new_cruiser

Also the Star Port Hole Suites - if Star is in the category name, it was added in the stretch.

Even though they tell you to be at the airport 3 hours before for international flights, I have had times when the check-in desk isn't open until closer to the flight. (That is most often the case for early morning flights or where the carrier doesn't have many flights out of that airport so they only staff the counter at times it's needed) However, you may be able to do electronic check-in and go straight to your gate if you don't have bags to check. If you feel more comfortable, go early and know you will have that extra margin in case of travel issues. I'd probably split the difference change to 8:15 so planned arrival is 3 hours before. But do what you are comfortable with.

I don't see one currently called Spanish Treasures. The Aruba to Panama City sailings I see are called Panama Canal, Cartagena, San Blas Islands and More - not very catchy. We did almost the same itinerary as one segment of 31 days just before COVID. The only difference was that our cruise was on Wind Surf which is too tall to go through the Pacific end of the canal. We did a partial transit and the segment finished in Colon. It's a very nice itinerary. We've also done one of the Panama and Costa Rica cruises from Colon to Puerto Caldera - the stops in Costa Rica are more nature oriented rather than history.

Have you heard anything about what time of day they usually release tickets? We live in the US Pacific time zone which means the Italy work day is roughly from Midnight to 8 AM in our time zone. It would be nice to have a clue on whether to stay up very late or get up very early.

I've read a couple of horror stories on line about people having trouble getting through on the phone, but that wasn't my experience. My son's family decided to book a cruise about a month and a half before sailing and I wanted to join them. However, I was just about to submit my passport for renewal and didn't want to wait until after the cruise because we had a fall cruise scheduled. So, I used the urgent passport process which requires calling the National Passport Agency for an appointment. I was a bit nervous about the process; I didn't want to be biting my nails about being able to get an appointment just before a non-refundable June cruise. So I also booked a short jaunt to Vancouver in May that could be altered to use as the justification for the urgent passport process. I ended up having to call 3 times - the first time, I misunderstood their interpretation of "14 days ahead of travel." The day of travel counts as one of the 14 days so my initial call was one day too early. I called the next day and got an appointment for a few days before travel, but then realized I had an unavoidable schedule conflict for that day so I moved the Vancouver trip a few days and called again to cancel that appointment and book another one. Each time I called, I got through dialing once with a reasonable amount of time on hold (I didn't time it exactly - it may have been 20 minutes or so, but it wasn't hours). I wondered if there are different call centers that the calls get automatically routed to or if there is some other factor like time of day because 3 out of 3 times it was pretty easy. The urgent process took pretty much all day for me - a two-hour drive there, the appointment in the morning and then waiting around to pick up the passport, then a longer drive home due to rush hour traffic. Other than that, it went without a hitch. I could pick up the passport the same day because I live more than 100 miles away. Pick-up might require coming back the next day for those closer to the office.

Some cruises get big discounts on some sales, but not all of them do. I mainly cruise on a Windstar, a line with small ships (the biggest are 312 passengers). I'll sometimes watch a cruise I want and book if there is a good sale price. Other times when we particularly like an itinerary, we will book at the current price. In either case, I'll watch the price until the end of the Price Assurance Policy (which coincides with final payment). Twice over many cruises, the price has never gone down, on one it went up quite a bit from where we booked - both were very nice itineraries that are less frequent and the ship booked full or near full so it's obvious why the line never felt a need to put them on sale. Many times I've gotten a moderate discount - a few hundred. A few times, I've gotten a big discount - something over $1000. I had a 23-day Cruise Collector last spring where there was a December sale just before the end of the price assurance policy - the price went down enough that I upgraded from Ocean View to Balcony (a French Balcony) and still got a nice fare reduction. The price went back up after the sale and never came back down to anywhere near what I paid - actually, what I paid as a solo for the crossing plus the following 10-day segment was less than the 10-day segment pp double occupancy price after the sale. They honored my initial no solo supplement price when they repriced to the sale. That was a pretty rare deal. Another time, we had booked a 14-day cruise and had considered adding the 17-day after that but didn't. About month before our cruise, the 17-day went on sale for a really low price and we added it. The 14-day was one of the ones I mentioned above that never went on sale. We usually get some OBC from our TA - more on more expensive cruises, just a bit on cheap cruises. I recently went on a Royal Caribbean cruise with family - my only cruise on a mainstream line since our first cruise in 2005. We had booked after final payment and I'd initially booked an ocean view guarantee. The balcony guarantee would appear for a few days, then disappear for a few days and then come back. I saw it for a couple hundred more pp than I had paid, which was less than the its price when I initially booked, and I thought about it but it was gone before I jumped, then came back at just about $100 more and I jumped on it. So that price was fairly fluid - not by a lot in absolute $ but the initial price wasn't much so % wise, it was a pretty good discount.

Would you consider a cruise terminating in ports in the Caribbean or Central America? Many cruises to the Caribbean departing from the US, hit the same few big ports on the same mid-week days. You might be on a smaller ship, but if, for example, you stop at St. Maarten on a mid-week day, you still deal with crowds in port due to sharing the port with multiple behemoth ships. Itineraries that start in the Caribbean, usually hit the more common ports at the beginning or end of the week when they are less crowded and visit smaller islands on other days. Also, the port times are generally better as the ship doesn't have far to travel between ports.

It's only been one day since they posted. Not everyone checks every day. Since small can mean anything from ships under 1500 to ships under 100, you'll have to give some more ideas about what you want to get more helpful suggestions. How small you consider small ship? Are there any ship features you are looking for? If small is less than 1500 to you and you still want a casino and big shows, it won't help if we suggest ships that carry 300 where the ports and a more laid back atmosphere are the highlights. Or vice versa. For me, small is around 300 passengers or less and that's what I prefer. I've mostly done Windstar, but there is also Star Clippers in that size. While small ships are often more expensive per night than huge ships, one can find specials with pretty good prices. Christmas/New Year's is going to tend to be more expensive on most lines large and small as a lot of people have vacation then.

Or plan on going solo. There are many places I would like to go that don't interest my husband so I go to those places on my own. He's more of a homebody and not as adventurous so it has to be something he really wants to do to tempt him to travel. About half the trips I do are with him and most of the rest, I go solo. Solo supplements are a pain, but sometimes I've been able to find specials where there was little or no solo supplement or find a travel on sale. Also, when traveling with him, I like to make the trip as comfortable as possible so book business class for overseas flights and upscale hotels, but when traveling on my own, I'm willing to fly coach (sometimes requesting an upgrade on miles) and book cheaper good enough hotels. That helps offset some of the extra costs of traveling solo. He is very supportive of me going solo when a trip doesn't interest him.

Several in our family group, including granddaughter who was my cabinmate, tested positive on board a Royal Caribbean cruise this summer. The medical center would have charged ($175 IIRC) for the COVID test if you took it and tested negative but waived the charge if you tested negative. They were given symptomatic medicines (cough syrup for my granddaughter and acetaminophen without charge). They were all younger without complications so didn't need Paxlovid or IVs and I don't know if the medical center would have charged for those. (I was sorry that I hadn't brought some home tests kits along - I did for some earlier cruises but didn't think about it for this one. I bought some home test kits in a port because those in our group who hadn't tested yet wanted to be able to test without the hassle of the medical center's limited availability.) Those testing positive were quarantined in their cabins for 5-days, but assymptomatic untested cabinmates had no restriction. No threats were issued about violating the quarantine though of course we all complied. This was a 7-day cruise so the 5-day quarantine really meant until the end of the cruise. Debarkation was kind of a mess. They wanted to debark each room separately, but two the two minors were rooming with other family members and the younger one would have been extremely upset and confused if debarked without parents. Also we felt that they should be with their parents when leaving the ship and the parents were holding their passports. Communication was poor. Cabins with positive tests were debarked after the rest of the ship - it was a quite a few people, maybe several dozen. We were directed through a different route that bypassed customs and had us in an area for a while where baggage handlers were moving big carts of bags - the baggage handlers weren't happy about us being in that area. Those who tested positive got free room service (normally Royal charges for room service other than continental breakfast) and internet. Once one tested positive, the stewards couldn't enter the room so there was no servicing of the room. The steward was good about bringing fresh towels, ice and anything else needed to the door on request. We put used room service trays outside the door and he was good about clearing those away too. They were also supposed to get some future cruise credit based on how much of the cruise they missed. We were all vaccinated with boosters kept current. Except for me, those in our group who didn't test positive on board, tested positive shortly after. I never tested positive but developed similar symptoms shortly after debarking. I suspect I had a very mild case but a recent booster kept viral load low enough that antigen tests didn't pick it up. I've been on 4 other cruises since the restart of cruising without getting COVID, but those were all on much smaller ships (Windstar with a max capacity of 312 passengers).

Which cruise line is that with?

We have a cruise in late October and we are waiting for the new booster. However, we received our last booster in the spring so either way we will have had a fairly recent booster. I went on a cruise with family in June and everyone in our party except me tested positive either during the cruise or the day after we debarked. I had similar symptoms after the cruise but never tested positive - possibly the booster kept my viral count lower than what the antigen rest can detect.

On many cruised, single occupancy in a cabin costs double or nearly double the per person double occupancy price - the dreaded "solo supplement". That is, your mother-in-law's cabin would cost about the same as the cabin you and your spouse share if they are the same category. However, there are cruises with a reduced solo supplement or a zero solo supplement. There is a thread on the solo board here where people post solo bargain cruises. Some cruise lines almost always have cruises with zero or reduced solo supplement. For example Windstar has a specials page listing the reduced/zero solo supplement cruises Star Clippers also always has quite a few. (I mainly like small ships carrying about 300 or fewer so those are the lines I'm most familiar with.)

You might reconsider filling every port day with an excursion. I usually book excursions for about half the port days at most. On our first cruise when cruising restarted after COVID, it wasn't clear whether ports would still be requiring a ship excursion to leave the ship so we booked excursions for every port. By the time our cruise started, all but our 3 port stops in Italy had opened up to allow passengers to leave the ship normally. I found having a ship excursion every day to be constraining so ended up canceling some of them. It was much more enjoyable to just explore on our own in some of the ports. You could go to the port of call board(s) for your ports and see which ports have things you would want to do on your own instead of on an excursion.

There is a difference between passport renewal and global entry renewal. When you renew your passport, you have no passport until the new one comes. When you renew Global Entry, you can keep using it. If you renew before the expiration date, you get a grace period where you can keep using it after the expiration date. The grace period was 6 months but currently it's 24 months. https://www.cbp.gov/travel/trusted-traveler-programs/global-entry/frequently-asked-questions

It is worth watching the cruise price too. I upgraded when there was a price drop. The price difference was less than the Royal up minimum for the category and a sure thing instead of unlikely. The moderators will probably move your post to the Royal board.

I think that's the case. I submitted the renewal about 2 months ahead. I wasn't suggesting waiting until after expiry - just that doing it a year ahead seems unnecessary. BtW, like driver's licenses (at least in my state), Global-entry expires on your birthday. The new one covers 5 years from my birthday even though the renewal completed about a month before the birthday. Unlike a passport, you don't lose any of the duration by renewing early. The renewal notice email was sent 6 months before mine expired.

Email reminders to renew from Global Entry included: Due to a significant increase in application volume, U.S. Customs and Border Protection is extending the grace period from 6 months to 1 year for any Trusted Traveler member who has a valid membership and who has submitted a renewal application. This means you will continue to receive full benefits for 1 year while U.S. Customs and Border Protection is finalizing your renewal application. So, I don't think one has to plan on renewing extra early. BTW, my husband and I both renewed this year and, despite that notice, the renewal was processed in about a month. My husband's renewal required an interview but he got a renewal appointment at the closest site pretty quickly.

And ot doesn't always work depending on the airport. When my husband planned to do that for his renewal interview, we got to the CBP checkpoint on the way home and we're told they didn't do interviews at that terminal- the airport had two terminals for international arrivals and only one of them had the office for interviews. I've renewed twice so far and got the card in the mail. My husband has renewed once and got a letter saying he had to interview to complete the renewal process. I don't know what causes the difference, it may be random or may be because he has a common name.

I've used these ones in many EU countries (and some cruise ships) without issues: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09T1FYBM4?th=1 The two holes in the socket are always the same but in some sockets, they are recessed in a circular or squashed hexagon recess. Some adapters don't work when their case is larger than the recess accommodates - this shape has fit the sockets in a wide variety of EU countries.

It is similar in California. If you are over 70, you can be excused to serve based on having a medical condition that interferes with serving without any documentation. I guess they figure that enough people over that age have medical reasons that sitting on a jury is a hardship that they just take you word for it. Like others here, I've often had to request postponement to a different date, usually due to work commitments and it has never been an issue. As I was typing this my husband walked in with a jury summons that arrived for me today and the date is a problem. Following the instructions to go online to request a postponement took about 5 minutes. In the past, you would tell them other dates you are available and get a notice in the mail that your date has changed. Now, they have a new web interface for jurors so it just asked me to select a week and changed it to that date. None of the specific reasons offered fit (the original week included Yom Kippur and they didn't have conflict with a religious holiday) so I selected "other reason" and it doesn't even ask for what the other reason is. Conflict with a vacation is one of the options.

Apparently in part because they want to offload some customer services like handling final payment reminders. 🤷‍♀️ More seriously, it may allow them to have fewer phone and on-line staff to handle booking and payment processing.

Anyway, in this case the TA didn't lose out on the commission because the passenger rebooked. As a matter of fact, they may have benefited because the rebooking was at a higher cost so probably their commission went up.

If the cruise is in early November than final payment is already due or will be due soon If your cruise is a closed loop cruise where you can use your birth certificate and ID instead of a passport, you would have that as back-up. If your cruise requires a passport and the passport doesn't arrive in time (e.g. not closed loop from the US or goes to a port that requires a passport even on closed loop cruises). then you won't be able to sail if the passport doesn't arrive in time. Did you submit for routine or expedited processing? Travel.State.Gov says that routine processing time is currently running 10-13 weeks not including mailing time. Most people seem to be getting their passports back within that time but occasionally it takes longer. The beginning of November is currently 13 weeks away. If you mailed it 2 weeks ago, that's around 15 weeks which is kind of tight. I'd be uncomfortable with that timing. You could the passport office to change it to expedited processing which is running 7-9 weeks. The fee for that is $60. You can also add 1-2 day delivery instead of standard mailing. I was in a similar situation except that I was just about to submit my passport when the cruise came up and the timing was even tighter. There is an Urgent passport process that you can use to get your passport with an in person visit to a passport agency office. You have within 14 days of travel to use the process if you haven't submitted the application yet and within 5 days if you have. If you are in Northern California, the closest Passport Agency is probably San Francisco. That's a more risky route if you have already submitted your passport application because there may not be appointments available. I had no trouble getting an appointment but I was calling 14-days in advance. Info on the Urgent process is here: https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/passports/get-fast.html

It is your responsibility and you shouldn't expect anyone else to make you whole. On the other hand, a good TA should remind you that the payment date is approaching as a backstop. I'd probably change TAs.