islandwoman

I like to have a Diet Coke when I wake up in the morning. It's my "coffee". I have no patience at that hour for running around the ship looking for a bar that probably won't be open that early. So how do I get my soda onboard? Would my roll-aboard or checked luggage be better?

Both times we have done that cruise out of Boston, we did change time by one hour.

Was that on Royal Caribbean?

I'd like to know in advance, so that I can make plans for activities in port.

Does the Brilliance of the Seas stay on Boston time?

On a Royal Caribbean cruise of Canada and New England out of Boston, what time is ship's time? Does the ship change her clock to match the time zones of the ports, or does she stay on Boston time?

DH and I will be in St John on the Brilliance of the Sea September 30, 2015. We want to go to St Martin to walk on the floor of the Ocean and explore the caves. Low tide is at 8:04AM. The ship docks at 7 AM and google maps tells me the drive will take 51 minutes, but we can't find a car rental that opens earlier than 8 AM. How can we get to St Martin in time to see the Sea Caves without being caught by the incoming tide?

The ship's excursion doesn't leave until 9 AM.

The circle Pacific cruise in 2016 has a San Francisco - Sydney departing SF August on Sun Princess. The 2016 world cruise on Sea Princess, has a New York - Sydney departing NY July. These cruises and segments for 2016 were released in October 2014, here in OZ.

We've decided on the August San Francisco - Sydney Circle Pacific Cruise if Princess does it again in 2017. I wonder if they'll release it in the US at the same time as they do in Australia? That would be October 2015.

Thank you all for the specific directions to the Romney, Hythe & Dymchurch Railway. It sounds a bit long and complicated for clueless tourists (us) to "incorporate with a half day in Dover", though.

I'm convinced! We definitely will not try to do a day-trip from Dover to Stonehenge and back. Canterbury sounds like a good idea, as does Dover Castle. I'm not sure how to incorporate the Romney, Hythe & Dymchurch Railway with a half day in Dover. Where do you get the train?

The only Transpacific cruises have at the start and end of the Alaska season.

One ship from Australia does a world cruise in early summer . There could be a leg from the east coast to Australia . One also does a circle Pacific periodically.

Thank you for answering my first question and for giving me the information I need to figure out the answer to #3.

Can anyone answer "When can I expect to see Princess' 2017 transpacific cruises posted?"

Just finished booking transatlantic 2016 and now I'm psyched to book transpacific 2017. Looking for any embarkation port in the US or Canada, but preferably Ft. Lauderdale, with a debarkation anywhere in Australia or New Zealand.

Can someone please tell me:

Does Princess sail west across the Pacific in April, May, June, or July? Or only in the US autumn and winter?

When can I expect to see Princess' 2017 transpacific cruises posted?

How do I search for transpacific cruises? "Transatlantic" is on the princess.com drop-down menu, but not "transpacific" :confused:

All booked. :) Started the process with my TA on March 19. We booked B2B2B on the Pacific Princess: Ft. Lauderdale to Dover "Fire and Ice"; Dover to Dover "Midnight Sun & Summer Solstice"; Dover to Dover "Scandinavia & Russia". Now we're trying to decide what to do with the turn-around days in Dover and post-cruise in the British Isles, while at the same time getting ready to leave on a Panama Canal/Pacific Coastal/Alaska cruisetour/Alaska cruisetour in less than 5 weeks :D

Maybe the developers of googlemaps are from a "larger country with more open spaces".

Thank you all for posting your information. I too had consulted googlemaps, but it takes locals to know about conditions like traffic. And that makes all the difference. If traffic congestion is likely, then trying to do a round-trip from Dover to Stonehenge or the Cotswolds in one day would be foolish. So we'll put Ireland off until another trip and go back to our original plan which was to spend a week in England post-cruise.

And we'll spend our two turn-around days in Dover exploring a couple of the places you mentioned.

By "two separate full days", I meant one day at a time. Our ship will be in Dover on June 15, 2016 from 5AM to 5PM and then again on July 1, 2016 from 5AM until 5PM. Our final disembarkation will be on July 15, 2016. We were thinking about traveling to Ireland for a week at that time. So we wanted to see Dover, Stonehenge, and the Cotswolds on the turn-around days if possible.

We just booked B2B2B cruises that will give us two separate full days in Dover. We'd like to visit Dover castle, but also would like to make a trip to Stonehenge and/or the Cotswolds. Princess doesn't seem to offer any excursions in Dover except those that end at the London airports.

Are there any day tours from Dover to Stonehenge/Avebury or from Dover to the Cotswolds? If not, would it be feasible to do it on our own via rail or rental car?

Links are gone. Are the Northern Europe itineraries posted somewhere else?

The Mediterranean link still works, just not the one for Northern Europe. I went there and made a hard copy when it worked. If you post what you're looking for here, I'll be happy to post what I have. It's four pages, so I can't (or don't know how to) post the whole thing. But, it's possible that the link is closed because Princess is making some changes, so what I have might be out of date/ inaccurate.

Thank you for posting these links Wehwalt :) I've been looking for Princess' 2016 European itineraries for a long time.

We booked the "Kennicott Explorer" from Princess. Knowing that we could book the Kennicott Shuttle on our own gave us the courage to cancel our second choice tour and when we did, suddenly the Princess tours that had been marked "unavailable" became bookable. These were the same tours that the Princess phone agent said were sold out :confused:. Since the Princess tour was nearly the same price as the Kennicott Shuttle and also included transportation from the other side of the foot bridge, we went with Princess for convenience.

Thank you everybody for the suggestions and very helpful detailed information.

As for the free time I asked about finding independent tours for, it's late on two travel days. We'll probably just leave it free.

I found out something interesting (and irritating) today. Maybe you all have known it forever, but it's new to me. If we have a Princess excursion booked, myprincess labels all other options "not available" or prevents access to them altogether. I called Princess and confirmed that the Kennicott excursions are indeed sold out, but if I want to see whether availability has opened up, I either have to cancel an already booked second choice excursion and risk ending up with nothing at all, or call Princess every day :mad:

Does any one know how to see alternative availability without cancelling a previously booked back-up excursion?

Shorter? You need to tell us what tour you are looking at that is shorter?

"Short" does not go with McCarthy and Kennicott.

The Kennicott Shuttle picked us up at the Princess lodge, no issues of any kind with the pickup or drop off. We made all arrangements independent of Princess, I had no idea they would even care what we did in our free day. I don't think anyone knew or cared.

It was a long but very interesting day, as previously described. We did the guided walking tour with the Wrangells St Elias guides. We had a great lunch at the Kennicott glacier lodge. Our shuttle driver was friendly and informative and we learned so much about life in the Alaska backcountry.

Would a shorter version of this be practical?

Thanks for the Princess Excursion suggestions. I should have asked sooner :o They're sold out too. I'll keep an eye on them in case someone cancels. In the meantime I'll investigate the options via shuttle.

The Copper River Princess Lodge has a shuttle from the property that loops around to the pipeline, the small town of Copper Center and a couple other places as I remember from our visit last fall. Maybe $5.

 

You might be able to make arrangements with an independent to pick you up at Copper Center after taking the Princess shuttle from the lodge.

Good idea. I'll check into that.

Does Kenai have such a shuttle?

Are there any independent tour operators who will pick up at Copper River Princess Wilderness Lodge and/or Kenai Wilderness Princess Lodge? The Princess excursions we want (specifically Kenai Nature Hike and Copper Country Discovery Tour) are either sold out or unavailable on the days we need them.