Northumberland

8 hours ago, suzyed said:

We were told there was an hour wait the last time we tried to dine there.

We waited about 15 minutes at lunch time on our Regal Princess cruise last fall. Sounds like nobody will have to wait any more.

We experienced our first Princess cruise with the Princess Plus package last year on a 26 day Mediterranean/TA cruise and thought the upgrade worth the extra charge.

However, I’m not exited about the new perks.

I can’t see myself eating one of those fancy desserts every day and if I want a pizza, I think I can make my way to Alfredo’s as we’ve always done.

As for the other perks, Never had them and wouldn’t miss them.

We refared 4 times in order to save $4000.00 on 2 staterooms for a 28 day South Pacific cruise scheduled for an April 2022 sailing.

Alas, the cruise was cancelled last month.

My wife is a retired banker and suggested if they hack your debit card, they would have access to both you're checking and savings accounts.

We typically use a credit card the has a low maximum for traveling. 

If we think we are going to max it out, we make an on line payment.

37 minutes ago, dog said:

Does the higher deposit show on the website when you do a mock booking? 

if that is what Princess is no doing I can see a lot of us Not booking with them in the future. 
i only have one booking now with a FCD & my FCC on it. 
 

i ch class my Personalizer daily now. 
i ‘ve checked several cruises balcony & never see any deposits above $504 CAD. 

I haven't tried a mock booking, but upon checking the confirmation from the TA, it shows a deposit of $508.00 Cdn per person. 

When we re fared, I was told we had to have our booking cancelled and rebook because the new fares were only for new bookings. I guess that was so they could charge the new deposit amounts. According to a Youtube video from a TA, the cruise lines are charging higher deposits because a number of people are canceling and rebooking cruises with different dates and that is costing the cruise lines a lot of money maintaining those bookings.

We had booked a cruise in September through my TA  for an April 2022 sailing. Our deposit was $270.00 Cdn. We re fared twice. The second time was about 2 weeks ago. A couple days later, I was checking the Princess website and couldn't find my booking. Upon checking with my TA, I found out Princess had cancelled the booking because they had increased the deposit to $1016.00 Cdn, but had failed to inform us. I don't mind them increasing the deposit given the current circumstances with Covid, but I do mind not being informed about the increase and almost loosing out on the specific staterooms we had chosen. Fortunately, I was able to pay the difference and reinstate my original booking.

I wasn't a big supporter of Cabin Crawls before the pandemic.  I don't see the appeal of having a large group of strangers mill around my cabin. I much prefer an M&G in a public place maybe followed by a slot pull.

Our first cruise some 21 years ago was to celebrate our 25th anniversary. We choose a 7 night Southern Caribbean cruise out of San Juan Puerto Rico. We booked a balcony on a brand new ship and visited 5 ports in the 7 day cruise. At the time, we didn't know if we would ever cruise again, but we have taken 8 cruises since and now that we're retired, we have a 28 night cruise coming up in early 2022.  2 others were recently cancelled to to Covid.

We would love to have cruised more, but given where we live and the cost to travel to ports and exchange rates, it just wasn't economically feasible. 

We have booked Baja deck stateroom #B747 on the Sapphire Princess for an upcoming cruise.  

It's described as an angled balcony.

Does anyone have any comments or photos of this balcony?

On 12/29/2020 at 6:03 AM, paul929207 said:

Lovee them all, but best is the Pacific Princess and her departed sisters the middle Royal and the Ocean. They can go to so many fabulous places that the bigger ships can not get too.

We were on the Ocean Princess when she was brand new. (Our first cruise) More recently we went on the Royal Princess. We loved the size of the Ocean Princess and the Royal was a nice ship, but we've booked a 2022 cruise on the Sapphire Princess. So, we'll see which of the 3 classes we prefer.

1 hour ago, Ombud said:

I never imagined that there wouldn't be a medical doctor (MD not provider as in NP or PA) onboard!! I understand that we have learned to zoom / Skype / FaceTime for consults but I'm just a little stunned that MDs on duty onboard at all times wasn't the norm

Like you, I always assumed the medical staff included at .least one doctor. 

As we are 2000 miles away from the nearest port, we've never cruised without planning ahead. We had planned on arranging a 2-3 month rental in Florida this winter in order to take advantage of last minute cruises, but Covid changed all that.

A whole lot of things come into play for us when choosing a cruise.  The length of the cruise, the cost, the amenities on the ship, the itinerary, the perks offered by the cruise line or TA, etc.

We've sailed with 3 different cruise lines. Princess, RCCL & MSC.

We like Princess for longer cruises as they have self serve laundry, which means you don't have to bring a ton of clothes. We have a 28 day cruise scheduled for 2022 and only bringing one suit case.The entertainment as generally very good. We also enjoy the service level on board and have never been disappointed by the food.

We enjoy RCCL when on 7-8 day cruises because of the on board activities, the entertainment, the food and overall design of the ships with promenades.

We've only done one MSC cruise and don't plan on another one, but that's based on our personal opinion about the food. To be fair, it wasn't to our tastes, but others seemed to really enjoy it. One exception would be the hand tossed pizza, which was the best I've ever had on a cruise ship. The ship it self was beautiful and the staff were wonderful. 

We've thought of cruise lines like Carnival, NCL, Celebrity and HAL, but haven't seen anything that entice us to change yet.

Our cruise isn't till April 2022. So, we're hoping the rules will be relaxed by then. 

However, if not, we'll choose tours offered by Princess as we'll be going to places we've never been and wouldn't want to miss out on exploring new places.

We are booked for a cruise in April 2022, but won't be going anywhere unless we get vaccinated for Covid.

After years of taking road trips with our children, we decided to book our first cruise to celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary. 

We chose a 7 day South Caribbean cruise with Princess on what was a brand new ship (Ocean Princess) and we were hooked.

We also had a cruise booked on the Star Princess that we cancelled about a month ago due to covid and low and behold, Princess cancelled the cruise the other day and transferred the Star and Golden to P&O.

We've since rebooked another cruise for April 2022.

We're hoping that covid will just be a bad memory by then...

18 minutes ago, nini said:

 

How SO VERY TRUE! I just learned an expensive lesson by ordering a new wine

online from a FB Wine Group to which I belong. The description was so endearing

and the results? One of the three bottles was "corked" and this was my first experience with

"corked" wine. The next bottle was a horrible bottle of a Zinfandel. So:

I have found a really nice Zinfandel that costs much less... What a lesson!

 

P.S. to XBGy   I really like the Oak Ridge Zinfandel!!! It was a 2017 from Total Wine.

 

 

No worries! It has taken me quite some time to develop my palate. I began with sweet wines; typically

the Beringer White Zinfandel and many Rieslings. Now, I do not want sweet, and instead look for

that "perfect" smooth and "jammy" red wine. And also a smooth, oaky, and buttery Chardonnay.

 

I think that the Princess Beverage Package will really allow us to try new wines and I really appreciate

the comments!

Haha. My wife and I actually enjoy nice dry red wine, but our other cruise mate likes the sweeter wines. She actually used to consume Baby Duck  (yuck) and it's taken us years to wean here off that stuff. So, she has graduated to the Beringer, which we also enjoy. 

However, that "perfect" smooth and "jammy" red wine. And also a smooth, oaky, and buttery Chardonnay sounds good

to me...

I don't have a sophisticated palette.  So, we usually bring our own. Berenger White Zinfandel.  $3.97 a bottle at Walmart. However, as we have at the deluxe beverage package for our next cruise, I think we'll broaden our taste buds a little. 🍸🥃 😆

8 minutes ago, Ashland said:

Regardless of what that space is used for (and yes I checked what it was before responding but also noted that it is very close to the fitness center)...I would err on the side of caution and not take the chance. 

Hopefully it won't be a problem for you and you'll enjoy your cruise.

Well, we're booked on a 28 day cruise. So, I can only hope all our cruise mates are a bunch of old farts that go to bed early and get up late. 😆😆😆

3 hours ago, Ashland said:

Have you considered their will be a public space above you? That would be my concern and would opt for Aloha deck instead if at all possible.

Yes, I was looking at that and the only thing I see directly above is the beauty salon. Can't see that being much of an issue, but I could be wrong. That's why I was hoping that people who booked that stateroom before could provide some insite, but thanks for pointing that out.

Curious to hear from anyone who would have stayed in stateroom L231 Lido deck on the Sapphire Princess.

I would like to know about the location on the ship.

34 minutes ago, delliemd said:

I am ready to cruise again even though I'm a little apprehensive. Last Feb. I contracted influenza A on board Princess. I have cruised for 23 years & never been sick on a ship before & also never saw so many sick people. I was not aware of covid-19 at the time. However, life is short  & I'm ready to roll the dice how about you?

We were booked on an Hawaii cruise for last March that got cancelled. We rebooked the same cruise for this coming January, but decided to cancel in light of the situation with the pandemic still being out of control. So, now we've rebooked a new cruise for April 2022 and are hoping we don't have to cancel that one. We really want to get back to our favourite way to vacation, but not if we our risking our lives in the process.

7 hours ago, DUCHESSRN said:

We booked the same cruise also wonderful itinerary , today I called as final payment for our December 19th on Royal almost due I was told Royal will be sailing , we will see I am rather nervous about it .

I don't blame you for being nervous.

The deciding factor for us to cancel our January cruise was having to drive through 5 states as we were going to go on a road trip rather than fly assuming the border would be open, which I doubt.

Hope you sign up for the roll call if you haven't already done so.

We would love to meet you and see how your trip on the Royal went.

Totally understand the anxiety you must feel.

Our last cruise was March 2019. We booked our next cruise for March 2020. A 15 night cruise to Hawaii from LA.

Of course, that cruise got cancelled.

So, we rebooked the same cruise for January 2021, think the pandemic would be under control by then.

We decided to cancel that cruise as the pandemic isn't close to being under control and don't even know if the border between Canada and the USA will be open by then.

So, now we've booked a 28 day cruise going from Sydney, Au to SanFrancisco for April 2022.

We are counting on a vaccine being available by then that will make travel safer.