mtnesterz

I can't say to an absolute certainty, each ship varying a bit, but I could not exchange for diet tonic water in the Elite mini-bar on different ships. As long as it is not one of those Cutwater type premixed cans with alcohol, just bring a pack of cans onboard or buy a pack at your first port. Must be cans, no glass.

Thanks to responders. Coming from a line where one call does it all booking wise, over 20 cruises with them and having confidence in their system, it is unsettling that all of you prefer to make your own flight arrangements and transfers. Perhaps unintentional, but I'm taking your combined experiences and preferences as a lack of confidence in their system. But that's what I was asking about, so I appreciate the advice.

To find info about your Meet and Greet, at the top of the page, under Cruise Critic Community, you'll see Forums. Under that, Find your Roll Call. You should be able to find your sailing from there. Your Roll Call is where you want to ask about gaming and a M&G. Hope you enjoy your cruise.

https://www.princess.com/downloads/pdf/ships/Princess-ship-facts.pdf

Nope. CP was the old Sea Princess. The Caribbean Princess is CB.

Within the scope of the original question, we are looking at our first Azamara cruise, but it is more than a year out, so air connections are not yet available. We don't want to miss this itinerary. Is there a problem with booking a sailing this far out, then adding air connections at a later date? I only ask because for a time, there were complaints about Azamara bookings, getting all things to connect on the Azamara end, adding flights and transfers. TIA!

Misread question deleted.

Not at all! We stayed in 4018 on the Onward, then the Pacific Princess, directly across from the Medical Offices. The ship is small enough so that you never feel too far from anywhere. It was our first small ship cruise and as ships keep getting bigger, this is cruising to us! Mega-ships are floating resorts. Next door was a woman solo traveler, so no noise from her. Being forward on the ship, I was suprised at no hull noise. We hit the edge of a storm on our TA and being a smaller ship, the sea tossed us about some. Glad I brought diphenhydramine for that. The best thing about the ship, to us, was the library, but I do not know what AZ did with the space.

I'd rather not overcomplicate my responses and confuse people with info they don't need. In the first post, the OP lists ports that are all part of the Western Caribbean loop that Princess does, possibly the same one we did last May. Apparently they're not doing the Southeastern loop of Caribbean for Martinique and/or Guadeloupe. But since they are new here, perhaps @Samanthaelizabe forgot to mention that. If you're doing a B2B to the Eastern Caribbean, take notice.

Then according to the US Customs and Border Protection website: "U.S. citizens on closed-loop cruises will be able to enter or depart the country with proof of citizenship, such as an Enhanced Driver's License (EDL), a government-issued birth certificate (issued by the Vital Records Department in the state where he or she was born) or passport, and if 16 or older, a government issued driver's license, picture ID, denoting photo, name, and date of birth." But if you're going to take up cruising going forward, you'll want a passport anyway. If the number you show is your Zip Code, there is a 24 hour Passport service in San Antonio. https://www.24hrpassportatx.com/

Wish you a safe trip and fun cruise. You will be leaving two days before Mrs. Mtnesterz who will be visiting family in S'pore. Also SIA and Business Class, so don't mess up the plane's cabin, OK? 😄 I cannot take 17 hours on a plane, even Business Class. Before you go, nice idea to take a couple Covid test kits. If you don't have them, I was at Platt Library a week or so back and they had them for the asking. You probably know, but be sure to do your Singapore Arrival Card three days before arrival. Here is the link: https://eservices.ica.gov.sg/sgarrivalcard/ We all have different tastes, but if I could suggest something to do there that you can't do here, consider the Night Safari.

LA local. What you plan is what I would do. Onboard, request self walk-off, which means first off the ship. Meaning you'll be first to the busses. Morning of departure, get to the buffet and have a go all day breakfast. Food at the airport is insanely priced. It's about a 30-40 minute ride to the airport and you're southwest of downtown, no major traffic at that hour. You will have no trouble making your flight. If you take Lyft, Uber, Blackline, Opoli. You're dropped at the lot and LAXit bus in. I am almost certain Princess busses are still allowed to drive the horseshoe. Hope someone here can confirm that with recent experience.

Some posters I've read here refer to what you will be doing as an side-to-side, S2S. B2B means you're staying on the same ship.

A hundred years ago, Scotch was used as a pejorative meaning parsimonious, or an adjective for a cheap product. Wiki Scotch Tape.

customerrelations@princesscruises.com We had a huge problem with shoreside services in Japan last year. It took two or three weeks for them to respond, but there was a letter of appreciation for the details we provided, an apology and FCC.

I don't feel right about posting a name. His name has not been on the sticky that lists senior officers for quite some time. I don't make, "rainbows and unicorns," predictions every cruise will be like a brochure. I see you post your cruise history, exceeding ours by a few. Unless you've been awfully lucky, I'll bet you have true stories of things gone awry too, but that doesn't deter people like you and I who love cruising. Fully welcome new cruisers, but cruising isn't for everybody, it's not like staying at a resort.

I'd add to your list man overboards, fire at sea, (that was the scariest,) severe mechanical issues, missed ports due to political issues, and fires ashore wiping out the town, and high seas due to storms, and really bad cruise directors. (He no longer works for Princess.) . Experienced all what you wrote and what I wrote. They are all just part of cruising. And Alaskan weather is just that, not photos you see in a brochure. I don't mean this in a unkind way, but you both just have to decide if you can roll with whatever comes, because that is what cruising is.

Good to read this. I think, if we were all honest, there is often a bit of, perhaps not remorse, but wondering if we made the best choice. We too have a Cal. Coast trip coming up, out of LA. Drive to port, so, similar situation. With the last minute sale price, you couldn't stay in a nice hotel for a week for that. Then all meals included, if you choose, then the shows... And the big one, not having to drive from San Francisco down to LA, San Diego and into Mexico. Fatigue, wear and tear on the car, gas... It's your choice of course, but FWIW, I think for you, this sailings is great short getaway with no flying, at a sale price.

Not extinct. Incidence of Noro increases in winter months when people congregate indoors, but it has been greater in the southern hemisphere where winter is now ending. It will come back north soon, sorry to say.

I recently completed information for our upcoming and wasn't required to do so. There is a blue or white tab at the top of the app page where you may elect to provide for shoreside purchases, but as I return to the homepage, I am green, GTG, with no election/provision for shoreside purchases. Which was also how our account was set up for our last cruise in May of this year. I think this was something they tried, from reading old threads here, but they must have had lots of complaints.

Truthfully, we no longer drink sodas and Princess is the reason. We prefer longer cruises and found out we did just fine without them. Now a Coke in the afternoon became a coffee and do still have a tonic water as part of a G&T on occasion, but sodas as a daily beverage? Pretty easily done without... If that is your goal.

On the flip side of that, we have cruised a lot, but in the last quarter century, I've only been to someplace like Vegas for a business convention. Not big into gambling. I realize you are new here and just to advise you when answering, you must not mention a travel agent or other booking agency on this board, but vouchers are the payment, not the booking. With that in mind, how does one go about getting these cruise vouchers at casinos? Is it like getting airline miles, from accumulated gaming, that you accrue then cash in for a voucher, or did you hit a jackpots and those were the prize? Several here have mentioned cruising on a casino voucher, but no one mentions how they got them.

My mistake on ship codes. Sorry 'bout that. CP was the old Sea Princess. Caribbean is CB. Do a search for Princess Fleet Facts and you will get a PDF of the facilities on ships in the fleet including the ship codes. Crown is KP, Coral is CO. Interior space on a ship is measured in tons, which I'm told is cubic feet and a sum of interior space public and private. So if one person on the Coral has 38 cubic feet of space (1:38ft³) and the Island adds a couple hundred passengers in about the same space, there is less space per passenger, changing to one person having 35 cubic feet (1:35ft³.)

I see that you posted your question on the HAL board as well. While you'd think responses would be weighted in favor of those lines regular clients, I would instead tell you that, really, the only complaint about our Princess cruise to Japan was on the portside excursions and transfers to the ship. Poor oversight of shoreside operations, which I complained about in the post survey. If we were to go cruising to Japan again, I would suggest looking into Azamara or Oceania if for the only reason that they both offer free shuttles to the local town or nearest tourist site. Princess shuttles involved long lines and expensive. Transfer to the ship was chaos. I had this impression that everything in Japan ran like a well oiled machine. Not so! Actually, cruising the Diamond Princess is pretty much the same as any other Princess cruise, but announcement are also in Japanese and more Japanese dishes offered. Good luck in your search!

Diamond Princess is fine. Cruised on it last year..Circle Japan. You're too far out at sea to see the coastline from the ship when sailing. Agree with @cruzsnooze, tour guides are not like watching presenters on NHK World, who went to college in the US or UK and speak understandable English. Any excursion is a long way from port areas. Shuttle lines are long and expensive. Consider private excursions. I'm not one to recommend that usually. Check and see if you still need to do the Yunyu Kakunin Sho. I started a thread in Ports of Call Asia on how to fill it out.