Family booked in 2 rms -- can one parent board separately?

[junglejane]

Question 1: Assume DH is booked in one room with one child (age 14) and I am booked in the room across the hall with the other child (age 10). I get to the port around noon with both children. Can I board with both kids, without waiting for DH, even though the 14 year old is booked in a different room from mine?

 

Question 2: Worst case scenario -- what if DH misses his flight or for whatever reason misses the ship. Now the 14 year old is in a room alone. Will Princess make us disembark for violating the rule against unaccompanied minors?

 

We are getting ready to book a Mexican Riviera cruise on the Sapphire. We prefer to book two rooms instead of a quad. It's cheaper (insides are cheaper than the 3rd and 4th in a balcony for the cruise we want), plus we can get double the OBC (from FCC's) and double the shareholder benefit if we have two rooms. But I am worrying about the very small chance of DH not making it to the ship because of scheduling problems. Not so much worrying about forfeiting his fare as I am about running afoul of the unaccompanied minors rule. Thoughts?

[Pam in CA]

Mary, excellent questions. Your best bet is to call Princess and ask question #1. Get the name of the person you speak to. If they seem unsure, ask to speak to a supervisor. Once you're onboard, there shouldn't be any problem switching cabins or changing cabin keys.

[Colo Cruiser]

Sounds like DH already missed the plane. :eek:

[junglejane]

Sounds like DH already missed the plane. :eek:

 

No, fortunately this is all hypothetical at this point.:) We are getting ready to book another Mexican Riviera cruise because the rates are so attractive. I was trying to keep my question as simple as possible without getting into complicated details.

 

Complicated details: What's really going on is that DH and I each have a chronically ill parent that requires occasional hospitalization (congestive heart failure). We will get the Princess Vacation Protection with the free Platinum upgrade, so we can cancel for any reason. If one of the grandparents dies or is near death, we will obviously cancel the trip. But we were thinking it might be quite posssible that one parent would be hospitalized at the last minute in a non-life threatening situation. One of us might then choose to stay home and let the others go ahead on the cruise. This would be easy if we book a quad, but for all the reasons in my first post we prefer to book two rooms. I'm waiting to hear back from my TA to see if we can book two of us in a triple or quad balcony and two in an inside, so that if one of us (most likely DH) can't make it, the other 3 can all sleep in the same room.

 

If this happens, and we forfeit one person's cruise fare, that would be an acceptable risk. I just am concerned about whether there would be any difficulty boarding in the first place if we are booked as described in my first post.

[Pam in CA]

I still think you should call and verify the Princess policy as regards to boarding. Once onboard, you should be fine. The issue is in the booking and check-in. Personally, I don't think it's a problem but you should get verification from Princess.

 

I remember checking in one time and there was a "combined" family checking in next to me. The woman was checking in several children with her but one of them had a different last name. Their father was arriving later. They wouldn't let the child, and thus the group, check in until the parent of the child (with the same last name) arrived. I didn't appear to be a cabin issue but rather an issue of the child being unable to check in without their parent. Since you are the parent, I don't think this would apply to you as you are the parent and have all of their docs.