Have any UK cruisers booked Princess through a US TA recently?

[suekay]

We use a US TA all the time now, but our last 2 and next 2 cruises are with Royal Caribbean as they positively welcome bookings from "abroad". We want to go back to Princess on Nov 2005, but it wasn't easy booking through the US in Sept 2002 (our TA managed it, but I think she had to be a little devious which made me feel uncomfortable)

[suekay]

I got interrupted (I'm at work!) and wasn't able to edit the post within 30 minutes....I was going to ask if anybody has booked Princess through the US recently, and did you have any problems? Thanks

[Aussie Gal]

We are in the same situation here in Aussie land. I met Kim from Kim's Kruises whilst on the T.P. in March and she said that she could book any Princess cruise for us and it wouldn't be a hassle.

 

Just a thought.

 

Jennie.

 

The next cruise is always the best!

 

3RD OCTOBER, 2004 PRINSENDAM

[Toto2Kansas]

Sometimes you need a 'friend' that lives in the U.S. or Canada so you can borrow their address for the booking. (hint hint)

 

Tahitian Princess 10/14/04

RCI-Legend of the Seas 3/27/05 Panama Canal.

One Phantom Booking still open with Princess.

[CassCruise]

I also live in the land of Aus and also recently booked a cruise through the US but using a different TA to the one above - no probs encountered so far.

 

Jane

[kimba_99]

Me too... no problems so far EXCEPT our Aussie dollar has gone down against the green back!!! I hope it goes back up before final payment is due.

 

Cheers,

Kim

 

Sapphire Princess Roll Call Christmas/New Year Cruise Syd-Auk 23 Dec 2004

 

My pics from Alaska, June 2003

http://community.webshots.com/user/kimba_99

 

 

[Aussie Gal]

Kim,

 

You are so right. Our dollar has certainly lost a lot in the last few weeks.

 

I am hoping it will gradually go back up again before July. We are due then to pay for our cruise and are paying in U.S. dollars.

 

Oh well, it is only money!! If not we will have lost a thousand or two. Just less to spend while away!

 

Jennie.

 

The next cruise is always the best!

 

3RD OCTOBER, 2004 PRINSENDAM

[ourlol]

Yes, I used KK a couple of weeks ago to book a med cruise for my in-laws. Absolutely no problems at all. From initial enquiry to the confirmed booking showing up on the personalizer ... just 24 hours. Rather than ringing K to give my credit card details, I sent the information in a number of emails i.e. name and half the number in one, the remaining half and expiry date in another.

 

If you haven't got one already, don't forget that the Nationwide CC doesn't charge any tax on foreign transactions which is another saving of about 2-3%.

 

Like you I'll definitely go the US route for my own cruise next year.

 

Laura

[suekay]

That's good news. I thought I was worrying unnecessarily - but that's me! I thought that as some of the cruiselines are cracking down on those who falsely claim "resident specials" that they may do the same with non-US residents - I'd hate to be denied boarding, so we've been sticking with RCCL who don't have any objection to accepting our booking.

 

I feel for you Aussies whose currency has dropped recently against the US dollar. When the GB£ rose earlier in the year, I took a gamble and paid the balance of our Sept and Dec 2004 cruises in advance. I've lost a small amount of interest, but now have peace of mind knowing that I won't be hit by any unexpected price rises.

 

I got a Nationwide credit card a couple of years ago after reading about it on this board - it's saved us a fortune in hidden exchange fees. I've also got a Nationwide debit card to get cash from ATMs abroad - also with no exchange fee.

 

These boards have taught me so much and saved me so much money....from US TAs to Priceline to Supershuttle to credit cards to private tours etc etc Thanks to everyone who takes the time to offer help and advice

[UK Cruiser]

Sue - we have just returned (today - so excuse any spelling mistakes, I've been up 36 hours!)from back-to-backs and Kim assured us we would have no problems - she was right!

 

The only "problems" encountered were in trying to book a future cruise whilst on board and the Captain's Circle numbers.

 

As far as future cruises are concerned Princess will now allow open bookings for UK passengers - £100 deposit, payable at time of booking - not on board, with cruise credit amounts as for US bookings. Initially we were told we would have to do a UK future cruise, we were then told that because we had booked through a US agent we couldn't do this. I stamped my foot petulantly and armed with a US address supplied by Kim, we were allowed to make the standard future booking i.e. $100 deposit and 4 years to book). We received a confirmation letter for this whilst on board.

 

We went to see the Captain's Circle hostess and she arranged for our English and US bookings to be shown on a single membership number, so in future we should not have a problem, although at the moment we have both US and UK Captain's Circle membership numbers.

[Aussie Gal]

Sue,

 

Would you mind explaining what a Nationwide Credit Card is and can anyone from any country have one? I have never heard of this before and am interested.

 

Jennie

 

The next cruise is always the best!

 

3RD OCTOBER, 2004 PRINSENDAM

[ourlol]

Jennie,

 

Nationwide is a UK Building Society. I use their credit card when making purchases abroad, paying for my cruise, our onboard account etc. Unless you have Nationwide in Australia I'm not sure whether or not you would be allowed a card. The following link tells you a little more about it's use abroad.Nationwide Why don't you send them an email and ask. Good luck.

 

UK Cruiser

 

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>We went to see the Captain's Circle hostess and she arranged for our English and US bookings to be shown on a single membership number, so in future we should not have a problem, although at the moment we have both US and UK Captain's Circle membership numbers. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

 

That's good news. When I switched from using a UK Agent to the US - my previous cruises weren't allowed to be taken into account. I'll have to see now whether I can get my CC membership numbers combined.

 

Laura

[Aussie Gal]

Laura,

 

Thanks for the website. I think it is a UK based company and we do not have any branches over here, worse luck. It sounds good.

 

Jennie

 

The next cruise is always the best!

 

3RD OCTOBER, 2004 PRINSENDAM

[Kayla's Mom]

I have booked two cruises (not on Princess) through cruisequick.com on-line and never had a problem booking from Scotland and Ireland.

 

RCCI Legend of the Seas to Alaska 8/02

NCL Star to Hawaii 04/04

[Bestbubba]

Hi

 

Just back from Island Princess booked through KK no problems, superb service. Any questions feel free to e-mail me on sueredland@aol.com

 

Sue

 

Counting the days until Sapphire Princess March 2005

[UK Cruiser]

Kayla's Mom - this is a "Princess thing" - most other companies don't seem to have a problem with UK bookings.

 

Laura - yes, it sounds like a good move - the Captain's Circle rep on board was very helpful and she just sent an e-mail to sort our membership out. The new UK future cruises programme is also a step in the right direction!

[KenAndJulie]

Not trying to hijack the thread or anything but has anyone heard from John (Truebrit) lately ? I haven't seen any posts by him since the start of March. Hope everything is OK.

 

Ken

[suekay]

Ourlol and UK Cruiser

How did you get a US Captains Circle number? We've done 3 Princess cruises through the UK followed by one booked through Buycruises. I don't know whether our US-booked cruise is showing on our Princess tally, although I did give in our UK membership number once onboard and we did get an invitation to the repeaters party. I've never followed it up with Princess as our last 3 cruises have been on RCCL, but really should do now that we're thinking of reurning to Princess next year. Glad to hear about future cruise bookings being accepted from UK cruisers who use US TAs - it takes away any worries about the "legality" of the booking

Ken

I was wondering the same thing about Truebrit myself (although I rarely get onto the Princess board these days - must try harder!) I actually tried a search last week to see if the "Brit's Dossier" thread is still active, but the search facility was down. Incidentally - do you post on Shiphappens?

[ourlol]

Ken,

 

Re: Truebrit. No I was wondering the same thing. This is exactly the sort of post where you'd expect him to make a contribution. Like SueKay I'd tried a search to see whether I could find the post giving his travel plans for this year. I seem to remember he had quite a lot planned. Of course the 'find' facility isn't working. Nevertheless, I too am a little worried.

 

SueKay,

 

Sorry, I don't know how I got my US Captain's Circle membership!! It sort of happened when I was onboard last year. I assume I must have got some documentation with it on. When you make your US booking, ask the TA to check with Princess to see whether anything is showing up on their systems under your name. In my case I'll just give both numbers (the US and UK one) and ask for the membership to be combined.

[scottish]

Very interested in this thread.

 

We have been with Princess twice, both through UK TAs. A third cruise is also booked for next spring in this way.

 

We have another "open on board booking" which we made last month on the Sun. ( By the way, this confused me because I expected to be treated the same as US posters i.e. $100 deposit each immediately. Instead, we dont pay anything until we choose our cruise and then we pay only £75 each deposit but receive the same on board credit as US bookers. )

 

Because of Cruise Critic comments, we thought of using a US TA for the open booking. Will this be allowed?

[Bestbubba]

Hi everyone, this is an interesting topic!

 

Just off the Island, booked through Kim. We were not able to use our future cruise booking (UK) for this. Don't ask me why!! This was our third Princess cruise, first two booked through UK agents. We had a different CC number for this cruise and on board were told they could not be combined, we had to choose either the US or UK one and the total cruises would be put under whichever one we chose. (Confused, you won't be!!! } As our next cruise was booked through the UK it made more sense to stick with that number rather than have 3 with one and 1 with another (try and keep up!! ) I suppose if we book in the future with a US agent we will have to go through the whole palaver again, madness!!

 

Princess say they hope to combine the Captains Circle in the next two years!! Don't hold your breath!!

 

Sue (a.k.a "confused from London"!!)

 

Counting the days until Sapphire Princess March 2005

[UK Cruiser]

I too had noticed John's absence...hope he's just busy holidaying or working and there is nothing wrong.

 

Just to clarify, when we booked through Kim, we were issued an American Captain's Circle number, which appeared on the Personaliser straight away. I went to see the CC host and she manually made sure that each number showed the total number of cruises we had taken (the magnificent sum of three each!!) At the moment there is no way to combine the bookings automatically, it has to be done manually either through Princess or on board.

 

If the cruise you are on is booked through a UK agent you can only participate in the UK future cruise promotion and if booked through a US agent you can only use the US promotion. This seems very strange - as Princess do not like us using US TA's you would have thought that they would be encouraging us to go back to a UK agent, not pushing us to a US agency again!.....of course, this was the info supplied last week on our cruise and as we all know the info we receive depends on who you talk to!!!!!

[KenAndJulie]

SUe

Yes I have been posting on Ship-happens (just under the name 'Ken'). I did see a post by yourself one day and was about to say 'Hi' but our network went down and then I forgot all about it. The only problem with 'Ship-Happens' is that they show your email address and you start getting loads of unwanted and virus infected emails (fortunately Yahoo does an excellent job of filtering it for me).

 

Hopefully we will all hear from John again soon - find out how his travels have been going.

 

Julie and I are still thinking abut our next cruise - hopefully it will be next year to cover our 20th anniversary. I have decided to at least price a couple of US travel agents ... once we decide where we want to go... I fancy Hawaii (did a land based holiday there in 96 and would love to go back) but I really don't know if I could handle the flight again... any other suggestions ????

 

Ken

[soraya]

Hi, I used Vacations to go, their american website not the UK. I then spoke to someone using a freephone number from here which connected to Houston. No hassle at all and saved a lot of money.

 

HTH, Soraya

[Tony & Catherine]

Hi,we are in the uk,west yorks,we also book with vacations to go,we find them brilliant to deal with,very freindly and helpful its easy to book with them,and also make great savings.We were on the Dawn princess Oct 2003,and we have just this week booked on the Star princess Nov 7th this year.