PR-Texas

Even though you don't drink much alcohol you might want to check out the Princess Plus option. There's an entire thread discussing the pros and cons of getting Princess Plus. The short answer is that for $60 per day per person you get gratuities, wifi, up to 15 alcoholic drinks a day plus sodas, bottled water, specialty coffees and teas, premium deserts, free room service delivery, ocean now, and some other stuff. We don't drink but got Princess Plus for the non alcoholic benefits. We also got it for the Pay it and Forget it aspect. Here's the thread:

Hearing about the ketchup with quesadillas reminds me to put Taco Bell fire sauce on my packing list. 🤣 Since Australia and New Zealand have really strict biosecurity rules we'll be taking prepackaged nuts and granola bars as well as chocolates for the crew. When our daughter worked on Disney Cruise Line she said the room stewards and servers were often too busy to get off the ship on port days so chocolates were really appreciated.

They make shelf stable Almond Milk Singles. Hopefully if you purchased these you could bring several onboard. Once opened if you didn't use all of it you could keep it in the fridge. My daughter leaves several at our house so she doesn't have to remember to bring Almond milk every time my granddaughter comes over.

We'll be half a world away from our families so WiFi to keep up with them is important. Lowering gratuities isn't something we would even consider. We have six sea days so a fitness class or two might be fun. Having OceanNow so we can order a water or soda delivered to wherever we are sounds like a benefit as does free delivery for room service. Will we use enough benefits to equal the cost of the package? No clue. Will I keep up with it. Absolutely not. For us the biggest benefit is Pay it and Forget It. We're on vacation.

I'm thinking that we'll probably take one of the nightlights we have at home. We won't be needing them at home while we're on the cruise. My guess is we'll take a plug in always on nightlight and cover the sensor for the closet area. Bright lights are not good when I'm half asleep. Thanks for the thread since nightlights weren't something on my list of stuff to take.

US or EU type plug? Never cruised Princess before so trying to avoid surprises where possible.

What type of plugs (if any) are in the bathroom on the Royal? I've seen info about the plugs in the room but don't recall seeing anything about the bathrooms.

Thanks for the quick reply. I booked the final 3 excursions. Fortunately since the excursions are quoted in Australian $$ the increase isn't quite as large as it would have been in USD. Now we just have to wait till November to head to Australia.

Wish I had known this a couple of weeks ago. Could have saved us some cash.

We're booked for the Australia/NewZealand cruise tour Nov 10-16,2024. I've booked and paid for three of our excursions since it looked like they were getting full. I just checked the other three that we're interested in and the cost has increased $40 to $50 pp from when I originally planned our budget. I looked back at the ones we've already paid for and the price for them has gone up also. I'm a bit of a spreadsheet nerd so I was keeping track of what we expected to spend. Is this something that usually happens? Should I go ahead and pay for the ones we want to prevent a future increase?

We're doing a CruiseTour with 6 days in Australia followed by a 14 day cruise around NZ. I had already planned to pack less and use the self serve laundry on one of the sea days between Sydney and NZ. I'll probably also do at least one load on the sea days returning to Sydney. It will be nice to get back to Texas with clean clothes.

I don't want to sound harsh but if the cost of passports is a significant factor in whether you cruise or not then it's possible that you shouldn't be spending the money on the cruise in the first place. We don't cruise often but have always considered the cost of a current passport as a necessary expense regardless of where we're cruising. For us the biggest hassle of getting passports was finding/getting certified copies of our birth certificates. Once we had those in hand getting the passports was easy and it eliminated any questions about whether they would be accepted.

Not having a passport can be a real problem if you are injured in Ensenada and can't get back on the ship. Get the passport. Much easier to travel with it unless ALL your travel is within the US on US flagged ships such as MCL Pride of America

We are booking all our excursions through Princess. We're cruising around New Zealand and most of the excursions are going 30 or more minutes away from the ship or it's a tendering port where Princess excursions get a priority tender. Traffic congestions and/or wrecks that block highways can cause an excursion to miss the ship. We have friends who cruise often and they mentioned that they've been on several Princess excursions where traffic congestion caused them to be late back to the ship and were glad the ship was held. If the things we wanted to do were close to the ship we would probably book independently.

When I checked with my CVP about moving our cabin to Port instead of the Starboard we booked (I made a mistake in figuring out the direction of travel around NZ) she said that all the cabins on the port side were sold out but suggested that I check with Guest Services when we board since sometimes folks cancel at the last minute and cabins open up. I'm thinking you or your friends could do the same thing when you board and possibly be moved to a nearer cabin. The worst that will happen is that they will say no.

Definitely. For us part of the benefit is no worries, no surprises. We're on vacation. The math doesn't have to work out perfectly to be worth it.

Thanks for the info. After I posted this I sent an email to the Bob Wood Cruise Group who are managing the land portion and received a reply that they didn't have the final number yet but it would be between 10 and 40. Looks like seats on the bus is the determining factor. I'm excited since this is exactly the size group I was hoping for.

We have a CruiseTour booked for Nov 2024 to Australia and New Zealand. The 6 day land portion is in Australia then embark on a 14 day cruise to New Zealand. For anyone who's done this in Australia, can you tell me how big the group was on the Land part of the trip? We're trying to decide if we want to keep the booking or try to find a group to do the land part separately and book a cruise separately. Thanks, Reine

We booked a balcony for our 14 day NZ cruise for 2 reasons. 1. We will have 5 sea days plus Fiordland NP and wanted to be able to enjoy watching the water and scenery from our balcony (or out the balcony doors if the weather is yucky). 2. Just in case we get sick with something whether Covid/Noro/whatever we didn't want to go nuts looking at 4 walls. We're planning to take reasonable precautions and just have fun.

This type of question is why you use a TA. Discuss with them. It's their job to advise you about the best solution to achieve what you want.

I just ordered some Vacuum Storage bags from Amazon that come with a small hand pump. They have free returns so I'll see how hard it is to use the hand pump and how large it really is. I'm guessing that there are other things that we're packing that could be smished to take up less space as long as smishing doesn't cause wrinkles. Ordering now gives me plenty of time to test out what works and what doesn't.

Based on some recent threads Princess is changing how dining is done starting Sept 14. After that one MDR will have Traditional Dining (fixed times, tables, waitstaff), one with have DMW Reservations, and one will focus on Walk Ins. If I understand that correctly then which MDR will depend on what type of dining you prefer.

We are also newbies to Princess. My understanding is that you can't make dining reservations until final payment is made unless you're Elite or Platinum level. Some folks may also book and pay immediately so they could make reservations then. We're waiting to finish paying till close to the final payment date which for us is August 12. I figure if I have to cancel between now and August then money they haven't received they don't have to refund and it can earn interest in my high yield savings account instead of making money for Princess. We'll take our chances on reservations after we make the final payment.

For our upcoming 14 day cruise on Royal I want to dress up a bit at least one night. I told hubby he could wear slacks, nice shirt and either a sport coat or a tie. Last I heard he was leaning towards a sport coat. Besides if the DR is cold I can steal his sport coat to keep warm.

Glad you posted this and thanks for the workaround. I'll put it in the notes for our November cruise to Australia/NewZealand. Down under is a BUNCH of time zones away from Texas!