B2B Questions

[cruisincdns]

We are looking at doing our first Back to Back (B2B) in the Caribbean, not until April 2012 (as we have 2 cruises booked already in 2011) and have a couple of questions. I have read on some of the threads that it may be cheaper to do a 14 day vs. booking two 7-day B2B's and to also take in to consideration FCC's and Shareholder credits. I am a CCL shareholder. Here are my questions:

 

1) If you book two 7-day B2B cruises, do you have to disembark after the first leg or can you stay on the ship?

 

2) If you do have to disembark and you have the same stateroom for the second leg, can you leave your personal belongings in your room or do you have to pack up and take your bags with you?

 

Any other B2B pointers are greatly appreciated.

 

Thanks in advance to those of you who reply.

 

Paul

[karatemom2]

We did B2B cruises on the Diamond in Alaska last year. We had the same stateroom for each leg of the cruise so we did not have to pack up or remove anything from our room. We received a packet with our new cruise cards for the second leg on the last evening of the first week. You do not have to disembark, although we chose to exit the ship as it was a port day for us. We simply exited with our old cards and used our new cards when we came back on board. We did not have to go through the embarkation process a second time and we were not required to do the muster drill the second week either.

[caribill]

We are looking at doing our first Back to Back (B2B) in the Caribbean, not until April 2012 (as we have 2 cruises booked already in 2011) and have a couple of questions. I have read on some of the threads that it may be cheaper to do a 14 day vs. booking two 7-day B2B's and to also take in to consideration FCC's and Shareholder credits. I am a CCL shareholder. Here are my questions:

 

1) If you book two 7-day B2B cruises, do you have to disembark after the first leg or can you stay on the ship? Usually if the turnaround day is in a US port you will need to disembark in order to satisfy immigration procedures. If do not have other plans to leave the ship, you will be asked to meet onboard at a designated time and led off the ship, through immigration, and then right back onto the ship at which time you will activate your cruise cards for the 2nd segment.

 

2) If you do have to disembark and you have the same stateroom for the second leg, can you leave your personal belongings in your room or do you have to pack up and take your bags with you? You can leave everything in your room. Since you are not leaving the cruise, you also do not have to fill in a customs form on turnaround day.

 

Any other B2B pointers are greatly appreciated.

 

Thanks in advance to those of you who reply.

 

Paul

 

Other pointers:

 

The cabin charges for the first segment can be carried over to the second segment so you do not have to worry about them being charged before the end of the full cruise. I do suggest checking with the purser's desk to make sure they have your account marked to do this.

 

If you are in traditional dining, you will normally be assigned to the same table (and waitstaff unless they are reassigned which can happen) for the second segment. I suggest making sure that the Matre'd knows that you do or do not want the same table for the second segment.

 

Unless you are in a big rush to have your room cleaned on turnaround day, your cabin steward will appreciate it if you let him/her know that he/she can wait to do your cabin until he/she has prepared all the cabins in his area for the new passengers.

 

Whether or not you are disembarking, a dining room is open for a leisurely breakfast on turnaround day although it opens and closes earlier than normal.

[chasetf]

We are looking at doing our first Back to Back (B2B) in the Caribbean, not until April 2012 (as we have 2 cruises booked already in 2011) and have a couple of questions. I have read on some of the threads that it may be cheaper to do a 14 day vs. booking two 7-day B2B's and to also take in to consideration FCC's and Shareholder credits. I am a CCL shareholder. Here are my questions:

 

1) If you book two 7-day B2B cruises, do you have to disembark after the first leg or can you stay on the ship?

 

2) If you do have to disembark and you have the same stateroom for the second leg, can you leave your personal belongings in your room or do you have to pack up and take your bags with you?

 

Any other B2B pointers are greatly appreciated.

 

Thanks in advance to those of you who reply.

 

Paul

Even if you do not have the same cabin on the second leg the crew will assist in the move. We did a Tahiti B2B and moved up to a balconey on the second leg. They arrived with a "hotel" cart and moved all our hanging clothes. We had to pack the suitcases with our drawer contents, and then they moved the suitcases too.

[ArthurIhde]

yes,i have to disembark

[juggles]

I did a B2B on the Ruby [Caribbean] and a couple of nights before the second week instructions are put in your cabin. You have to meet up at a certain time with other B2B passengers, I think it was the steak grill restaurant. You take your passport and boarding card. Then a member of the staff escort you off the ship and into customs, whereby they then give you a new card and escort you back on. The meeting took about half an hour and the 'on and off' took about ten minutes. We kept the same cabin

[BridgeMates]

 

Any other B2B pointers are greatly appreciated.

 

Thanks in advance to those of you who reply.

 

Paul

 

Requirements differ in every port but all are fairly easy. Word of warning tho...Put all your toilet articles away on your turnaround day. Luckily we returned to our cabin while a "helper" was throwing everything into a large trash bag. Our steward knew we were staying on but the helper apparently didn't understand. I could have lost a lot of stuff. We were able to get most of it back. I think he's paid by the steward and he just races in and cleans out the junk left in the bathrooms.

[WAVTAM]

I'll try to answer the other part of the question in reference to two 7 day bookings or one 14 day bookings. One just needs to compare the prices of each cruise and then the shareholder benefit and FCC earnings. As Elite we would get a bar set up every leg. If 14 day cruise you would only get one set up. Just spreadsheet the best results. We have done up to 4 legs ties together. WAVTAM

[Shogun]

Hi There

 

Doing b2b is fun, first the dinning the menu will most likely repeat, so if you miss something the 1rst week you can get it the 2nd,

 

like wise shows etc, now others will complain about things not changing

but some folk just can not be happy with what they have.

 

One thing you will notice is crew will know your name your drink etc, which is great fun on the 2nd week as others start asking why does the barman know your name.

 

Turn around day is a good day to look around the ship take photos before all the new folks arrive.

 

Look out for crew drills, man over board, or ship wide power outage,

 

these are interestng to watch.

 

Have a great b2b cruise

 

 

yours Shogun

[MGAfhc]

I usually buy Princess insurance. On a B2B do I have to buy two policies or is there a way to include both cruises under one policy?

[paul929207]

I buy insurance thru my TA, not Princess. I have always bought one policy when we have done a b2b.

[Bill B]

Duty-free alcohol is delivered on the last night of a cruise - so anything you buy on the first 'leg', you will have for the second 'leg'. ;)

[Booked]

We just did a b2b on the Crown, and made Fort Lauderdale a port day. The day before we arrived we received a package that included our new cruise card and an "In Transit" coupon that expedited us through the customs line.

We simply walked off the ship and returned at our convenience. You leave with your old cruise card, and reboard with your new one. No hassle at all.

And new photos were taken as we checked in.

It was great way to enjoy an extra port, pick up "necessaties" for the second leg of the trip, enjoy the city, and get away from the new arrivals.

(And what a great feeling breezing by all the people struggling with their luggage!)

Getting your duty free on the last day of the first leg is a nice bonus, too.

[karatemom2]

We just did a b2b on the Crown, and made Fort Lauderdale a port day. The day before we arrived we received a package that included our new cruise card and an "In Transit" coupon that expedited us through the customs line.

We simply walked off the ship and returned at our convenience. You leave with your old cruise card, and reboard with your new one. No hassle at all.

And new photos were taken as we checked in.

It was great way to enjoy an extra port, pick up "necessaties" for the second leg of the trip, enjoy the city, and get away from the new arrivals.

(And what a great feeling breezing by all the people struggling with their luggage!)

Getting your duty free on the last day of the first leg is a nice bonus, too.

 

This was exactly our experience on our Alaska B2B cruise. Very easy.

[jkocpa]

Another thing that I have done on the turnaround day is the laundry. If you have to do laundry over your cruise, the turnaround day is great - no one doing laundry, so you can get in and our quickly.

[DGSFlorida]

Even if you do not have the same cabin on the second leg the crew will assist in the move. We did a Tahiti B2B and moved up to a balconey on the second leg. They arrived with a "hotel" cart and moved all our hanging clothes. We had to pack the suitcases with our drawer contents, and then they moved the suitcases too.

 

Good luck on this one. We just came off BTB 10-day Panama Canal cruises on the Coral Princess and made every effort to arrange help getting our belongings moved from an inside cabin at the far aft to a balcony cabin 2 decks higher and near the front. Our first room steward talked up how he was going to help and then disappeared when the morning came. The only thing he did was inform the "boss" that we were moving to inform the 2nd room steward. The entire staff including client services told us they had no "hotel carts" on board but we would get help if we "needed" it. The resolution was us re-packing our suitcases with any clothes not on hangars and making numerous hurried trips to complete the move (We had a scheduled tour at 9:15 in Acapulco which gave us a very small window after the previous occupants left the 2nd cabin.) Fortunately we are not elderly and were able to handle the work ourselves.

 

Did have 2nd thoughts about having rewarded steward #1 with a nice extra tip.

[dbeckett]

When booking a B2B ask for the same cabin - that's what we've always done. No need to think about moving and we told the Stewards well in advance (though they always knew). I agree with the idea that if you are elite or platinum it usually works out better to book them as two cruises as you get to be able to use twice the internet, share benefit and get the fridge set-up twice. So far we've been lucky as there has never been a price advantage for booking the 20 day as opposed to the two 10-day cruises.

 

It starts to feel good when you go back to your cabin after the last dinner on the first cruise and you see all the bags in the hall, from there it gets better as you don't have to rush to get up and be with everyone trying to get an early breakfast.... roll on March for us to get the feeling again.

[cruisincdns]

Thank you ALL very much for the informative B2B tips. Great information!

 

Paul

[caribill]

When booking a B2B ask for the same cabin - that's what we've always done. with the idea that if you are elite or platinum it usually works out better to book them as two cruises as you get to be able to use twice the internet, share benefit and get the fridge set-up twice.

 

And it works out better to book as two cruises if you are not platinum or elite as you will get two cruise credits towards that higher status.

 

If you book a B2B as a single cruise, you only will get one cruise credit.

 

(Double the number of cruise credits if in a full suite)

[FLACRUISER99]

I usually buy Princess insurance. On a B2B do I have to buy two policies or is there a way to include both cruises under one policy?

If its booked as one cruise(one booking #) one insurance. If booked as two cruises (two separate booking #'s) you need two policy's.Princess now charges insurance as a % of the cruise cost so it should be the same amount.(I think)

[Gail & Marty sailing away]

Thay are great we love doing them

[dresch25]

Doing the b2b give you 2 cruises towards your statuses. If you are already elite than it does not matter.

[paul929207]

Doing the b2b give you 2 cruises towards your statuses. If you are already elite than it does not matter.

Actually, number of cruises does count after you are Elite. Starting after your 20th cruise, Princess gives you a loyalty OBC. It starts at $25 per cabin and goes up to $100 for those with over 50 cruises.

[ggprincess2004]

If you are staying in the same cabin, and even if you have it booked as one cruise, take the literally minute it takes to take every thing from your bathroom and put it somewhere in the stateroom. Sometimes the "helpers" do the bathrooms on turnaround day and just throw anything left here out. Not good. It only takes a minute or two to put it back in there in the afternoon. Rather safe than sorry, especially if you have hard to replace toiletries or medications in the bathroom:)

 

Ginger!

[Tweedy]

If you are staying in the same cabin, and even if you have it booked as one cruise, take the literally minute it takes to take every thing from your bathroom and put it somewhere in the stateroom. Sometimes the "helpers" do the bathrooms on turnaround day and just throw anything left here out. Not good. It only takes a minute or two to put it back in there in the afternoon. Rather safe than sorry, especially if you have hard to replace toiletries or medications in the bathroom:)

 

Ginger!

 

That's a great tip! I'll be doing my first b2b in April and after reading this will definitely relocate my stuff.