Burgmeister

Thanks Lynn. We always like to avoid the buffet restaurant on our boarding day as it can get a bit hectic up there. Glad we can arrive early. We will be staying at a local hotel friday night and I'd rather hang about on the ship than at a Premier Inn

We used them for a transfer from the port to Pisa. We will probably be using them for a transfer from Zeebrugge to Bruges on Sunday

Ah, that's good to know. We are quite happy (and used to) wandering around ship with our hand luggage.

If the MDR is not open then I think we will head for Alfredo's.

Thanks

We are due to board (embark) the Sapphire Princess in Southampton on Saturday and were hoping to have lunch in which ever MDR was open. We have, however, been given a check-in time of 1pm and I'm not sure whether the MDR will still be open by the time we get on board.

I have a couple of questions on this having not sailed with Princess before...

1. What time will the MDR stop serving lunch?

2. Can we check in earlier than our allotted time and wait on-board for our cabin to be made ready or will we simply be turned away at check in until 1pm?

Whenever we have sailed from Southampton with Royal Caribbean we have been able to board straight away and simply wait until our cabin was available but not sure how Princess handles this.

Thanks

Its good to read that I can order off-menu items to be delivered.

Thanks for the heads up - I would never have thought of doing it.

Room service is great and free. Dressing gowns are provided so nightwear is not a problem. Only P&O have kettles and slowly Cunard are introducing them on their ships. The fridge is fine and ice will be replenished every day.

MSC are introducing them on ships sailing out of UK.

We had a kettle on Norwegian Epic out of Barcelona.

A quick trawl of the statistics tells me that passengers ashore spend less than 50 Euros/Dollars each on average, but that is not the whole story.

That pretty much fits in with my rough figures then (I said 100Euro, but that's for 3 of us and I'm sure we spend less than most).

Of course, the other thing to bear in mind is that often people visit somehwere on a cruise and decidethat they would like to go back for longer at a future date.

I don't know how often this happens and, obviously, this isn't happening enough in Amsterdam.

Whilst cruise passengers don't spend much on meals they do tend to spend on drinks (alcoholic and other) and some snacks, shopping and, particularly, on attractions. We, as a family, tend not to use cruise ship excursions but do tend to spend on local attractions and will stop for a beer/coffee and a light lunch. If we spend 100Euro in each port, and you extrapolate that out to each group on shore (maybe 1000 groups) that's 100,000 Euros per ship per day.going in to the local economy. How many ships visit Amsterdam every year?

If we were to dock in Rotterdam then we, personally, probably wouldn't journey in to Amsterdam.

If you pay on the day can you use a credit card or is it cash only?

Anyone know an answer to this?

Interesting that milkshakes and hot chocolate are both included on the soda and more package. Might need to get one for our daughter after all.

I wonder if your driver was the one we had from Rome Cabs. She was very frantic during our transfer from the port to the airport. She drove way over the speed limit (like 20 mph over) with a fully packed van full of CCers and was talking not on one cell phone at the same time, but TWO. She was yelling & arguing like crazy into both of phones. :o

Perhaps your Forum name would have been more suitable for her?

Thanks everyone. I think I'll go with cans for soda. Might well take a few small bottles of water as well - I can always refill those.

Fortunately we can drive up to Southampton so no need to worry about planes or finding shops nearby.

Too funny! Me too! I can usually have a pasta course as an appetizer (spaghetti from kids menu, fettuccine alfredo, daily pasta, etc..)

Hadn't thought of that, thanks for the suggestion.

I think one thing is for certain though - I won't go hungry!

Thanks sknight. I was thinking cans would be better but wanted to check I wasn't missing something!

We were going to go to Alfredo's on embarkation day but think we will try teh MDR if we get there early enough. Shoudl be able to convince my daughter to change her mind, after all, we will defintiely go to Alfredo's at some point (and probably a lot more than once)

As the thread title says really, are we better off taking cans or bottles of soda on board with us for our upcoming trip?

We've never sailed Princess before so this "bring your own" soda thing is all new to us.

Thanks

I'm going to struggle with the starters (appetizers) if they are predominantly sea food - not a fan.

My wife and daughter, on the other hand, will love it. Maybe I should just have 2 mains (entrees)! Or have a Pizza starter in Alfredos before heading to the dining room!

We were on the Sun last month and I was able to order a couple of 375ml bottles of Crown from room service after boarding. Each time the charge was $25AU plus a $2 room service gratuity that was automatically added even though I tipped the delivery person. The spirits were not on the room service menu, but all I had to do was call to order. They delivered promptly with a bucket of ice.

Thanks Funkat. The only reason I'm holding off on pre-ordering is that I have a terrible £>$ exchange rate fixed on my booking that is making the bottles even more expensive than they should normally be! I think its working out at $1.25 to the £ - mind you, with the way the £ is tanking again, by the time our cruise comes up at the end of the month, that might look like a bargain!

Thanks, Jim. I'll answer my own question!

 

The 375-ml bottles were NOT on the Regal room service menu in March. I did preorder because I didn't want to take any chances, and had no problem getting what I ordered for the room. I did ask and got no answer on why the 375-ml bottles were no longer on the room service menu (at least on the Regal). Wine was still on the room service menu. I'm not sure about beer. Spirits definitely were not :(

I wonder whether that is Regal specific? I have been told by Princess that I can purchase the 375s through room service on our upcoming Sapphire cruise.

It can be booked direct on the website I quoted JB but I told other people on our cruise about it and they just turned up on the day and paid their €20. There's a little gazebo where they're selling tickets to the right of the main gate. They say it goes at least every half an hour but we were the only ship when we were there. Maybe as it gets more well known and when you can actually walk to the gate yourself, its popularity will increase so it will be more frequent. It certainly was preferable to the hourly service on the train. The dropping off point is exactly as you described and we had a P&O coach next to us.

If you pay on the day can you use a credit card or is it cash only?

I use 3 Networks 321 PAYG sim.

3p per minute (or part thereof) for calls

2p per SMS

1p per mB of data.

Get the sim for free then top up as necessary.

Cheers mate, my brother in law and sister in law are also on since Singapore, going to Southampton, but not sending E mails. Yes we got advice Heikki Laakonen will be Master. We have a mini suite, same one on both B2B's, I hope the new mattresses are in.:hearteyes:

Yeah, I'll be very disappointed if we are stuck with the old mattresses during our Scandinavian cruise in May (I believe this is the first of your B2B's)

Yes you can use OBC for drinks. :whiskey-glass::beer-mug::tropical-drink::wine-glass:.

You can bring 2 bottles of Wine or Champagne no fee. If you take more there’s is a corkage fee for each extra bottle you take. You can’t take any liquid. Yes you can also take all the soda you want no fee.

Tony

Surely wine, Champagne and soft drinks are liquid?

Damn! It looks like this thread would have been useful before I booked our balcony on Baja on Sapphire. Caribe were still available at the time.

Oh well, if we ever cruise Princess again I'll know better.

Pre pay everything you can to save the exchange. All payments done before the cruise are at a rate that was fixed when cruise was booked.

Any payments on board are in US$ . Your bank will convert to the currency of your credit card.

This is not necessarily good advice. Given the exchange rate when I booked our gratuities are £20 per person more to pre-book than if I pay in USD at the current rate.

The soda package is also 50p per person per day more to pre-book - not a lot, but still more.

Obviously, if you booked at a time of an advantageous rate then defintiely pre-pay, otherwise wait and pay onboard (Preferably with a fee free card such as Halifax Clarity)