MamaFej

Be still, my heart! Someone who appreciates baseball and musical theater! Hubby and I had season tickets to a local dinner theater for ages. Sadly, it didn't survive Covid. I just watched Damn Yankees with my daughter a couple of weeks ago. It was her first time seeing it. As for being patient, 1988 and 2020 were many years apart! I'm hoping we won't have to wait that long for another WS Championship! You gotta have heart! You can have my share of IPAs. They aren't to my taste. Though I would love to see more smaller local to the itnerary breweries represented onboard.

We will be boarding on the 1st, but we will be in Kailua-Kona visiting Hubby's aunt and uncle for the three previous nights. We will wave at you.

No worries. As always, it depends on traffic conditions. And I don't drive as fast as some, even when traffic is light. My brain was thinking Vegas when I said 3.5 hours, as that was the conversation in the house at the time I typed. My bad. San Pedro is about 1.25-1.75 hours and San Diego is 2-2.5 hours most of the time. None of those really works for cabs or ride share apps, but I appreciate the input.

I can only imagine what a 3.5 hour Uber ride would cost, even if someone was wiiling to take the fare. I suppose I could check, but I'm not sure my heart could handle it.

I'm the daughter of a retired homicide detective and the spouse of a retired arson investigator. Maybe something rubbed off?

Cool! I'm guessing he's not doing that on a Montana teacher's salary. 😉

I hear you. My Millennial son is 28 and a teacher in Montana. He makes lousy money, but he's happy. One of my Gen-Z kids is a teacher in California, and makes decent-ish money, but is too busy working on her Masters after work to spend much. My other Gen-Z kid is still in college, and working part time at a movie theater. They are all a fair bit away from being able to do much with any sort of Loyalty, but they do enjoy their occassional Rewards. I've got two Millennial cousins in their 30s with vastly different financial situations. Again, there's no sense is trying to throw everyone into the same basket, but it's a good idea to try to understand trends.

Thanks. It was more of a fantasy than a serious idea. Ship berths are booked 3-4 years in advance and sports schedules are announced less than a year in advance, but a girl can dream... I do seriously think that overnights in major sports cities is a good idea, especially as a way to attract folks local to the embarkation/disembarkation port(s). I'd also enjoy overnights or late nights in San Francisco or Seattle, or on the east coast that would allow for attending theater, musical, or other cultural events. Overnights are one of the reasons I've been looking at smaller ship cruise lines lately. They tend to do moe of them, that I have seen.

Interesting. That's not what I see among my Millennial and Gen-Z kids and their friends. Maybe that's partly because most of them can't yet afford to buy into the good stuff. Of course, not everyone is alike, regardless of what groups they are parts of. My kids aren't interested in being loyal to one company (neither am I) but they are happy to take advantage of various rewards programs. Thanks for chiming in. It's good to hear different perspectives.

Nice! The weather should be downright tolerable, maybe even lovely, that time of year. It can be brutal not long after.

Of course, credit card insurance is just a part of protecting your travel "investment." We have a Venn Diagram of coverages, with significant overlap. Each person must calculate what works for them. It won't be the same for everyone, but it's still good to learn from others. That's why threads such as this can be so helpful. People may discover something relevant they never thought of previously. Thanks to the folks keeping this thread helpful and informative, without attacking anyone else's choices. ----- I've seen too much rudeness and nastiness online lately, including on CC, and I'm especially appreciative to folks who choose to interact kindly.

I've said it many times, and I'll say it many more: I am perpetually grateful that the IT folks who manage the ships' navigation and infrastructure systems are not the ones who mange the website.

Good point. San Pedro and Long Beach are shorter drives for me, but San Diego works well because it is far more convenient for dropping off or picking up a one-way rental car, as we did when sailing from Chile to San Diego. Depending on the length of the cruise, it would be worth driving to SD in order to avoid paying for parking near LA.

If you and your travel companion each have a card that includes travel insurance (such as the CSR) you can split the payment between those two cards to increase your protection.

How about a cruise out of San Diego when Dodgers are on a West Coast road trip and starts the Monday after they played the Padres over the weekend, with an overnight in San Francisco when the Dodgers are playing the Giants, and an overnight in Seattle when the Boys in Blue are there for an inter-league series with the Mariners? (I'm so easy to please) 😜

I'm just going to jump in and thank the folks who answered for being kind and not rude. It seems to me that the percentage of unkind posts here has been increasing lately, and it is so refreshing to see none of that. Carry on.

Kind of like being at a sporting event, and seeing much of the crowd in your team's colors? It's a shared event, even if you never speak to any of those folks. Heck, even seeing people in the opposing team's colors contributes to the experience. It is a competition, and you can't have one of those without an opponent. Thanks for this. I tend not to consciously care what others are wearing, but your comment made me realize that maybe I subconsciously do.

My niece is a DPT, and this message makes me happy.

I appreciate your position. I'm going to respectfully disagree. Those who paid $60 agreed to pay $60 when the price was $60. Those who paid less paid the agreed upon price, then what they paid for was devalued. Those who book the package now or in the future would agree to the current price. Princess would do well to give those who previously agreed to a price what they paid for. The issue isn't with changing prices. It's with taking away what was previously agreed to. By your logic, anyone who paid more for a cabin than someone who bookied at a different price would be entitled to money back.

This may or may not be helpful. But just in case... When we were cruising earlier this year, we met a couple, one of whom used a walker like this when not using a wheelchair. It folds to a fairly small size. I asked about it because my youngest son was about to travel to visit his big brother. I ended up buying it for him, and he loved it. He could hold it while being wheeled between gates at the airport, and he used it (semi-narrowed) to easily get down airplane aisles. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B085LV9GSH/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Ding ding ding ding ding!!! That's where we are, as well. However, sometimes we are finding we can pay the same or less to get more elsewhere, rather than paying more to get less on Celebrity. We have an October X cruise, as well as five in early 2024, that have been booked for a long time. We are strongly considering canceling up to three of them, in favor of other, potentially better opportunities. For 2025, Celebrity is no longer the first place I'm looking, and it's not in the top 5, either.

I think arrival time can be a huge factor. One arrival in Sydney coincided with two other large planes and queued for 90 minutes to get through immigration and biosecurity. The next time, we were the only plane, and got through in about 5 minutes. I'm glad you got lucky. I'll hope for the same.

Grandfathering Plus and Premiere purchasers into the current program would save enormous amounts of angst, frustration, and stress. It would allow Guest Services folks onboard to do the jobs they are meant to do. It would allow passengers who need GS to get through the queues in a reasonable amount of time, rather than having to wait for all the folks dealing with Plus and Premiere issues. It would earn Princess a tremedous amount of Goodwill. In the long run, that may be worth thousands or tens of thousands of dollars more from returning passengers than the $10 or $20 a day in the short run, and alienating those passengers from returning.

They did on cruises out of Sydney that visited New Zealand earlier this year. We couldn’t board until we proved we had the Visa.

If you're okay with somethng less luxurious, you might look at Azamara. While not in depth, this itinerary has several ports in Western Africa, including an overnight in Walvis Bay, Namibia. After that, is this one, with time in northwest Africa and the Canaries.