no1racefan1

Did you look for the OBC on your cruise personalizer? I never received notification that it was there, it just appeared--I think within a couple of days after emailing the info.

I think it depends on what you'd be happy with. For our cruise next year, I booked the cheapest interior I could find, because we're trying to keep costs down. A balcony room is currently over $1,000pp more than an interior. If/when upgrade bidding opens up, I'm hoping there's an option to bid for either an oceanview or balcony room at significantly less than $1,000pp. But if not, we're satisfied with our interior room.

I generally don't keep clothes in my closet that I don't still wear regularly, so this idea has always been a little quirky to me, although I guess I see the appeal. Please don't just randomly leave your discarded items in a taxi or other place for somebody else to clean up after. I've seen time and time again people use donation centers as an excuse to dump stuff they feel 'guilty' about throwing away, and that just means somebody else has to do it for you. You could research the ports and find actual charitable organizations that would welcome donations. For instance, when DH and I went to a Sandals resort, they have a program where they accept donated school supplies for the local schools on the islands.

I haven't seen any of the same kind of feedback about this year, so maybe they figured out the issues!

Excellent!

Yep, I'm sure. It's fine. I mostly wanted to remind people to take screenshots of EVERYTHING related to your cruise and don't rely on Princess to send you emails or documentation, because they won't.

I'm not sure when bike rentals fill up but my instinct says we can wait. I'm planning to rent from Pablo's Bike Rentals in Anchorage. When I did a mock booking last month, it was still available to book just a few days in advance.

**Excursion update!** Things have really been moving and shaking in the excursion world for our cruise. Hubbard Glacier excursion still shows at least 20 spots available. Interestingly, the excursion time changed from 3:30-5:30 to 4:30-5:30. While $299.95 was already pretty expensive for a two-hour excursion (which I've ready is totally worth it by the way, but not for us since we'll have lots of opportunities to see glaciers on other tours) it seems really outrageous for a one-hour excursion. I hope for those people's sakes, it ends up being longer than one hour. Several Skagway excursion times have now moved to starting around 11am or later--I think this will make a lot of people happy as I've seen concerns regarding excursions starting at 7:30am. Most of the smaller excursions seem like they are about half full now. I definitely think that speaks to what other people have said about booking your Alaska excursions early! Half full, and we're still eight months out. Juneau--looks like most of the whale excursions are full or almost full! One of them had 1 spot left and 1 of them is already taking a waitlist. If you're reading this and want to see whales in Juneau next year, BOOK SOMETHING NOW! Maybe they will open up more spots...but I wouldn't count on that when planning! Like Skagway, most of the other smaller excursions in Juneau seem to be about half full. I haven't noticed any time changes for Juneau yet--everything still starting at 7am. Ketchikan--the Lighthouse, Totems & Eagles excursion is the first I've seen at any port that is now offering multiple time slots! Most excursions in Ketchikan are still starting at 10:30 (half hour after arrival) although DH's fishing excursion has been moved to 12:15. He's also still the only person booked on it. It seems like Ketchikan excursions are not filling up as fast, so if you're trying to spread out your excursion purchases, I'd wait and do Ketchikan last (unless you find something you really, really want that looks like it's filling up).

Don't try to do all the activities on board. Don't get caught up spending money on all the nickel and dime things available on the ship. Don't worry about what everybody else is doing. Walk down the hallway to a farther set of elevators on embarkation day, instead of trying to use the same ones as 1,000s of other people. Don't panic or stress out over a non-working app, being in a green lane, blue lane, fast lane, not having printed boarding passes, QR codes, or whatever else they throw at you to be ready for embarkation. I'm 100% confident that as long as I have proper identification and a form of payment, I will be able to get on the ship. Be flexible and make the most out of whatever happens. Sometimes the unexpected turns into the best memory!

I guess not, I think I'm the only one that listed it as health-related, LOL.

@cusematt4 Can you please consolidate all of your questions into one thread and ask a mod to delete the rest? You've posted about a dozen threads on this subject, both here and on the Princess forum. Not trying to be rude, but it's hard to know what you need help with when you keep posting slight variations to the same thing every couple of hours.

This is what I plan on bringing: Prescriptions, daily supplements, vitamins, etc. Airborne and/or emergen-C Eye drops Tylenol Benadryl Bonine Tums/licorice tablets Covid tests Alka-seltzer cold & cough Throat lozenges Mini first aid kit Sunblock Just the covid tests and cold medicine are new additions since last time we cruised.

Wow. Mine still shows $299 for May 2024, but it also still shows at least 20 spots available, so I guess it hasn't filled up yet. I didn't realize the prices would change! Now I'm even more happy I booked all my excursions a year in advance, lol.

I'm somewhere in between, but probably lean more towards minimalism. DH and I each bring one 25" checked suitcase and backpacks as carry-ons. We both like to have 'extra' clothes and shoes options but we limit ourselves to just that amount of bag space. We used to bring bigger suitcases but several years ago DH declared he was never lifting those things into the trunk again 🤣 so now we make 25" work no matter what kind of trip it is. I don't mind doing laundry on vacation. I have a United credit card so we get free checked bags. I HATE bringing carry-on only and having to lug it around the airport, over my head, etc. Actually I'm secretly judging all the people in the plane in front of me when I have to wait for them to get their bags down, LMAO. I've occasionally had to do carry-on only when changing airlines at a connecting airport because I wouldn't have had enough time to claim bags and then re-check them...but I avoid it as much as possible!

If all your friends jumped off a bridge, would you do it too? Just because somebody else makes a different decision, doesn't make it the right decision. Imagine if something happened to that other ship and/or passengers You'd be sure glad your captain made the safer decision. I understand your disappointment and I would be disappointed to miss a port as well, but I've never captained a cruise ship, so I'm just going to trust they know how to make better informed decisions than I would.

I posted this in a thread on the Princess forum, but wanted to share here for my fellow Princess cruisers. I'm not looking for help, I'm just sharing my advice on documenting EVERY move you make. Update on my situation--I have received the $49.95 refund to my credit card I was owed. However, I still have not got the $89.90 back in OBC. I have spoken to four Princess agents. Some of the questions and conversations are seriously laughable because of how nonsensical they are. Like you, it seemed they can't see any kind of excursion booking history. I've had to tell them what dates I booked, what excursions I booked, what forms of payment I used, when they were cancelled... and then they say they show no history of any of it. My advice for future cruisers: If you apply for shareholder OBC, take a screenshot as soon as you see it applied to your account summary. You will probably NOT receive an email stating you have it. Actually, do this for any type of OBC. The agents I've spoken to say there is no history that I ever had OBC. Unfortunately for me, I didn't screenshot it when it was there and I've since sold my CCL shares, so I can't re-request it. Take a screenshot of anything, especially excursions, that you book using OBC. You will NOT get email confirmation of these excursions. I only received email confirmation for excursions I paid for with my credit card. Take screenshots if you have to cancel excursions. You will NOT get emails confirming that you cancelled excursions. I'm pretty sure I'm not getting my shareholder OBC back, but maybe this will help other people in the future. I can't even express how ridiculous I think it is that we have to keep such detailed accounting of all of our actions because Princess doesn't seem to be able to do so. I don't think I've ever done business with such a big company that can't seem to look at any kind of account or payment history. At this point I'm probably going to give up trying to get the OBC back since at least it's not out of pocket...maybe that's what they want, who knows. I just don't want this to continue putting a downer on my trip planning. 233 days to go until Alaska!!

@Nidwaldner any update on whether you got your OBC back? I agree, it's maddening. Update on my situation--I have received the $49.95 refund to my credit card I was owed. However, I still have not got the $89.90 back in OBC. I have spoken to four Princess agents. Some of the questions and conversations are seriously laughable because of how nonsensical they are. Like you, it seemed they can't see any kind of excursion booking history. I've had to tell them what dates I booked, what excursions I booked, what forms of payment I used, when they were cancelled... and then they say they show no history of any of it. My advice for future cruisers: If you apply for shareholder OBC, take a screenshot as soon as you see it applied to your account summary. You will probably NOT receive an email stating you have it. Actually, do this for any type of OBC. The agents I've spoken to say there is no history that I ever had OBC. Unfortunately for me, I didn't screenshot it when it was there and I've since sold my CCL shares, so I can't re-request it. Take a screenshot of anything, especially excursions, that you book using OBC. You will NOT get email confirmation of these excursions. I only received email confirmation for excursions I paid for with my credit card. Take screenshots if you have to cancel excursions. You will NOT get emails confirming that you cancelled excursions. At this point I'm pretty sure I'm not getting my shareholder OBC back, but maybe this will help other people in the future. I can't even express how ridiculous I think it is that we have to keep such detailed accounting of all of our actions because Princess doesn't seem to be able to do so. I don't think I've ever done business with such a big company that can't seem to look at any kind of account or payment history.

Are you suggesting that OP just accept that Princess is charging additional charges they are not aware of agreeing to?

Don't be shocked. From what I can tell, they need to hire an accounting department, because their record-keeping as far as what customers have paid is the absolute WORST.

Find a TA who has experience with Alaska cruisetours.

You referenced many people suggesting doing a Princess cruisetour/pre-cruise tour, and I can almost definitely say that would be through Princess cruises. I haven't heard of many people using princesslodges.com, and most certainly not if you are trying to put together a cruisetour. 2024 Princess cruisetours are available to book through princess.com and while I don't know the answer regarding if they are the same as what's available from princesslodges.com, I would be very, very surprised if there was much, if any, difference. My understanding is you cannot add a cruisetour onto an existing cruise booking. You may be able to independently book a stay/tour at Princess lodges, that would not be linked to your cruise booking.

I've really enjoyed the Carnival cruises we've been on. I probably would have looked at them for Alaska but Princess had the itinerary I wanted.

Eww! I would hate to have 5 sea days in a row. Obviously safety first though!

Thank you, I understand all of this. I have checked my credit card statement and the current remaining balance of OBC daily. I definitely have not been refunded what I am owed. The Princess agent I spoke to today told me to wait another week and I should receive an email stating that the refund has been processed (which is what the previous agent told me about this week). And then she tried to sell me an upgrade to Princess Plus! I actually put LOL in the chat. Like I'm seriously going to allow you to charge me more money when you currently OWE me money??

It's now been 6 business days since I contacted Princess and 17 days since I cancelled excursions, and still no word and no refund of any kind. I don't really care if they refund my credit card or OBC..... but I am due a refund. The amount of work people have to go through to not be ripped off by Princess is maddening.