sir-magoo

I have been tring on & off for the last week to open my reservation on the Celebrity Website but to no avail.

 

I booked with a travel agent in the US but can't action my online checkin and always get the "try again in 20 min response" :mad:

 

Any suggestions

Hi, possibly your booking specific issue, so it may pay you to phone them. I was able to update my Celebrity booking on Friday night, then run through my online check-in process yesterday.

I have been looking at these myself over recent weeks. Financially I think they look ok as the sector is growing and they appear to be on a reasonable upward trend, then income wise when you combine the dividend and onboard credit it looks pretty good too.

Only issue stopping me at this stage is my next cruise is in 2 weeks (too late to get the OBC I think), and our next eligible cruise after that is in December 2016 but the OBC offer seems to expire in July 2016.

I enjoy reading everybody else’s reviews so thought that it was about time to write one of my own. This will probably be more about the ship and experience than a detailed run through, but hopefully that will be useful for somebody.

Pre Cruise

We flew on a Qantas A380 through LA and onto Las Vegas. First time on a 380 and was really impressed with how quiet and smooth it was. I thought the Qantas service was quite good overall, no concerns there.

We spent a couple of days in Las Vegas, couple of days at the Grand Canyon and couple of days in San Francisco before boarding. Vegas quite hot and very crowded (as expected). I am not really a Vegas fan but there is always plenty to do. Absolutely loved the Grand Canyon and was kicking myself for not staying a little longer. San Francisco was ok, but again I am not a huge fan of the city.

Boarding/Departure

We had read a lot of horror stories about Boarding in San Francisco. Our experience was very good. Arrived around 11, easy baggage drop off, quickly through security then comfortable in the lounge before boarding around 12. There really wasn’t anything at all that they could have done differently to improve this process.

Departure was delayed around an hour due to stores loading, but that didn’t bother us. Went out under the Golden Gate Bridge and had a large pod of whales just off our starboard side so that was a really good start to the cruise.

General Golden Princess comments

Golden Princess was a nice ship, probably not our absolute favourite, but in the top couple. She was in pretty good condition after the drydock earlier this year and had a pretty good layout I thought. The only two complaints I would have had about the ship were 1) lack of usable jogging track, the level 7 track they had was dangerously slippery even for walking, running was near impossible, it is also very narrow too. 2) I found the Golden Princess a little too “tail happy” when it was windy. What I mean by that is towards the back of the ship, it constantly wobbles left-right-left (about 6 inches) on a cadence of about 1 second. I have been in aft cabins on many ships and not felt it this bad before. I wondered if it was perhaps caused by the Skywalkers Nightclub catching the wind. The wobble was noticeable at the back most days, on really windy days it was noticeable half way along the ship.

Really loved the Movies Under the Stars. They had fairly recent movies in the afternoon and evening, they also typically played some form of concert around dinner time which we really enjoyed while eating dinner out on the deck. The movie and TV selection in the cabin was really good too.

Dining options were good. We started in Traditional dining but cancelled our booking after a few nights (couldn’t get a 2 person table). Horizon court was well layed out and served good food. Crown Grill was great. The Pizza, BBQ and Ice Cream places on level 14 were also very good.

Service was fantastic across the board. We have travelled a lot with P&O and always liked their service, Princess was another step above. On the other hand, on our couple of cruises with RCCI, we found their service to be lower than P&O.

We thought that the entertainment was really good. Cruise Director was good, there is also a new assistant CD who was very good and introduced a few new activities that I hadn’t seen before.

Cabin

We had Cabin E728 which was the last Mini-Suite towards the back of Level 8 Port. We deliberately chose a L8 Mini-Suite as the majority of MS (on L9) do not have any cover over them. Having the last MS also had the added advantage of a little extra balcony room, and some aft facing views.

Generally (wobble from above aside), we liked the cabin. It was what I have come to expect from other MS cabins and was in good condition. I think that the P&O MS cabins are a bit larger, but this was perfectly adequate.

A quick word of caution to the light sleepers, you can hear noise from the L7 Vista Lounge below at times. To put a scale on this, we found that you couldn’t really hear general activities such as Trivia or Movies, if you listened carefully you could just hear the Zumba in the morning, but the more major shows (I assume they turn up the volume for larger crowds) were coming through fairly loud and clear. None of this really bothered us, but it could bother others.

Itinerary

The itinerary was what really drew us to this cruise.

Honolulu – nice place. Did a private tour to all 4 Pearl Harbour sites which was very good (ship tour only offered 2 of the 4 sites). Caught the bus to/from the ship which was amazingly easy and much cheaper than a taxi would have been.

Maui – Did a ships snorkelling tour. Honestly a bit of a disappointment compared to some of the fantastic snorkelling spots that we have been to (Lifou, Mare and so on). Nice little island though.

Tahiti – Did a private ATV tour which was fantastic. Little self driven 2 seater “jeep looking cars” following the tour leader through the mountains with regular stops for information.

Bora Bora – Did a private tour with Patrick’s. It wasn’t a great day weather wise, but the tour was still very good.

American Samoa – Did a private bus tour. Ok tour and another pretty ordinary weather day.

Auckland – Did a private tour – Bridge Climb which was quite good.

Wellington – Did a ships tour – was a 4X4 down to the Seal populations. This was very good.

Akaroa – The ship skipped this due to weather.

Dunedin – Did a private tour in a little 8X8 vehicle down to the seals and penguins, the trip to/from that farm was with awesome tours. This was very good.

Sounds – Didn’t think that we were going to get in, the night before was rough and very windy. We did get into Dusky sounds, was cold and windy but very nice. Missed Doubtful sounds due to weather. Got into Milford sounds which was one of the highlights of the trip. Beautiful place!

Sydney – Disembarking was a bit of a pain. The ship arrived an hour early, but we actually got off about an hour late. I understand that it was due to a combination of people not filling out their Ebola cards correctly and I also saw Immigration having some systems issues.

No worries, perhaps a bit of both types of OBC is required.

Just my experience from last week. I had regular OBC given to me by Princess, I had also pre-paid Grats and shore tours, from memory I was paying about $1.10 AUD per USD equivalent. The great exchange rate was why I pre-purchased instead of just paying at the end of the cruise. I was able to draw down from that OBC at the Casino. I didn't try the teller, I just went to the Texas Holdem machine, played there and when I was finished cashed out at the Casino office where they gave me cash. Same thing worked for my wife with the pokies.

We actually got into Dusky sound, missed doubtful due to weather, then got into Milford sounds.

A bit cold and windy, but really lovely in there.

Even if you booked and chose a specific cabin, you still can't change the room.

 

e.g. you might book a year out, get an average room from all that's left. Then 3 months later, a nicer one appears. You still can't change cabins! (Well, you can cancel and re-book, but given how prices typically rise, that may well end up costing you substantially more. )

 

Again, I think you should be able to change your cabin in the same grade.

I have changed cabins within grade a couple of times (specific cabin booking, haven't tried a guarantee). Did this directly with the line, have never really seen the benefit of a TA.

We usually cruise Princess (platinum level) and decided to try a P and O cruise on the Pacific Dawn as the timing suited us workwise and we could also just drive to the port for a change. Have to say I wasn't very impressed with a number of things - variety and quality of food in the buffet, entertainment and general service levels e.g. in the theatre waitstaff were walking about not making eye contact and you just about had to wave them down to order a drink. In the evening if we were in our cabin, the steward didn't even ask if we wanted our room serviced - he just handed us the next day's Pacific Daily. You have to pay for a lot of extra things like chips, burgers, pizza, high tea, icecream. Bookings for the MDR opened at 5.30 pm the night before and if you were busy and didn't get around to it for a couple of hours, the only time slots left were after 8 pm. On formal night in the MDR, dress standards were not enforced and people were wearing sundresses, jeans & polo tops, shorts etc. I understand not everyone wants to dress up but if they don't want to on formal night, go to the buffet. No blankets provided for movies on the big screen and people were covering themselves with pool towels instead. It's not even as if P and O is that cheap - have paid less per night on most of my Princess cruises. In P and O's favour I did like the spaciousness and storage in the cabins, and my husband commented that the free coffee on the Pacific Dawn was much better than that on Princess and Royal Caribbean. Next cruise will be on another line - most likely Princess again.

Well this is all sounding very promising for our next cruise. We have done 8 P&O cruises and really enjoyed every one of them. We are trying Princess in a couple of months, mainly because we really like the itinerary.

I did try two Royal Caribbean cruises but were disappointed with both in comparison to our previous P&O cruises. Yes the ships were much nicer, but we though the food was poor, service (particularly cabin stewards) was poor, entertainment not as good and (although I couldn't explain exactly why) just found the general vibe of the ship to be not as good as P&O.

I know that it is probably against the opinion of a lot of people here, but I do like P&O.

It is more than a question of OBC. It is also the amount of deposit. OP was told that to switch to the current pricing would require a regular deposit.

 

However, if really not for new bookings only, this should not be required.

I had a similar situation a few weeks ago. Original booking had a 1/2 price deposit. Saw a large price drop, but the new fare came with slightly different conditions such as no longer qualifying for the 1/2 price deposit.

I just paid the regular deposit and went forward with the amended booking. Seemed logical to me that different offers would potentially have different conditions. Could be reduced deposits, lower (or even higher) OBC, even other things such as a bottle of wine. As somebody else mentioned, just do the math and if you are better off with the new offer (with the new conditions), go for it.

Yes and booked with Aussie TA. Spoke to Princess today and they won't budge. They acknowledges that I had paid in full but for "privacy reasons" they wanted me to go through my TA. Whose privacy? The TA won't help me either. I now will only book direct. TA is now in my "bucket list".

I take back my earlier comment thinking that the issue is that it is past final payment. This appears to be an issue with your TA. Firstly, not sure why they have made you pay in full already, secondly not sure why they won't re-fare it. I appear to be on the same cruise and my final payment isn't due for over a month, and, Princess were happy to re-fare this cruise for me last week when I noticed the reduction (I booked direct).

To me this is yet another reason to not use Australian TA's. I have always booked direct except for a cruise last year where I tried a TA for the first time. That booking last year was messed up in a number of ways due to the TA. That, on top of their reluctance to honour price drops will ensure that I will never use them again.

It is not a matter of what the staff prefers that is important but what the paying passengers prefer and ATD on Princess needs to be tightened up and if people book TD then they need to stay there period......:cool:

Hi, perhaps a rookie question. We have always gone with ATD, but end up booking the same 2 person table, at the same time every night. So for the upcoming cruise we have booked TD and requested a 2 person table. Are there any other differences between the two options? They don't serve the entire dining room on the same schedule/pace or anything like that do they? We usually like to just go in, eat and leave reasonably quickly.

The price for our balcony on a cruise from San Francisco was $5999 when we paid in full in mid Apr. It is now $4999. Our travel agent insists nothing can be done because we are past the payment in full date. I have asked her to argue with Princess on our behalf - so far nothing. This sucks!!! Any suggestions on what we can do to get a reduction.

I think the only issue is that it is after final payment. I have been really impressed with Princess this week because I noticed a large drop in price on our cruise later this year, I phoned through and they were happy to re-fare it. That was a direct booking through Princess though.

I do generally understand the other responses along the lines of - if you are happy with the price when you pay, you should be still happy with the price later if it drops. However, the thing that really bugs me is that most cruise lines appear to honour price drops for those who live in other countries, but not for us here in Australia. If it is a universal rule of not honouring price drops, then so be it, but not when they allow it for some, but not others.

Anyhow, after my experience this week with Princess, I will certainly be cruising with them again, and will have confidence booking early.

You get a punch card which can be used at any of the dining locations.

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?p=45583943&posted=1#post45583943

Hi, do you know if we can also use this card at any other bars, or if you can get the bottles from "dining locations" outside of dining times? We are keen to purchase one of these packages for our upcoming cruise, but we would like to use it for a quiet bottle of wine on our balcony late afternoon rather than with meals.

I believe that is still the case.

 

Princess opened this up benefit to British & Commonwealth personnel a few years back but have not gotten around to making it an automatic OBC when booking.

 

It may be different for Australian veterans ?

Hi, I am in Australia and just applied this to our upcoming Princess cruise and the email response told me that it would be automatically applied for future cruises.

If you like Asian food take a train to Chatswood and try out the new "eat streets", The District, above the railway station.

 

I also second the ferry ride to Manly. Once in Manly go straight ahead from the ferry terminal, through The Corso to the ocean beach. Go right along the beachfront and carry on around the walkway. Look out for the metal sea creatures hidden on the rocks along the way. Very cute.

There is (or at least was a few years ago) a rivercat that went to Parramatta too. That was a pretty good trip, and had the Parramatta shopping centre at the other end to visit before returning to the ship.

We drove to Sydney from Canberra for our cruise a few weeks ago (usually train or bus) and I stumbled across a valet car park service somewhere else on these boards. They were very good, dropped us off at OPT on departure morning, then dropped the car back to us, right on time, at OPT when we arrived again. They actually park the car in a private car park in Mascot.

Pricing is on their website, but we calculated that it was cheaper than our 3 bus tickets, plus a taxi either side.

http://www.mascotparkingservices.com.au/

I did look at the Wilsons option but had issues actually booking the service. They were also more expensive.

I did something similar last year.

Flew to Orlando (via Dallas), spent a couple of days at Kennedy space, then a 7 Day Eastern on Freedom of the Seas. When we got back, we had 14 more days in Orlando for Disney, Universal and SeaWorld.

My tips would be:

- Book direct, but research thoroughly, we saw massive variances between hotel and flight costs.

- Hotels we booked through Booking.com - we went for an apartment style with a separate living/kitchen area which was very handy for us. Wasn't much more than a standard hotel.

- Car hire (cheaper than transfers/taxi's) we went with webcarhire - mainly because they included all of the insurances. And you do need the insurance because your travel insurance more than likely won't cover you over there. There are whole threads on whirlpool about this.

- Take your Aust GPS to save yourself about $12 per day, but buy or download yourself Florida maps.

- We did the Eastern because I really wanted St Maartens for the planes flying over the beach.

Would be really nice. We were on Freedom last December and she certainly is a very nice ship.

There is talk of an Oasis class going to Port Canaveral which could free up Freedom, but I still suspect that it is wishful thinking.

My gut feeling is that you appear to be in a reasonable place, from my quick view as you are under the restaurant which, although busy, is also a carpeted area so the chair dragging noise would be quieter.

Last time we were in a mini suite we were on the starboard side, around the area of the centre steps, this was noticeably noisier than the time before when we were on the port side. The primary difference was the smokers at night dragging chairs across the wooden floor, followed by P&O staff dragging them back again each time the smokers left.

I agree that you need to thoroughly research your cabin, best way that I found is to paste a screen shot of every floor above each-other, then align and re-size them to align all stairs and elevators. You can be very accurate this way.

Interestingly, we just came back from a cruise on Freedom of the Seas. We were directly under the buffet restaurant, which i would usually avoid, but booked it anyway and never heard even the slightest bit of noise from above. They must have great sound control between the floors on those new RC ships.

I haven't been to Champagne Beachor Luganville and I can't comments on the ships themself as I haven't been on either, I have been to all other ports though. I have just come back from Mare and I would definately choose any itinary that had it. It is a brand new stop so is still in pristine condition and has fantastic snorkeling right across a huge beach. I love Lifou too but not quite as much as Mare as the snorkeling area isn't quite as large and it is difficult to get to since the steps were washed away.