yerdua

7 hours ago, AlanF65 said:

So I sent in the transfer paperwork yesterday and it was moved to Big box TA today. Online if I book through big box I get a shop card. They are giving me $500 in refundable OBC. 

 

Was your original booking thru HAL before or after Nov. 26? The date of the original booking may have impacted the receipt of OBC or a card. Just a guess on my part. 

6 hours ago, caribill said:

 

If your 7:15 late seating is really now 7:45, then the time will have changed for the early seating also by probably the same 30 minutes.

 

Would that make the early seating time better for you?

I thought about that too. Early TD is at 5:30 but is still too early for us, given th at the first part of the cruise is port intensive. But thanks for the suggestion. I have no problem with ATD and enjoy meeting different people over meals. Just thought TD would be something different for us since the second half of the voyage is a TA. Regardless, I'm sure the food and company will be great whenever, where ever we dine.

Thank you all for the info on club class dining!

I ran into this issue when I tried to refare our Baltic cruise next summer and was wondering if this is a new policy or if anyone else had run into the same experience. We have an excellent ez air fare to copenhagen from our original booking. Current RT air fares are $700pp higher. Called princess to refare the cruise but stressed that I didn't want to lose my air reservation. So far, two princess reps have told me that if I re fare, I will lose my air reservation and will have to re reserve air at the current price. Last July and August i re fared a princess cruise with no change to my existing flight costs. So I'm wondering, is this a new rule throughout princess (in which case I could just as easily cancel my booking and re book cruise and air at current rates - not a good financial option for this particular situation) or might this apply just to the current anniversary sale, or are both princess reps incorrect? I am transferring this booking to my big box TA to see if they have better luck, since they are the ones who previously had my cruise re fared twice with no impact on the air fare. Any thoughts from more experienced princess cruisers?

13 minutes ago, suekel said:

I would assume it's a mistake, I've heard of that happening to others.  Club class is only for CC Mini's or full suites.  I would guess it will change on the website.  

You're right! I just checked and it has changed to anytime. No more dilemma. And over such a first world problem! Thanks.

1 minute ago, cactusrose said:

You can't invite people that aren't in CC to dine with you in CC dinning.

But could we dine with them in anytime?

We are scheduled to embark on the Sky in a couple weeks. We were confirmed for late traditional dining, but discovered the actual dining time is 7:45 vs the 7:15 that had been listed in the personalizer. Normally 30 minutes wouldn't be a big deal, but we were pushing our limits with the 7:15 to begin with and early traditional is just too early for us. So I switched us to anytime dining. The personalizer made the change but listed us as now having club class dining even though we are not booked in a mini or suite. On the surface it sounds great, but part of our enjoyment of cruising is meeting new people at meals. Can anyone tell me how club class tables are set up? is it primarily 2 tops or are there larger tables available to share? I love my husband but it's nice to have other people to talk to at dinner and share their experiences. If we hate CC when we're on board can we switch to anytime? Thanks.

Sorry, just saw the other post. Please ignore.

Is anyone else having issues with the formatting of flight ease this weekend? I've been trying since yesterday morning to check my fares for a cruise next summer and I keep getting an unformatted page with no info on flights I've already selected. I know it's not urgent since the cruise is months away, but I do check fares daily for any drops. It's the same problem on both my laptop and tablet. 

Does anyone know, for those of us who have no status or elite minutes with Princess,  is it better to pre purchase internet or wait until embarkation day? Personalizer is showing prepayment of $99  for 1 device, on a 14 day TA. 

Unlimited laundry package!

I've noticed that a lot of times HAL will do certain itineraries every other year. This may be the reason you can't see that particular itinerary for the year you want to sail.

In advance of the landmark sale beginning tomorrow I just checked my Sky cruise for Nov... Prices dropped alot! I'm still better off as I am, but people may want to check their cruise fares today before the  inevitable price hike to cover the "free" OBC when Landmark goes into effect. 

Ours went up by $25pp. Oh well... Still a year to refare.

6 minutes ago, yerdua said:

 

Yes, excursions do sell out ahead of time. Many of the excursion I had been eying for our Nov 2019 TA started disappearing (I assume from selling out) so I quickly booked what I could with the massive (for us) OBC from Princess and Carnival. If your OBC is from Princess or CCL (shareholder or military credit), you can book the excursions on line using that OBC. OBC from a TA cannot be used ahead of the cruise.

 

You can always cancel the booked excursions at a later date if within the cancellation window and have the OBC put back in your cruise account.

Sorry... Double post.

33 minutes ago, greg898 said:

We have a fair amount of OBC that I was hoping to use for shore excursions on our New Zealand cruise in November and since I can't use OBC online, I was wondering if there is realistically any chance of the excursions selling out prior to sailing.

Yes, excursions do sell out ahead of time. Many of the excursion I had been eying for our Nov 2019 TA started disappearing (I assume from selling out) so I quickly booked what I could with the massive (for us) OBC from Princess and Carnival. If your OBC is from Princess or CCL (shareholder or military credit), you can book the excursions on line using that OBC. OBC from a TA cannot be used ahead of the cruise.I

You can always cancel the booked excursions at a later date if within the cancellation window and have the OBC put back in your cruise account.

Thanks so much for sharing your cruise. DH and I are booked on the Baltic segment (also on zuiderdam) next summer so I'm especially interested in following you on your trip. 

6 hours ago, Sailor Taylor said:

I found HAL and Princess great to book through travel agents.  Does HAL still allow transfer any time before final payment?  It's a great benefit to be able to do that. 

 

Some other lines don't make much of a difference when booking with agents but HAL and Princess agents can always give 5% to 10% discount plus some perks.  

Both HAL and Princess have changed their transfer policies in recent months. Transfers to a TA are now only allowed if within 60 days of initial booking and before final payment. A transfer form is now required by both. 

I called my PCC when I had to change my Cuba cruise to another that included the Early Booking Bonus. Asked about pp fare w/o the promotion and was told it was just $100pp less with a refundable fare. Easy decision to just book with EBB and monitor the fare for other promotions. 

14 hours ago, kwb101 said:

We've booked three voyages for '20 and '21: a 41-day and 35-day next year, and a 43-day the next year. The numbers for these look like this:

• 41-day: world cruise segment (South America), cat HH (fully obscured) OV guarantee, fare $17,106 (not incl port fees), $1210 TA OBC
• 35-day: Europe,  cat D OV, $17,848, $1375 TA OBC
• 43-day: SouthPacific, cat H (partially obscured) OV, $12,376, $760 TA OBC

The OBC is about 7.1% of the fares. I haven't included anything not from the TA like HAL OBC for booking onboard. The info is current today. Hope this helps. 

Ahh, you're living my dream! We're doing 7-14 day cruises. And I have to twist DHs arm to get him to agree to a 14 day cruise! Love the big box TAs obc and cash back cc. They've always been very helpful in negotiating with HAL for changes and refares, even after final payment. Enjoy yourself!

2 hours ago, kwb101 said:

We're budget travelers, and the $2100 is for a category HH (fully obstructed ocean view) on one, and a category G (partially obstructed ocean view) on the other. And we don't have to pay suite rates to get deals like this.

Our first cruise two years ago was booked that a national auto association and cost over $7000. Our goodies through them?  Two-$25 beverage cards and two dinners at PG and Canaletto, worth about $150.

OTOH, we're going on a cruise this fall (another category HH fully obstructed), and the fare (not including port fees) is $4256. The big box TA is giving us $330 OBC, not a huge amount, but equal to about 7.75%. Not a bad deal for the price. 

We're "budget" travelers too (i like your term), last cruise was in an H, next a veranda, after that a G. All depends on the itinerary and the $ differential with the next category. Would rather spend the money on excursions and upgraded airfare. That said, $2100 is a lot of obc for 2 cruises in these cabin categories. May I ask how long these 2 cruises are and what are your destinations? My experience with the big box TA is usually around 7% (excluding cash back from their cc) but then I might take shorter trips than you. I'm always looking for additional ways to extend my cruising habit!

 I'm not the recipient of the $2100 obc, but just calculating out, at 8% from the TA, works out to an average fare of  $6500pp for each of 2 cruises. Easily accomplished when booking a Neptune or a longer cruise. 

Thanks to all for the info on timing of these offers. We're booked on Sky's TA in November and will be leaving for Barcelona a few days ahead of embarkation to do some siteseeing. The sailing has been showing sold out off and on for the last several months. Probably wouldn't be able to take advantage of any offer in the (unlikely) event that the move over gods smiled on us. 

For those of you who received and accepted a move over offer, how close to the original sail date did you receive it?

16 hours ago, *Miss G* said:

We disembarked and followed the boardwalk till we got to the Marriott Harbourfront to pick up our rental car.  During tourist season they have an outlet at the port but we are in shoulder season so the Marriott it is.  Peggy’s Cove is only 28 miles away but your first hurdle is getting out of the city.  Then you take a scenic drive along winding roads and beautiful scenery until you get to the cove.  We were lucky to arrive just as all the tour busses were leaving so it was SO quiet and peaceful.

 

We were hungry by now so we stopped for the BEST lobster roll I have ever had in my life.  The lobster guy told us where to find the best French fries ever.  And then I saw they sold funnel cakes so it was game over for us.  Luckily we were sharing everything because it was like we’d gone to the fair and we weren’t leaving till we puked.  

 

See the young girl in the food truck window?  She and her husband were the sweetest people ever!

we're on this cruise next week and I've been following your thread closely. Thank you so much for the detail you've provided. Love me some lobster rolls and was wondering if this food truck was located at Peggy cove or down by the waterfront in halifax. 

Thank you all for the in sight. I think I'll just stick with verizon. If there's an emergency when we're "at sea" and it goes to the ship's cellular so be it. Last time we cruised there was an emergency and we had to resort to the ship's satellite phone. Now that's expensive (but sometimes necessary). I'm not planning on initiating any conversations, just want to be available if necessary.