JillK

Hi there. For what it's worth, this isn't exclusive to Princess. I had two bookings with NCL cancelled by the cruise line over the past three months alone. The first booking was for fleet redeployment and the second booking (what we had booked after the first cancellation) was for a full ship charter. In both cases I received an email that the cruise was cancelled, my deposit would be returned to original form of payment within 45 days and an offer of 10% off the base fare for a future booking, if I book and cruise within 18 months. Given the shifting winds of their deployment schedule, I decided to forgo the 10% discount and booked the Sun Princess instead. I hope that you are able to find another suitable cruise for your vacation, even if like me, you end up looking at other lines.

Our dollar is in the toilet and weak compared to US / Pound and Euro. Last week I made a purchase of $131.93 USD and was charged $186.48 Cdn with an exchange rate of 1.41348 (daily exchange rate plus 2.5% for the bank). Looks like the exchange rate today on the GBP is 1.76 (including the 2.5% bank fee) I would ballpark OP paid just under 300 Pounds to land him in the neighbourhood of $500 Cdn. Everything costs Canadians 35% or more given our dollar. I owe almost $800 Cdn in daily gratuities (3 pax, 10 nights) for my upcoming Med cruise.... the $20 USD/day is converting to $26 and change Cdn/day. I dread exchanging for some euros in a few months!!

After years of hearing about these offers, for the first time both hubby and I received a $250 statement credit for $1000 spend with NCL last year on our (Canadian) Aeroplan branded cards... we both put money down on our upcoming Med cruise to take advantage. Around same time frame as OP only hubby got an offer (same as last year for $250 statement credit for $1000 spend) - unfortunately I didn't get it. Not sure why I wouldn't have gotten is as well since we both used it last year? All that to say there must be some algorithm at play that promoted hubby to get the offer this year and not me. So keep an eye out on those AmEx offers!

NCL has generally been running the BOGO airfare consistently for quite some time now (I want to say years). That being said, at any time, they could remove this offer (and they have in the past but usually not for long- ie. for a one month promotion cycle and then it was back) so it's not necessary true that it never expires. Also, if you're tracking, the pricing on the flights can/do change. Generally only up of course - at least that's been my experience in watching pricing for flights out of Canada. You might not have the same experience pricing flights within the US, but up here in Canada we don't have a lot of competition so flying is expensive compared to pricing in US... ie. I'm looking at flights from Toronto to Fort Lauderdale next March for 4 and it's coming in at $4500 Cdn for a 3 hour flight! I flew across the country from NYC to SFO in 2019 with Alaskan for $149 USD.

We technically "moved up" to platinum after night 5 of a 14 night cruise... new status recognized only upon completion of the current cruise after you've earned the points required. Based on my experience, I would say that's a no... but just think, one more under your belt and you will enjoy the platinum perks on your next NCL cruise!

Frankly the other reason I'm considering early renewal is that my sons have changed so much over those 4 1/2 years that their current passport photos I don't even look like them anymore which I suppose could be an issue if a passport control agent decided it was an issue. Yes exactly right! My daughter will be turning 18 in a month so I am inclined to wait to renew hers until after her birthday so that we can get her the 10 year version!

Thanks for your advice. The Government of Canada says 3 months (Italy, Greece and Malta) and two passports expire 5 months from travel dates. I'm just so used to following the 6 month rule that I'm still uneasy and may just get them renewed ahead of travel anyhow.

Thanks for getting back to let us know that there were no issues. I always thought the 6 month requirement was because that is the length of of time that we as Canadians can stay in the US per visit (six month casual travel visa) after which we would be there "illegally." Meanwhile, I am planning for our August cruise to the Med with some of the kids passports that are expiring 5 months after travel. According to the government of Canada website, they have a 3 month requirement so fingers crossed our experience ends up as seamless as yours!

Yep - did eventually get an email that it had been chartered... after two cancellations for the same week, it felt as if they were still getting their itineraries in order and nothing else on offer was hitting the mark for us. We pivoted and have booked the Sun Princess.

Hubby and I did a 14 night cruise on the Jade this past November. Overall we loved the ship and found it to be very fresh and clean - not showing her age at all. The two things we disliked... 1/ no seating on the promenade deck which on past ships has always been a favourite place to spend some quality time outside but not in the sun. 2/ the coffee bar being in the atrium. The net effect was that whereas usually the atrium is the heartbeat of the ship, in the evenings the atrium was a ghost town. We sailed on the the Jade's sister ship the Gem in 2019 and spent some time every night at the atrium bar. Really missed doing this on the Jade. Otherwise a great ship which I wouldn't hesitate to book again.

I would agree with laudergayle as to the reason but regardless that's a nice win. Hope that you find a fun way to spend the money saved!

Hi there. I recently switched a 7 night booking to a 14 night booking. I elected to go this route vs booking B2B because I was able to realize a better price for a better cabin category by going the route of the 14 day. I had originally booked an oceanview cabin for the 7 night but when I priced the 14 night, only balcony and above was bookable... turns out the balcony for 14 nights was only $400 more than booking the same oceanview cabin for two 7 night B2B cruises and booking the two B2B 7 nights in the balcony was $1100 more than booking it as a 14 night. In our case, a large portion of our savings was because our sons were free week 1 but not free the second week. By booking as a 14 night, they were free for the duration (yay). So - all this to say... check the pricing because depending on the weeks you are booking, you might be able to realize a savings (likely either way) by booking one way versus the other.

Hi. Weighing in on this as I literally just booked a 14 night on the Sun for next March with hubby and our sons who will be 13 and 15 at time of sailing. I will add the caveat that we have cruised on various lines but our preference is NCL. Unfortunately NCL didn't have a cruise more than 7 days on a ship that offered the amenities we wanted to keep our kids happy in the time frame we were wanting to cruise so we opted for this ship. We cruised the Norwegian Getaway, Carnival Panorama and Ruby Princess with our sons (as well as our older daughters) in 2021. I give this info as background to provide context. Frankly the boys were pretty bored on the Ruby. They didn't care for the kids club (they were in that age range at the time) so only went once and the only thing they liked was swimming in the family pool and watching the occasional MUTS. From the renderings, it looks to me like the Sun is adopting several family friendly activities top deck that we REALLY enjoyed on the Panorama. I think that although the Sun may not have water slides there will be enough to capture their interest (I certainly hope so now that I've committed to 14 nights!) Between the three cruises that year, everyone's favourite was the Panorama. When I told my youngest (currently 12) I was going to book Princess he actually groaned and said - oh no not the boring ship. I told him it was their newest and they had some of the cool stuff he liked on the Panorama and then he got really excited. So - will your pre-teens like the Sun? Probably - Princess has done a lot to appeal to families with this ship but yet will still have that nice Princess touch and level of service the brand is known for. I'm really excited to try Princess' newest ship at a much more favourable price point than I can book NCL's Prima class (their newest ships). If you can afford to tie up the deposit amount, you can always book and re-evaluate once the ship sails and the reviews start rolling in. I suspect that once it sails the price point might creep up so if you've got a good price like I found, no harm in locking it in. Hope this helps and whatever you book - happy cruising!

Hi! We recently cruised for 14 nights aboard the Jade in cabin # 8086. We had initially booked an inside cabin but upgraded to obstructed oceanview when the price came down to within $50 per person to do so. This was my 20th cruise and I have been in all the standard cabin types across several lines (balcony and below). The Pros: - Very convenient to get anywhere on the ship - central location that cannot be beat - Tons of storage space for two people - maybe we are light packers now that we have lots of experience with what know we do and don't need, but we didn't come close to using all the available space... would have been tight with four in the cabin though - Natural light is great, even if the view wasn't The Cons: - Deck lighting coming into the cabin at night - Super loud noise throughout the night beginning at 2:30 am and going for hours off and on - woke us up and kept us up most of the cruise. For this reason, this cabin (and I would assume adjacent cabins) should be DO NOT BOOK unless you can sleep through loud noises. The Jade is a very nice traditional ship and it was a great fit for an extended cruise with just hubby and I. Kids would have been bored out of their minds... Ship was renovated last year and is spotless. Food very good to excellent (some of our least favourite meals were in the specialties!) and good entertainment. Happy cruising!

Call the cruise line to firm up exactly what you can actually book so you can figure out how to move forward. Last year on Princess we ended up booking three inside cabins for our family. Myself and youngest son in the first cabin, our two daughters (18 & 16 at the time of sailing) in the middle cabin and my husband and older son on the end. There were no issues in booking it this way with the cruiseline (likely as my eldest was 18 as is yours) and we had no issues during the cruise.