lx200gps

Very good point. With our credit cards having a chip/PIN, we almost never have to even insert the card into a machine anymore, probably 95% of the time it's a simple tap. I can't even remember the last time I used cash for anything, even the smallest charge.

Before our last trip out the the MCT, we stayed across the river in Weehawken, almost directly opposite the MCT. There are two Marriott properties in the same building, a Residence Inn and an Envue, both across the street from the huge ferry terminal, many rooms having great Manhattan skyline views. A large parking garage attached to the hotels was around ($25?) per day, far cheaper than at the MCT. Rather than drive through the Lincoln Tunnel or cross the GW Bridge, we parked for the week at the ferry terminal and took the ferry across the Hudson. From the ferry terminal at W 40th, it was an easy 15 minute walk north up the pedestrian-only walkway to the MCT. We will do that again whenever we sail out of the MCT. The ferry system is very conducive to traveling with suitcases, getting on and off the ferry was dead easy, and as it was around 8AM on a Saturday when we did it, the ferry was pretty much empty.

We stayed at this very property before our trip last year out of Brooklyn. Worked out great, relatively inexpensive, large, full service hotel, and as you say, right off the GW Bridge and an easy drive to the MCT (though of course we drove right by it on the way to Brooklyn). Far less expensive than any Manhattan or Brooklyn hotel I could find.

I don't know if it's new or not, but it was a very easy and painless process easy. I went to: https://eservices.canada.ca/en/reservation/ made all the selections for a passport renewal and selected my desired time, date and location from the offerings that came up. Knowing how slammed the passport system is these days, I made a point of selecting the most out of the way Service Canada office I could find near me, correctly assuming that it would not be as busy as a main Passport office. It sure wasn't, the office was almost empty. Note that you don't have to go to a busy Passport office, I went to a basic Service Canada outlet and they handled everything. Once I checked in at the front desk and sat down in the waiting area, it was no more 5 minutes until the lady called me in to her office, went through my application paperwork and photos, and took my $168 fee. I was in and out of the office in about 20 minutes total elapsed time. She handed me back my now cancelled old passport and confirmed I should have the new one NLT the end of April. Sad side note, we got to chatting about NEXUS and she told me that, as a new applicant, her application has been in the system for a YEAR and she was told it could be another year before she gets her NEXUS card.

Perfect, thanks. I'll get on it as soon as the new passport arrives.

I just came from a wonderful sit-down at a Service Canada office where I submitted my passport renewal paperwork. No waiting, in and out in 10 minutes. All's well, I should have it by the end of April. The new passport will have a different number than my old one. How will this affect my NEXUS card, which presumably is linked to my old passport? Since my current NEXUS card (expiring next year) has an "old" passport number linked to it, what would I have to do to ensure my two documents are properly linked?

No worries, by all means investigate them further. We've used them only about two years, on half a dozen flights and cruises and they have worked perfectly for us, they had no issues showing exactly where our bags were. The only issue, and I don't know whether this is a common issue with other trackers, is that sometimes they might take 10 or 15 minutes to "lock on" to our Tags and show us their location. It's always a bit nerve wracking to fire up the phone after landing at an airport and waiting for the app to show us the bags are still with us ;o) But they've worked perfectly.

Montrealer here. Admittedly I've never taken the train from here, but Amtrak uses Central Station (Gare Centrale) which is probably 2km at most from the port, an easy Uber or taxi ride or an easy walk if you don't have luggage ;o). An 11AM train should be very easy to make provided all the usual caveats are understood. What if the ship docks late? What are the later trains like, is it easy to get on another later one, or is that the only train that day?

Thanks for the heads up. Much appreciated. I certainly looked at Woburn as well when looking for a hotel. I chose Burlington because the Residence Inn was quite cheap (relatively speaking; forget downtown ;o) and was physically in the big Burlington Mall near to restaurants restaurants. As we will come in from the north down the I89 to the I93, it's on a direct line for us. Woburn was also a good bet but I got a particularly good deal with the RI with my Marriott status. As to the train, my wife never travels light on a cruise so public transport isn't an option when dragging 475 suitcases behind us. We have no choice but to drive right down to the port and hope we can find easy parking near the pier.

Sorry for the contrarian position, but twins all the way. The queens are far too tiny for comfort for us. I am a very light sleeper at the best of times, and SWMBO uses 3 times as many blankets and comforters as I do, so having separate beds for a week is fine with us.

Sorry, don't think that's correct. We use Tiles in all our bags and they work perfectly. Available for both Android (not just Samsung) and IOS. It's a great feeling to land at an airport and see that all your bags have landed safely with you. https://www.tile.com/en-ca

Any idea when this started? I ask because there was a thread here on CC from last year, where some folks actually parked at this very convenient covered garage and had no problems at all. They even asked the management at the garage whether it was OK to park for a cruise and were told no problem, just to park on an upper floor. We're planning on using this garage in July, otherwise one of the surface lots like C-1 nearby.

I've been researching the best options for our mid-July trip, and as the others have mentioned, Boston hotel prices, particularly mid-summer, are massively expensive. The two hotels right next to the pier, for example, are over $800/night for our dates. You may want to investigate a Park and Fly package from a Logan area hotel, as they do offer the option of staying one or two nights but leaving your car parked at their facility. From what I am seeing, the incremental cost of the extra week's parking isn't bad at all. The problem with those hotels is that they are far from the tourist areas and would require an Uber ride. That being said, I can't speak to the quality of the airport hotels and the relative safety of their parking lots. In our case, we are planning to stay up north in Burlington, where hotel prices are less than half of downtown, then drive down and park at one of the parking lots near the terminal, probably the covered garage one block north. Best of luck, have a great cruise (and welcome to Cruise Critic ;o) https://www.parksleephotels.com/Park-and-Fly-Hotel-Packages-Near-Boston-Airport-BOS.html

Heads up for the new cruiser, but there are a very few ports where a photo ID is actually needed to get back to the ship, i.e. past the port security gate. It's a local port requirement, not a Princess requirement, as once you are back to the ship, all you will need is the Medallion to get back on board and go through the scanner.

Uber would probably be easiest and cheapest. There are always a herd of them circling around 17th St waiting for calls on embarkation mornings, we've never waited more a a minute or two while watching the driver approach our hotel. No sitting in a crowded van while the driver visits all the terminals before dropping you off because yours was his last stop ;o)

As others have stated, it's almost guaranteed that the trip will leave from and return to Brooklyn. Generally, Princess only uses the MCT as an intermediate stop on a longer voyage. It's hard to understand why Princess keeps up that (Manhattan or Brooklyn) wording, but they do. In 2022, when we left from Brooklyn on the Enchanted, we also saw that confusing wording, but noticed something change within a few weeks of departure. When I went into the Personalizer to look at the booking, on the "Itinerary" tab, it still said "New York City (Manhattan or Brooklyn), New York" for the departure port, but then right underneath, very clearly listed the address of the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal, 72 Bowne Street etc.

Folks will chime in soon with lots of options, but one of our favorites is the Boatyard, just across and down 17th street from the HP, literally next to the big Renaissance. We like it because of its outdoor patio right on the canal for the yacht watching. https://boatyard.restaurant/

As stated, you definitely don't have to go to Guest Services to do the upgrade, there will be plenty of crew waiting in the Piazza just as you board who are there to help with just that purchase. Yes, the only way to use OBC for the upgrade is to do it once on board. The upgrade goes live instantly so you can enjoy the benefits right away. Every time we have done this, including last month, the price was identical to what we saw online before the cruise. As to paying with both OBC and credit card, that should be done easily. If you don't have enough OBC to cover the whole charge, then I expect the OBC would be used up first then the rest would come off your card which is already on file. If you want to do something different, such as only using a portion of the OBC for the purchase, then you would probably have to go to GS to make the special arrangement.

A very quick search on the Uber estimator site shows the fare between MCO and the Tampa cruise port would start around $100, taking between 90 minutes to 2 hours depending on route.

I literally just called in to Princess this afternoon to upgrade from Plus to Premier for one of our upcoming trips, in July. As soon as I hung up from talking to her, I went onto our account under that sailing and the upgrade was already in effect, with the Travel Summary showing our Premier package. Interesting that the rep actually admitted that they only release a certain percentage of dining slots in advance. That has always been our understanding, certainly from our personal experience, I've just never heard of Princess admitting it. As to booking SD restaurants on board, we usually eat in the SDRs, hardly ever in the MDRs. We never book on line in advance and always prefer to book once we board. We rarely have any problem, and calling the DINE line is one of our first actions upon boarding, though we also will just walk up to each of the venues and book in person.

Our on-line account on the Air Canada site already has all this information loaded in and it is applied to every booking we make automatically, so I never have to bother entering the info myself. When we check in on line the day before the flight (or at the check in counter), our NEXUS/Global Entry info is already loaded into the system and our boarding passes are automatically tagged with TSA-Pre-Check.

is there a particular reason why you aren't including the other two big hotels on 17th St, the Renaissance and the Hilton Marina? Depending on the time of year, and therefore the hotel pricing, these two can be excellent alternatives to the three you have referenced. We have stayed at the Renaissance a number of times when it has been lower priced than the Hyatt Place, and it is a large, full service hotel, even closer to the port, and IMHO better than the Hyatt Place and Holiday Inn. We haven't yet stayed at the ES, given all the reviews here on CC. Taxi from FLL to the 17th hotel strip is around $20 =/-

I'm sure it can be done over the phone, even though we always work through our TA. The first, last, and only time I ever called Princess I was on hold for 45 minutes. When I finally connected, I was talking to what I assume was a home-based rep who answered the phone with me while yelling at her kids in the background. Before she even acknowledged me, I was disconnected. Obviously your experiences have been fine, but I'm disinclined to call Princess. Next time I'm talking to our TA I'll ask her if this is something she would normally handle, but realistically I'd rather not bother her with it and we'll just wait until we board. Especially if she has to call Princess to do it.

Same here, I detest using a smart phone as a PC. In this case, even the web version of the "app" did not allow the upgrade either. And yes, I'm pretty sure it's a new thing, up until pretty recently, when I clicked on the "Upgrade Now" button, it did open up a table that showed what I currently had (Plus), the upgrade price, and a way to select the upgrade immediately. This change, where this was eliminated, seems to have happened very recently. Given the world-class skill of Princess's IT consultants/web site managers, I can only assume this is a conscious change and not an error ;o)

Thanks for feedback every one. This sailing is July 14 on the Emerald out of Boston, final payment is next month. I suspect we will simply wait and do it after boarding as usual, there's obviously no shortage of staff waiting by the gangway to help with the upgrade ;o). You would think that Princess would want to offer a pre-cruise upgrade path as a way to take our money ahead of time, but they don't make it easy.