TwoCruisers

Finally got my email confirmation from valuetrips...lol...

 

 

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After reading what was said on here I also went to the Hyatt web site to look up my reservation. The same thing was on my reservation. They listed my correct name and phone number but had a different address. I am guessing that the address is Value Trips address. It must be the way things work with Value Trips placing the reservation. I’m not going to worry about this as I think everything will be alright. They have my correct name and I think that is all that matters.

Thanks for update. I went and checked my original 1 day res. In my app. It was there and today it said cancelled. No new emails about the 3 day one so I called. Hotel had another res for 3 days and gave me the confirmation number. I checked my app and it is there at VT rate. Still haven't received confirmation from VT however lol..

 

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Since the hotel has your reservations for the three days and at the Value Trips rate, it sounds like you are set. Give Value Trips a few more days to send you their confirmation. Enjoy your stay!

I just received my confirmation email from Value Trips. It was exactly one week since I applied online. I will call the hotel tomorrow to make sure everything is correct.

I called the Hyatt Place this morning to confirm the reservation. Everything is OK. I am confirmed for the date and the price that Value Trips stated.

This seems to have worked for me. I hope everyone else gets the room that they want and at the correct price.

Good luck to everyone!

I just received my confirmation email from Value Trips. It was exactly one week since I applied online. I will call the hotel tomorrow to make sure everything is correct.

Thanks for the update! Just checked to see if I had another update....not yet. Hopefully soon.

 

 

.....Debbie :)

I called the Hyatt Place this morning to confirm the reservation. Everything is OK. I am confirmed for the date and the price that Value Trips stated.

This seems to have worked for me. I hope everyone else gets the room that they want and at the correct price.

Good luck to everyone!

I just received my confirmation email from Value Trips. It was exactly one week since I applied online. I will call the hotel tomorrow to make sure everything is correct.

I just received my confirmation email from Value Trips. It was exactly one week since I applied online. I will call the hotel tomorrow to make sure everything is correct.

On another thread about Value Trips one poster said that they had to contact the hotel directly to confirm their reservation, but the price was higher than the stated price on Value Trips. Has anyone else experienced this before?

I booked via value trips last November for a November 2018 stay. After 7 days with no contact, I called them. Could only leave message. Day or two later, again no response so I called again with the same result. Eventually after no response from value trips, I called the hotel directly. Reservation was confirmed but for a higher price than booked. Again contacted value trips and still no call back. May have made one or two further attempts. Contacted the hotel again and issue was resolved. Was told I could cancel the reservation directly via the hotel which is good to know.

 

Other than an email received 3 weeks after original booking date, value trips never responded to any of my contacts be it phone or email.

 

Call the hotel yourself and confirm the reservation and price.

I’m curious about the hotel confirming your reservation, but at a higher price. When Value Trips finally contacted you via email, did they tell you about the higher price? Doesn’t Value Trips have some sort of obligation to come through with the price that they stated on the web site? I wonder if this is common with Value Trips.

I booked the Hyatt Place through Value Trips a couple of days ago. I am a little concerned with some of the comments made earlier. My trip is about 11 months away, so I’m not too concerned. I’ll wait a few more days to see if I need to email them for a response. I have never used Value Trips before, but they had a great price for the Hyatt Place.

I found this thread about Value Trips. It is about a year old at this point, but I am hoping someone who has had more recent experiences will add their story. I booked the Hyatt Place through Value Trips a couple of days ago. I am a little concerned with some of the comments made earlier. My trip is about 11 months away, so I’m not too concerned. I’ll wait a few more days to see if I need to email them for a response. If I had read this thread before I booked, I probably would have gone elsewhere.

On Princess ships we have docked at Crown Bay several times in the past few years. I don’t remember exactly which ones except for in 2009 while on the Caribbean Princess and once on the Royal and once on the Regal. The following web site will tell you the St. Thomas schedule for a couple of months out. http://www (dot) vinow (dot) com/cruise/ship-schedule

Remember “WestIndian Co.” is Havensight.

We (my husband, myself and another couple) were also on this cruise and had a wonderful time! While we have all cruised with several other lines, it was our first with Princess. It won’t be our last!

 

The food was delicious, the cruise staff was amazing, and there were lots of activities to choose from. My husband played pickle ball 5 days—there was a group of 8-12 who played regularly.

 

We did eat at Steamers one night and we were all underwhelmed with the food. Been there, done that. Probably wouldn’t try it again,

 

There’s always a question of formal night attire. In my opinion, the Caribbean Princess was more formal than the other lines I’ve sailed with (HAL, NCL, and Carnival). There were a handful of men in tuxes; the majority wore dark suits OR khakis and sport coats. Not every man wore a tie. Many women wore long dresses (think mother of the bride type dresses); there were lots of dressy pants/sparkly tops and short cocktail dresses, too. I felt like the women dressed up more on the second formal night than they did on the first. There were also lots of what I would call Sunday dresses/pantsuits and smart casual outfits. In short, there was a little bit of everything. If you are the type who likes to ‘fit in’ (for lack of a better term), then I would wear a coat and tie for men and something dressy/sparkly for women. Again, this is just my opinion based on what I observed on one cruise!

 

We enjoyed the Caribbean Princess very much. We were sad to miss Princess Cay, but you can’t control the weather, and we would have liked to have been in Grand Cayman a little longer.

 

We arrived home to find that our family had all been worried about the earthquake/tsunami warnings that had been issued for the area we were in on Tuesday, January 9th! Thank goodness, we were blissfully ignorant of these events!

 

In short, it was a wonderful cruise. The Panama Canal is an engineering marvel. The Caribbean Princess is a beautiful ship. I would do the same itinerary on the same ship in a heartbeat!

Tsunamis don’t affect ships at sea. In deep water the surface rises a little. The danger of the tsunami is when it reaches the shallow water near the shore. This is where it builds up and can become a moving wall of water.

I thought the new TV on the Regal was good. Excellent picture quality, easy menu system and good content. Didn’t try connecting our own devices though.

 

Look forward to seeing if those on the Caribbean Princess are the same when we board on 18 March. Thanks for the heads up.

Yes, I'm looking forward to seeing them as well. Noticed you're on the same cruise but not sure if you joined our roll call. You should sign up for our rather large Meet and Greet and come join the fun.

Yes, Geoffa30, come on over and join the cruise Roll Call.

Link to Roll Call: https://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2357907&page=82

You can see our Roll Call List by clicking on the link in the signature section of my post.

In my case I became Elite after I finished my 15th cruise with 135 cruise days in 2016.

I currently have 19 cruises and 174 cruise days.

Number 20 in about 2 months.

It may or may not be of value but one can always check THIS SITE to find if your cruise is a "theme cruise" or has any large groups.

This was a real eye opener. Michael, thanks for posting this. I think I’ll check here before I book any new cruises.

On my upcoming cruise I see that there is a group of 141 people scheduled.

They are from Cruise Critic.

Should I be concerned? :eek::D:D:D

I have taken 28 Caribbean cruises and I have been to all of these islands many times. I would choose the cruise with the islands: St. Thomas, Antigua, St. Lucia, Barbados, St. Kitts every time. Personally I find the ABC islands very boring. I’m not one to lie around on a beach and that is the only thing I have found on the ABC islands. The other islands have lots of history. Much of the old wars between the British and the French took place here. The islands are much more lush and beautiful and there is just much more to see.

That’s just my 2 cents worth.

We will be on the Crown starting 2/2/18.

 

Is there any cost benefit to booking a spa service ahead of time in my personalizer? Will it be the same price if we wait and just book when we board?

 

TIA!!

We don’t use the spa, but I remember on all of my past cruises there were discount coupons and sales quite often during the cruise.

Looking for a recommendation of a moderately priced hotel in F.L. with shuttle service to the Princess cruise terminal. We are flying in, so we don't need car parking. Thank you!

As others have mentioned the Embassy Suites and the Marriott Renaissance are great hotels near the cruise port. But they are NOT moderately priced.

I don’t know what dates you are looking at but I found a good deal for my cruise through Hotwire.

Here is what I found for March 17, 2018.

We booked the LaQuinta Inn & Suites Ft.Lauderdale, FL on 2620 N. 26th Ave., Hollywood.

On their website the price is: $189.01 + tax $20.80 for a total of $209.81

I got it on Hotwire for about $39 less.

Hotwire price: $140 + tax $30.56 for a total of $170.56

If you are interested in getting this on Hotwire here is the Hotwire information.

On Hotwire the area is : Hollywood-South Fort Lauderdale-Aventura

It is listed as 2.5 Star 80% Recommended

Hotel Amenities: Free Parking, Free breakfast, Free Internet, Airport Shuttle, Fitness center, Pools(s), Business center, Golf nearby.

Make sure the Airport Shuttle is included in the amenities.

Here is the explanation for the slower speed of the Caribbean Princess.

This is from CanadianBurger’s tread titled “LIVE From the Caribbean Princess-New Panama Canal-Dec. 10, 2017”

CanadianBurger posted this on Post #81 on December 11, 2017

“Learned a few things about the CB’s propulsion issues after talking to officers today: there is an electrical problem with the motors driving one of the propellers, resulting in a reduced maximum RPM of the propeller shaft. The other side must also be reduced in RPM to match, so the effective reduction in speed is approximately two knots. This is not an easy repair, so the CB will be going back into drydock in May 2019, earlier than originally scheduled, for repairs. This will be an extended drydock, lasting about 30 days.”

I sometimes have things loading slow on my computer, but then sometimes it is my Wi-Fi at home that’s creating the problem. There is a free program “Net Uptime Monitor” that will let you know about the signal your computer is receiving. If the signal is fine then any problem is probably from the web site you are visiting. It’s a great free tool.

Link: https://netuptimemonitor.com

Marketing is always full of BS. That's almost the definition of marketing. They always promise the moon but then they aren't the ones who have to actually implement the changes. Any time I see a note using the phrase or hear someone actually say they are "excited" about some sort of change I know it is marketing/human resources hype from people who have absolutely no clue what it will take to fulfill their promises. The fallout when one works in IT is horrendous.

WOW! That looks like it could have been posted by me. I think we see things the same way here.

3 Cruises, 32 nights

7 Night Royal Princess -Western Caribbean

10 Night Royal Princess –Eastern Caribbean

15 Night Star Princess -Hawaii

my guess is yes but i figured i'd ask anyway. i havent flown in 2 years and a cruise i'm looking at gets back to FLL next month on a sunday. i know the airport is close to the port

 

also i did self walk off in october and was back in my car by about 715

A few years ago, in Fort Lauderdale, we were held up in the ship and it was after 10:00 am before anyone could disembark. I would never book a flight before 12:00 noon. I don’t like to be rushed or worry about making my flight.

With that being said, I know there are many people who have very successfully made it off at a very early time.

If you haven’t made the final payment yet then what is there to lose? Except for maybe the down payment and depending on how far out, you might get that back.

The only reason I can think of for insurance at that point is if you prepaid for air fare or hotel that is nonrefundable. Now a question about coverage; does Princess insurance even cover prepaid air?