Canada/New England in Sept.

[love2cruisegal]

Haven't been on cc in awhile, but have questions regarding Sept. Canada/New England cruises on CB. We are looking at 9/22/12 and booking an ocean view rather than a balcony as usual. Reason being we were on a Mex Riv cruise couple years ago and had a balcony and rarely used it because too windy/cool. Will we be disappointed if we book an ocean view? Also if we book a guarantee, will we be upgraded to balcony? This will be our 5th cruise and then we will be Platinum so not sure if this would make a differrence. Also has anyone sailed or booked this time and found the weather and seas good or bad?

 

Sorry for these questions, want to make sure we have chosen a good week. We know it's luck of the draw, however.

 

Thanks.

[Pam in CA]

The ocean north of Cape Cod is cold (50's) even in the summer so you may enjoy your balcony but it might be chilly for you.

 

If you book a GTY, you'll get a balcony if you book a balcony GTY. The only thing guaranteed is that you will be assigned a cabin in the category you booked, or better. You may be assigned a cabin of the same type in a better (very subjective) location; upgrades from one type (oceanview to balcony) to another happen but I wouldn't expect it.

[crusinbanjo]

Yes the water is always cold, bit the ports will likely still be quite warm & pleasant. Late September is a wonderful time to visit New England & Canada. Personally I love the balcony and would not give it up, even if it is cold outside!

[MustangGT]

We are booked on the 9/26 cruise NY - Quebec City. We have always cruised in a balcony cabin but opted for an oceanview this time. Not only will we probably have cool weather, the cruise is very port intensive. The only sea day is the 2nd to last day. Hope we don't miss the balcony too much:D

[love2cruisegal]

The ocean north of Cape Cod is cold (50's) even in the summer so you may enjoy your balcony but it might be chilly for you.

 

If you book a GTY, you'll get a balcony if you book a balcony GTY. The only thing guaranteed is that you will be assigned a cabin in the category you booked, or better. You may be assigned a cabin of the same type in a better (very subjective) location; upgrades from one type (oceanview to balcony) to another happen but I wouldn't expect it.

 

Thanks Pam in CA, you always have good responses. We figured we probably can't expect ov to bal, but it sure would be a nice surprise.

 

cruisinbanjo: Yes, it's true, we may not be able to give up the balcony, so we may end up with a gty balcony instead. We are hoping the ports will be pleasant too.

[crusinbanjo]

Thanks Pam in CA, you always have good responses. We figured we probably can't expect ov to bal, but it sure would be a nice surprise.

 

cruisinbanjo: Yes, it's true, we may not be able to give up the balcony, so we may end up with a gty balcony instead. We are hoping the ports will be pleasant too.

 

You are going to love the ports. Halifax is a great little city, Bar Harbor is fantastic and unique, (too bad they don't stop in Portland). Boston is easy to see on your own, (get to Quincy Market, then just follow the red line for a great walking history tour of the city), and lets not forget Newport. Be sure not to miss the Mansions, (known to the elite as "Summer Cottages"). These are nothing short of Spectacular! Then, if you have the time go & eat lunch at the Castle Hill Inn, a fantastic restaurant with a spectacular view of the entrance to Newport harbor.

 

Enjoy!

[geoherb]

We had an inside cabin for our cruise to New England and Canada. The itinerary was such that we would have not used a balcony very much. And the year we did it, an upgrade from an inside to a balcony was more than $700 per person. We had great weather the week we did the cruise except for a drizzly day in Newport.

[Talisker92]

We cruised on the Crown Princess, but we opted for the cruise tour from Toronto. We enjoyed it thoroughly. We chose to do the land portion first, because we felt boarding at the Brooklyn terminal was a zoo.

We had a balcony cabin and we were out there every day

My wife had never been to Eastern Canada and really liked both the land and sea portions.

The story is on our website. We will be happy to answer any questions.

[zacc]

We have done a Canada/New England cruise on the Caribbean Princess three times in the past ten years. All three times were the third week of Sept. While there may have been , I honestly don't remember a day or evening that we did not enjoy the balcony. It required a jacket sometimes but that didn't bother us. Ports of call are all really interesting. Your question about an upgrade.....an upgrade is like playing the lottery. We all dream about winning but very, very few actually do! Enjoy

[xavier]

Haven't been on cc in awhile, but have questions regarding Sept. Canada/New England cruises on CB. We are looking at 9/22/12 and booking an ocean view rather than a balcony as usual. Reason being we were on a Mex Riv cruise couple years ago and had a balcony and rarely used it because too windy/cool. Will we be disappointed if we book an ocean view? Also if we book a guarantee, will we be upgraded to balcony? This will be our 5th cruise and then we will be Platinum so not sure if this would make a differrence. Also has anyone sailed or booked this time and found the weather and seas good or bad?

 

Sorry for these questions, want to make sure we have chosen a good week. We know it's luck of the draw, however.

 

Thanks.

 

We were on this cruise Sept. 2011. The weather was very warm & sunny except for the day we were in Halifax & we used our balcony every day. Even tho this itinerary is super port intensive there was always time to sit on the balcony & enjoy.

[cruzinchris]

DH and I did the Canada/New England cruise on the CB in late September, 2010. Here's the link to my review here at CC: http://www.cruisecritic.com/memberreviews/memberreview.cfm?EntryID=73226

 

Cruising on the Crown Princess in 23 days.

Chris

[Bowie MeMe]

Went 2 years ago Quebec City to NYC the first week of Oct. on Crown Princess. We opted for an obstructed ocean view (E405) and had a great time. So glad that we chose the cheaper cabin (look in the thread by Renmark for pictures of the obstructed view cabins) because the weather gods were not with us on this trip. Cold and windy and hard rain many of the days. Very port intensive and the ports are often smaller places that it is easy to just walk around and go to a little local museum or shopping. The summer cottages were great and we did them on our own through the visitor center. It was pouring but still the public bus/trolley driver was so upbeat and fun that it was a great day. Nice day in Bar Harbor but TOO many ships (I think 3 but maybe 2 big ones was all) and the wharf to the tenders was a zoo. Customs took forever too -- don't have an early shore excursion. I wanted to see the leaves but THAT year it was not spectacular. The next week we went to a wedding in Cleveland and the leaves were spectacular -- Mother Nature does get around to it but booking a few months out you pay your money and hope for good luck!

 

From my experience on this cruise: 1. Do it -- a very nice cruise and set of ports but not spectacular (I had been to all ports by land before hand) 2. Balcony -- our cruise would have gotten at most one day of use as the weather was really cold and rainy. 3. Ending up in NYC is both good and bad. Fun to see -landed in the Manhatten docks- but finding a taxi in the rain early Friday morning was awful. I would not recommend walking off the ship. We and about a thousand others all decided to do the walkoff and getting off the ship was VERY easy. Getting away from the dock area was nearly impossible. {We walked 4 blocks up and 6 blocks over from dock area and showed our hotel loyalty card to get THEM to call us a cab as the taxi line had well over 400 people waiting for cabs}

 

Enjoy your trip balcony or no. Unfortunately you will not know if you can use the balcony much until AFTER your cruise.:rolleyes:

[WVBill]

Barbara - we're considering this cruise too in the future - Quebec to NYC.

Like you, we live in the DC metro area. May I ask, how did you get to Quebec - and back from NYC?

 

We've been exploring the options- plane and train - any others you considered?.

[Bowie MeMe]

We flew through Cleveland. One stop. Tiny regional jet with leather seats and 2 seats on one side of the aisle and 1 on the other into Quebec City

! This was less than half the fare for the non-stop from IAD. I priced out lots of ways using BWI, DCA, IAD but as for train expensive and almost impossible over the border though I don't remember why. Home from NYC was going to take Amtrack but SWA had a $39 sale and it was cheaper than the train to BWI. Taxi ride to either airport was more expensive than the air. :p Air Flights can fly to LGA (Lagurdia or Detroit, maybe even Boston) consider 2 part trip SWA to someplace and then up to Canada.

 

It was a lovely cruise it was just the weather that week was NOT nice.

[love2cruisegal]

Want to thank all of you for your comments and suggestions. We booked our cruise this week for Sept. 29 in an oceanview. We're hoping for an upgrade but we'll be satisfied this time since itinerary is port intensive. Also hoping for calm seas, but that area can be questionable.

 

By the way, has anyone stayed in NY day before sailing? We are planning to and will be looking at hotels. Any suggestions would be great.

[jrzebird]

I did the round trip Brooklyn departure cruise to NE/Canada the last 2 years, during the 3rd week in August. I absolutely loved it. The ports, the people, just wonderful.

 

As for weather, even in August it was cold and rainy the first year. This year we had pretty good weather. It was fairly warm and dry.

 

That being said, BOTH years we had to outrun a hurricane on the last day. This year was Irene and a lot of passengers stayed onboard because they couldn't make connecting flights. Those who stayed onboard did so at a greatly reduced fare. A lot of people couldn't make it to the ship because all flights were stopped in an out of NYC. In the end, the CB ended up spending an overnight in Brooklyn and then had to skip a port; The last year we had some pretty rough weather but the cruise after ours had to skip the last stop and rush back to NYC before a hurricane hit. They actually docked in Manhattan and then the next morning the sailed back to Brooklyn to disembark

 

So, it's always a great adventure and it helps to keep your humor and accept things as they come.

[Donder1]

You are going to love the ports. Halifax is a great little city, Bar Harbor is fantastic and unique, (too bad they don't stop in Portland). Boston is easy to see on your own, (get to Quincy Market, then just follow the red line for a great walking history tour of the city), and lets not forget Newport. Be sure not to miss the Mansions, (known to the elite as "Summer Cottages"). These are nothing short of Spectacular! Then, if you have the time go & eat lunch at the Castle Hill Inn, a fantastic restaurant with a spectacular view of the entrance to Newport harbor.

 

Hey, many cruise lines stop in Portland Maine! Cunard, Celebrity, RCL, Carnival. What is wrong with Princess? Portland is my hometown and the best NE port of all. We have lobster, Old Port, LLBean, Kennebunkport, museums, lighthouses, foliage (best leaf peeping is in the first two weeks of Oct.). We have wonderful folks here and want you to experience OLD New England

C'mon Princess, get with it!