lladage

2 hours ago, LC1950 said:

Sun Princess as at October 2019

 

Deck 7 (Promenade Deck) starboard side aft, near the Vista Lounge.

Deck 12 (Riviera Deck) port side forward by the Riviera Bar

Deck 14 (Lido Deck) aft Sundowners Bar (although the bar is rarely open.

Thank you!!  That's exactly what I wanted to know!!

Lynn

I posted this on the Princess board several days ago, and only received 1 rather vague answer.  Hopefully there will be more answers on this board since the Sea and Sun are based in Australia.

We are planning to book the 28-day circumnavigation of Australia when bookings open for 2022.  Assuming that will be on either the Sea or the Sun.  Can anyone tell me where the smoking areas are?  Since I can't seem to get my husband to quit that nasty habit, we try to book a cabin somewhat close to a smoking area.  Thanks for any help!

Lynn

We are planning to book the 28-day circumnavigation of Australia when bookings open for 2022.  Assuming that will be on either the Sea or the Sun.  Can anyone tell me where the smoking areas are?  Since I can't seem to get my husband to quit that nasty habit, we try to book a cabin somewhat close to a smoking area.  Thanks for any help!

Lynn

6 minutes ago, skynight said:

It does not hurt to ask, but in over 40 Princess cruises I have never seen or heard of this happening. Tender tickets are individual and handed out in order of arrival at the tender ticket location.

Just now, pms4104 said:

And a possible exception for 3 or 4 pax is way different than moving 70 pax up the food chain

I would have never even thought to ask, had I not experienced the same thing on our British Isles cruise.  That was just 1 group of about 25 people.

And I totally agree that it is not a reasonable option for a small group.  Whenever I have organized a private excursion for a tender port, I have asked everyone to meet in the Future Cruise area so that we could all go together for tender tickets.  On our Norway cruise, I had already given those exact directions to everyone in my group.  But when we all realized just how many people we had between the 3 groups, we decided to ask.

I'm just saying....it is POSSIBLE, especially if you have a large group. 

It is POSSIBLE to make arrangements with Passenger Services to tender as a group.  On our Norwegian Fjords cruise, there were 3 separate private excursions set up for 1 particular port that required tenders.  We politely asked the Passenger Services representative who showed up at our Meet & Greet if there was any way for us to tender as a group.  He asked how many people we were talking about, which was close to 70 when all 3 tours were added together.  He made arrangements for us to meet in the casino, and he came to the casino to get us when he could work us in.  We beat almost everyone else off the ship that day.

Lynn

8 minutes ago, TM said:

For those that have done a British Isles cruise - does Princess take you passports and if so when is that done and when are they returned back to the passengers?

 

Thanks in advance for responses.

On our British Isles cruise, Princess kept our passports at check-in and returned them after getting our Ireland visas stamped in them.

Lynn

27 minutes ago, hm9912 said:

If one charged a long cruise of say $20.000 and placed the charge on the Princess Visa Card they would get 40.000 points and a $400.00 credit off the credit card statement.

Actually, if you make a $20,000 Princess charge, or any single Princess charge over $4000, you can redeem your points for statement credit @ 2%.  40,000 points would equal an $800 statement credit.

Lynn

1 hour ago, snowskier said:

 

 

The question was -- what banks have chip and pin cards, not do your cards have chips. If your cards are truly chip and pin, please answer the question and let us all know what bank issued them.

I was able to use my Princess Visa card (Barclays) in an automated ticket machine at the London National Express coach station last August.  I had established a 4 digit PIN before leaving home.

Lynn

5 minutes ago, steelers36 said:

So, $200 USD OBC for booking becomes $200 AUD.  Same thing with the OBC rebate from applying a FCD.  

 

I read another post here on CC where the poster complained about OBC from a FCD being changed from USD to AUD.  Their FCD confirmation clearly stated that the currency could not be changed.  I double checked my current FCD confirmations, and that wording does exist on mine.  Princess granted them extra OBC in AUD to make up the difference. I plan to make the same complaint when we use our FCDs to book an Australia cruise.

Lynn

The fact that Princess allows TAs to discount their cruise fares. 😀

Lynn

So do you only get charged for the days you turn your phone off airport mode (days your in port) or if you were gone on a 7 day cruise would it be $10 a day? = $70

 

I need to check into this either way:)

When you contact Verizon, make sure to ask about their travel pass for a month. When we were in Europe in November, the plan would have been $40 for the whole month instead of $10 per day.

Lynn

My experience has been that the flights are all on the airline you selected, even if operated by a partner airline. And I can't remember anytime when I could select seats for the partner airline's flights prior to check-in. I have learned to be very careful about partner airlines when booking flights. I think that since you booked as Delta, all of your flights fall under Delta's rules, not Virgin Atlantic's rules.

Lynn

I'll be cruising on Emerald Princess Feb 14. In the Falkland Islands the first three excursion times to the Bluff Cove penguins are more expensive than the later in the day times. Anyone know why? Are they hiding later in the day?

Have excursions been open for booking for some time? I have noticed this before as the cruise gets closer. The more popular times have fewer openings, therefore the price goes up. Supply and demand...

Lynn

Forgot to mention. Bluff Cove was a great excursion!!! Just enough time in a 4-wheel vehicle over rough terrain to still be fun.

My experience booking Viking air (cruise booked with a TA) was that the TA set up a conference call with the Viking air department. Her only involvement was making the call, introducing the Viking rep and me, and at the end of the call, she stated what she believed to be the agreed on flights. Both the Viking rep and I stated that matched our understanding. The next day she emailed the paperwork from Viking and I had to reply that I accepted.

For anyone afraid that their TA will screw up their flights, ask them to do a conference call. That puts you in control and the TA officially in the loop.

Lynn

What are the different choices of extra fees for Viking Air? I only want to talk to the air department to pick the best flight. they just charged me $150 and I thought it was $50.

 

Thanks

Cmbath

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums

Host Jazzbeau is correct. Viking is charging $100 for flying in a day early (or to a different airport), and $50 for choosing your flights instead of letting Viking choose.

Lynn

FYI, I just booked a direct train from the Zurich airport to Lucerne for $38 per person through Rail Europe (2nd class tickets...not much luggage). This was for November 21.

Lynn

When we did an Alaska cruisetour back in 2001, there was an open-air car on the train. My husband (a smoker) spent a lot of time out there.

Lynn

No, you do not have to have a Princess charge on your current statement. Any Princess charge, or other travel charge (airfare, hotel, cruise, etc) within the last 180 days works. The redemption % depends on the $ amount of the charge you choose to redeem against. Once Barclays worked out the kinks, it is easy to do online.

Lynn

You will spend a lot more time actually touring with a private excursion, whether that means getting to more sites or spending more time at the sites. It takes much less time for meals and bathroom breaks for a vanload versus a busload of people. The private excursion companies in Russia get the same umbrella visas that Princess does, and their tours are customizable. And they know the traffic situations and will get you back to the ship. Their business would die a quick death if anyone posted that they missed the ship while touring with xxx company (unless they got you to the next port).

Lynn

My last concern is that some people on that thread said you can't use deviation for free airfare.

I can't speak for others, but we were able to use deviation on free airfare.

Lynn

See this thread

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2486004

I didn't post on that thread about it, but we paid the $100 per person deviation fee to fly into Zurich 3 days early, as well as the $50 per person fee to have a say in our flights. Well worth the money...especially if free airfare is included. We ended up with great flights to/from Europe for $150 per person. Our requested airport was STL, 1 connection in Newark on the way to Zurich. On the return from AMS, our flight is at noon with 1 connection in Washington Dulles.

Lynn

Oh did she tell you when they are to be released? Normally there was someone on CC that would post the spreadsheet they got from their TA...but perhaps they got in trouble as the last release they didn't have the info...

I think she said the 26th, but don't hold me to that......

Lynn

Lynn does you TA have any other info...like possible homeport or the type of itinerary...7 day 10 day?

Sorry, I didn't ask. We are interested in a full transit through the new locks (Panama Canal). Since she was looking at the soon-to-be-released cruises for 'The Americas', I tend to agree that the repositioning will probably be 1 or more South America cruises. :(

Lynn

I just talked to my travel agent, and their info shows the Royal staying in the Caribbean through the end of January, 2019. Then it disappears until March, when it shows up in Mexico. So we've narrowed down the timeframe from Caribbean to the west coast, but not how it repositions.

Lynn

A tip here, go online and have an idea of what flights you want and present them to Viking, see if they qualify for no upcharge; if you focus on flights on Delta, KLM, Air France you will have great success.

FYI, Viking also uses United air. The Viking air rep asked if I had particular flights or airlines that I would prefer. I responded that we were good with American, United and Delta, and would prefer to not have an upcharge, so to let me know what they could do. The rep came back about 30 seconds later with a flight itinerary. We tweaked the flights to Europe and she agreed that they were better flights and within the cost allowance. And the flights are with United.

Lynn