lx200gps

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.

FWIW, we use the big cruise TA that has both on-line and storefront services. We met our personal TA at one of their pre-pandemic cruise seminars and she's been our rep ever since, probably 6 or 7 years. All our bookings are done exclusively through her, sometimes over the phone, sometimes on line, sometimes right in her office. She deals with the cruise lines if and when it is necessary, and I can't remember the last time I had to sit on hold forever trying to reach a cruise line rep.

Agree, but the meet and greets, LGTBQ meets, quiet lectures etc are usually not an issue for us. Often they only use half the Take 5 floor space (as we know, it's sort of a two area design anyway) so we often just sat in the unused area minding our own business and never had a problem. What WAS problematic, at least for us, was when they used it occasionally during the day for games such as bowling. A few times we had to leave for an hour to escape the screaming and yelling, but this is rare. Otherwise it's as quiet as a library, and wonderfully peaceful. The OP was wondering about using it as a pre-dinner venue and even at that time, it's not usually as full as other venues like Crooners.

That's great to hear, thanks very much. We very much love using Take 5 on sea days, sitting at those amazing big comfortable window seats watching the sea flow by, and we missed having daytime bar service in Take 5 on our sailings. I'm glad they offer it on the Discovery.

Thanks for the confirmation. When you say the Take 5 bar was open early on sea days, what time was that? On the Sky, it was closed every day until around 4PM, even on sea days. As we'll be back on the Discovery in Feb, it will be nice to have it open longer. Re the tournament, Take 5 was closed the week were aboard to set up for the tournament, to our huge disappointment, then also closed the week after for the tournament itself. IIRC, it re-opened the week after though some equipment, as you say, was still installed. Glad to hear they had been completely removed.

We use the big TA that offers the yearly "3 Day Sale" Their pricing is identical to Princess's but during their sale they offer decent extra OBC, for a 7 day trip in a balcony it's usually $US400 for the two of us.

We use Take 5 as our go to place on sea days for peace and quiet as it is usually deserted, it's almost as if few passengers know it's there. It was physically open all day, but the bar only opens around 4PM IIRC. It's theoretically possible to use "The App" to order drinks to be brought in, but our experience was hit or miss, sometimes the drinks we ordered never arrived. Pre-dinner drinks should be possible even with their opening at 4PM, and it would be lot quieter than the other alternative, Crooner's. Princess is using the Piazza for a lot of VERY loud events, and when we were on the Discovery in October, at times we had to shout at the waiters to be understood. Take 5 is a wonderfully peaceful venue in comparison. When we were in Take 5 on the Sky earlier in the year, the bar featured a rolling "Gin and Tonic" cart, with a variety of very interesting Gins, most of which I had never heard of. Sadly, when we were on the Discovery recently, it was closed for the entire week for a slot machine tournament. AFAIK that was a one time thing and it has since re-opened.

We regularly use the Sanctuary, and have never been charged a penny for the items on the Sanctuary menu when the meal was delivered inside the Sanctuary. Can't speak to ordering items from elsewhere on the ship, like the pool grill, certainly wouldn't want to do it given how good the Sanctuary menu is, but I would expect that a charge might apply in that case.

Princess actually have small "boutiques" on the ships selling a variety of add-on items for carrying/wearing the Medallion. For those who want to wear it on their wrist, there are a number of Princess options, but also others have reported that the wrist straps for Apple Air Tags also work. This is an example of just a few of the accessories available, for those who like to do bling (and yes, the medallion holders we use do have a Canadian flag ;o)

They're small medallions about the size of a Toonie. Passengers receive a lanyard to hold them, or you can simply put them in your pocket as I do. They basically replace the old style cruise cards for on board purchases etc, but add a lot more functionality when combined with the onboard network.

Consider yourself lucky, we had to endure an intolerable TWO minutes when we went to collect our disks last month in San Pedro. The things we paying passengers have to endure ;o)

Excellent, thanks for the confirmation. No worries about the points, we almost always go Marriott due to my status, but in this case, the VT price is so good we're happy to go Hyatt ;o)

We've done that at the HP a few times, but we now tend to use Uber on embarkation morning, faster and easier, no need to visit other terminals before being dropped off. ;o)

Perfect, thanks. Will the booking show up on the Hyatt site when I log in to my account, and so In the unlikely event of us having to cancel, can I do it on the Hyatt site or do I actually have to call the hotel?

We haven't used Valuetrips in a number of years, but I do recollect it was a great deal back then. I just started looking for hotels for our mid-Oct 2024 trip, and hotel prices shown on the 17th Street strip are VERY high during that period. Our usual Renaissance is about $US370 all in, the Hyatt website shows the Hyatt Place as $US500!!!, while VT shows a price of $US119 + extras, a significant savings. Please refresh my memory, do VT require payment in advance upon booking, or is the credit card simply used as a guarantee and is only charged at the time of the stay? Thx...

We're also Elite and make a point of being literally among the very first to board, just to try and snag decent Sanctuary seating. Sadly, the last few times we tried we were shut out. We only wanted sea days and can only take full shade loungers, which are in the minority on the newer big ships. Those constraints, as well as the fact that B2Bers get to board first and so are able to get upstairs before any of us newly arriving passengers, mean that we are finding it increasingly difficult to book our favorite location on the ship. On one of our last sailings, on the Sky last fall, the B2bers on the previous trip were given the option of booking the Sanctuary on the NEXT sailing, which was ours. Since there were literally hundreds of them, the Sanctuary was completely full and sold out before any of us newly arriving passengers even boarded.

True, but the so-called "destination pricing" is quite rare. Certain Alaska days and possibly certain Panama Canal passage days. Other than those few days, pricing is always $20/$30/$40/$220, every ship, every itinerary

Thanks very much, sounds like our arrival around 9AM on a Sunday would also be easy. I'll definitely be contacting them ahead of time. Greenland and Iceland would be right up there as a top bucket list trip for sure, but this trip is a Canada/New England on Princess, as we're limited to short-duration trips for now. This will be our first ever sailing out of Boston, though we've through there many times on our way to the Cape.

Excellent summary, though I would add that the Sanctuary has a much nicer look and feel, better loungers etc and is kept VERY quiet and peaceful, hence its name ;o). Cost is $20/pp for a half-day, $40/pp/day for a full day, or $30/pp/day if booked for a full cruise. The Cabanas are $220/cabana for a full day. They feature two loungers, a sofa, table, TV, fridge etc. Photos of the Discovery Retreat pool area and the Sanctuary can be found on Google. There are also a lot of threads and posts here on CC about how hard it is to actually book the Sanctuary these days.

Thanks very much for that bit of info (and welcome to Cruise Critic, by the way ;o) I would much rather park in a nice covered garage than in an open lot, and for us, that covered garage is still a very easy walk back to the ship, even schlepping a bunch of luggage. How full was the 4th floor? I'd hate to try and park there only to find it was full up. It was my understanding that this lot is usually used by local employees, so I would expect it would be pretty empty when we arrive there on a Sunday in mid-July.

Not sure if it's the same lot, but IIRC there have been a number of discussions here on CC about this very lot. I believe we're referring to the C1 and C2 lots right next to the cruise pier, and next to the Boston police harbor patrol office, easily found on Google Maps/Street View, on Black Falcon Ave immediately west of the terminal building. I recollect a number of users/cruisers saying that they used the C1 lot recently with no problems, but upon arrival had to call the phone number on the sign, to have the attendant walk over from the C2 lot right next door to let them in. I too would very much want to use the covered garage you mention, but a number of folks here on CC keep saying that cruise ship parking is very much discouraged at that lot. When you visited their office, did you mention that you were getting on a cruise ship, and if so, what was their reaction? Thanks for info....

Some of us have been there a dozen or more times. Been there, done that, we would rather spend the day in the Sanctuary than put up with the crowds, tender lineups etc, as there is nothing on PC that interests us any more.

Quite agree. On our recent California Coastal on the Discovery, I had identified a tour in San Francisco we wanted to book, but it had been shown as Sold Out on the Princess website for along time. One of our first stops on Embarkation Day was to visit the Shore Excursions desk, where we had no problem booking that very trip. I fully expect that a certain percentage of shore excursions, like specialty restaurant reservation slots, are held back from on-line booking so as to be available for on board booking.

Hard to say, as the 2024 dates have yet to be published, so presumably those blackout dates are from 2023 as currently shown on the VT web site? As we can see, Jan and Feb are pretty popular times with lots of blacked out dates, so your mid-Feb dates may possibly be on the black list, but we wouldn't know until they are published. Most of those VT blacked out dates shown are around weekends, as is your desired Feb 16/17, 2024.

Thanks for the feedback. I'm only a bit hesitant to call Princess myself, as my last few experiences with doing that haven't worked too well (LONG waits on hold, dropped calls etc; one time I called and when the call went through, all I heard was the agent screaming at her kids in the background, then the line went dead ;o) We do get lots of Emails from one Princess CVP, so I'll try and book through her first and see what happens.