53sunset

Yes, we're on the Royal, it's at Altona on September 13th.

Ok. Shops Not, some Bars/Restaurant. Look at the Harbour Ferry. Nr. 62. dockland is Next to the cruise Center. Nr. 62 is a Circle line in the Harbour, Comes about every 15 Minutes. At the Landungsbrücken Are Shops you Are looking for and it is a Tourist hot Spot. The Circle line is Nice to See the Harbour and you can Go out Where you want and take a Next one.

Thanks so much for your information, this is just what we were looking for. I've printed our your reply so we'll have it when we get to Hamburg. :)

What shops you are looking for?

if you are dock in Altona you can use the harbour ferrys to the Landungsbrücken and then the metro. Or you can walk to metro station Königsstraße ( print a map before, or with mobil phone, it is not far but not easy to find ).

 

For example you can walk to the Landungsbrücken, Miniatur-Wunderland ( must see in hamburg, make ticket reservation online before ) and Elbphilharmonie. If you want to go shopping the metro station Jungfernstieg with the town hall and Alster ( Lake/River) is a good start.

Thanks for your reply, we mainly just wanted to know if there are souvenir shops or cafes close to the port as my DH has a little problem walking very far.

Hello, we'll be visiting Hamburg in September and were wondering if anyone know if Princess has a shuttle that takes you to the city center. If not, is there any shops that are a short distance from the port that we cold walk to. Thank You

Hello World,

 

 

 

Currently Im on the Carnival Glory. It was an exciting morning! We just got internet back so I figure I'd start the thread.

 

 

 

Sea Day 1

 

8:57 AM - Still asleep from last night's partying. Hear the captain come across the PA saying we lost power. Do not use elevators. Use handrails on stairs.

 

 

 

9:05 AM - Emergency Call for crew. Sounded like fire call.

 

 

 

9:10 AM Start to smell smoke in my cabin.

 

 

 

After this the times get fuzzy and they may not be 100% accurate.

 

 

 

Another PA calls regarding injury for crew to respond.

 

 

 

Power is now restored but keeps going in and out.

 

 

 

I turned on my walkie talkie (which also does VHF) I hear "Carnival Glory to all ships: We lost power and propulsion, stay away"

 

 

 

Thats when I said to my GF, use the bathroom and put on clothes, muster is coming soon.

 

 

 

Few minutes later power and propulsion were restored. Captain said there is no safety issue. We are now at 6 pm and we enjoyed the fun day at sea. However Im not going to lie this was a little scary for us. Luckily we could see the coast of Cuba should things have gone very south. Weather was beautiful.

OMG, I'm glad you're okay !!! What a terrible experience, I hope the rest of the cruise goes okay for you.

MrsEmmaPeel--yes, Odyssey provided the minibus as advertised. I remember the extended leg room option and do not believe I selected it. Either way you cannot go wrong as there was plenty of leg room on our bus. Take some cash or an ATM card as our driver (also the company owner) purchased our tickets for the rope bridge for us and then we paid him in cash at the end. This eliminated a need to wait in lines.

 

I did not find the dining room service to be slow at all. If anything, a couple of evenings it seemed like the courses came too soon after one another! I think it must be a function of a fewer number of people eating later. 8:00 seems to be a perfect time to walk right in and be able to easily make a 10:00 show.

 

Vjblk--As reported the Dublin shuttle is free and was crowded the first day. The line to return to the ship looks long at times but we never waited more than 10-15 minutes for a bus. If you want something to do near the pick up point try O'Donahue's pub a couple of blocks away. It was recommended to us by our Dublin Walking tour guy and it was very authentic. Small, dark, friendly and with very informal live Irish music. Order a gin and tonic--a different system than in the states!

I have a question about the Odyssey Tour, we're doing the TA in September and wanted to book the Odyssey Tour in Belfast. We wondered how much walking is involved? We don't have a wheelchair or walker, etc but we are a little limited in how far we can walk without resting. Thanks for our review.

My parents are first time cruisers on the Ruby Princess departing from Pier 91 in Seattle on 6/2. Can someone help me in telling them what to expect as far as arriving, security, check-in, etc.? Here are some specific questions I have:

 

- 24hrs prior to the cruise do they need to check-in on the Princess website? On the 'Check In' Tab of their destination everything is marked "complete" except for the optional items.

 

- Where on the pier should they ask the Uber driver to drop them off?

 

- They will only have one roller bag each. Will they take their bag with them through the check-in process or are they required to leave it in a certain area while they check in?

 

-Once they arrive in the terminal, where do they go to begin the process and what are the steps involved in checking in?

 

Thanks in advance for any feedback!

One of the most important things to tell them is to keep their passports and boarding passes with them. I've seen people pack their passports in their bags then send their bags onto the ship.

Hope they enjoy their cruise.

I am very new to this whole art of cruising and cruise air. I too wanted to select my seats now for a flight to BCN for an Oct 2018 cruise. I was told by a rep at Princess Air that these tickets are just" place holders", the rates are" flexible" and seats cannot be assigned until 45 days prior to the flight. If I want a seat assignment now, I have to pay for the cruise and air in the entirety then I will have a guaranteed non-refundible ticket and I can choose a seat through the airlines.

So as I understand, I either gamble that I am getting a low priced fare but I am also gambling on seat options as well. I have monitored the flights I would like, both on the carrier website and the Princess Cruise Air site and have noted that in the last few months more and more of the seats on my preferred flight are no longer available. I am assuming that people are purchasing seats directly or through third parties such as Expedia and paying for their tickets and selecting their seats. Princess clearly states that your preferred seating will be sent to the carrier, but there is no guarantee you will get that seat. There is also no guarantee you will be seated with your travel companions.

We've booked with EZAir for years, it depends on which airline whether you can book your seats through Princess or not. When we find a flight we like, we then go to the airlines site and do a mock booking and see what seats are available. If there are seats available that we like, we call Princess and pay only for the air portion of our cruise, then you can go to the airlines site and book your seats. So far we've not had a problem doing this Of course once you pay for your air tickets they become restricted and you can't make a change unless you pay a charge. As an example, our cruise isn't until September but we wanted to book our seats now so we could get comfort seats so we called Princess and paid for just our air only, they put us on hold and contacted the airline and in just a few minutes we were ticketed and we were able to go to the airline's site and book our seats. We also upgraded to comfort seats and paid the difference to the airline. We'll pay for the rest of the cruise when it's due in June. Hope this helps. :):)

To Ships in Bergen, Thanks for your information, I looked at your website and it looks like The Royal Princess will be docking at Jektevikster(excuse the spelling) The last time we were there we were able to walk into town to a lovely outdoor market that was right by a fish market and local souvenir shops, etc. Will the shuttle take us close to that area? We're not as mobile as we used to be so hoping we could just walk and enjoy the day.

I use a Visa travel card that I got at AAA, but you can also get them other places. It works just like a debit card or a charge card but it's not connected to your bank so it's safer. We load it with an amount of money before we go that we think is sufficient for our travels, then you can get local currency for whatever country you're in. The original card was 7.95 and there is a small fee when you use it for a debit card, I think it's about 2.00 or 3.00 dollars. But there's no foreign transaction fee if you use it as a charge card. We've been using this for years and has always worked perfectly.

We just moved seats on our 13+ hour transpacific leg to get more leg room and preferred boarding while leaving all other legs in the cheap seats section. We did this not on the easy air page but directly thru AA as that was the only way to do so in our case.

 

When booking them thru EA at initial booking you pay for more leg room on all legs and will pay more. We did this after final payment and after the 45 day period prior to departure closed and paid just $130 more. Initially booking the entire trip on EA in premium economy wouldn’t have cost far more and with some legs being relatively short it wasn’t necessary.

Thanks for your reply, that is what we have done in the past but were told we couldn't do that now. We only need more leg room on the TA flight, not the shorter ones. We'll just wait and hope for the best.

Thanks so much for all of your help. I found the drop down box on the Princess website and will be checking prices often to get the best price. As of today the Premium Economy is double the economy seats so we'll wait awhile and see what happens with the price.

Hello, in the past we've booked FLIGHTS with EZAir, paid Princess for our airline tickets, then were able to go to the Delta site and book and pay extra for comfort seats once our seats were ticketed. When I called Delta today to inquire of the price of comfort seats on our flight, they said you could no longer book that way and that you had to book directly through Princess for any premium seats. Has anyone had any experience with this recently? The last time we booked like this was April 2017. Thanks in advance for your help. :)

We book guarantee cabins frequently and have never been disappointed. One time we didn't learn of our cabin assignment until we were at the port and were escorted to the office so we could get the proper luggage tags, that was a great upgrade. Enjoy your cruise.

Mystery Island is one of my favorites. It's teeny-tiny with a pontoon dock for the tender. It takes about 2 minutes to walk to the other side, and there's a gorgeous lagoon there. A wonderful curved coral reef keeps the surf out, so snorkeling appeared to be good there.

 

I loved the crafts market and got a beautiful sapphire blue beach cover-up for $10. Leave some money with the locals!

 

Gorgeous place!

Good information, do they take US currency on the island? Thanks

We've cruised on both Princess and Royal Caribbean equally. Royal doesn't have self service laundry but they usually have a special in the middle of the cruise for 30.00 for a bag of laundry. We've found that water, soft drinks and alcohol are higher on RCI. We've never had free gratuities on RCI, only on Princess. We've also never been given an upgrade on RCI but have gotten several on Princess, on more than one occasion we've gone from an inside to a balcony. In our experience, we've had better luck with Princess, but we choose a cruise for the itinerary, date and price, so whichever cruise line you choose, just enjoy, after all you're on a cruise.

I forgot to add that RCI has a charge for room service now.

Am looking at booking a March 2019 back to back out of Galveston on the Liberty. Prior cruises have all been with Princess. I have a few questions.

 

Can you bring your own pop/water with you? With Princess I have been able to put a 6 back of Pepsi or water in my carry-on with no problem.

Does RC have self serve laudromats onboard? We usually do laundry mid-way on a 14 day.

Does RC ever offer free gratuity promotions? On Princess these are usually bundled with their "3 for free" promotions.

 

Would love to hear of any differences between the two that others who have cruised both might want to post.

Thank you!

We've cruised on both Princess and Royal Caribbean equally. Royal doesn't have self service laundry but they usually have a special in the middle of the cruise for 30.00 for a bag of laundry. We've found that water, soft drinks and alcohol are higher on RCI. We've never had free gratuities on RCI, only on Princess. We've also never been given an upgrade on RCI but have gotten several on Princess, on more than one occasion we've gone from an inside to a balcony. In our experience, we've had better luck with Princess, but we choose a cruise for the itinerary, date and price, so whichever cruise line you choose, just enjoy, after all you're on a cruise.

Check out the Seattle Express Website and see which Airport Hotels they serv. Then from that check which of those hotels provide free transportation to the sky train that you can take downtown.

 

On Cruise day Seattle Express will come to your hotel and pick you up and deliver you to the pier. When the cruise is over and after you disembark you can take the shuttle back to the airport or airport hotel. The cost is $18.00 one way or $15.00 each way if you book round trip.

 

I have used them twice once from Sleep Inn and once from Best Western Airport Hotel. The service is great. Both those hotels had free transportation to the sky train. I did not use it, but others staying at the hotel did.

 

One thing when checking the information out. Seattle Express and shuttle Express are two different companies.

Thanks for the information about Seattle Express, we're staying at the Sleep Inn in October so we'll definitely use them to get to the cruise port.

We almost always book guaranteed cabins and have never been disappointed. On 90 % of our cruises, we've been given upgrades to what we booked. We've been given a cabin anywhere from right after booking to the day of embarkation. So, I wouldn't worry.

I've checked prices for several international flights without a problem. The latest I've checked is from Copenhagen to Germany, no problems whatsoever. The best thing to do is call Princess and see if they can help you. Good luck.

We stay at the Sleep Inn that is close to the airport in Seattle. It's reasonably priced and very clean, they will take you to the airport for free then you can book a transfer from the airport through your cruise ship. We've done this several times and it's a lot less hassle. Enjoy your cruise.

We're traveling on a transpacific cruise to Australia in October and have been advised to have Aussie dollars for most of the South Pacific islands that we'll be visiting. Does anyone know if Royal Caribbean sells Aussie dollars. If not, what would be the best way to exchange US dollars for Aussie dollars. Thanks

We'll be in Cartegena Colombia in April and was wondering if anyone knows if there is a shuttle to take you from the ship to Old Town.

Most insurance policies that we've purchased also have a "cancel for any reason" clause. Instead of the insurance company paying you the cruise line gives you a percentage of your cruise fare as a future cruise credit. All cruise lines have different policies so you would need to check your policy.

If you're just looking for a clean place to stay for a night before a cruise, we've stayed at the Sleep Inn Sea Tac Airport hotel before an Alaskan cruise and we've booked it again for this year for a Transpacific cruise. The price is reasonable, it's exceptionally clean, they pick you up and will take you to the airport the next day, and there's a restaurant right next door. I believe it's an IHOP, but not sure. They got excellent reviews on TripAdvisor and we're so glad we gave them a try. Enjoy your cruise. :)