NewPennCruiser

We just received confirmation of our upgrade request today.   We are 32 days out and the upgrade request was for Veranda to Club Continent Suite.   I think min bid was $400 up to a max of $1,500.   I should have written that down but didn't and I'm really guessing on the max.   We bid $1,000 and it is a 10 day cruise.  To us $100 per day to upgrade to a suite was worth it, especially compared to the actual cost of the suite if it was directly booked that way.

Related to an earlier conversation about Travel Agent involvement, even though we use a TA to book our cruises, I registered for the upgrade on my own and received the confirmation directly to me.  The TA was not involved at all.

We were browsing the '20 schedule and noticed that all three sister ships will be in Venice October 9 - 10, 2020. Does anyone know if all three are meeting up sooner than that in 2018 or 2019? I haven't paid close attention to the 2019 schedule even though we do have an Alaskan trip scheduled. I found it interesting that all 3 ships are in Europe together in 2020 so I guess it makes sense that they can easily meet up somewhere. All three ships are scheduled to arrive at 9am in Venice on the 9th.

It sounds like this varies from ship to ship as someone mentioned. We were on the Summit a week ago and the hours were 7:30 to 9:00 everyday but disembarkation day and that day was one hour earlier.

we will be on the Dawn out of Boston to Bermuda 4-20..Has anyone done this? How was the weather in Bermuda? This is our first Norwegian Cruise, we always do Princess. Looking forward to Bermuda🌞

We did this same cruise a few years back and we also usually cruise with Princess. The ship was fine, food was good, Bermuda was fun and we had a very relaxing and enjoyable week. I'm sure you'll have a great time. We often talk about doing this itinerary again and may try NCL or Celebrity out of NYC next time, although we really liked the port in Boston. Embarkation and disembarkation were both easy and fast. Dave

This thread is an old one. I have to say that it did not occur to us, that Azamara would change our chosen room without asking us. Not even for an upgrade. I hope that this practice that was reported in this thread in 2015, is not taking place anymore.

I hate to report that it actually happened to us a couple of months ago on the Quest. About 4-5 weeks prior to the cruise, we got a call from our TA saying that Azamara changed our room. It was only a couple of rooms away from the one we had booked and to be honest I was busy at home at the time and just didn't feel like making a fuss over the change. We also really had no issue with the new room but they didn't ask us and we don't know why the change was made.

We attended this event in Chania last year and it was a nice concert. It does appear the current setup is at the same location near the dock because of some recent pictures I saw on twitter. Honestly I think the entire 2 and a half hour event includes the tendering and time spent prior to the actual concert that includes drinks and sort of a receiving line, etc as people are seated. The whole thing was very efficient even though you have to tender and everyone was back on the ship pretty quickly. I think the concert was about an hour followed by fireworks over the Harbor.

Just got off the Quest on Sunday. Food was excellent and we didn't see anyone losing weight!

Don't assume that getting across the border is always going to be smooth sailing. We did this once after a Pacific Coastal that ended in Vancouver and we were held up at the border for a couple of hours. Many people on the bus missed their flights. We had a late flight and were planning on killing time in Seattle before we had to leave so it didn't affect us, but we would think twice before trying that again, especially if we had a tight flight schedule.

Dave

This will be our first Azamara. Will be our 49th cruise and what happens? Our

2nd upgrade ever in all these years. I think we will like Azamara

 

Bob en Cor

Know the feeling, on the Azamara cruise from a couple of weeks ago, it was our first upgrade ever and we got to spend 11 spoiled days in one of the Club Continent Suites. I think it's a conspiracy; they upgrade you so you get to live the high life for a couple of weeks and then hope you'll pay full price in the future to enjoy added space and amenities. :) We probably won't get the upgrade again but we enjoyed it while we had it!!! Dave

As an aside, TV24, I've found you to be the most friendly on the Azamara community board, and appreciate your posts!

 

I've found a lot of the posters to be fairly cliquish and just stuffy, have never run across this with Celebrity or Princess. Most are free with their comments, suggestions, answers, etc. I'm sure the roll call board would be similar, so wont join that for now.

 

Sure hope this isn't the temperature of the cruisers we're going to be with for 16 days. :confused:

I'll echo what tv24 said, don't worry about the temperament of the Azamara Board as I really don't believe it will be indicative of what you'll experience onboard. I worried about this with our first Azamara cruise and it was the complete opposite. We met the nicest people we have ever cruised with and immediately booked a second cruise. I don't really know why their CC Board can be so boisterous but we just completed our second cruise and it was as perfect as the first. We don't often join roll calls, especially those that start to plan gift giveaways and door decorating, but the one on our recent Azamara cruise was kind of quiet and subdued so we joined and met some great people, often eating dinner together and doing tours. Azamara really has become our line of choice as we have felt completely comfortable and really enjoyed the passenger mix on both cruises.

Enjoy your cruise!

Dave and Steve

We will be spending 2 nights at the Intercontinental In Lisbon at the end of the month. It is near Edward VII park and across the street from the Four Seasons.Does anyone know of any good mid range restaurants in that area?

Thank you.

Peggy

Peggy,

We stayed about 3 blocks south of the Park at the Hotel Britania and ate at a few restaurants in the general area. Most were within a block or so of the Avenida subway stop and walkable from the Park and your hotel. Across and about a block off Av. da Liberdade on Rua do Salitre was an amazing restaurant called Floresta do Salitre. We were welcomed inside by the owner like we were being greeted in his house. The food was fantastic, prices were reasonable and we were treated like family. We ordered dessert and a glass of port was complimentary. We travel a lot and love to find local non touristy restaurants to eat at and this was one of our all time favorites. The night we were there, the owner was the only person who spoke english but they do have english menus. If we travel back to Lisbon we would definitely return for dinner. They are highly recommended on TripAdvisor as well.

Have a great trip!

Dave

Welcome back to Miami Andy and safe travels on the rest of your journey home. Like so many others here I really appreciated the time you took to post your thoughts and feedback regarding your cruise. It sounds like you had a great time which is really what going on Holiday is all about!!!

Dave

I actually had emailed customer service asking about the fact that many of us could no longer see our reservations and the response stated that they needed to update the system with all the itinerary changes and it was a manual process. They asked that I give it a week and that the reservation should eventually re-appear. I got that email this morning and checked MyAzamara this evening and it was back. I didn't need to relink to it or do anything. It was just back with the new itinerary details. I hope this works out easily for the rest of you. Dave

I wanted to pose this question to anyone here who has chosen to remain on their revised cruise. After you spoke to Azamara and let them know that you were going to stay on the cruise, are you now able to re-link back to your reservation in MyAzamara?

Our reservation disappeared and even though we have made final payment and spoken to Miami, the system still tells us we don't have a reservation. I realize we probably need to call them back but I was curious if others are seeing the same thing. Thanks. Dave

We agree with most everything that has been said and have chosen to stay in Plaza Deck rooms on the Grand Class ships on two cruises. I do want to mention though we were in an ocean view room pretty far forward (about the 8th room back I think) and just so happened to be above the tendering platform area. I think we tendered twice on that cruise and the first morning we thought the beds were going to fall through the floor as they prepared the platform. We were ready the second time but it scared the crap out of us the first morning. That said, we stayed in the area a second time but chose a location further back toward the Atrium.

Dave

Itinerary is sea day, Cozumel, Grand Cayman and another sea day. Same ports.

 

Waiting for pilot too arrive.

Enjoy the rest of your cruise!

Do you receive an onboard credit for the unused internet minutes awarded to Platinum members? I thought that you get a $25 credit if you don't use the 150 minutes awarded

Travrat, I've never heard of this and I can tell you that there have been a couple of times where we did not use the benefit and we didn't see any type of credit. It's a nice perk, but it's basically out there for you to "use it or lose it".

I can only see the Coral. Looks like more people are going back on the ship than getting off. Is everything closed being that it's the day after Christmas?

Yeah, the camera seems to be focused on the Coral which is docked pretty far behind the other two. The funny thing is I checked out the Aruba Cam yesterday and there were two ships actually docked on Christmas Day. Aruba pretty much closes down on Sundays so I can only imagine it had to be pretty boring there on Christmas Day if you were looking for something to do. I imagine, some places may still be closed down today.

Thanks for the review. We will be on this cruise soon and are very interested in which excursion you took in the Panama Canal. In reviewing the available excursions there were quite a few. Also, any recommendations for the other ports. We have never been to Aruba, Limon, Cartagena.

These are the excursions that we took on this trip

Cartagena – Walking Tour of Old City

Panama – Lock Transit by boat

Limon – Train, Canals and Plantation

We enjoyed the tour in Cartagena and while you could probably pay less to just take a cab to the Old City, it’s a long walk to get through the industrial pier and I’m not very fluent in Spanish so I didn’t want to risk getting taken with cab fare in what seemed like a very congested City. We did have a tour guide as well who was knowledgeable and great to talk to even when you ran into him exploring the Old City on our own.

The small boat transit of the locks to the Pacific was amazing. I’ve heard varying levels of satisfaction with this tour but just couldn’t have been happier with our day. Going through the Cut and the Pacific locks on a small ferry really brought you up close to the locks and it just was very cool. We thought it was worth every penny of the excursion even if it did make for a long day. We were back in Colon to catch the ship by 5 that evening.

The tour in Limon was informative and pretty fun having a chance to see some wildlife and check out the Del Monte banana plantation. We were lucky because this was their 6th straight day of rain and many tours ended up being cancelled. There was flooding and roads blocked all over the place but we had a nice, albeit wet day. I came away from Costa Rica thinking that I really would like to go back and see more however Limon, even though it really is the port, is not all that impressive. The Pacific side of Costa Rica is much nicer and even inland but of course you have to start somewhere. Of note, if you wanted to do some “local” shopping, they had a market place set up at the pier. We thought it was very nice, people were great to talk to and there were a lot of local rosewood products and some nice hand made things along with the obligatory trinkets and t-shirts. Check it out, even if you go on tour. It’s pretty much just there for the cruise ship so it will be open until you leave.

Rain seemed to be theme of the day for a while from Panama through Jamaica. It just poured the entire day we were in Ocho Rios and we didn’t get off the ship. We already had planned to not get off so the rain really didn’t change our plans. I heard the bob sled tour was fun but can’t vouch for it. It was somewhat of a walk but you could walk into town to shop or search out some free wi-fi as well but again we had monsoon like rains all day there so if you were thinking about making last minute plans, I think that maybe just forced a lot of folks to stay on the ship.

We did Aruba on our own having been there numerous times on typical land vacations and it is our favorite place to visit. (including all the ABC Islands) Aruba has a ton of tours, all of which I think are pretty good depending on what you’re looking for. Water sports to 4 wheeling and of course some of the best beaches around. For this itinerary, Aruba is also one of the easiest ports to get around. This will also be your duty free shopping mecca on this cruise. Yes, there are people at the port trying to gain your business with offers to show you the island, but people don’t hound you with trinkets when walking around town, cabs are easy and plentiful and the buses are actually easy to use and cheap although they do run on “island time”. And you might like some of what they are offering with the folks trying to sell tours at the pier if that’s your thing. Whereas you really wouldn’t want to leave the port area on foot in Limon, Cartagena or especially Colon, feel free to do what you want here. They also had a new trolley that rides up and back through town taking people to some of the shopping and that was new since we were last there. If you want to hit a beach our favorite is Eagle Beach but depending on who you ask you’ll get differing opinions. All beaches are public but if you are near a Resort they may charge you to use chairs or items that belong to them. And I know I mentioned shopping but you will be docked right at town and an easy walk to all the shopping you’ll ever need along with two of their casinos and numerous restaurants, coffee shops and bars. There is plenty to see and do depending on how long you are in port. If looking for food, a couple of our favorite restaurants right in town are The Old Fisherman and Que’Pasa, both an easy walk from the ship. Also stop at The Paddock along the water for a Balashi (local beer).

Check out the ports of call section of CruiseCritic for Panama and Caribbean and you’ll find a lot more advice on private tours and other things to do. And you’ll probably get a lot of opinions on here depending on who you ask so just check around and I’m sure you’ll find something to your liking. If you have specific questions about anything I mentioned, just let me know. Dave

Aruba has three ships in port today which is about all they can handle and it just so happens to be all Princess. In this order, Island, Royal, Coral.... they are all lined up alongside in Oranjestad. You can check out the Bridge Cams and portarubawebcam.com.

Was on this cruise as well. We liked the decor of the ship much better than the Regal which we were on the previous week. Buffet choices a little disappointing for lunch. 61% of those on board were blue cards, low 200's for Platinum, and 81 for Elite per the CD. Loss of the Universe Lounge will drastically change the ship, not to mention the increased passenger load on the rest of the ship.

Did Richard mention that we were sailing full or not? I was just curious because after two cruises on this ship, I'm amazed at how it never seems crowded. That will probably change after dry dock but the real test of that is bad weather and we had 3 very rainy days that to me still didn't seem to make it crowded inside.

NeptuneSeas: The Maitre D' for our cruise was Rui Pereira

Seattleslew: Yes to Zumba. It was listed in the Patter every sea day 8:30am in Universe Lounge.

Thanks for the report. I too will be on the Island shortly. It will be my first on Princess & I'm really looking forward to it. I'm trolling here to find out all the secrets. I'm anxious to try the pizza at lunchtime and see the Bayou show. It sounds exciting. Did you see the gym? Was it stinky or bright & clean? I was on HAL a couple of years ago & the yoga mats were big time stinky. I appreciate any more inside information you might have.

We did go to the gym but I'll admit we didn't participate in any of the planned activities or classes that were offered. Everything seemed clean to me and the exercise equipment is pretty much surrounded by windows so there was a lot of light. We walked a lot on the Promenade Deck and sort of avoided the gym mostly this trip. One thing to make note of though, I believe looking at deck plans post dry dock, the gym is going to be interior on one of the lower decks with no windows.

If you have not run across Richard on this board, he posts under Richard in Panama and he has been MIA since he is on one of the Princess ships as the Canal destination lecturer until January I believe.

Richard is currently on Island Princess. His commentary as we entered the Gatun Locks and the lectures he delivered onboard were excellent. His book was also being sold in the ship's gift shop.

I appreciate your input! As a long-suffering Browns fan, I knew we would be safe in assuming we would not have a dog in the fight, so to speak. ;)

I certainly get it... I'm a Browns fan living in Pittsburgh. I've got blind faith that it will get better. :) Enjoy your cruise!