Corfe Mixture

I am doing this cruise back to back with the Diamond cruise on 7th December and we have discussed this on one of the roll calls.

You will not have any problem at all and, assuming you have an EU passport do not need any visas (Vietnam are a bit like Princess and shareholder credits in that they have not yet reconfirmed this but they soon will. Remember lots of French go to Vietnam for their hols)

Ignore the bit about me talking about my possible need to get a Visa (on one of the roll calls) my situation is complicated by the fact that I am doing back to back cruises and will visit Vietnam on both cruises thereby possibly breaking the rules of the EU exemption by returning within 30days.

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Ok it is announced. She will become:

Her Royal Highness Princess Henry of Wales, Duchess of Sussex, Countess of Dumbarton, Baroness / Lady Kilkeel.

(Reason for Baroness / Lady is that when first addressing a Baroness the correct form is to use Baroness and thereafter revert to Lady though this is hardly relevant as she will rarely use this title.)

As in the case of the Duchess of Cambridge, she will be known in England as the Duchess of Sussex, and as the Countess of Dumbarton in Scotland.

She will use these titles rather than that of Princess Henry of Wales as these are titles she will hold in her own right

Just to complete the story:

After the wedding Princess Henry of Wales will be:

Sixth in order or precedence when accompanied by her husband

and

Twelfth in order of precedence if no-one is accompanied by their husbands

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If they became the Duke and Duchess of Windsor (highly unlikely) it would cause a stir!!

And either Clarence (very bad history) or Connaught (won’t go down well in Ireland)

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It’s possible but probably not, the current Royal Princess was named by Princess Catherine due to the first Royal Princess being named by Princess Diane.

There is no Princess Catherine, though there may one day be a Queen Catherine.

I presume that you are referring to:

Her Royal Highness Princess William of Wales, Duchess of Cambridge, Countess of Strathearn, Lady Carrickfergus.

For what it is worth, after her marriage Meghan Markle will become:

Princess Henry of Wales, though it is highly likely that the Queen will create a Dukedom for her husband early on their wedding day which will mean she will become a Duchess. She will not become a Princess in her own right though if she were subsequently to have a daughter from the marriage, the child could become be a Princess but that is in the gift of Her Majesty The Queen.

The current expectation is that her husband will be created Duke of Sussex, though it could be any of Clarence, Connaught, Cumberland, Kendal, Ross, Sussex, Windsor and Albany, in which case she will become:

Her Royal Highness Princess Henry of Wales, Duchess of Sussex. It is also likely that he will be created an Earl in Scotland

If cruising in April / early May, I would choose the Med.

Northern Europe is cool at this time and is best cruised in July when we have very long days. For example, in the U.K. we get 16 hours with the sun above the horizon in June with sunset being around 9pm plus around one hour of additional dusk.

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I hope your car never gets stolen

What's the betting he/she doesn't reply. :D

As others have said this policy has been around for a while and, whilst we may not like it, the rules are quite clear.

Personally, I wonder if they have thought it through as, for people outside the USA, the exchange rate on advance payments, (including tours, self purchased OBC, Princess Cellars, pre-paid gratuities etc) is set at the date of booking and it then remains fixed until you get on board.

Whilst this can help some of the time, by locking in a favourable exchange rate, insisting that folks pay up front for tours simply means that, when the exchange rate moves the other way, not allowing folks to book tours on the basis that they will be charged to your onboard account, becomes a disincentive to booking tours before boarding the ship.

For example, on our next cruises, the exchange rate for any bookings I make is fixed at $1.23 to the £, whereas the current rate is hovering around $1.40. As a result, I have not gifted myself any OBC and made no pre-purchases of tours, restaurant reservations or alcohol pre-purchases on the basis that I will sort them all out once onboard.

For sure I can understand why, as others have pointed out, they needed to do something about the folks who booked loads of tours with the pre-determined intention of cancelling the ones they decide not to take, but I can't see any solution to this other than the one they have gone for.

Such is life. Yes, it is a minor annoyance arising from the need to address the selfish behaviour of some clients, but it really is no big deal. I guess the bottom line is that the problem was sufficiently bad for them to decide to live with the disadvantage of having little or no prior knowledge of the projected onboard spend of non-US clients.

I suspect it was a similar problem that resulted in the decision to make Future Cruise Deposits non-refundable on cruise cancellation, as they probably had to do something about the fact that some people, would use them to book a selection of cruises, for the same dates, as soon as the schedule was published with the intention of not deciding which one to take until the date when there became a cost penalty for cancelling.

When your suite or mini-suite includes Club Class Dining, it's completely logical to take advantage of it. (y)

Absolutely and whenever we are in a suite, as we normally are, we take advantage of it

BUT

when we can’t get a suite and the choice is between two adjacent mini-suites where one is Club Class (M1) and the other isn’t (MB), would I pay £1000 ($1400) EACH for the club class on a 24 day cruise the answer is NEVER and my observation that we could dine every night in The Crown Grill for 60% of the difference ($800) each I s simply a device to explain why I think it is such poor value.

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Probably not at that price.

 

 

 

If you are able to get your AFT suite, you will have an opportunity to try the Club Dining. I did for 28 days last October and the Club Dining was a wonderful experience for us. You will be able to judge for yourself.

 

 

 

If the Minisuite location is not desirable for you, the Club Dining is really the only benefit.

 

Club Dining does make the Princess Suite experience more competitive with other cruise lines. (Just a little closer)

Actually we have already experienced Club Class dining when in a suite and agree with all the positive comments

BUT

until I found myself in the situation of having to be waitlisted for a suite, I had never looked at the difference in cost between a normal mini-suite and a Club Class mini and was surprised that the difference was greater than the cost of dining EVERY NIGHT in the Crown Grill

AND

whilst I appreciate the benefits of Club Class dining, IMHO the benefits do not compare with the experience of either The Crown Grill or Sabatini’s.

So given the choice between paying £1000 extra for a Club Class mini-suite or £600 to eat in The Crown Grill every night, The Crown Grill wins hands down every time.

On the subject of your last paragraph where you say that Club Class dining enhances the suite experience, then I have to disagree. This was discussed at the time Club Class was introduced and a number of people, including myself, observed that, under the old system, suite passengers were generally unofficially assigned a reserved designated table in Anytime Dining and could therefore enjoy the equivalent benefits of Club Class dining and enjoy the company of friends irrespective of their cabin grade. However that is another subject and not relevant to my original observation that for Elites in mini-suites there are better and cheaper dining options than paying for Club Class.

Think it only affects companies who store data about us (UK/Europeans) outside the EU. So the companies you listed shouldn't be affected.

I'm not sure you are correct Dave.

Certainly my UK bridge club, which publishes our result on the internet, believes it applies to them and yesterday we received an e-mail on the subject from The National Trust about continuing to e-mail/contact us, though they were not suggesting that they would cancel our membership

Unable to get a confirmed booking for our normal suite, yesterday I decided to book a mini-suite and wait list for an aft suite at which point I had to make a choice about which grade of mini-suite to book.

The cruise concerned is 24 days long and the difference in price between an MB mini-suite and a Club Class M1 mini-suite is exactly £1000 which offers Club Class dining and a few other extras. However, as we are Elite, apart from the Club Class dining, these other extras don't appear to offer us anything at all.

BUT

I can eat EVERY NIGHT in the Crown Grill at a time of my choosing for less than £600.

So, why would I ever consider booking a Club Class mini-suite?

Or am I missing something?

I believe they are trying to address that by including the insert in the latest Princess Journey magazine - but again, it has the risk of being treated as spam :)

Interestingly, as they make clear, the insert can only be used by ONE person. If there are two of you then, they make the point ON THE INSERT that one of you will have to visit the website - Unless of course you have elected for BOTH of you to receive mail shots.

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I believe they are trying to address that by including the insert in the latest Princess Journey magazine - but again, it has the risk of being treated as spam :)

What is interesting is the way Princess (or rather Carnival) are dealing with this.

For example whilst all my members clubs (bridge club, yacht club etc.) have made the effort to deal with this, we have not YET heard from any of British Airways Executive Club, National Trust, Tesco, Hotels.com Rewards, Amazon, Hyatt, etc.

Wonder how it will affect Facebook AND INDEED Cruise Critic!!

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Interesting, but, whist they do have to comply with the law, I can't imagine that they will simply remove people from the Captain's Circle without making a serious effort to chase up those who do not update their profile, perhaps even to the extent of phoning people who do not update their profile.

Remember this is a piece of much needed Data Protection / Privacy legislation and companies are going to work very hard to avoid losing loyal clients which is why they have loyalty programmes (Many years ago BA did some research on client loyalty and discovered that it cost 10 times as much marketing effort to attract a new customer as it does to retain an existing customer and that, once you lose a formerly loyal client, it is almost impossible to get them back).

Also remember that not everyone who is in the scheme visit the website and I can't imagine that Princess are ever going to want to exclude clients, from their loyalty club just because they don't use the internet.

I have two suites booked back to back at Christmas and I have to admit that, I had not noticed the e-mail. As a result, if I had not seen this thread and they had not chased up my membership, there is a distinct possibility that I would have arrived at check-in to discover that we are not longer members and not entitled to either our internet credit or our $25 loyalty OBC when the booking confirmation they sent me says that I am Elite.

For sure, they do have to comply with the new legislation, but I am pretty sure that what that will mean in practice is that folks accounts will be suspended until they come to check in for their next cruise when they will be invited to give the permissions necessary to re-instate their membership accounts. (Remember that this legislation applies to keeping your personal data secure and, even if they delete your electronic records, they will still have hard copies of your account)

We were on CB over Christmas and New Year and there was certainly a bit of a problem for the first couple of nights and the staff were quite stressed out as they were definitely short of tables.

However after the lady in charge of CC dining had a chat with her superiors, the area assigned to CC was increased in size and the problem did go away, though one night we noticed that, in order to avoid us having to wait, they quickly changed all the linen on one table to re-assign it from ATD to CC.

You are welcome.

Just a bit of additional information relating to the fact that you say you will be tired when you arrive in SCL.

Yes you will be a little washed out, but it actually won't be too bad at all for jet lag. As I said I have not flown into SCL, but I have flown into other South American cities after a long overnight and it really was not a big problem.

The reason is that jet lag is a function of both lack of sleep and more importantly confusion of your body's expectation in terms of sunrise/sunset, day and night and the body doesn't have too much of a problem coping time shifts of just three hours, particularly if the shift occurs over a long night flight. In this respect what you will find is the following.

You will be getting on the aircraft in the late evening when it is dark and your body is expecting you to go to sleep.

Although you will not have a flat bed in WT+, your seat is reasonably comfortable and basically what you will find happens is that you will quite easily get at least 8 hours of, perhaps disturbed, sleep during your 15 hour flight.

When you get off the plane, it will feel like morning. You will only have to deal with a time change of 3 hours, you will be reasonably rested, the sun will be up and the multiple snoozes over a long night will help deal with the poor quality of your sleep. In short it will just seem that you have had a long disturbed night's sleep.

Though we are all different, this schedule is generally regarded as one of the best timing for minimising the effects of jet lag, even better than the late departure / overnight flights from Hong Kong, which cross more time zones and arrive in the UK a little too early to make one really feel you have had a good night's sleep, even if you have had nine or ten hours.

Certainly when we have flown to South America, we have had no problem whatsoever in going out for dinner in the evening of our arrival.

One thing I would suggest which tends to go against what one normally does is DO NOT to change one's watch when you first get on the aircraft, unless you are going to have the meal. (FWIW, whenever we have a late night departure, irrespective of where we fly from, we always eat in the airport in the early evening rather than having a meal when our local body clocks are saying that it is 11pm - actually whilst I eschew the meal, I do take a bread roll and a small bottle of wine as that seems to help me to get off to sleep!!).

The reasoning for this is that, when you depart, it will be 10.30ish, you will be tired and you do not need to be reminded that it is only 7.30pm in Santiago. Do what feels best for you, but do it whilst still thinking in UK time and commence you sleep pattern in UK time. Then change your watch when they come around to serve breakfast. That way everything, sleep, breakfast, sunrise etc., all seem to be happening at the correct time.

Whatever you do, you can look forward to the flight. The 787-9 is a very nice aircraft, with larger windows and excellent 'mood lighting' to help your body deal with the time changes.

Have used both booking.com..in UK, America and hotels.com in USA and Australia but our favourite is IHG.com...Intercontinental hotel group which includes Holiday Inns, Holiday Inn Express, Indigo Hotels, Crown Plaza hotels, Intercontinental hotels, Staybridge Suites.

 

You sign up for Priority Club ( does what it says..you get greeted as member, given water, snacks and sometimes free upgrades) to start to collect points that are redeemable against further bookings.They guarantee to be the cheapest booking rate for their brands of hotels. Different rates you can choose include 'Best Flexible' and 'Senior' which you can re rate if price goes down and cancel until one or two days (Staybridge) before scheduled stay.

 

Payment is on departure..usually by credit card in local currency, but if you have card that has no overseas transaction fee..no worries. [/quote]

 

However, the point is that paying by credit card on departure in local currency, might have a cost issue in Chile, in that doing so almost certainly will attract a 19% tax which could otherwise be avoided and that the premiums for using DCC which MIGHT enable one to avoid the tax can be as high as 18%.

 

I think what HomelessBear is looking at are the risks associated with using a booking agency, and particularly the risks related to dispute resolution on arrival, which will allow him/her to pay in Sterling before he/she leaves and thereby hopefully get the benefits of the tourist exemption from this tax.

 

Changing subject

 

Homelessbear,

 

Forgot to say, that, concerning you fear of using an agency - most, if not all, of the problems people report about bookings made through agencies not being there when they arrive can be traced back to the same issue.

 

The issue arises because they have made a booking, using a credit card, and with a commitment to pay on arrival.

Then for whatever reason there is a problem with the card (stolen / lost are the normal problems which trigger the problem) and a new card is issued.

Quite naturally it never occurs to this person that the booking is guaranteed against a credit card which has been cancelled.

What then happens is that 24 hours before arrival, the hotel does a test hold, of a small amount, on the card which gets rejected. If you have booked direct with the hotel, they will have your e-mail address and may or may not contact you.

BUT

If you have booked through an agency, the hotel has no easy method of contacting you and simply cancels the booking.

 

This problem should not arise if you have paid a major agency in advance and all the stories I have heard about hotel bookings being cancelled (mostly in Fort Lauderdale and Miami) are on bookings which have not been pre-paid.

 

I have never heard a story of a pre-paid booking being cancelled. Remember if you book and pay in the UK for a hotel room, you have a contract with the agency whereby they have.

a) made an offer to supply a room in a hotel at a price (THE OFFER)

b) you have accepted that offer (THE ACCEPTANCE)

and

c) the bit folks often forget, by paying for the room, you have made what is known as THE CONSIDERATION.

 

All those three aspects need to be there to make an enforceable contract.

The hotel agency customer support lines run 24/24 and they will know that they have this legal obligation - (OK, if the hotel burns down the contract is subject to something called FORCE MAJEURE and becomes FRUSTATED but that would be a problem however you booked)

 

What is missing in the cases where folks have promised to pay the hotel on arrival is THE CONSDERATION. There is an argument that consideration can be promissory (in other words a promise to pay - when you arrive) but when the hotel discovers that the credit card is not valid, they are perfectly entitled to consider the promise to have been broken and as a result they cancel the contract.

 

This basis for the law of contract is pretty much the same anywhere in the world (and it is sequential which is why, if you buy an item from a UK company using your credit card and they fail to deliver you have a claim against you credit card company as your consideration is payable to them - when the credit card bill arrives - meaning that your contract is with them - they in turn will have a contract with the supplier, but that is their problem not yours. However if you use your debit card, it is the same a cash or cheque and your consideration will have been paid direct to the supplier, meaning that your only redress is against the supplier).

 

In all cases, the law that will be applied will relate to the place where the contract was made UNLESS the terms of the contract specifically state that the contract will be subject to a certain jurisdiction.

 

In the case of the agency I use, their terms and conditions include the paragraph.

 

'If you have any questions about these terms and conditions or your rights and obligations, these will be governed, and construed in accordance with, the laws of England and Wales.'

Hi HomelessBear,

All the booking agencies seem to me to be fine and reliable.

Personally I use hotels.com as I have registered with their 'Rewards' system which basically rewards me with a retrospective 10% discount after I have stayed 10 nights (what happens is that I get a voucher to the value of 1/10th on my pre-tax expenditure on the 10 nights I have stayed).

Scheme / rewards entitlement remains valid provided I book a stay within one year of my most recent night.

I have used them for something like 30-40 nights of bookings in the UK, France, Florida, California, Hong Kong and Australia and never had a problem. I will shortly make bookings with them for Singapore and Tokyo.

One can pay now in Sterling or at the hotel in the local currency (when the amount you pay in sterling will be a function of the then exchange rate). I always pay up front when I book, in Sterling, and then keep an eye on the latest price and make use of the 'Price Guarantee'.

The price guarantee which works as follows:

a) if you have booked on a cancellable basis, then you simply cancel and re-book. Done this many times, paying on my BA Amex Premium Plus card (in order to get credits towards the £10,000 I need to earn my next 2-4-1 Avios voucher).

NOTE: I have a premium plus card for which I pay £195 per annum because the spend is half that needed if I had the basic card AND the voucher remains valid for two years rather than 12 months - but that is another story.

However, FWIW, and something to think of for the future, I have just paid £1,080 taxes plus 200,000 Avios, instead off 400,000 for TWO of us to fly FIRST class to Tokyo and return FIRST class from Shanghai (I already had the Avios, but cost to purchase from Executive club with the current bonus of would have been £2,415 meaning that, if I had to purchase the Avios, I could have booked our first class round trip tickets, for a total outlay of £1,750 each. Business class seats would have been a little cheaper, in terms of Avios used - but not in terms of the taxes, but I would then have had to pay around £250 to select our seats).

Returning to the main subject:

b) if you book on non-refundable basis, and the price goes down, then you simply phone the customer service number and they will issue you with credit vouchers (valid for 12 months) for the difference - plus a couple of quid - which can be used on your next booking.

Done this virtually every time that I have booked early and never a problem. Last December, when I saw the price of as five night stay in Key West drop by over £300, I phoned and was offered two vouchers, one for £250 and another for the balance. When I asked if I could use some of the potential credit to upgrade my non-refundable booking to an ocean facing balcony, they could not change the non-refundable booking. However, what they did was to phone the hotel, explain the situation and the hotel agreed to cancel my non-refundable booking so that I could book the ocean facing balcony. So, in order not to lose my booking, with the hotels.com rep on the phone, and him also on the phone to Hyatt, I booked the new room and Hyatt then cancelled the old room

Having said all that, what I do not know, with absolute certainty, is whether or not a booking made through an agency and paid for in advance in Sterling would avoid the 19% tax in SCL, but I would expect that to be the case. The hotels,com website mentions the tax, but then they have to as one of the options they offer on cancellable bookings, for those who don't like to pay up front, is to pay on arrival by credit card when you will be billed in local currency.

Just phone your chosen hotel booking agency's customer services and ask then to confirm that the hotel is being pre-paid in something other than Chilean Pesos.

Note also that some overseas establishments will offer to bill you in Sterling, but they do this using a feature known as Dynamic Currency Conversion. DCC is generally regarded as a rip-off as, whilst it is convenient, the retailer sets the exchange rate which is never as good a rate as your credit card company and may even be punitive. FWIW - I use Nationwide Select Credit card for purchases and a Natiowide Select Debit card for ATM withdrawals and have never paid commission charges in countries as varied as the Colombia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Vanuatu, though I have paid local charges for using my debit card in an ATM in the US. Whether or not the Chilean authorites will regard a payment made using DCC as a foreign currency transaction is something, on which, I am unable to advise.

Hope you find that useful.

LATE COMMENT:

First, all these booking agencies have tremendous clout with the hotels.

Last December I had a minor problem with my room grade at the Hilton Marina in Fort Lauderdale. I had booked very early and got a great price. When I arrived, they insisted that I had booked a pool view room. However, all I had to do was to show them my confirmation from hotels.com and all was fixed. Next morning they said breakfast was not included in my deal. again all I had to do was to show thenm my conformation and the problem went away.

Also I have no doubt in my mind that it was only because of the clout of hotels.com who were looking at giving me a shed load of vouchers, that I was able to negotiate the cancellation of the non-refundable booking. I do not believe that I would have been able to negotiate that myself even though was planning to re-book a higher grade room - albeit at a lower price than my non-refundable booking.

So, all in all I would not worry about being abandoned or let down by the booking agency. They have much more clout than you with the hotels.

I'm sure Homeless Bear knows this recent change, but for those contemplating a similar cruise in the future: effective this season Princess (and most other cruise lines) has changed the embarkation/disembarkation port for Santiago to San Antonio reportedly due to continuing issues with the Valparaiso port authority and workers. In my opinion that is a shame because Valparaiso (and its environs) is a wonderful and interesting city.

Thanks for correcting me. You are right. I hadn’t realised that Princess et al had moved from Valparaiso to San Antonio.

Don’t think that change invalidates my comments on SCL and transport.

What idiots the folks in Valparaiso must be. Similar thing happened a few years back in La Rochelle when the port workers decided to make a political protest against the election of Sarkozy by threatening to go on strike on day’s just before a cruise ship was due in, only to call it off once the cruise line had made a last minute change to the itinerary and brag, in the bars, about the fact that they had punished the government without losing any pay. dam. A few days later they threatened to do it and just before the cruise lines produced their next year’s brochure. Result was that the whole of Carnival Corp pulled out and removed La Rochelle from the new brochures.

The town lost a lot of tourist income and it took them FIVE years and a lot of marketing bucks to get them to put the port back in the schedule. I was there when the first ship returned and the town spent an awful lot of money putting on special events, just for that one day, with banners everywhere proclaiming La Rochelle to be the ‘Most Welcoming Cruise Port in Europe’.

Hi Homeless Bear,

I was just about to draft a reply when I saw you were ahead of me with your post #35, but just to fill in the gaps, and reassure you, you have got a good deal.

As you have said that you are flying direct to Santiago de Chile, it is obvious that you will be flying with BA on a four class 787-9

(visit www.basource.com if you want to know more about the aircraft type and seating configuration.

BA only offer one flight per day, which arrives about 10am in SCL, but you already know that.

The problem, which again I think you already know, is that although Princess probably refer to the cruise starting in Santiago, it actually starts in Valparaiso which is about 70 miles from the airport.

So given you are arriving a day early, you basically had three choices.

a) go into Santiago and travel down the next day - NOT A GOOD IDEA as you first going in the wrong direction by going into Santiago and will then need to travel from there to Valparaiso on the day of the cruise.

b) go to Valparaiso on the day of arriving, which would have had its advantages, but you will be tired when you get there and you would have had you to make your own travel arrangements with very limited options other than taxi - which would cost around £100.

or

AS YOU ARE DOING

c) stay at an airport hotel and pick up the ship's transfer the next day. As you have discovered there is absolutely no problem in doing this as Princess don't care whether you have arrived on an inbound flight, been there a few days and dropped off a rental car or simply done as you are doing and flying in one day early - been there done that, but not at Santiago

By far the best option is the one you have gone for, although it does have one downside which you will have to put up with and that is that, in my experience, SCL is not the best airport in the world for facilities etc and you will probably just pass the day resting in your hotel

Also, the choice of hotels is rather restricted. I rather think that the Holiday Inn is the only hotel actually on the airport, although there are a few more with a couple of miles, of the airport which have a shuttle service.

So, all in all, you are really going to be confined to your hotel for the first day, as I don't think there is much else around, though as you will need the rest after a 13 hour flight in WT+, is that a real problem?

Disclaimer: I have only flown out of SCL - never in - and I was not impressed. Check-in absolutely chaotic - lines being started and subsequently moved with the fittest getting to the front of the new check-in line. The lounges were very bad indeed - overcrowded to the extent of people standing around with drinks in their hand whilst others were sitting on large suitcases, which I guess they had not declared at check-in and were hoping to get gate checked, thereby avoiding excess baggage charges. We left the lounge and sat on metal seats by the gate for around three hours.

BUT, as I say, you have got the best solution and, unlike those arriving from Europe on the day and taking the Princess shuttle, you will be rested when you make the transfer the following morning.

Just one last point, you need to check the tax status of your hotel booking. The rules are not complicated, but you do need to know them if you are booking your own hotel.

Quite simply there is a 19% sales tax payable at the hotel.

BUT:

Provided you are a foreigner and you are paying / have paid in a foreign currency, NOT in Chilean PESO on a UK credit card, are staying in Chile for less than 60 days and can show a passport and immigration card, for EVERYONE in the room, then you are entitled to be exempt from this tax.

Kindest

CM

That sounds quite concerning, not looking forward to first trip to USA if that is the welcome!

Remember the sense of the first post was ‘is boarding at Southampton in a secure port like we are used to Fort Lauderdale.’ 🤣

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That was my thought too, but out my f Fort Lauderdale, what do we need to be aware of.....

We always tip the porters at Fort Lauderdale and have never had a problem although, on our most recent cruise, when I tipped the porter we used on disembarking, he made a point of telling me that it had taken longer because we were no able to use the fast track lane at immigration.

True - but he knew which lane we were in before we handed over our bags.

I did not respond to his comment and there was no problem.

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The staff at Southampton are well paid and value their job.

If they are caught scamming clients, they will lose their job.

Result you are very unlikely to have anyone try to take advantage of you.

Other countries, mostly outside Europe, employ port staff on low salaries on the assumption they will receive tips. In those circumstances it can be difficult to distinguish between a reasonable level of tips and, as we say, ‘being taken for a ride’.

The OP may have been scammed somewhere in Europe, but it was almost certainly not by a person on a salary.

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Suite passengers are also entitled to dine off the full MDR menu on their balcony at no charge and you can invite others to join you. So, as the balcony of an aft Owners Suite is very large and there is ample room for five of you to dine on the balcony, there is no reason why you should not do that one evening.

Note: This is not to be confused with Ultimate Balcony Dining, which is available to everyone for a fee of $100 per couple. However, if you are tempted by UBD, then take note that your friends can still join you and have their UBD charged to their stateroom. We did exactly this on our last cruise when friends in a mini-suite joined us for UBD one evening when we had an evening departure.