land lover

Like I noted, we have sailed with this same family on the Oasis class ships 4 times. Before last week, I would have agreed that there was never a crowding problem. That is why we booked it.

 

For the poster who was on the same cruise, maybe didn't try the same activities. But if you were in the dining room 6 PM seating on deck 5 the table chairs were literally back to back.

 

As I said, I love the Oasis and Allure and especially the great entertainment (except Cats, but that is a different post). We will surely be back, but not in July.

How disappointing that was....but as you said overall you had a wonderful time. Seems ridiculous about the skating.....But when you are in a small city some times are busier than others.

Thank you for posting this as a reminder...not to book Oasis or any of the large ships during the summer. I would hate to fly from Southern California and feeling like I was at home...lol

With our busy lifestyles and often having children in child care all week, a cruise is perfect inexpensive vacation for the whole family. And the cruise lines have come along way in 20 years to accommodate these families as well as scooters and walkers for the elderly.

 

However, My main concern with small people as well and the elderly cruisers is the false belief that the medical staff can take care of all emergency situations.

 

And I Just wish parents would think twice about holding their child in a plane. Arms aren't capable of holding your child securely, especially during unexpected turbulence and adult children would think twice about letting their very elderly parents fly alone.

 

The unexpected does happen.

Look it, I quoted myself as I added to my post...just a safety reminder for everyone.

As much as I love children and the elderly I have an independent 96 year old mother. People need to be considerate.

In other words I am tired of entertaining your kids and parents on flights.....and cruise ships:D:D

how did I go here..:rolleyes:

I agree 100%. A cruise seems to offer a bit of everything and you can be as active or inactive as you and your family want to be. Inexpensive wasn't so much for us (family of 5 and all), but we made it all work.

Looking at your signature my first cruise was in 1983 on the Carinvale too, but in October...the old refurbished freighter...entertainment was us, the guests ..that brings back memories.....

With our busy lifestyles and often having children in child care all week, a cruise is perfect inexpensive vacation for the whole family. And the cruise lines have come along way in 20 years to accommodate these families as well as scooters and walkers for the elderly.

However, My main concern with small people as well and the elderly cruisers is the false belief that the medical staff can take care of all emergency situations.

And I Just wish parents would think twice about holding their child in a plane. Arms aren't capable of holding your child securely, especially during unexpected turbulence and adult children would think twice about letting their very elderly parents fly alone.

The unexpected does happen.

Men look great in suits and tuxes anywhere, any place and anytime!

However, if you are going on a warm weather cruise be prepared for a much more laid back less formal crowd.

My DH still wears his tux and we recently packed all our clothes formal included, into 2 carry-ons for a 7 day cruise.

Enjoy L:)ri

I used the search to bring this thread to life again.

Seeing I have not cruised RCI since 2011, I had to post on it...to thank all you posters for making this interesting and hilarious thread, same questions and answers over and over and over again it just made me laugh and laugh and I kept on reading and reading...thanks for the fun...L:)ri

They say it's a good idea to take a photo of your contact details on your camera so if you lose it and it is picked up by an honest person you can get it back.

First name and phone number works for me, I also put my contact info and destination info inside each piece of luggage and take photos of luggage I am traveling with....etc..etc...I take lots of photos even what I send to Princess laundry....a picture tells a 1000 words.

Enjoy..Happy V-day day!

Exactly (see my point about blocks and higher pricingabove). There may be a bug in the system currently.

 

Given I know the team that wrote a recent version, pretty sure I have the design right unless Princess reengineered it again.

You have got my interest..this is my thought on princess excursions not on the system but on how they sell their excursions.

Princess has set up with vendor so many spots at a guaranteed price. For example 40 at $50. each. Once over that number the price increases.

Your sloting would work in the same way but if they have 20 available 20 should be at that price. I think we agree there is a bug. Because why do they sometimes go down to 5 left, sell them and then add another 20 and other times the amount available after I purchase my tickets is still 20.

I've purchase 9 ship tours on my last 2 cruises, Jan. & Dec. so became very familar with the system.

I also though maybe the OPs age is incorrect with princess and they gave her the child's price. We had a problem with one of my children years ago where they had put the wrong year for his birth, it can happen.

Seems every other cruise I have done(9) with princess the last 2 years I have had a problem that needed addressing, my first cruise with Princess was in '98, I had never had a problem until Fall 2013. I've used snail mail, email, calling and spoke up on the ship. Most were handled to my satisfaction. Some situations took more effort than others to be resolved. I booked through Princess directly and my TA.

Snail mail followed after running into a rude, uninformed or exceptional representative.

On a recent cruise in December, an unusual situation for me came up. I emailed princess of my concern 5 weeks b4 my cruise, I never received a verbal or written response but low and behold 2 weeks B4 I sailed there sat on my acct. the OBC that was in dispute.

BTW...the CR(customer relations) department has some pretty snippy reps. but some pleasant ones as well. Knowing the multitude of ships and problems that are handled today vs. 20 years ago..I cut the customer service some slack......and give them more response time.

Also the fact that so many people now make their situations known on public media, it can b a plus or negative for the cruise lines. When are posters going to learn that some situations that are resolved with the cruise line should be kept private, that announcing it to the cruise world hurts all of us....not to say that I don't like reading about it..... that is why..... I think I just received my OBC on line with no explantion they just don't want me talking about it and here I am....shame, shame....

They use a slotting system for pricing on some excursions..

 

So if an excursion has 20 slots, slots 1-8 may be at one price, 9-15 a little more, 16-20 a little more, so they can adjust for demand. Possible you ended up in slots 15 and 16... I suspect if you went back to check the pricing it would be the higher level.

If that were the case they would only let you book one at a time. OP stated they were booked together.

What I found interesting on a excursion I recently booked is that I could not edit it when the price went up. It wanted me to book another reservation at the higher price. Which would follow with what has been stated on this thread. I think the OP's situation is a fluke.

Oh and something else about tendering in Belize. It was the first time I have ever experienced a ship's snorkel excursion pick up at the ship. The reason, to save time... the ship anchors between belize city and the cayes.

Tips....yes they are still being asked for, I tendered 4 times on each of my cruises in Dec. and Jan. I was quite taken back. It depended on the tender though....

Last week I was tendering into the Belize port with the shore excursion manager at 3pm...I was mentioning to her that some of the tenders seemed to take forever, I told her last month I was on one that seemed like it took 30 minutes. She said some can take up to 40 minutes. A total of 5(2 crew) were on the very small tender we were riding on at that time it took us 15 minutes, it was raining and seas were rough.

We have tendered into a number of ports and I definitely think the Belize stop has the longest tender ride we have experienced.

Guess we were lucky when we had it on a 3 day on the Golden out of LA last year.

If you have paid the $15 corkage and do not finish the wine with your dinner do they save it for you, like wines purchased from their cellar?

We were on he Emerald for the Fall trans-Atl and tried to buy FCC for a cruise we're planning with friends. The woman doing the future cruises was emphatic that we could not even book a cabin in their names. Actually, she went past emphatic into downright rude. Good luck.

ROFLOL:D yep...some can be that way on the ship.....

Who knows what princess is doing...

But I did find it interesting that on 2 recent cruises last Jan.& Dec that in a box on my summary or somewhere it said friends are eligible for the same rate I was paying if I wanted to bring them along. And on the Jan. cruise I had a very, very good fare. It was a Caribbean cruise.

BTW regarding luggage...if you have carry ons take them with you...even though..they took ours at 8:30, we did not see one bag until 6pm.

Thank you in advance for your help!

 

1. If I bring a bottle of port, either as my free bottle or an extra subject to corkage, will this be okay? Is there an 'alcohol percentage requirement'? If this is not permitted, will the bottle be tossed out? Nothing better than a glass of port and room service dessert on the balcony of a cruise ship!

 

2. We are arriving in Houston the night before our cruise and returning to IAH to take the Princess shuttle to the cruise terminal. We have given our flight information to Princess. My understanding is that some people receive instructions from Princess on the time to catch their shuttle, but we did not. I presume this is normal for people arriving the day before? Any advice on when to show back up at baggage claim?

 

 

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Having embarked at this port in December and January. Returned last Sunday. I can address both your questions with my experience. In Dec. we did our own transfer, Jan, 25 sailing everything with princess.

Regarding wine....precentage don't know....... But one thing that Houston did which was different than some other ports we had to go to the table with just one bottle and then they listed it with our room number. They would not give me a straight answer why.

Tranfer. We booked air with princess and no instructions were given to us either but I called and was told around 10am terminal C and those with transfers only 11:30. We arrived at terminal C at 6am, Princess reps arrived around 7am and set up a table. Around 8am they began distributing boarding cards with numbers. We received 1&2. Speaking to a rep we found out that the first bus comes to terminal C at around 9:30. That is if all goes well with disembarkation, same bus used.

So as people began gathering we found out some had come over from the hotel to get on the first bus. I also asked the rep if they would take walk ups, she said absolutely. That day 454 people had reserved transfers to the ship.

Around 8:30 our luggage was loaded on a truck to take to the port. At 9:20 a bus came we were told those that had number 1-33 should board, that was everyone there that morning so far. Since the bus was not full we proceeded to the hotel to PU other pax....then onward to the ship.

Pretty much princess is picking up from the ship and dropping off at the airport through out the morning. The last pickups coincide with the drop off at 1pm of pax that did the Houston tours.

So from what I understand you could arrive at the terminal before 11:30 with just a transfer and get on any bus that has space. However, if alot of princess air people are there you might have to wait. It sounded like no one was really given priority. They just want to fill the bus an give the cards out to regulate the boarding. So for example when we went to the hotel there were 15 available seats those holding card 1-15 came out.

This is a great thread...I am only reading the op's posts and they are very entertaining.......To the OP I know you are working out, but was just curious if you have been stepping on the scale?.....I mean the calories do add up.....

Keep on enjoying your cruise and drink package!!!!!

BTW.....our weather overall was pretty good last week did have rain(not showers) in Belize, morn and late afternoon.

Made all ports , but in Cozumel I do know one of the ship excursions was cancelled due to the sea being to rough for snorkeling. Our beach and snorkel excursion did go out but we snorkeled in a different area.

Regarding the F O G......

On our December 6th cruise we were delayed an hour plus, the announcement was made at 6:15 in the morning.

Last Saturday there was an announcement by the Captain at about 1pm that said there was a great likelihood we would be delayed due to Fog. A few more announcements followed..stating the same.....well at 6am on Sunday when we woke we were docked..but in thick Fog which quickly burned off. From what I understood we had docked around 2amish..I guess beating the fog...the time of docking is hearsay.....we disembarked on time...however many people flights were delayed or canceled due to the snow....so they were making arrangements to stay the night......

Just off the Emerald......on the 1st. Cruise was great, staff & food way above average even better than our first cruise on Emerald last December.

Have added some caribbean items to the DR menu which was a welcomed change.

Lee Childers, is the CD personally I liked Kelvin Joy in Dec...but with him gone Deputy Director Dan...really shines..as Childers does not participate in as many activities as Joy did, leaving Dan to be the Man.....anything that he is MCing you will just laugh and laugh. Hopefully he will soon be a cruise director..... really an outstanding entertainer.

We have had an aft cabin on these ships twice....yes there is vibration, at times enough that it makes the drawers and cabinets rattle and even open. It was just a minor distraction for us......afterall if you are like us and sleep with your sliding glass door open the wake drowns some of those noises out.

You posters make me crack up with some of your remarks.

Re: laundry.....a few cruises ago I sent my DH's in under his name and my room steward noticed that he was billed, he told me to contact customer service to have the charges moved to my acct, I noticed on my final bill the charges were credited.

Our cruise last week I had my DH's tux shirt cleaned put it under my name, so no confusion. I hardly ever use the laundry.

The best elite perk I think is afternoon tea in your room and certainly my DH was able to share in this.