OzKiwiJJ

It's not really a fee. In some cases they don't offer the lowest category, eg BF, for selection. The cabins you can select start with the BE category so show as a slightly higher price. This is stupid, IMHO, as some people actually want to select BF cabins. And when there are only a few cabins in the next available category to select they may get snapped up quickly so the fare for selecting is then the next highest category.

Thanks, Lyle. I think I'll have enough teabags to last me through. I usually only drink tea with breakfast, or occasionally with lunch in the buffet. It's not worth buying more unless I have to. Besides my favourite blend is actually nicer than Twinings EB.

Those fares are quite different to those showing on the Princess website.

Bring a record of the original prices you paid for your excursions, if you can, then go to the Excursions Desk once onboard. They know about this issue but it appears they are only dealing with it on a one by one basis if you complain. Which stinks! They should have resolve the issue at corporate level. I'm waiting to see what happens with the excursions that have been billed to our folio so far - any payments by credit/debit card go on your folio as a credit then the excursions are charged to your folio when they are ticketed. We have our excursions tickets up to Dover so far. Apparently we'll either get OBC for the overcharged amount or a refund.

That pricing for an outside cabin is a bit weird - a typo perhaps? It's the best part of our itinerary in my opinion.

We couldn't help but see it - the above ground exit from our hotel came our right opposite it. It was an unexpected delight.

Plus it only went on offer a couple of months ago after people cancelled because the ship wasn't going to Civitavecchia.

It's not quite that simple as just holding back cabins for guarantees. Often they leave as many cabins open for selection until they reach a "magic" number of selected cabins plus guaranteed cabins. At this point they might still offer that category of cabin as a guarantee as they know there will be cancellations prior to the start of the cruise. Often a category available as a guarantee may only have one nominal cabin available and once that guarantee is booked that category becomes sold out. Remember the guarantee is for that cabin category or better so they have a bit of leeway there.

As far as I know the Princess world cruises don't go that way around so it would be impossible to do Capetown to Australia as a segment. Some Cunard ones may come south through the Atlantic to Capetown then across to Australia but not Princess

The TA doesn't know what s/he is talking about. We've always chosen our cabin on all our Princess cruises.

I think they must have been the ones they were offering on Diamond around Japan last November. Swill indeed! I took one sip of the pinot grigio and nearly spat it out. We bought wines by the bottle at the Plus 25% discount for the rest of that cruise.

Good on you! And better to fly first and cruise home. Quute a few people on our cruise are only doing sectors - we've chatted to a few who are just going through to Dover.

Yes, I saw those this morning, and used one for my first cup of tea, but by the time I went back for my second cup of tea they'd vanished again. Luckily I had one of my own teabags in my pocket.

Yes, that is part of the problem and that is easily checked by seeing if there are cabins available from the other embarkation ports. But at least Princess does offer the option of multiple embarkation ports where they can. I don't think other cruise lines do that very often if at all.

Some cruises really do book out that early. I'd been watching the Feb 2025 Diamond repositioning cruise up to Tokyo for a couple of months with no sign of an available balcony cabin to choose. I rang my Princess Planner just on the off chance and she found one cabin that had just become available. I was very lucky.

We're making very good progress towards Fremantle. We're about halfway across the Great Australian Bight, cruising through relatively benign seas. We had our first formal night last night. Most people made an effort to dress up but there were a few exceptions. We were going to go to the show (Encore) but dinner service was a bit slow so we decided not to bother. The change to 9pm for the second show is just a bit too early for us.

The sake museum in Kobe has a wonderful Yuzu sake. It goes really well with fish - we brought a bottle home with us last year.

How close to the sail date was she trying to book? Some itineraries book out well in advance and then there may only be guarantee cabins available. Or if she clicked the wrong button at the start of the booking ie "Allow Princess to choose" rather than "Choose my own cabin" she wouldn't have been given the option to choose a cabin.

I wish they'd put it on the Australian Plus list. There is no straight Shiraz at all on that list. They have it on board Coral at the moment but only by the bottle.

On the Australian Plus wine list four of those wines are normally sold in retail outlets in 4 litre casks(boxes) for aroun AU$20 per cask. The winery usually only sells the bottled version, under the Willowglen label, to function centres and (now) cruise lines.

True in that respect. Something has changed in the editor used here and it keeps changing words on me. It's annoying.

Why would I ruin a good creme brulee with ice cream? Especially Princess ice cream which is very ordinary.

Exactly! So far the meals have been very good. I had one of the best cream brulees ever last night. Coconut flavoured, which made it a bit more interesting, and the brulee topping was perfect - dark and super-crunchy

We're noticing some slight motion - just enough to let us know we're on a ship. Hopefully it will stay that way. 😊

Yes, every sea day but I think they are breaking it into sectors so after Dover it starts from scratch again. At the moment it's at 12:15 but for some of the days it will be mid-afternoon so we won't go to those as we'll be basking in the Sanctuary. However if they have Dover to NY as a sector we'll go to all of those as we're not planning to go to the Sanctuary much on that part of the cruise.