jeromep

We've done Vancouver to Vancouver RT California Coastal before. It is just as simple as getting in your car, driving to Vancouver, parking the car someplace, and getting on the ship. You MUST have a passport or passport card, but you'll be better served if you have both. The passport card is very convenient for driving across the border at Blaine, less so entering Canada, but more so re-entering the U.S as there are sensors at the U.S. crossing that read the passport card prior to getting to the booth. Streamlines reentry quite a bit. I recommend having a conventional passport when cruising. If you have an emergency and need to fly back home, the passport card isn't allowed for international entry when flying. I'd recommend finding a hotel/motel with a park and fly or park and cruise option. The hotel really doesn't care if you are flying or cruising, you are paying them extra to park the car with them while you are away. Last time we did a Vancouver RT we stayed a couple of nights before the cruise at the Accent Inn Vancouver Airport, which is located on the east side of the highway to Vancouver. We found their prices competitive and they have clean, generously sized rooms. They are located in a commercial area that blends to residential quite quickly, so we felt very safe leaving the car with them. We used a taxi to get to Canada Place on embarkation morning. The front desk at the hotel will call you a cab. If you want to stay in Vancouver proper, closer to Canada Place, you'll pay more, sometimes a lot more for lodging and vehicle parking. That is why we stayed in the suburbs. If you hail taxis in Vancouver make sure they accept plastic for payment before you get in. All of them should, but some drivers get snippy if they have to run plastic because it means they can't pocket the entire fare or have to report the income. Getting Uber and Lyft into Canada has been difficult, Uber and Lyft were not operating in Vancouver when we visited, but that might have changed. That was many years ago. As for Princess Plus/Premier, it is my understanding that you can purchase those on board now, on liek the first or 2nd day. You may want to consider that as an option, also.

It's the house brand, Lotus Spa. I like it, but others may find it less desirable.

Good, because if I were to join a class that requires any coordinated movement it would look like a newborn giraffe decided to participate in the activities.

Yes, and there is a superautomatic espresso machine in there for you to make your own coffee drinks. Plus, if there is a specific beverage or liquor you want stocked just ask the concierge and they will try to stock it.

I tend to think of cruise lines as vehicle brands and their relationship to each other. Carnival is a entry level cruise line, the first place you cruise because it has the brand cachet and are known as being "fun ships". RC is a step up from Carnival. I know lots of folks that have "graduated" form Carnival to RC. Larger, nicer ships, nicer cabins, more water slides, more onboard activities, more wiz-bang. Both lines are family oriented. Both lines are also more "onboard" oriented. Their goal is not just to sell you a cruise, but to sell you stuff while on board (well all cruise lines are that way, but some more so than others). With regard to selling stuff while on board, I think that Norwegian does this the most and most unabashedly. I've looked at cruising RC recently and their itineraries are not nearly as good as Princess or HAL. I also think that RC's pricing and cabin class situation is much more confusing and convoluted than Princess. Princess has some oddities in their cabin classes. Mini-suites are not suites and do not have suite benefits. Reserve Class mini-suites are not suites, but have a special dining room location and a couple of half bottles of moderate priced wine in your cabin when you arrive, and "better" locations on board ship, but aside from that are still not suites. Breakfast is always available as a plated sit-down meal in the MDR. Hours listed in the Patter. I recall that breakfast times are fairly generous, but if you are a late riser you'd better get to the dining room before 10am, or else you might miss breakfast. On top of that, lunch service starts about 11 in the buffet so you are kind of compressing your meals. Lunch is also served in the MDR on sea days. Timing for MDR lunch is pretty limited. I recall it being noon-1:30 or something similar. On port days you can find lunch in the buffet, or International Cafe in the Piazza or the grill or pizza place on Lido. If the ship has a Gigi's or Alfredo's, you can get lunch there, too. There are plenty of places on board to get lunch and avoid the buffet, whether it is or is not a port day. Princess is more relaxed, by a huge margin. Depending on the time of year, length of cruise and itinerary, you will see families and children, but it is highly variable. With no wet toys on board, like wave riders and water slides, you also tend to get a more subdued top deck atmosphere. A good thing. Caribbean Princess has a kids splash pad area, and some extensive kids club facilities that the other ships don't have in the same measure. Again, this has a lot to do with the typical itineraries that she sails. I've never known check-in times to be something that is enforced with Princess. If the ship is ready to board and people are at the terminal, they will board those that are waiting. Any boarding grouping is merely a suggestion they make in the hopes that people will follow it and that will help to not overwhelm the space in the terminal. But you are pretty much free to show up any time starting about 10:30 or 11, and you'll probably be on board in 30 minutes or so. I'm not sure what paperwork you are looking at, but on a 7 day voyage there are usually 2 formal nights. Formal nights are typically on sea days. Formal night dress codes are basically not enforced in detail. Slacks and a button-up shirt will be just fine for a casual formal night. Nobody on staff will bat an eye. As for your other passengers, there are those that "dress to impress", and that is kind of where the formal nights are going, Princess list the formal nights in the patter, and you can participate or not. I think the big thing is that at dinner you don't want to show up in holey jeans and a ripped t-shirt that says "I'm with stupid". With that said, enjoy Princess, it will be quite different from RC.

@Amy G congrats on the bid. I've thought about putting in a bid for a suite upgrade for our next cruise, coming up fast, but it would just be a suite class change not a meaningful upgrade. That said, we do suites because we don't cruise often, but we like to cruise well. We use as many of the perks as we can. If you are on a Royal Class ship with the Concierge Lounge and you need anything... anything, don't bother going to passenger services (although there is a separate waiting line for suite and elite passengers), just visit the Concierge in the Lounge and work directly with them. They can address issues with Medallion, technology, dining reservations in the specialty restaurants or the MDR (although in the MDR you will enter through the Reserve class door and should not have any wait times for tables), book shore excursions which you have not already booked, etc. They are really quite versatile and can save you a lot of time. Use the lounge resources. It is a great place to pick up a quick snack, get a quick beverage, etc. Plus it is quite and calm in there. If there is a particular beverage or food you'd like to see in the Concierge Lounge through the trip, just ask and they will do their best to get it stocked for the remainder of the cruise. Alas, you are on the Crown, which does not have the Concierge Lounge. That is ok, you'll see have a separate line at passenger services for any account related items. You have free laundry. There will be laundry bags and laundry slips in one of the closets in your cabin. Just stuff the bag, fill out the slip with what you have placed in the bag and leave it on your bed in the morning, or hand off to your cabin steward. They will get it to the laundry. If you have your laundry ready in the morning, you will likely get it back the next afternoon. Your onboard account will be charged for the laundry, but will then be credited back as you are in a suite. I've not had an issue with the reverse credit not showing up, but others here have encountered that. All you have to do is bring it to the attention of the Concierge in the Lounge or passenger services and they will get the credit initiated. So, check your onboard folio frequently, at least daily so you aren't trying to get things cleaned up on disembarkation day. The mini-bar is just a tray of small liquors, mostly the clear and brown style, vodka, gin, scotch, along with lowball glasses and a mini-fridge with some canned pop, a couple of mass market beers and a couple of bottled waters. There are some exchanges you can do if you wish for different liquor or more pop or more beer or bottled water, but I've never really executed on that. Your cabin steward will generally keep your ice bucket full in that mini-fridge. They check in on it when they service the room. If you use a little bit of ice, even if it is just for tap water, they will keep the ice flowing and you'll never be without. Nice thing is on the Grand class ships the minibar is placed on your wet bar, and it is a real wet bar with a sink. Suites on the Royal class ships, there is no wet bar in the suite, even though there really is space for one. That is a disappointment. First night specialty dining is easy. Just decide if you are into Sabatini's or Crown Grill and ring up the dine line once you are on board and request a time. Generally speaking, there are no wait lists for the specialty restaurants on embarkation evening. That is part of the reason that they give suite guests the complimentary specialty restaurant meal on embarkation evening. You may also be fine with no reservation at all, but like a lot of suite perks, just make sure that they do not charge your folio or that they have reversed any charges if they have to post it and then reverse it for accounting purposes. Your standing MDR reservation is kind of meaningless now. Since your suite gives you Reserve Class dining you reservation is not necessary as there are generally no lines for dinner in the Reserve Class dining room. And if you have to wait, it will only be momentarily. I can't tell you exactly which dining room hosts the Reserve Class door, but you'll find it. It will be a dining room off the Piazza or atrium. Your suite gives you a cruise long thermal suite pass at the spa. Just head to the spa and they will be glad to show you the facilities. Tendering? If you have an excursion booked in a tender port and the excursion is booked through Princess you either meet in a public space with the rest of the cruisers that are on that excursion and then tender in together, or you are provided tender priority boarding tickets which put you to the front of the line to tender. Suite guests get tender tickets on tender port days regardless if they have an excursion booked with Princess or not. I suppose I could go on and on.

To be honest, is the Princess cruising crowd really a night club crowd? I've been on the ships that had Skywalkers, both the shopping cart handle and the behind the funnel wings, and often went to check out the night life up there in the evenings, and frankly, it wasn't exactly a packed house. Maybe I was on the wrong cruises to see the real Princess night club crowd, but this lack of a designated night club space might be a calculated move by Princess.

Using the Piazza as the night club seems like a bit of a push. I had a bad feeling about the Majestic and the Chinese cruising market. That was going to be a tough nut to crack, and additionally there isn't a history of pleasure cruising, let alone long distance pleasure sailing (i.e. transatlantic crossing) in the modern Chinese culture. I also suspect that the requirement of Princess to basically run the ship while a third party did all the bookings and management of the cabin sales was a sticking point that didn't work out long term. I sure hope that Princess does reconfigure Majestic for the domestic market during a dry dock. I think the Hollywood Conservatory is a great feature for a ship that may spend a great deal of its life, or at least warmer months doing the Alaska run, but the lack of a functional night club space is quite a bit of a drag.

You'll want to go over to the North American Homeports section, especially the West Coast Departures threads to view what is being asked and then provide advice as appropriate. But the boards are kind of an organized free-for-all, so chip in when you wish.

Ah the glove "thing". I have an RV. I always wear gloves to dump my tanks. If you do your tank routine correctly and have decent equipment you never spill the forbidden fluid and you don't get it on your gloved hands either. However, the gloves are there just in case. Once your tank routine is all done and your hoses are put away and buttoned up, the very last thing is to carefully, like a nurse or doctor, remove the gloves in a very specific manner to avoid having the outside of the glove touch your skin, and then into the trash (which is usually convenient to a dump station). Then I head back into the rig to wash my hands with soap and water (for a rather long time with lots of agitation) and off you go. For gloves to work as protection from contaminated buffet utensils you have to remove the gloves in a very particular way to avoid any contact with any of your skin. Medical professionals are pretty good at this, but note when seeing a doctor that their routine is usually to come into the exam room, wash, put on the gloves, do their thing, remove the gloves and then wash again. While gloves may be great protection, washing is the only real protection we have against contact spread diseases and germs (like Noro). So, yes, I too am sarcastic about gloves being some kind of talisman that protects all.

Uber/Lyft: yes, for all ground transport in Seattle. Drivers are generally very good, cars are generally very clean and you can see them coming and going on the app. It is the only way I do ground transport in Seattle when I don't have my car with me. TSA at SeaTac is a mess. Use the luggage transfer services that others have suggested, if possible, it will make your life a whole lot easier. Also, use the SEA Spot Saver to schedule your trip through screening. https://www.portseattle.org/SEAspotsaver You'll want to be at SeaTac about 2:30 for your flights, that is mostly to accommodate getting through TSA, and using the Spot Saver to schedule a time will help you get through a lot quicker, too. I'm a huge fan of 13 Coins for dining in the Seattle area. They have one location in Pioneer Square and another outside of the airport, but you could spit inside the airport fence from the 13 Coins location at SeaTac, it is that close. Google maps is your friend when looking for stuff in Seattle (or anyplace) and you can get a feel for where places are, if they are walk-able or if you will need an Uber.

The Mediterranean is very nice. My wife typically stays there when she has to visit her home office in Seattle. It is walking distance to her office. Neighborhood is basically pretty decent, you are on the edge of Belltown and lower Queen Ann. But I warn you, Seattle is looking pretty rough these days. The Emerald City isn't nearly as shiny as it used to be. I can't speak to the parking situation at the Med., but I'd call their front desk and talk with them. We get so reliant on web sites and impersonal booking systems that we forget all you have to do is pick up the phone and call a place and the front desk clerk or concierge will generally give you good advice, especially if you call during the normal business day where you get that hotel's "A" team. The Warwick is a noted property in Seattle. It is at least 4 stars if not better. Building is a bit of an architectural landmark. Not old architecture, but more modern. Very distinct looking. Not sure when it was built, I think in the 60s. It has its own private parking garage which is limited access. Catalytic converter theft in Seattle is a huge problem, so whatever vehicle parking you choose needs to be something that is reasonably secure and off street.

I did a transfer from Princess to a TA a couple of months back. The TA I took the existing booking to provided me the transfer form, partially completed with the information I'd already given them about the cruise. I basically only had to sign it. I sent it back to my TA and they filed it with Princess. The transfer occured in just about a day and it was all done. Your TA should be filing the transfer request for you and then following up with Princess if there are any difficulties. I'm surprised that you are hauling the mail on this one.

Or purchase Princess Plus, which includes gratuities, includes a decent beverage package, has a few additional perks, and allows for one device connected to the Internet.

We visited Glacier bay on Princess many years ago, 2011 to be specific, on the Golden Princess. Glacier Bay is forked, with two inlets that you can travel into. On our cruise we went up the inlet that had the Marguerite glacier. I believe that is the Tarr Inlet Please don't mark my words, as I'm remembering all of this from 12 years ago and referencing Google maps. We were close to the glacier, close enough to be very cold when out on our balcony and we could hear the ice as it groaned and moved. We didn't experience any massive ice calving activity. It was incredibly cold when our side of the ship faced the glacier, lots of floating ice was "kissing" the hull with an occasional "thunk" that I'm pretty sure could be heard through most of the ship. When the ship turned 180 to allow the other side of the ship to view the glacier we were in bright, direct sunlight and it was like 70 degrees out. Amazing contrast. Anyway, the inlet the ship goes up is determined by the parks service and I think has something to do with wildlife migration or birthing. I didn't feel short changed at all by our Glacier Bay experience. While the Royal class ships are quite a bit larger than the older Grand class ships, they are still "small" enough to carefully get into and out of Glacier bay and provide the same viewing experience as the older ships. If you want to "kiss" the glacier, the you do have to purchase an excursion which will take you off the ship and put you on a smaller vessel that will get you substantially closer to glacier faces. I honestly didn't feel the need for the "Niagara falls" grade tour. Someday I might, and it seems only reasonable that if I want an intimate experience with any of the glaciers, I'll have to be on a much smaller vessel. I would say this, the park rangers that embark the ship at the beginning of the day are excellent, have wonderful presentations and have a lot of information to share about Glacier Bay, especially if you ask questions and engage with them.

The roots of Solvang are then very genuine, having been established by Danes. That is really quite remarkable. I really liked the place. We didn't get any history on it when we visited. In fact our port day was a Sunday, Easter Sunday. When our bus arrived the whole town was just about dead. There was one tourist shop open, and the restaurants were open. We really needed that tourist shop because we had our then 22 month old daughter with us and the bus ride hadn't been good for her and my wife needed a new shirt. You can fill in the blanks. Leavenworth becoming Bavarian was almost totally to save the town from oblivion. The small towns and cities that dot the Cascade foothills, especially on the eastern side of the range, existed due to the logging industry, coal mining industry, (yes there is coal in the Washington Cascades, it isn't very good coal, but it was once economically viable to mine it) and railroad support. All of those industries are a shadow of what they once were, and so most of the towns have shriveled up and nearly died. In the 60s Leavenworth got the idea to convert itself into a tourist town, it had been a logging town, it sits in a narrow valley carved by the Wenatchee River and has high cliffs that surround the town, so it is rather Bavarian looking, at least environmentally. The city's name was good for pretending to be a German town, so all they had to do was to enforce building appearance standards on the central business district, create a plaza or two, put down brick pavers in the intended tourist areas, and then schedule the various typical Bavarian seasonal events and voila, you have a tourist town. I make it sound simple, but it wasn't. Now it has little hotels or pensions that sit on top of little shops and restaurants on street level, it has a very expensive and extensive resort/destination spa hotel, a number of 3.5 star non-chain/franchise, hotel properties, a number of near town campgrounds and quite a few adventure sports concessionaires. We usually visit a couple of times a year considering that it isn't a terribly long drive from home. You get a couple blocks away from the touristy area and business district and residential Leavenworth looks a lot like other former Cascade industry towns, like Cle Elum. Thanks for the insight on Solvang. I certainly didn't get any from the cruise line. And I didn't notice on our port day many historical markers. I must not have been looking close enough. I kind of guessed that was the distance it was from the dock. The drive in the coach felt like the time on board matched up with what a 35 mile drive would feel like. I guess for me, in response to the OPs original question, if a local says there are plenty of Ubers to get you back to the dock then great, but it didn't feel that way 5+ years ago.

A number of years ago we did the Solvang on your own "tour". Yes, it was a coach from the dock to Solvang and back. I can't imaging trying to do it via Uber or Lyft. The drive on the bus was rather long and Solvang feels pretty remote and far away from Santa Barbara. We are glad we did it. The first thing we did in town was visit the Solvang Restaurant and have Aebleskivers, the ball shaped "pancakes", or rather quick bread, that are supposedly Dutch. There is a regional chain in the Spokane and Pullman, WA area called Old European that also makes Aebleskivers. The ones at the Solvang Restaurant were as good or better than the ones from Old European. Nice place, a little dated inside, but the product and service were good. It was kind of charming. Felt like a place the locals go. Solvang reminded me, in principal at least, of Leavenworth, WA, which is a Bavarian themed town. Solvang feels much bigger than Leavenworth, but both cities work hard to enforce building rules that keep the structures Dutch or German in appearance and keep up the tourist vibe. Oh, and if anyone is into movies, Solvang is the central city in which the movie "Sideways" takes place. The restaurant the main characters are seen eating at in many scenes is an actual restaurant in Solvang. Watch the movie before you go if you want to see some of the sights before you end up there. It is a kind of funny movie too.

Possibly one of the best reviews in the forums. Nicely structured, covers just about everything we ask about, and includes great photos. It has been a pleasure to read.

Seattle Express is an excellent service, and if you really want to shuttle with others, that is great. I've done price comparisons lately and have not found Seattle Express to be much more competitive, if any more competitive than just using a careshare service. No matter the purpose of my travel, I almost exclusively use Uber or Lyft. Depending on the type of Uber or Lyft you select (XL, black car, etc.), A SeaTac area hotel to Pier 91 will run you between $45 and 95. You'll be in the 65-95 range for black car or XL service. You can do estimates on both Lyft and Uber web sites. Prices are similar. Check out https://seattleexpress.com/ if you want to shuttle with others. We've shuttled in Seattle to the port a time in the past and frankly I found the process exasperating. Various stops, other people that weren't quite ready to go. Loading and unloading of luggage, being squished together in a van. Nah. I'll take a carshare service any day.

This question might be better answered in the RCI forum because the embarkation process is up to the cruise line. It really isn't dependent on the embarkation port. As a Princess cruiser I can tell you that embarkation group times are just a suggestion, they are never enforced. But Princess and RCI are very different cruise lines. As the same question over with the Royal Caribbean board and you'll get a much more accurate answer.

Excellent question. First off, your observation of no hotels near Pier 91 is totally correct. It is a very industrial area, and accessed by a bridge. Not all hotels advertise park and cruise packages, which are identical to park and fly packages. A good way to handle this is to call the hotel direct and speak with their front desk. The local management knows better how they handle park and fly/cruise packages. It doesn't matter if you use a park and fly package for your cruise, the hotel won't care, but they do want to know when you will be back to retrieve your car and your package price will be based on the number of days the car stays at the hotel. We also drive to the port when doing Alaska cruises. We don't try to be near downtown, no real need if our goal is to drive in the night before, get some sleep, leave the car parked and get transportation to the pier. I highly recommend the Ceaderbrook Lodge. It is in the Seatac area, but is more secluded and is a much higher end location. They do offer a park and fly package. It isn't the least expensive, but the location feels more secure than other airport hotels which offer the park and flys and the accommodations are better than a regular hotel. We use Uber or Lyft to get to and from the pier. We aren't much into regular taxis and the pricing of Seattle Express shuttles isn't better than pricing from a carshare service.

Lots of services will do delivery. Instacart, Drizly, Doordash, Grubhub, Postmates. Any of them will do the trick. You'll probably get better pricing if you choose to order direct form Total Wine and have them conduct the delivery. Note, the delivery services, all offer a "white box" offering to various other companies. So, when you order food delivered from Taco Bell, KFC, McDonalds, from their app or web site, they are using one of the above services to actually get the order to you. The last time I did order delivery from a fast food joint, the order was tracked through their app, but it was a DoorDash driver that got it to me. I suspect that Total Wine is doing similar. If you have specific tastes, then Total Wine is probably the way to go. Otherwise, heading to SeaTac Liquor and Wine might be just as satisfactory without the delivery overhead. Or you could just get an Uber or Lyft and go to Total Wine on your own and meander the aisles on your own and pick out what you want. No delivery fee or mark-up, but you have the cost of the Uber ride. The delivery services will deliver anywhere so long as they can drive there. When I've been on business trips and have used Uber Eats or DoorDash for food, sometimes they will go directly to your room, sometimes you are staying at a place where guest accommodation elevators and areas of the property are off limits to non-guests, so you have to meet your driver in the lobby. Either way, they will deliver to whatever hotel you are at.

Congratulations on your first cruise. I hope you have a great time. How much you enjoy cruising is really up to you. You have many questions, I may provide multiple posts. Pack a small med kit. Pack in it typical OTC medications you would normally use in your regular life. The onboard clinic is very capable, but also very expensive. Your normal medical insurance at home will likely cover little or nothing of a visit to the doctor on board. Travel insurance will reimburse for your visit to the doctor, but you'll be paying out of pocket on your onboard account until you can file the paperwork with your insurance and get reimbursed. You are only going to go there if something is really wrong with you, otherwise "doctor, heal thyself." You'll want OTC stuff for cold and sinus issues, seasickness and nausea, gastrointestinal malaise, pain relief. A couple bandages wouldn't hurt, and some antibiotic ointment. Basically pack whatever OTC meds you'd normally use in a typical year. You are unlikely to need any of this, but you'll definitely need it when you need it, so pack it anyway. Hand sanitizing wipes are a good idea to carry, however the active ingredients in your typical Wet Ones and Purell and the knock offs are ineffective at protecting you from Noro. So, wash your hands frequently and wash them prior to every meal or eating occasion. It is a ritual for us to wash our hands in our cabin and then gingerly make our way to the dining room without touching anything with our hands. You can do it. It is just one of those things that you get used to when cruising. Also you'll want to pack a package of sanitizing wipes, the kitchen and bathroom type. We tend to wipe down all cabinetry handles, door handles, drawer knobs, telephones, TV remotes, faucet handles, toilet flush handles, and such once we get on board and to our cabin. Sounds weird, but it is piece of mind for us. Power strips with surge suppressors are verboten and will be confiscated by your cabin steward. They require a type of ground which the ship doesn't have. You can bring along power strips or blocks which do not have surge suppression, but I'd recommend just bringing along power bricks that lean toward USB charging, so you can power all of your devices. We have a power adapter with 4 USB outlets on it and we charge all of our devices from it. It has never been questioned by staff. There aren't a lot of wall outlets in a regular cabin on the Grand, so be prepared to do a bit of device swapping unless you get a USB power charging station of some kind. External batteries are just fine. They don't care about things like that.

Princess has a nice walk through on the app, but it goes like this. Visit the muster station to check in. They will scan your medallion and that counts for knowing where you would go in an emergency. Then you can watch the safety procedures video on the cabin TV or on your phone. Either one will count for you and your party. And at some point before departure they will make the safety announcement test message over the PA. You are basically done with the muster check in once you have checked in at your muster station and watched the video. You can do this in any order, watch the video first then go to the muster station to be scanned or vice versa. I've read that a number of people will turn on the safety video in their cabin on the TV while they are unpacking. So, kill two birds with one stone.

I'm curious, too. Have you joined your role call for your sailing?