corkage $15 

=$31.94 saving $12.90 per bottle.

Pouilly Fuissé 2016 $42 ($49.56)

I can buy the same 2016 vintage Pouilly Fuisse for €15.50 in my local supermarket in France and EXACTLY the same Labouré-Roi 2016 for €19.00 from my local wine merchant.

=$21.09 plus corkage $15 

=$36.09 saving $13.45 per bottle.

Chablis 2017 $40 ($47.20)

I can buy the same 2017 vintage for €12.50 in my local supermarket in France and EXACTLY the same Chablisienne Pierrelee 2017 for €16.00 from my local wine merchant.

=$17.75 plus corkage $15 

=$32.75 saving $14.45 per bottle.

Mersault 2016 $67 ($79.06)

I can buy the same 2016 vintage for €26.95 in my local supermarket in France and EXACTLY the same Bouchard Mersault Les Clous 2016 for €40.40 from my local wine merchant.

=$44.82 plus corkage $15 

=$59.82 saving $19.24 per bottle.

French Red Pinot Noir Burgandy

Côtes de Nuits 2016 $40 ($47.20)

I struggled to find any 2016 vintage Hautes Côtes de Nuits in my local supermarket in France, but I could get a 2017 Bouchard Hautes Còtes de Nuits for €9.95 and I can get EXACTLY the same Bouchard Hautes Cōtes de Nuits 2016 for €15.80 from my local wine merchant.

=$17.53 plus corkage $15 

=$32.53 saving $14.67 per bottle.

I could go on but this is probably getting a bit boring. Suffice to say we will be taking onboard 4 bottles of Champagne, 6 bottles of white wine and 4 bottles of red wine which (forgetting the savings on the two bottles of champagne which will not attract a corkage charge) even after paying out $180 in corkage charges, and allowing for the discounts available on SILVER a silver wine package, I will still save almost $200 by taking my own wine on board.

3 hours ago, john watson said:

I have no experience of taking wine on board.  I thought "corkage" only applied to wine consumed in MDR etc. not in own cabin.  I am not sure you are allowed to take twelve bottles on board.  Anyway, a guy on our table brought his own wine bottle to MDR and the waiter brought out a sheet to sign, similar to when you order and pay for wine but his was just for corkage on that bottle. They then served it, I cannot remember whether he had handed it in previous day or chilled it in own cabin.

 

Regards John

Don’t understand this answer at all.

You are allowed to take on one bottle each without paying corkage.

Anything above that you have to pay corkage irrespective of where you drink it. And you pay it on boarding.

Tou can try to cheat but if you are successful you must drink it in your stateroom as will get caught if you try to take it to the MDR.

Not sure what they do now, but what they used to do was to stamp  the label to show that corkage has been paid.

Not sure what the bit about the waiter requiring him to sign something was but suspect it was only being done because there was a need to check that corkage had been paid.

57 minutes ago, ollienbertsmum said:

No personal experience with Princess.  I have of other lines.  The corkage payment took place after check in, at the security boarding the ship.  If you left it in the luggage taken by the porters you would be ‘called to the naughty room’ - although you would clearly not be trying to sneak it on.  

 

Bubble wrap or not, I would not want to give my bottles to the porters.  In your case I would be wheeling the bottles around and making sure that any sparkling wine was given plenty of time to settle!!  

 

Do come back and let us know how it worked out !

All sorted.

I googled storage and up came Bagbnb.com with a place near to the Red Funnel terminal and midway between Mayflower Park (location of Boat Show) and Ocean Terminal.

Doesn't open until 10h00 but that is fine as show doesn’t open until 10h00 and our taxi is dropping us off at 09h30 at Ocean Terminal.

Establishment is a cafe/pub.

Price is £5 per bag per day and, although we only want four hours, it seemed a good deal for us.

All booked and paid for online and I have an named contact’s email address and mobile number.

We are experienced (Elite) UK based Princess cruisers, who are about to take our first Princess cruise out of Southampton.

Having done the arithmetic, and not having any weight restrictions, we have decided to pay our $150 and board with 12 bottles (two don’t attract corkage) of wine and champagne.

That’s the simple bit. Now for the question. What are the arrangements for paying corkage at Southampton and do you need to take the excess through in your hand baggage?

Also do they mark the bottles as ‘corkage paid’ so that you don’t have any problems later?

We leave on the opening day of the Southampton boat show and the game plan is to drop off our bags at the terminal around 09h00 and then go to the show, with just our back packs before returning to check-in at around 14h00.

If necessary we will wheel a bag around the show containing the twelve bottles and I also perhaps have the possibility of leaving the bag at either the BMIF office or the Press Office, but by far the easiest solution would be to either spread the bottles around in the luggage we drop off at 09h00 or wrap them

in bubble wrap and put them all in one small case.  

Either way it would be nice not to have to wheel the bottles around the show and I am just wondering if anyone has any experience of paying corkage on excess wine loaded by the porters?

9 hours ago, MGillie said:

We dropped our bags just before 11 last year. We had cruise and park so they took them from our boot straight through the hole so I think you will be fine to drop them early. 

Many thanks for what appears to be the definitive answer to my particular question from a person who has done exactly what I want to do.

In my case, I don’t really care about check in time, just earliest bag drop so that we can go to the Boat Show which opens at 10.00 and return around 4 hours later to complete check in after the initial crowd.

That’s what I hoped for and expected.

Thanks

38 minutes ago, majortom10 said:

I do not think they will allow you to drop off your suitcases any time before 11am because the terminal and operations will be disembarking previous cruise before then.

Thanks for that reply. Unfortunately it is different from the US ports, where, although folks are still disembarking, they nevertheless have locked cages into which you can ask for your bags to be placed from quite early on.

I think it might be to accommodate folks arriving on ‘red eye’ flights from the West coast and it is a facility we have frequently used to allow us to drop off our luggage before returning our rental car.

No real problem if something similar is not available in Southampton, as the show doesn’t open until 10 and not going to the show until 11 is not a big problem.

Your answer does however pose one question. In the US baggage unloading is completed long before disembarkation is complete and quite a fair number of cages holding arriving bags are on the quay alongside the ship waiting to be loaded as soon as boarding commences.

OK I appreciate you are saying this doesn’t happen in Sourhampton, but I thought, perhaps erroneously, that first check time was around 11. So my question now is, are you saying that at Southampton you cannot drop off your suitcases until you get to check-in?

Slight variation on the question. At what time can you drop off your bags.

Although we are Elite and live near to Southampton we have never cruised from the port with Princess and never left from Ocean Terminal with any line.

The reason I ask about bag drop times is that day we embark coincides with the opening day of the Southampton Boat Show and our plan is to drop off our bags around 09.30 -10.00 then go to the show, with just a back pack containing our papers etc. The idea is that we will then return to complete boarding at around 14.00.

Can’t remember when I last had to pay to print aircraft boarding passes onboard.

Certainly seem to recall I once had to pay a nominal sum in the distant past, but not for a very long time.

On 5/15/2019 at 5:13 PM, adam7392 said:

Hi you should easily be able to take a train from Southampton rail station to London Victoria station which is centrally located and allows you to do your own tour around London using the underground and/or use a HOHO bus.  Return tickets are around £20pp and the journey is about 80 mins which is probably going to be much quicker than any tour relying on a coach from Southampton.  Trains are frequent.  Use https://www.thetrainline.com to check the details

Incorrect.

The only trains which go to Victoria are the very slow trains which go along the south coast and up past Gatwick.

You need a train to Waterloo, but why go all the way to London, unless it is your one chance for a ‘bucket list’ item. 

Much better to stay more local, perhaps taking the train to either Lymington/Brockenhurst, or to Winchester.

Another alternative is to take the ferry (departs from near to the entrance to Ocean Terminal) over to Cowes on the Isle of Wight.

Last year we took some friends from Texas on a local tour when they had a day in Southampton on Royal Princess. We went to Corfe Castle, saw Lawrence of Arabia’s grave at Moreton, and went back to Lymington (which they really enjoyed) for a pub  lunch.

Interestingly we stopped for coffee inWimborne Minster and visited what is our local church (the Minster which is 900 years old) on the way to Corfe Castle and they really enjoyed that. 

Too much to do on on your own even if you rented a car, but I think they would give the thumbs up to visiting Lymington.

FWIW, when we got back to the ship our arrival coincided with, what appeared to be, a very tired group of people returning from a ship’s tour to Windsor.

As someone has already said. Osborne House was owned by Queen Victoria and not Queen Elizabeth I as someone has reported.

It is quite modern and the original building was built around 250 years ago. It was purchased by Queen Victoria around 150 years ago. It is not over 400 years old as would’ve the case if it was built by QE I.

4 hours ago, bobstheboy said:

The Captain or Master is always in charge. Pilots are experts who advise.

Correct but with, I believe, one exception.

The exception is the Panama Canal where the pilot is in charge and the Captain assists in an advisory capacity.

Huh!

All I did was to log onto the full site  through Safari and then go to boards.

All I then did was to use the button on the Safari toolbar (the one which looks like a square with an arrow exiting at the top) to save to Home Screen and it created a Shortcut Icon which I can then use to go direct to the boards.from the IOS home screen.

Seems to vary. I have two cruises coming up one on Dec 7th and one on Dec 21st.

 

At about 105 days out from the first cruise, I e-mailed requesting my OBC for BOTH cruises in the same letter (I tend not to use the form but include the information in the text of the e-mail.

 

Received reply saying they would hold letter on file but would not credit OBC until 90 days from departure.

THEN

90 days from first cruise I received credit for the first cruise

BUT

Then received credit for the second cruise two days later (102 days before sailing)

 

Not that it is entirely relevant to this thread,but although I am in a suite and, am supposed to have priority booking for shore excursions, I was only able to get on the wait list for a tour on the first cruise and at 60 days before departure I am still waitlisted!!!

Something tells me Princess is reading this thread.

Why?

Well although I fully accepted, in my later reply, Geoherb’s observation that the suite priority benefit is for onboard excursion reservations, and not pre-booked excursion reservations, just 12 hours after posting my rely acknowledging Geoherb’s point, I received an e-mail from Princess confirming my excursion booking!

May just be co-incidence, but on the other hand may just be an indication that Princess are reading this thread!

Returning to main theme. I am finding it strange that people are getting their SOBC approved for next autumn’s cruises when the current situation is that the shareholder’s benefit is only officially confirmed for cruises up to July 2019. For sure we all know that it will soon be extended out to 2020, but when other are having to live with the 90 day rule it does seem that staff at Princess are far from consistent.

The suite benefit for excursions says "onboard" priority. You should have priority over other nonsuite guests if there's an opening for the excursion while you're onboard. But once a tour is sold out, Princess isn't going to bump someone from it so that someone in a suite can take their slot.

Yup. Fully understand, and never expected them to bump anyone, but it was annoying to discover that, by the time the shareholder’s OBC was credited, and still 89 days before sailing, I was already too late to book the ship’s tour I wanted and had to go on the wait list.

Perhaps she should have called someone in the Excursion Sales part of Princess as it seems they would have been involved in the change of policy.

 

 

 

Reverting to 90 days will restrict excursion bookings for folks with the SOBC.

Seems to vary. I have two cruises coming up one on Dec 7th and one on Dec 21st.

At about 105 days out from the first cruise, I e-mailed requesting my OBC for BOTH cruises in the same letter (I tend not to use the form but include the information in the text of the e-mail.

Received reply saying they would hold letter on file but would not credit OBC until 90 days from departure.

THEN

90 days from first cruise I received credit for the first cruise

BUT

Then received credit for the second cruise two days later (102 days before sailing)

Not that it is entirely relevant to this thread,but although I am in a suite and, am supposed to have priority booking for shore excursions, I was only able to get on the wait list for a tour on the first cruise and at 60 days before departure I am still waitlisted!!!

ROFL

30 knots is not a Storm, in fact it is not even a Gale. A Storm is 48-55knots.

30 knots is Beaufort Scale 7 and is correctly described as a ‘Near Gale’,

Getting a bit bumpy, particularly in a small yacht, but certainly nothing to worry about.

Just signed in to Princess website and got this message

 

 

 

There are no bookings associated with your sign in. You may still access your booking by entering the information on the next form on this page.

 

 

 

 

 

I was able to access it using the form.

 

 

 

Any ideas why the manage my bookings would have disappeared.

 

 

 

Sailing in Royal Princess - November 24, 2018.

Haven’t read all the replies, but I am experiencing the same effect in the U.K.

Was able to log into My Account this morning and see everything and actually printed boarding passes for our next cruise.

Then could log in but couldn’t see our upcoming cruises.

Then couldn’t log in to my account.

At this point checked that I could see the next two of our forthcoming cruises by logging in through Cruise Personaliser using name DOB and booking reference and had no problem.

About an hour ago, I went back and was now able to log into my account but still could not see our forthcoming cruises.

Also could not see the detail of my cruise history, though they did display the correct days and cruise credits.l

Clearly seems to be a system problem but not too worried given I was able to access my bookings via Cruise Personaliser.

Hopefully will all be sorted tomorrow.

As UK citizens you don’t need a visa provided you do not leave the Yangtze delta area and stay less than 144hours in Shanghai.

However when you arrive at PVG you will be required to show the immigration officer your confirmed ticket for leaving Shanghai, so make sure you carry your Princess boarding pass with your Passport,

You should find confirmation of this in Cruise Personaliser / My Account.

Go into your booking and click on Calendar & Planning then scan down to the bottom where you should find Notification including one on Chinese Visas and exemptions. Unfortunately they start off in a generic ‘catch all’ manner with the words”We recommend a single entry visa” but then in the second sentence they go on to set out who does not need a Visa.