Low CDN dollar and what you're doing

[NOSaints1]

With the low dollar and costing more to cruise, how many are still cruising and how many are staying home till the US dollar falls against the CDN dollar, and what's causing this? Any advice on what your doing to not spend as much in US dollars and can you book all of your packages in CDN dollars.

[Kinkacruiser]

With the low dollar and costing more to cruise, how many are still cruising and how many are staying home till the US dollar falls against the CDN dollar, and what's causing this? Any advice on what your doing to not spend as much in US dollars and can you book all of your packages in CDN dollars.

 

Similar scenario here in Australia. We are choosing to cruise "locally" in the main and paying AUD.

[chrysalis]

You might enjoy this recent thread....

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1968249

[NOSaints1]

Just look for 1000 CDN you would get 672 US

[rocker57]

If we hadn't booked our upcoming cruise last year @ 20%, we would not be going. Until such things change with our dollar, won't be spending any time in the States, this summer, will be staying in BC

[CruisinFinsUp]

We booked last fall at 1.30 for March 2016. We'll load up OBC at that rate and we prepaid gratuities awhile ago. Until Canada buys an island :D we are stuck paying extra if we want some sort of winter escape.

We are just spending less elsewhere in order to preserve our winter break.

[mattie00]

We are very happy we booked our 13-day New Zealand and 29-day Australia cruises for 2017 some time ago in Canadian dollars. Hoping exchange rate with Australian dollar improves before we leave as onboard accounts are Australian dollars. Also hoping CDN dollar improves against US dollar before then as we plan a couple of days stopover in Honolulu each way to break up the flights. We are wintering in southwest US and our usual spending habits have changed considerably because of the fact we are only getting $0.68 US for our CDN$!:eek::mad:

[Drews_Cruise]

We're going on this one and have another booked for 2017 but if the Canadian Dollar doesn't come back, the 2017 cruise will be dumped for something closer to home. I heard that the dollar may drop to 60 cents soon and that just makes it a ridiculous waste of money to pay that kind of premium.:mad:

Edited January 17, 2016 by gardening_guy

[NOSaints1]

Your thoughts on Canada/New England cruises that have a few Canadian ports?

[Marlster]

With the low dollar and costing more to cruise, how many are still cruising and how many are staying home till the US dollar falls against the CDN dollar, and what's causing this? Any advice on what your doing to not spend as much in US dollars and can you book all of your packages in CDN dollars.

 

Our 14 day cruise was advertised in CAD, so that was fine, airline and hotel in USD. I will be careful what I buy. Once the price of oil comes back up then our CAD will go back up.

[Marlster]

We booked last fall at 1.30 for March 2016. We'll load up OBC at that rate and we prepaid gratuities awhile ago. Until Canada buys an island :D we are stuck paying extra if we want some sort of winter escape.

We are just spending less elsewhere in order to preserve our winter break.

 

How do you find out what Princess will give you if you prepay?

[snoodqueen]

We won't be cruising until the exchange rate improves. Can't justify throwing my hard earned money away so will be doing a different type of vacation instead. There's lots of places in Canada I haven't seen - good opportunity to explore them!

[tully07]

For this year, we're OK. We booked early for our two cruises - so have an exchange rate of 1.20. At that rate we are prepaying as much as we can - we've prepaid gratuities and will prepay OBC to cover the cost of excursions. we had the Sip and Sail promotion which we exchanged for OBC as well. Hotels, air, etc, for the Baltics were all booked through Princess in CAD, again at 1.20. Got a cheap rate on AC for our Florida flights -- hotel package through Princess at low exchange rate. Debated whether to book so much through Princess -- but it's worked out well for us this year. And we still haven't seen a cruise price as low as what we have, even with all the sales.

 

So we're OK for this year -- not sure what we'll do next year. I expect there will still be a trip to somewhere warm in the spring -- winters are just too long otherwise!

[CruisinFinsUp]

How do you find out what Princess will give you if you prepay?

 

Sorry not sure I understand your question.

 

We prepaid gratuities at the old gratuity rate last fall before the gratuities went up.

[Marlster]

Sorry not sure I understand your question.

 

We prepaid gratuities at the old gratuity rate last fall before the gratuities went up.

 

The prepaying of gratuties is all new to me, not quite understanding it all. How did you contact Princess to do this? E-mail or telephone?

[sueandkent]

Our cruise in March was booked last May at $1.20 after that who knows. This summer we're going to B.C.

[6rugrats]

You've basically already asked this in this thread:

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2301579

 

And this is already discussed at length here:

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2296102

 

As an American who is making payments on a house in Canada, and who realizes the importance of the strength of the US dollar in the world economy, I am very happy to see the dollar stronger.

Edited January 17, 2016 by 6rugrats

[CruisinFinsUp]

The prepaying of gratuties is all new to me, not quite understanding it all. How did you contact Princess to do this? E-mail or telephone?

 

Its one of the options in the cruise personalizer online.

You could also do it thru your travel agent, or Princess. On the website they have a section with a selection of onboard purchases - drink packages, cabin gifts, etc - call them to purchase OBC in the amount of gratuities.

[Romeril]

For Canadian residents, Windstar is offering a 20% discount on select Caribbean, Panama, and Costa Rica. It is not advertised, I was told by an agent over the phone.

 

Also, NCL, quoted me at par a couple of months ago! I don't know if it was a mistake or not, but did note that they don't display currency charged on their website as most others do.

 

See if these options work for you.