beg3yrs

One thought here. If you want to reduce the amount of bag schlepping, drive the rental to the cruise port and drop off your bags first. Spouse can stay at the port and start check-in if they wish. Take the car back to the agency and if you do choose a Princess shuttle, you only have to pay for one person. However, I kind of like the Avis option ... unless Avis is much more expensive than the other agencies.

I agree, it's pretty cheap as per-day rates go, even for an inside. We just booked a balcony at what we think is an amazing rate. Lower than what we've paid in quite a while.

Don't give them that much credit!

See you on board!

While I haven't had a cabin under the bridge, I've been on the bridge a couple of times for tours and other special occasions. IIRC, the floor is carpeted so there shouldn't be a lot of shoe noise. There really aren't a lot of people up there at any one time either and they typically aren't dancing. There's no heavy carts, dishes being stacked or cabinets being slammed. I wouldn't think twice about being under the bridge except that it's very far forward. If you like up and down movement, then it's for you!

Specific balcony cabins don't seem to be available yet anyway...

Nope, nothing here. While the phone lines open up at 6AM, the staff responsible for opening up the new itineraries probably doesn't show up until 8 or 9 AM. Then they have to get their coffee, talk about sports and whatever. Eventually they'll get to it ... at least it's not a Monday. Heaven forbid that someone had it all ready to go and made it an automatic release. That would be so 20th century.

They did announce a while ago. There's another thread here on CC all about it with itineraries and launch pricing. Elites can book as of today, August 9 and everyone else on August 10. IMHO it will take a few hours for Princess to populate the itineraries on the website. IIRC, last time I tried to book ASAP, I couldn't see the new itineraries unless I used a somewhat different approach to getting in. If only I could remember what it was ... 🤔

When you're in port a good number of passengers are off the ship exploring the area. As such they aren't using the ship's bandwidth which leaves more for you.

And just where are you buried Mr. Finlayson?

They're trying to associate CC screen names with email addresses. Now they know exactly who CineGraphic is and that he's been complaining about JP. Your life with Princess is over ..🤣😱

Couple of factors that will help how you feel: 1) The airport is limiting the short-haul flights to alleviate congestion. 2) By mid-September the summer travel season will be over which will naturally reduce congestion. I've been watching this too as we're arriving at LHR on October 4.

Here's a screenshot of a file Coral posted with the launch pricing. Doesn't look like they're charging a premium for the 10 day based on a per day comparison to the other two itineraries.

It wasn't a Customer Solutions agent. I went with option 2 (booked customer) and then instead of choosing the Excursions option I chose Other, figuring "Other" would have more extensive capabilities. When the agent answered (12 minutes later - not too bad) I immediately asked her if she had the authority to examine and correct GC transactions as well as deal with shore excursion purchases. She said she did and we went from there. Kudos to Keysuana (silent "u") at Princess for handling this so well!

I used some GCs to pay for some shore excursions last week. Have a B2B2B coming up so I was doing it in batches. Book a few, pay for a few, etc. You can't enter GCs as payment on the website, you have to call in. 😱 The first time I didn't have to wait very long and the agent knew what they were doing and took care of things. A day later I had four more to pay for so back on the phone. Again, not a very long hold at all but ... This agent kept putting me on hold for some unknown reason and would come back about five minutes later. I suspect he was getting help from some source. Finally he took the numbers for the card and then said it didn't work. He tried again. We realized the remaining balance on the card wasn't sufficient and I was told you couldn't make a partial payment. Fortunately I had another card which worked. All seemed fine and I hung up. Went to look at my excursions on the website and horror of all horrors, only my excursions had been paid and DW's were not. I checked the balances on the cards and the first card, the one that didn't have enough funds, now had a zero balance! The second card which did, had a balance a couple hundred dollars lower than it should have. Blood pressure rising here ... Tried calling back and after explaining all this to the first agent I was told that he couldn't work with the GCs in the detail required to solve the problem. He transferred me to "Customer Solutions". The person who picked up the phone listened to the long explanation and when I finished by saying "That's why I am now speaking to you in Customer Solutions". "Oh", he says, "You want Customer Solutions? Hold the line while I transfer you!" Blood pressure rising some more... One hour later on hold I hung up. Blood pressure slowly dropping with self medication (Gin and Tonic). The next morning I called again and finally got a wonderful representative that knew her job and got everything fixed (I hope). She said the first card going to a zero balance had somehow overpaid the actual cruise fare (was already paid-in-full). The second card she couldn't figure out where all the funds went. So we decided to start over as she could refund all the cards in total and re-pay for all the excursions. Said the GC refunds would take a day or two to show up. Blood pressure still slightly elevated but it's too early for self-medication. So to paraphrase PacnGoNow, be very careful using GCs, when they screw up it's hard to get things fixed.

And it often isn't staffed. One cruise it was closed off and used for storage.

Get in line buddy! 😁 My TA is on the east coast. He's primed and ready!

Our thoughts exactly!

There are reports that cruisers who test positive during one leg are isolated until they clear the virus and are given the option of leaving the ship or staying on. We have a close friend on the Island Princess now who just went through that situation. Caught Covid, tested positive, moved from an interior cabin to a ocean view (not a balcony darn it) for five days of isolation. Tested negative afterwards and is still on the ship. Was given the option to leave or stay, obviously he chose to stay.

No, you're giving EZAir too much credit. The debark excursion description will let you know the earliest flight you can book. As Maggie777 said, you can then tell EZAir when searching to only show you flights departing after that time.

Tell that to some of us older folks ...

Shouldn't be a problem if OP's BB has unique features like odd coloring or their name scrawled on it...

Also pack them very carefully. Last cruise we had four boxes of the Optum proctored tests and two got a little crushed breaking the box seals (contents were fine). During the actual test one of the first things the proctor asks for is to see all sides of the box to make sure the seals are ok and the tests haven't been tampered with. Oh well, now we have two extra "home" tests.

You know he probably knows who you are on CruiseCritic ... 😱

When you fill out pre-cruise information using the MedallionClass app you are initially in the Blue Lane. If you do nothing else when you arrive at the dock for embarkation, you follow the Blue Lane signage which signifies you need extra processing to check in. If you manage to complete all the pre-cruise steps you end up in the coveted Green Lane. That signifies you have the least amount of processing to get on the ship and start your holiday!