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In our experience, it's even worse than that. On our last trip on the Sky, late last year, we raced on board to try and book the Sanctuary, knowing full well that B2Bers would have boarded ahead of us Elites. When we arrived at the Sanctuary, those of us who had made the mad dash were all informed that the Sanctuary was completely sold out for our week. Seems all 800+ B2Bers from the previous cruise were given the option to book the Sanctuary ahead of time, for the NEXT (our) cruise. So we never had a chance. I wonder if B2Bers are given the option to book Specialty Restaurants using their OBC during the previous cruise like they can with the Sanctuary. That could be one reason why on board SD reservations are getting hard to book. Like many others, we have tons of OBC and prefer to book restaurants immediately upon embarkation, but if it's getting that tough to find the desired slot, we may have to consider booking, and paying, well in advance.

Interesting that they explicitly refer to the Jones Act. I always thought that applied to commercial cargo operations, while the PVSA was the one that covered cruise ships and their passengers.

Got it. I never made it that far as I didn't want to actually pay. Worst case, you probably wouldn't have any problem booking it once on board, assuming you make a booking as soon as you board.

We are back on the Discovery in early Feb, having been on her in October. When I access the DMW section on the phone app, I have no issues finding and selecting The Catch. I can get as far as committing to pay, which I won't do as we already have two SD bookings through the Premier package and I don't want to pre-pay for another, but The Catch shows up as fully available for us. It shows as available for a variety of dates and times of day as well.

We were on her in October. The laundry rooms were definitely open and available. I didn't use the washing machines or dryers, but I always iron my dress shirts using the irons and ironing boards. They are at the back of the ship on each floor around cabin 622, easily located on the deck plan

Sorry, but it's far easier for us to simply walk downstairs to the GS desk and settle the issue in person (and no, we don't wait in line, we just go when it's quiet). We don't carry cellphones with us around the ship, they stay in the safe.

I'm trying to enroll onto Stockperks for the first time, to claim our OBC for a July 2024 trip. I get as far as "Verify Your Email Address", where it is supposed to send a confirmation Email so I can click on it and get verified. After a half hour, still no sign of the confirmation Email, despite having hit "Resend" And yes, it's not in the Spam folder. How long did it take for you folks to receive the confirmation Email? Thx...

Welcome to Cruise Critic. Questions like this are best posted to your specific Roll Call. You can search for it here, by date and ship: https://boards.cruisecritic.com/forum/63-princess-roll-calls/ That way you will reach the folks on your specific cruise. Have a great trip.

There are two car rental outlets in SP, very near the port. An Enterprise outlet is physically in the Crowne Plaza hotel and a Hertz outlet is across the street from the hotel. It's important to check the operating times and dates on the agency's websites, as IIRC they are not open on certain days, particularly Sunday. We had no issues using the Hertz outlet a few years ago, also after driving down from Vegas.

Excellent, thanks for the confirmation. Looks like things haven't changed since we were there last.

FWIW, you can also check the account on the cabin TV, and also print out a hard copy at the printing station near Guest Services (assuming it works, which isn't always a sure thing ;o). And check it carefully, on a very regular basis. Erroneous charges are not unheard of, but easily corrected with a quick trip to the GS desk. In our experience, there are one or two errors on every trip.

Gotta' love Valuetrips. Just received our confirmation for next October, $US134 all in. Going direct to the Hyatt site, the same room, same date, is $US634 all in. Interestingly, when I looked at my Hyatt account, there is no mention of the booking under "My Stays". I can only find the booking by selecting "Modify/Cancel" at the bottom of the page, then manually entering the Confirmation Number. Any thoughts as to whether it will eventually show up in my account? As to whether breakfast is or is not included, there is no reference to it in any of the documents. We've stayed at the HP three or four times, well pre-pandemic, and it's my recollection that the breakfast area is basically the lobby, with no way to police whether any guest does or does not have breakfast included. I'll assume we have breakfast through our Hyatt membership, even if booked through VT.

The OP called it "St John'S", but probably meant "St John". That misidentification is very common here on CC. A lot of Canada/New England itineraries sail to St John, New Brunswick, but very few feature St John's Newfoundland as a stop, owing to its location on the far eastern tip of Newfoundland. Maybe the OP can clarify which city they were referring to?

No worries. The OP has a decent cabin in a far forward location one deck below Lido, so if they are pool/buffet aficionados, they are well situated high up in the ship. Cabins above and below, so no issues with noise from the pool deck etc. The loveseat helps a lot, though we prefer the full sofas in the minis. Those tiny balconies though....

The OP is in a Deluxe Balcony cabin (M131), Category DF. The cabins you refer to are Premium Deluxe Balcony cabins, category D4, so a different class with, yes, a larger balcony (hence the "Premium") The balcony the OP will have in M131 is one of the usual tiny balconies that the newer ships all have.

Welcome to Cruise Critic. According to the Enchanted Deck Plan, M131 is a Deluxe Balcony cabin, so is a bit larger than a standard balcony cabin owing to its loveseat. As previously stated, it's very far forward, and is a connecting room, with a door between your cabin and M129 (which would be locked tight unless you and the occupants are traveling together). As to balcony size, most balconies on the newer Princess ships are, to put it mildly, disappointingly snug. Here is a link to the Enchanted Deck Plans on the Princess site https://www.princess.com/deckPlans.do?shipCode=EX&version=1

Our cabin on the July 24 C/NE out of Boston on the Emerald is a little over $500 more than what we have booked. None of our three other booked sailings are down either. No deals for us ;o(

We disembarked off the Discovery Princess at SP in late October, heading to LAX for an 11:55 flight home. We did the early self walk-off, grabbed a taxi and were at LAX in half an hour. Note that the traffic at LAX was so bad that it took us longer to get from the start of the driveway into LAX to our terminal, than it did to get from San Pedro to LAX itself. But as Steve says, a 12:55 flight should be quite do-able, and if you want, you shouldn't have to do an early self walk-off and schlepp your bags off the ship, you should have plenty of time to do a "normal" disembarkation.

Technically, there are three entrances into Take 5. The "main" entrance is off the Piazza and is close to the entrance to the casino. The other entrance is at the back of Take 5 and ends up near the forward elevators. The third, often overlooked, entrance is FROM the casino into Take 5 but is rarely used. If you are hyper sensitive to the smell from the casino, it's theoretically possible to catch a very faint waft from the casino when someone opens that door. We spend a lot of time in Take 5 and can say that the stench of smoke from the casino isn't a problem at all, unlike what we notice in the open Piazza near the casino.

We've frequented Take 5 on the Enchanted, Sky and most recently the Discovery in October. It's usually very empty during the day and is always our go-to quiet place on sea days. Given its location tucked away next to the casino and the absence of through traffic moving from one end of the ship to the other, it's almost as if few passengers even know it's there. Great seating for two right on the ocean. During the day, no bar service, and it is used occasionally for lectures, loud games etc, by the entertainment staff. Bar opens around 4 IIRC. In the evenings it's a great venue for live music. I don't recollect any other music than Jazz, maybe others can chime in on what other types of music they have.

I guess we'll all have to agree to disagree. As Canadians, we're necessarily very attuned to the costs due to our weak dollar, and for us, the ease of driving down to Manhattan or Brooklyn will ALWAYS override the complexity, cost and impracticality of taking public transport, be it rail or air. Have a great trip...

If you're referring to the Renaissance on 17th street near the Eisenhower St entrance to Port Everglades, that's our usual go-to hotel as well, stayed there many times. When asking about hotels it's best to specify the date you are interested in, as hotel prices down there vary a HUGE amount from month to month. Low season, the 17th Street strip is a great option with the best location, but in high season, due to its proximity to the cruise port, prices can be absolutely outrageous.

AFAIK, that's only 200 miles, a very easy drive. Is there a reason why you wouldn't want to simply drive the few hours between Boston and the MCT? I would consider it FAR easier to drive over taking a train, and certainly preferable over enduring the hell of modern air travel.

It's pretty obvious that VT's pricing relative to the Hyatt direct pricing is all over the map. All of the above examples are quite correct, sometimes VT is MORE expensive than going direct to Hyatt, while other times it's far less expensive. I reconfirmed my earlier post and for our mid-October 2024 stay, VT is $129 and the Hyatt site wants $540. Clearly we should check around and not just assume VT will always be cheaper; usually it is, sometimes it isn't

I believe that the general answer would be yes and no. Some airline/credit card perqs, such as your free bags, priority check in and/or boarding, etc probably would still apply, assuming you make the EZ-Air booking and pay with that specific Mastercard. Some other perqs, however, probably would not work. One example that comes to mind is our Air Canada/Aeroplan Buddy Pass, where my wife flies anywhere in North America for $99. That has to be applied at the time of booking on Aeroplan's web site and even has a separate department inside AC that deal with them. I doubt I would be able to apply it if I booked with EZ-Air as the option would not exist, the booking has to be made directly with Aeroplan.