Parkway Shire
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Posts posted by Parkway Shire
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I agree with "geocachcing fun" on the travel bugs I have have released several and most have disappeared. But then that happens to quite a few I've released at home also. I have picked up several and brought them home. I also have a personal TB that I take to log miles. It has over 55, 000 miles on it.
I would disagree some on excursions. They do complicate things but it kind of depends on your objectives. I do geocachcing as secondary to my cruising. Have been on seven cruises and do excursions in most ports. I've only missed finding caches in a couple of ports. One was because we were meeting family that lived in the area for lunch. Off the top of my head, I can even think of half a dozen or so excursions where I found a geocache on the excursion. Hope to find one on an excursion in Belize in a week or so.
I love geocachcing while we travel and have meet some interesting people. On our last cruise in Canada, I met a guy from Edinburgh who flies to the US often and got some hints on flights for the trip we're planning for next year. Meet him at a cache when we were both on the same excursion.
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I will be cruising in Australia on the Diamond Princess which has US standard sockets. Could I ask Princess Cruises to organise a converter plug for the socket to take a power strip so I can charge my computer for word processing, and batteries for my digital camera? I am not confident with electrical technology, so would prefer Princess qualified staff supply the needed items for safety. Have learnt ever so much just reading through the threads, it's better than watching travel shows, you get so much more information!
Thanks for your help
Crochetcruise :cool:
I doubt that Princess will be much help. Your main problem will be voltage. In Australia, you use 250V at 50 Hertz. The cruise ships are set up for the North American standard of 110/120V at 50/60 Hertz. Most electronic chargers will work on either standard but you will need to look at the power rating for each charger you plan on using to be sure it's OK.
It's the INPUT rating you want to look at. The rating for a charger my Motorola phone says: "Input 100-240V~50/60Hz 0.2A"
so it will work on either. The 0.2A is the current it will draw and you shouldn't need to worry about this. I'm in North America where we have the 110V, but I have used these chargers in countries that have 240/250V with no problem. I have also used the larger charger that came with my laptop because it is rated for both.
If you're using things beside chargers: hair dryers, TV sets, etc., you will need to be extra careful and research each one.
In general chargers should be OK, but check, others things should probably be avoided.
If your chargers are OK but have the Australian configured plugs you can buy an inexpensive adapter that will convert them to the North America configuration. If you're uncomfortable, you might visit a travel or electronics store and talk to the people there to get the correct adapter.
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I use a small extension cord plus outlet multipliers.
My son-in-law uses a power squid similar to this one on Amazon
The advantage to this is that it doesn't matter which way the prongs are pointer on your power adapters. Sometimes an adapter can take up two or three of the plugs on your adapter depending on how its prongs are oriented.
Note that this is not a surge protector. Its only an outlet multiplier.
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...You shouldn't attach the cruise tags until you're off the plane anyway so the airline baggage handlers don't have to look at more tags than necessary...
I completely agree!!!!! No matter how you attach them don't do it until you're heading to the port.
Not quite the same thing, but on a trip to Disney World we were using their "deliver luggage straight to your room option" where you put a similar tag on your luggage before your flight. Something happened to the tags on the flight and we didn't get our luggage until the day after our arrival. We had to fill out a missing luggage report for the Disney World staff, who then searched the luggage areas at the airport for the bags. This happens often enough that they have a process, staff and vehicles dedicated to it.
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Just another note. I went to the wrong web site and had to pay a service fee for each ticket. If you go directly to the "Statue Cruises" web site pointed to by the National Parks, you can avoid the service fee.
We also have a National Parks senior pass that let's us avoid National Park entry fees at most parks. It doesn't work here because the fees are not entry fees, they are for the ferry service and screening costs.
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The packaged tours only get you to the base and pedestal. Going to the crown is more of a TSA security thing. Only individuals can buy tickets, each purchase is limited to 4 tickets, each person can visit only once in any six month period, each person must be identified at the time of purchase, the tickets cannot be mailed they must be picked up in person at the ferry site by the person that purchased them, and each person must go through a TSA type screening with ID before going to the crown.
I think part of this is to prevent scalping and having tour companies lock up the tickets, because they have so limited the number of tickets. The tickets are still reasonable in price, going to the crown only adds $3.00 to the cost of going to the pedestal. But it does require planning a long time ahead.
This is from the National Parks web site:
"Due to its extreme popularity, access to the crown is by advanced reservation only. Statue Cruises is the official source for crown reservations as well as the company that provides ferry transportation to the island. All reservations must be made online or by telephone.
Crown reservations are not available at the ticket offices.
Crown reservations are not available on Liberty Island."
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We're going to be in New York in October and one of the things I wanted to do was to make the climb to the Crown on the Statue of Liberty. I was surprised at how much ahead of time you need to buy the tickets to do this.
The tickets seem to go on sale about three months ahead of time and you need to buy them quickly after that. Right now (mid September) they are sold out until mid November - two months out.
Just getting to the island and base is not to bad, but they really limit the number of tickets to go to the crown. You need to pick a specific date and time when you buy the tickets, and they are non-refundable.
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We cruise on Princess and have never had a problem in getting the fare reduced, if it has gone down from when we booked. We watch the fares and call Princess if we see a lower one advertised.
We book mini-suites and some examples of what we have experienced are:
Panama 2013
Booked $2399 changed to $1899. Also got a $50 increase in cabin credit.
Saved $1100 for the two of us. On this one the sale price went away right after we rebooked.
Caribbean 2013
Booked $1349 changed to $1249. Cabin credits stayed the same.
Saved $200 for the two of us.
Upcoming Canada/ New England in October.
Booked $2979 changed to $2829. Got a $50 increase in cabin credit.
Saved $400 for the two of us.
Upcoming Caribbean in November.
Booked at $1149 changed to $1029. Got a $50 increase in cabin credit.
Saved $340 for the two of us.
We usually travel with at least one other couple and we each check the prices on and off. Don't rely on Princess or your travel agent to notify you of the changes. We book directly through Princess, but have had friends that used travel agents and they haven't had problems with getting the reduced fares.
Other lines may not be as liberal with reducing the fares and you probably can't expect to get it reduced to some last minute fire-sale type price that may come along. But then we haven't tried that.
Given all this, we tend to watch prices for a little while, but book kind of early and hope for a sale.
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I did a search for Princess Cays and nothing came up in the forum. I am going to this island with Princess Cruises in November and there is a cache there.
Has anyone logged this cache? If so, please share your thoughts.
Steve
As someone else noted the cache is "GC2NV7E - Princess Cays Pirate Cove". I found this one last year and it's fairly easy. It can be quite a walk but there is a shuttle that can get you closer. After getting off the tender, cross over the arch where they want to take your picture, and then look for the shuttle to the private bungalows and fishing area. It looks like anyone can ride the shuttle. Take it to the end and then walk the rest of the way. You might need to walk all the way back if you don't see the shuttle.
If you're just going ashore, this is probably the only cache you'll be able to get to. There are a couple of others further out the island. You would probably need a car/cab to get to these.
New Princess Sphere class ships?
in Princess Cruises
Posted
Princess has the Sun Princess now listed in their ships area including deck plans and cabin layouts.
One thing that impacts me is that mini-suites do not have bath tubs. You need to book a full suite to get one. I want a tub when cruises get over 7 days so this won't be a ship for me.