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My wife and I had a very enjoyable Antarctic cruise on the Sapphire Princess that ended on January 4th this year. The best 1 way rate we got from EZ Air was $800 each give or take on Delta to fly home to Florida from Buenos Aires. If we tried booking this on the Delta website, we would have been paying close to $1,700 per person. So yes, it all worked out great for us and saved us a ton of money. 

And the other thing to consider is that with the recent issues of the Sun Princess canceling its 1st sailing on February 8th, people without travel insurance and people that booked private airfare to get to Europe got screwed in that they only got $200 per person from Princess to book a future Sun Princess cruise. But the people that booked their airfare through EZ Air were covered and their flights were automatically changed to the new cruise dates they selected. Same thing on some of these world cruise segments that were scheduled to sail out of Dubai in the very near future. All Red Sea cruises have been changed and that cruise you were looking to catch in Dubai is now departing from Johanasberg South Africa. If you had EZ Air, they will re-route your airfare to the new departure city. 

So there are benefits to using EZ Air. But the other point I suggest is simply dont spend thousands of dollars on a cruise and airfare costs WITHOUT getting cruise insurance. 

Anyway, I have only used EZ air on a couple of cruises and have been 100% happy with how things have turned out so far. Honestly, I may not have been able to afford to cruise internationally without some of their amazing rates. And being able to reserve the airline of your choice is another huge positive.

It's been a great cruise so far.

Thankfully I was able to apply the rest of my gift cards to my account at guest services on the sapphire princess. The gift card system was back up.

So I am on the Sapphire Princess since December 1st. Some of my gift cards were entered by guest services on day 1 of the cruise. However, I had a few of them left and have been unable to have these remaining cards entered by guest services for the last 6 days as the 3rd party software the ship uses has been down for several days. Very unfortunate but what can you do. I wonder if any of the other ships are currently having the same issues as Sapphire Princess is with the gift cards.

Am on the Sapphire Princess now. Have been on since we left LA on 1 December. Internet has been very good so far the whole trip. Spoke to the internet manager and asked him if internet would be spotty in Antarctica and he said due to Starlink he did not believe we would lose the internet there. We shall see. For the 2nd year running, this ship one the #1 customer service award in the entire Princess Fleet. Service has been very good in the dining room and our room steward is amazing. Of course the cruise is what you make it, and everything is not always perfect. But having been on the ship for nearly 3 weeks, my wife and I are very happy. 

Dumb question. I am currently Ruby status with 49 cruise nights. I understand that you need 50 cruise nights to become platinum. I have a cruise upcoming. Will my loyalty status remain Ruby on my next cruise, or after the 1st night will I become platinum?

On 8/16/2023 at 7:51 AM, cruisegirl1 said:

You can get regular coffee, cappuccino, and espresso out of the machine. 
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Do they have any decaf coffee machines in the diamond lounge?

On 8/28/2023 at 9:25 PM, PACrew said:

The “value” position is just not there at these prices. We love royal but just booked two cruises, one with NCL and another MSC. 

Diamond plus on Royal, and most of my cruises have been on it. Have been on a couple of princess cruises this year. Still get our stateroom cleaned twice a day. But the biggest benefit on the longer cruises is very few children. But I have to be honest in that the food has been underwhelming to say the least.

On 8/31/2023 at 10:31 PM, twangster said:

All I can take away from your post is that you don't like activities for younger travelers and families which is the what defines Royal Caribbean at the moment regardless of the ship.  Royal is a family cruise line.  However some older people love that so without knowing what you are looking for it's difficult to know if you would enjoy cruising on a family cruise line.  

 

What activities for people over 60 are you interested in?

Book a princess cruise. Very few children, especially on longer cruises.

3 minutes ago, Sunwanabe said:

I am not impressed with PC with their latest change. Does give pause that what you might book and pay for is not necessarily the final product when it's time to cruise. Is it enough to take note and entertain the switch to other cruise lines?  Yes!

Ditto. I am not impressed either. Have been a diamond plus cruiser on Royal Caribbean and primarily sailed with them over the last several years. Before RCL, most of my cruises were on Carnival where we have been diamond for 15 years. But earlier this year I took my first cruise on Princess. Really enjoyed the fact that there were many free items you could order through room service. It was a nice touch. My wife and I are not big drinkers, so paying for a drink package is not something that we would use. So we book the standard package. Its just unfortunate that the bean counters at Carnival took away a nice benefit that separated Princess from the other cruise lines. Will this in itself cause us to no longer cruise Princess? No it wont. As always, itinerary and price are important. But I do believe this will cause others to look at other cruiselines. 

My wife and I will still be on this sailing.

Will be going on the Millenium in April, on a 15 night Panama Canal cruise. Have not been on Celebrity for 10 years. I usually cruise on Royal as I am diamond plus with them. I am concerned about the food issues, mostly because I am a very picky eater. With favorites of mine being Prime Rib and Filet gone, I hope the MDR will still have something I like. 

Yes its a shame that the prices and quality of everything on the planet are going parabolic. All that I can do is hope for the best.  All of the cruise lines have tons and tons of debt. So cutting costs and cutting service is going to happen. 

8 minutes ago, ORD1166 said:

I use Square Mouth dot com for travel insurance.  You put your info and the come up with a choice of companies and cost.  Also, at time I use the cruise line for trip insurrance.

I just checked Square Mouth for my upcoming cruise and their price was double that of insuremytrip. 

46 minutes ago, Exterous said:

Due to a hit and run accident I have some disk issues in my back. Normally its well managed and I have not previously had issues as a result of hotel beds despite frequent travel and hotel changes. However on our recent Radiance of the Seas trip something about our bed made my back extremely unhappy - to the point I had to arrange for some medication in one of the ports to remain mobile (I try to avoid those medications due to their side effects). 

 

We were considering another cruise next year but this experience gave me pause. Are the mattresses fairly standard across cabins and ships or is it a complete mixed bag? I've seen some people elsewhere online note you can request a mattress topper (with mixed results) or even a different mattress. Has anyone here done anything like that?

 

I've also seen some good suggestions on bringing your own topper or even air mattress so that might be an option. 

My wife and I have both had back surgeries. We ALWAYS ask for extra mattress toppers on Royal Caribbean cruises as their beds tend to be much to firm and they hurt our backs. Some to the point of me being able to stay in the bed to sleep. 

Cruise stocks are down today because Carnival announced yesterday after the close, that they are issuing another 1 billion dollars worth of new stock. The cruise lines have a TON of debt and have already issued millions of new shares since the pandemic started. The earnings per share are going downhill quickly with so many additional shares issued. Financially speaking, the cruise stocks are literally a shell of what they once were pre-pandemic. I honestly believe that if there was any more cruise no sale orders in the future, the cruise lines probably would BK with such massive debt.

Princess already did the 90% Vaccinated, 10% unvaccinated deal like Virgin did. I believe Royal and Carnival will also do the 90% 10% mix of passengers. It remains to be seen what other if any restrictions  they may have for the. unvaccinated. I know 1st hand of several family and friends who would cruise in a heartbeat, when the cruise lines allow unvaccinated to sail. 

23 hours ago, tallnthensome said:

Maybe but I doubt that would be grounds for discrimination  ….. and I nor most everyone else’s health should not be compromised on the ship or in port because of another adult individual who supposedly can’t be vaccinated. They should vacation somewhere else where vaccines aren’t required. Their problem should not be the problem of everyone else. 

Let me ask you a question. I assume you took the vaccine to protect you and your family from death from Covid? If in fact the vaccine protects you then why in Gods name do you care about having unvaccinated on the ship? What are you afraid off, you got the vaccine?

I watched a recent you-tube video from JJ Cruises, in which the 2 owners were on the 1st Vista cruise out of Galveston. They mentioned they had several issues from that 1st cruise. They said that embarkation was a mess in that people were showing up earlier than their check in times and that there were very long lines lasting up to a couple of hours to get checked in. They mentioned that dinner service be it in the main dining room or in a specialty restaurant took a minimum of 2 1/2 hours from start to finish. They mentioned that the casino bar in the casino was removed and that it took at a minimum of 30 minutes or longer to get a drink.

In spite of these problems, they still had a great cruise and commented about the great job the crew did under these circumstances. I am not offering any opinions because I was not on the cruise, but again went to JJ cruises on you-tube to watch these 2 owners talk about their sailing experience on that Vista 1st 2021 sailing.

Reading some of these posts is very disheartening. Why are vaccinated individuals treating unvaccinated folks as having some kind of plague or something? If you received the experimental jabs then you are protected. If a vaccinated person does get Covid, then your risk of severe symptoms or death are extremely slim. In all likelihood you may be completely asymptomatic. So why the irrational fear towards the unvaccinated? Common sense would say you got the vaccine to protect you. PLEASE stop living in fear. Just my 2 cents.

2 minutes ago, LXA350 said:

 

You cannot be forced to get vaccinated, but when your employer can fire you, you can't attend University, Travel, go to concerts or Restaurants you will have no choice than to get yourself vaccinated eventually.

THANK YOU!

1 hour ago, LXA350 said:

For the cruises out of Israel, by the time they set sail everyone in the population that wants to get vaccinated by then will be able to do so.

 

In the US this might not be the case yet, but then again it's not about fair or unfair, it about Safety. At this stage the only way to start cruising again is under these circumstances and given the choice is very much restricted with a handfull of ships there will be ebough demand of Vaccinated cruisers.

 

This is ridiculous to bring in here a question of discrimination, you could then turn it around. "Why should vaccinated people not be allowed to cruise". Wouldn't this be discriminating for the ones already vaccinated???

Not everyone in Israel wants to get vaccinated. In fact, lawsuits against mandatory vaccinations have been filed because without your green passport (vaccination proof) you can not do squat in Israel. 

My wife and I would take anywhere from 3-6 cruises per year. Lots of Transatlantics and longer cruises. I miss it, but surprisingly not as much as I thought I would. Have been able to put that saved money into new home appliances and new air conditioner. 

My concern is simply that whenever cruising restarts, its going to be very short cruising in which I would have no interest. Had a Transatlantic on Celebrity booked for April 2021, but canceled it last week. It was a casino rate, so I got my full deposit back. Did not want to make final payment in January for a cruise that I know is going to eventually get canceled anyway.

My other concern for me going on these longer cruises, is what kind of restrictions will be in place in Europe once longer cruises get going again. Its a mess to put all this mildly. I have a transatlantic booked for later in 2021, but have some concerns about if that will take place. All of this is out of my control. I have nothing booked after the Fall of 2021 and probably will not book anything else for the time being. This Covid crap has certainly turned me into a cruise cynic to say the least. 

I am always looking for a great deal when picking a cruise. Pricing is one of the most important factors for me. I tend to only go on Long cruises, primarily Trans Atlantic cruising. If this new AI pricing is out of my price range due to my limited budget, I will look elsewhere. I generally book the lowest priced inside cabin price. I mostly cruise on RCL, and enjoy the Oasis class ships as I enjoy the Broadway Musicals. 

The cruiselines have taken on a significant amount of Debt. In addition, most of them have issued additional shares of stock too. So earnings per share will be significantly lower for years to come. Personally, I am not interested in buying shares of the big 3. 

I hope everyone had a good July 4th. May God Bless the USA. My spouse spent 36 years in the US Military.