mosenga

I'm considering a Xmas/New Year's Panama Canal cruise with my family, including my wife and daughters, ages 20 and 17. I understand that normally Panama Canal cruises have an older crowd. Would there be a number of people in the upper teens/early 20s on a Panama Canal cruise over the holidays? We've done long Caribbean cruises over the holidays and they have had lots of teens and other young people for them. I'm hoping that would also be the case for a Panama cruise. Thanks. 

I am considering a PC cruise over the holidays in December with my wife and two daughters, ages 20 and 17. I understand that a lot of PC cruises generally have an older crowd. Would there be other older teens/early 20s on a PC cruise over the holidays? Specifically, I'm asking about a Princess cruise. Thanks.

During our December cruise, we had booked one adult and one teen (17 and 14) in each adjacent cabin. This was primarily because DW and me had previous a Princess cruise and thus a lower booking cost. Once aboard, we went to customer service and they reassigned the Medallions so that DW and me were assigned one cabin and the teens in the adjacent cabin. It worked just fine. They don't care if you move within a group traveling together. Only one person needs to be 16 or older in the cabin.

12 hours ago, AtlantaCruiser72 said:

 

That is not advertised on either the Princess consumer website or their travel agent portal - perhaps it is a private sale offer through a particular travel agency consortium?  If it were a nationally available offer it would appear on their website.  There is an "enhanced"offer for 2020 Alaska Cruises & Cruisetours with up to $200 off the price of select dates :  https://www.princess.com/cruise-deals-promotions/best-sale-ever/

 

It does appear on the website as a special resident offer and provides the excursion credit for residents of certain states.

Offer is available to residents of Pennsylvania, New York, New Hampshire, Vermont, Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, and Florida who are 21 years of age or older.

My experience on CB in December was also hit or miss. I had times where a drink was delivered in 5 minutes. I had times where it never came and was simply marked as "canceled" after 20 minutes or so. The app is spotty for location, so that may have been part of the problem. In many spots where people hang out a lot (MUTS), the app said I couldn't order a drink. If I moved 10 feet in one direction, it would work fine. The other strange thing was that about half the bartenders and waitstaff would not even need to scan the Medallion because I would automatically show up on their system. The other half would have to manually record my cabin number because the system wasn't working for them either.

I completely agree about the texting. It was so irritating to have members of my group send a message and later ask why it wasn't responded to. I would look and see that I had one, but there was no notification at all. And no way to tell how old the message was.

For locating other shipmates, it worked pretty well. That was definitely it's best feature.

So, I agree with your assessment. If they ever get this working properly, it will be amazing. At this point, however, it is not yet ready for implementation and is a source of frustration.

On CB in December, immediately upon boarding, my party had lunch in MDR. I went to talk to the maitre'd and he added our party to the list. On a 14 day cruise, I believe they did Chef's Table twice. Try to get on the list immediately upon boarding.

4 minutes ago, Daniel A said:

I usually show up well before the suggested boarding time listed in the Progressive Check In.  I've also needed to wait a long time.  I think Princess puts out the Progressive Check In requirements so that in the event you can't board right away, you have nothing to complain about if you arrived early.  I'm guessing that your progressive check-in time wasn't 11.  Again, I show up sooner than requested but I also understand I'm taking a chance that I'll have a long wait.  I had priority boarding at San Pedro and I waited about 45 minutes before I was allowed to board.  I've seen posts here where people showed up at 10:50 and were on board by 11:05 at Port Everglades.

I have no idea what Princess' purpose of this policy is, I'm simply contrasting it to other cruise lines in other ports. During this waiting period, nobody was allowed to board and the gate attendants and other Princess personnel provided absolutely zero information about the status of the situation. And, as I said, the room was full of people waiting to board. There were people who had to stand as all the seats were full.

I had the earliest boarding time, although not priority boarding. So, you could say that I arrived too early for my boarding time, but so did everyone else in the waiting room. And again, I've never had to wait at all to board at other ports for other cruise lines. I always arrive at the port about 10:30 or 11 and usually walk right on the ship. This time, the check in process was flawlessly fast. The boarding process was incredibly slow.

I don't know if this is port specific or cruise-line specific, but I have never waited so long to board a cruise as I did at Port Everglades in December. We arrived about 11 and waited nearly an hour. When I've cruise RCL out of Port Canaveral or New Jersey or Celebrity out of Miami, I have literally walked right on to the ship when arriving at the port.

I'm impressed with the speed of check in with the Ocean Medallion. There was no need for pics or other security issues other than scanning passports. But I did wonder what the point was of speeding up the check in process if they're simply going to make us wait for an hour in the lounge. It got so full that there weren't enough seats for everyone waiting.

Why is Princess (or Port Everglades) so much slower with boarding than the others?

We were in Martinique a few weeks ago. They take both Euros and dollars. Interestingly, they quoted the prices as 1:1, i.e., $5 or 5 Euros.

I don't have specific experience with Royal, but we were recently on CB. I have 17 and 14 yo daughters. They generally used the teen club to meet up with other teens and would then move around together to do other things on the ship.

19 minutes ago, kywildcatfanone said:

I still think the better option to satisfy all passengers is to have a casual DR/or set time if one DR and a smart casual DR, people can dress as they like and be with people dressed how they like. 

Dining is already a problem on the Princess ships. They've changed the set dining times to 5:00 and 7:15. On our recent cruise, the ATD line was really long. We spoke to passengers who waited a VERY long time for a table. I fear that further segregation would only make it worse.

From my experience, Princess has more people who dress formally than RC or Celebrity. When we were on CB during the holidays, there were a very large number of tuxes and gowns on formal nights. Not everyone dressed that way, but there were definitely more than on RC or Celebrity. We enjoy dressing up (we don't have many occasions at home to dress formally), so we appreciated it. Even on other nights, people dressed nicely in the dining room.

I was on the ship a few weeks ago. The Ocean Medallion system still has a lot of bugs to work out. I'm not sure it's really ready for use. The ship, on the other hand, is in absolutely fine condition. There were no issues at all with the ship and she looks great.

They have paper straws available, but you often have to ask for them now. They are not always provided without asking.

On CB during the holidays, ordering a drink with the Medallion was only about 60% successful. Sometimes, they brought it in 5-6 minutes. Other times, it never arrived and the status simply was changed to "cancelled." It was pretty frustrating. There were times on the Sun Deck where the app couldn't find me, so it wouldn't let me order. Then, i moved 10 feet in one direction and it worked fine. It's a great idea, but still pretty buggy at this point.

Wines by the glass are about $9 to $15. There are plenty for $12 and under that are covered by the drink package. Specialty coffees range up to $5 or so, with most being less than that.

17 hours ago, I_r_a said:

Hi CG,

 

May I politely butt in?

 

If one has the drinks package, may one decline the wine but order from the usual drinks menu?

 

Ira

Nobody in our group tried this. The wines that they pair with each course are specifically chosen to complement the course, so it seems that this would take away from the experience. They keep pouring you more wine as you empty your glass, so you get as much as you like.

I can't even guess what this meal would cost in a land-based restaurant. $95 is an incredibly good value for the amount of food and wine you get.

18 hours ago, XBGuy said:

 

As you might suspect it depends on the Chef but my two experiences were quite similar:

 

• Four or five appetizers served in the galley.
• Once seated in the dining room:
  • Soup or Salad
  • Risotto--usually, with shellfish
  • Sorbet
  • Entree--usually based around red meat although I have heard of Surf 'n' Turf being offered
  • Dessert--usually, quite spectacular
  • Coffee

Champagne is served in the galley with the appetizers.  A white and a red wine are available in the dining room for the rest of the meal.

On CB during Christmas, we also had a cheese course between entree and dessert. The entree was duck, lamb, and filet. The amount of food is really incredible.

Many courses and tons of food. We did it on a CB holiday cruise. It was fantastic.

The drink package has no affect on the pricing.

I will be cruising on Princess next week. I also have a 15 night cruise booked for March 2021.

If I re-book this cruise while on my cruise next week, would I be able to take advantage of the $75 OBC to be applied to the 2021 cruise? I assume like all re-bookings, I would have to re-book at the current rate and under any current promotion, rather than to keep the rate/promotion that I am currently booked under.

I'm simply trying to determine if I re-book a current booking while onboard if I will be able to get the free OBC for a future cruise booking.

Go ahead and book now. Keep monitoring the fare and re-book anytime it drops or that you get a better promotion that would make it a better deal for you.

It doesn't matter if the deposit is refundable or not. All that means is that you can't get a refund of your original deposit should you cancel that booking completely. You can continue to re-fare it as often as you like, the deposit is irrelevant.

OTOH, if you re-fare at a lower price, you may lose previous promotions that you have for your reservation. That's part of the determination as to whether a price drop is worth a re-fare.

14 Night Holiday Caribbean Cruise upsell from interior to balcony for $369 pp. That's almost 30% of what I paid for the cruise.

Should I take the offer?

Book now and then simply rebook if fares go down or a better promotion comes along. We booked our December cruise about 18 months out and I have refared literally 6-8 times as the fare kept dropping. There's no reason to wait.

We travel with my parents all the time and we get our reservations linked so that we can eat together at dinner.

I suspect that the issue is that each party to the linked reservations needs to give permission for the linking. In this case, your 19 yo daughter is probably considered an adult by Princess and would need to give her permission to link the reservations. It should be a formality, but might be what is necessary in your case.

We're taking this cruise too. My DDs ages 14 and 17 will also be on the cruise in the Teen Zone at times, so I'm sure they'll be looking for other teens to hang out with.

We took a Royal Caribbean cruise over Christmas a few years back. They had all kinds of trees and decorations on the ship, so I would expect Princess to do the same.

We cruise CB a few years ago, before some of the recent dry docks. At that time, there were self-serve laundries on each deck if you are looking for a way to do laundry more cheaply.

Can't wait to meet you on the cruise!

Matt