Bedruthen

We were on Sky transatlantic November 23. The WiFi was remarkably stable and I don’t recall any issues in using or accessing it

16 hours ago, Eaglecw said:

We park at the Seattle Cruise ship parking lot by the Armory every year and we always get a confirmation e-mail with a receipt that shows the date and the cruise ship we will be on.

A word to the wise when parking anywhere in Seattle don't leave anything in your car.

That’s definitely worrying as we had no email, nothing. I will have to bring the credit card receipt with me. They have certainly taken the money!

We were on Sky Princess last November, sat in the Princess Live! area. Over two weeks, we witnessed three separate incidents where people physically fell on a step in the venue. One lady took a particularly nasty fall. If you walk into Princess Live! and walk parallel with the stage, there is a small step about 2/3 way in to the area which goes up into another sitting area. It is poorly lit and if you are carrying a drink and trying to avoid people seated, it is very easy to miss. Princess must know this.

11 hours ago, Ferry_Watcher said:

@Bedruthen, hope you plan to drive along the Oregon Coast on either direction between SF and Seattle.  It's quite beautiful.

We certainly do! We leave SFO on 25 April, then plan is a couple of nights Napa valley, then 2 weeks to drive along scenic coastal highway up to Tillamook, then 3 nights Portland, 2 nights Olympia, 2 nights Seattle, then cruise. Then returning via inland route, bit more unsure of that leg! Probably stay Portland for one night, then down to Ashland, Redding and then staying in Palo Alto for 4 nights to take train in to San Francisco and use rental car to visit coast, maybe Big Sur, Monterey. Fly home 28 May. If you have any recommendations please reach out. It’s our first and last trip to West Coast so hopefully I have captured the highlights, (apart from Olympia National Park area, but something had to give)

We stayed at the Hilton garden hotel in Wall Street in November 2023 , which is very handy for the ferry pier, an easy flat walk with luggage.

You can walk the short distance to the pier the evening before if you want, buy two single tickets, they are valid for one month I think. Then you are set for the morning. It really is so easy and it’s a very short walk from ferry drop off to the ship, a couple of minutes maybe. 
 

It’s so easy, I don’t know why more people don’t do it!

Do not stop at the Wall Street Inn, I cannot recommend it at all.

Thank you to everyone who helped with this enquiry. Yes we are renting a car, but we start and end our trip in San Francisco. The one way rental charges outweigh the cost of parking for a week. We finally got a response from Seattle cruise park and have booked our parking. Rather alarmingly, they have issued no paperwork so how they will know we have prepaid, I have no idea ( and no, they didn’t require a car registration plate!)

It’s not unusual. You are paying for convenience.
Personally we love to make tour independently and in 20 years, have never had a problem. We have taken the train to Florence and Rome from the ports, hired taxi and driver for the day, and mimicked many of the cruise line tours for significantly less. All the cruise lines rely on their passengers innate fear of the boat sailing without them to sell their tours and price accordingly.

Thank you to everyone who replied and especially for the fab photos. We decided to go with 5192 rather than the wrap round balcony, as the internal cabin looks much more spacious. All booked, just two years or so to wait!

8 hours ago, Sue-B said:

@Bedruthen

 

Just gone back through photos to try and look, and deck 5 corner balcony definitely had sunshine on it (this photo was on QE but it’s the equivalent cabin).  I’m pretty sure we still got sunshine on the balcony in the middle suites too on deck 5 (will try and find photos for you) but it will depend on which way the ship is sailing (or docked).  If the med is as hot as last year you may definitely want some shelter from the sun on your balcony. The grills sun terrace is full sunshine friendly for those that love the sun with some very well placed shaded areas for those that don’t like full sun!  

 

Have a fabulous trip with whatever suite you choose 😀

 

Thank you Sue, your photos have been really helpful. We will go for the corner cabin, then there’s something for everyone, sun lovers or not!

6 hours ago, Sue-B said:

Just adding a few more pictures in case they’re useful - I had to go back through my sail history but found we stayed in 5191 QV in 2018 - couple of photos from when we first boarded (never my best shots as I’m always too excited to be cruising again!)

Thank you for the photo of the deck 5 balcony. I hadn’t picked up that it was completely sheltered by the deck above. Not sure that I like that! Would I be right to think that with the corner aft, the side balcony is more open to the sun? Do all the aft cabin decks  aside from deck 4  , have that overhang. Given a preference we would go for part open, part shaded

2 hours ago, Jim_P said:

It was only announced two weeks ago. You must be thinking of the Queen Anne next year.

You're right. Though that one also booked up almost immediately after launch.

We have the choice of cabin numbers 5190, 5192 or 5196, for a two week cruise in the Med.

It’s clear that these cabins all have a different internal layout, with 5190 being narrower and generally smaller, however the smaller internal space is compensated by its huge wraparound balcony.
As this will be our first time in grills, we don’t know if a larger balcony is important as there is the separate grills open area. In our normal balcony cabin we use the balcony a lot as we don’t like the proximity of other sunloungers on the open decks, but maybe it’s okay on the separate grills open spaces? Would welcome any input as to which room you would choose and would you sacrifice the internal space for the larger balcony? 

4 hours ago, Jim_P said:

Something weird going on with that one. I was keeping an eye on it too, but it disappeared from the listing on Cunards website about a week before the cruises went on sale, so I don't think they are booked. Perhaps Cunard has removed it until they get the numbers for USA to Sydney to avoid good cabins being taken by those on a five nighter?    

 

Edit: still comes up when you google it, just can't select anything.https://www.cunard.com/en-au/find-a-cruise/M605C/M605C

we are booked on this cruise. The cabins were fully sold months and months ago.  However we will be cancelling our booking so at least on will become availabe!

13 minutes ago, D&N said:

 

Have you phoned Cunard?

If you identify that a cabin or selection of cabins that you would be happy with are being sold on both the 7 and 14 day cruises, phone them and ask that a request be made to the "berthing team" to release one of those cabins to the 21 day itinerary that you want to book.

 

In our case, if we had booked as two separate crossings, we would have paid 22% more. It seems like a very crude attempt at yield management to try and sell cabins on shorter trips for a higher total amount of money.

our agent has phoned this morning. Cunard will not release any of the Princess Grill cabins that are available on the separate legs for booking on the combined 21 day. So anyone wanting to book Princess Grill on 21 day cruise, there is no availability.

1 hour ago, LittleFish1976 said:

 

I had a similar chat experience with a Cunard rep on the phone yesterday. 'No, all waitlisted'...she agreed to put me on the waitlist. I have since booked something else once they went live. Someone on here recently explained that they 'refuse' (my terminology) to put certain cabins on sale for certain legs of what is also being sold as longer voyages so they can try to sell them on the longer voyages first. I tested that theory out yesterday and found there was availability in the cabin grades I was looking at (PG, QG, BC) on other voyages which incorporated the one I was interested in. So it's just their stock management system. The cabins hadn't already been sold when you and I were looking earlier. They will release them eventually if not already sold on the longer segments.

Except it was the longer 21 day segment that we wanted to book. The cruise was then divided in to a 7 and 14 day. 

39 minutes ago, D&N said:

As @LittleFish1976 has discovered, if there are overlapping itineraries Cunard only allocate cabins to one of those. In our case they generally allocate all or most of the grade we want to two 7 day itineraries while we want to book that grade for the combined 14 day trip.

 

When my agent told me none of that grade were being allocated I sent an email to Cunard who sent a sympathetic but non committal response. My agent then spent some time persuading them and our first choice was available when bookings opened today.

 

The cabin concerned suits us but doesn't appear to have any particular attractions for others. There are a reasonable number of them in the grade but they weren't planning to allocate any of them to our itinerary. Seems bizarre to me.

This is probably it. The Princess grills were available in a limited quantity (1 cabin!) on the 14 night cruise but none on the 21 day combined. I’m pretty disappointed as it would have been our first grills experience and, if we had enjoyed it, would probably have upgraded in the future. Instead we are just feeling really cheated by Cunard.

I was on the phone with my agent at 12.50. She tried getting on system early. The cruise we wanted to book was showing all the P2 cabins waitlisted. When bookings opened there were no Princess grill cabins available at all on their system so she rang Cunard. How can cabins be waitlisted before cruise even goes on sale? Cunard couldn’t or wouldn’t explain. Whilst she was on the phone, I was also trying to find availability. Nothing, nada. No cruise for us then. I can only surmise that other cruise agencies had some sort of block hold on the Princess grill cabins. A pretty disappointing experience. 

Yes you can, that’s the easy part. Getting them delivered to your room, now that’s a different story. Took us four days on the last  cruise.

50 minutes ago, Wandawithdogs said:

Do they want a zip for credit card or location? If location but the rental car zip code?

That’s not a bad idea - I will try it with the rental locations detail in San Francisco and see if that gets me past the booking address. Cheers!

27 minutes ago, Rick&Jeannie said:

No, Princess has no connection with the parking vendors.  Can you not just call the US number direct?

I could but my mobile to USA number is $18 per minute!

I am trying to book the cruise parking at Pier 91 Smiths Cove in SEATTLE. However because we live in the U.K. we can’t find a way to book for our rental car as the site insists on a zip code, which we obviously don’t have. I have emailed the company several times but received no reply and there is no number to contact from U.K. 

Has anyone got any suggestions for alternative long term parking because I am panicking that we will arrive, try to park at the terminal and there will be no spaces. 
Does Princess themselves offer any sort of way to book cruise parking? 

P&O have adult only ships which are a good alternative during school holidays, though they are likely to be Europe based. Otherwise, we would choose HAL, then Celebrity. 

Looking to book Discovery aft facing cabin R732, any thoughts re location, good or bad, before we take the plunge. The deck is higher than we usually go. Thanks

Looking to book an Alaska cruise at short notice. The majority of the cabins still available ( and there aren’t many!) are located on d deck. Just wondering why. Is there a problem with D deck because on the face of it, it looks like a great deck with lots of cabins with larger balconies. Considering d705, standard balcony or any of the premium deluxe at the aft, most of which are still available, eg d724,722,720. What am I missing? I did wonder about smokers below D705, if it’s a problem. Any feedback on these choices would be great thank you

I suspect that having had such excellent food on Princess just 12 days earlier, the direct comparison just made us more sensitive to the difference in the quality of the food served between the two lines. So, for example, where we had duck breast on Princess, Cunard served a leg. Where the International cafe served the most wonderful warm almond croissants, worthy of a French patisserie, the danish pastries on Cunard were somewhat dry and underwhelming.  The budget per capita on Princess must surely be more generous and this was reflected in the quality of the food. We are by no means fans of Princess and are unlikely to return as we found the ship too crowded, amongst other things, so this is by no means a thread singing their praises.

I agree with the other posters that service on board Cunard was as efficient as always.
As to the buffet, well until we saw the one on Princess, we didn't know what a wonderful experience that really excellent choices at a buffet can deliver.