Corfe Mixture

We are staying at the Hilton Marina (in the Tower) in a few weeks time and have not even considered walking. As others have said we are on VACATION.

Taxis are ten a penny and cheaper than the hotel shuttle which charges per person and not per ride.

Seems crazy to us that folks who have no problem tipping porters and bell boys find $10 for a taxi expensive!

Taxis are, IMHO, such good value that, although my car rental contract does not finish until late morning on the day of the cruise, we are planning to hand our rental car back the night before the cruise and take a taxi the next morning.

Why? Well it is because the cost of the taxi is less than half the cost of parking at the hotel.

We take a champagne clip on stopper with us and once our carry one champagne has been drunk, they have proved useful for sealing opened beer bottles. Must remember to take a couple of stoppers with me this year.

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Basically it means that you can order anything off the MDR menu to be served in your suite. In other words it is the whole menu.

Only downside is that, unless you order them individually, all courses arrive at the same time.

You should have the following day's MDR menu delivered to your suite each evening, but our experience has been that, on some ships it (delivery of the menu) doesn't happen unless you request it.

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This photo - which ship? What cabin category? We've always had a balcony stateroom but nothing that ever looked remotely like this. I reckon that's way out of reach for most of us.

The only balconies I know of which have a teak decking floor are the S1 grade - Grand Suites on some the Grand class ships. The Owners suites and Penthouse Suites do not have teak decking. I say some Grand class ships, because on some of the class, the Grand suite is replaced by an owners suite and a Penthouse suite.

So to answer your question, I think that there are only around five suites like that, one each on Caribbean, Diamond, Golden, Sapphire and Star, in the whole fleet.

Wonder how long before UK clients, who pay more for their cruises than North American clients, start to do the arithmetic of Club Class Mini-suite v Mini-suite plus UBD EVERY NIGHT.

For example. 9th December 2018 Caribbean Princess - 10 day Panama Cruise.

Club Class Mini suite £2650 per person

Ordinary Mini suite at £2069 - £2354 per person saves between £592 and £1162 per couple.

At current exchange rates 10 nights UBD would cost around £750 per couple meaning that taking the most expensive non-Club Class mini-suite along with UBD every night would cost them around £158 (£79 per person) for UBD every night, which is less than the cost of the 10 bottles of wine they will get with UBD.

Seems to me like a no brainer for all Elite passengers and anyone doesn't care about priority tendering.

Wonder how that’ll work with TAs. I assume they already identify their customers by loyalty level but that just seems like a level of complication. My TA lets me know a week before bookings open and as soon as they open, she gets me booked immediately. Guess we’ll see.

P&O (a sister company of Princess) have operated something similar for a long time. The way it works (or used to work when I last booked with them) is that TA's (and all grades of loyalty club members) are all advised of the itineraries a week or so before they open for bookings.

TA's typically mailshot ALL their clients with the new itineraries as soon as the become aware of the cruise program and invite them to make booking requests which they undertake to action as soon as bookings open.

What then happens is that P&O open up for bookings from the top level of their loyalty club a few days before they open up to general bookings. During this period P&O will only accept bookings, both direct and/or through TA's, in the name of a person who is a top grade loyalty member. They will not accept bookings from a TA in the name of anyone else until the exclusive window closes.

All the TA is doing is inviting everyone to ask them to make a booking as soon as bookings open, but can only fulfilling his obligation to make a booking as soon as P&O will accept the booking.

So, the bottom line is that the rule is policed by the cruise company who will not accept early booking in the name of non-Elites and the TA doesn't have to do anything special other than remember that the date bookings open for Elite clients is earlier than for the general public.

As I say I haven't used P&O for a while, but I do recall that the TA's made a big thing about encouraging top level loyalty members to book early in order to lock in their preferred stateroom (and premium seating on the charter aircraft P&O use for their Caribbean schedule) before bookings opened to the general public.

We have had just one bad experience, where we booked a private tour on St Thomas, and our tour did not go to where we wanted or expected.

We started late, because the driver had been on a taxi run for a local and instead of our expected itinerary, we did a 'tour' which was clearly based around the fact that we had to pick up a friend of the driver and take her to work.

The tour also finished early as the driver had to go any and collect someone else (I think she said it was children from school).

Whatever, I felt ripped off. Later looking on Tripadvisor I see that, whilst the operator had some very good reviews, we were no alone in our experience and four or five people had reported a similar experience.

Must stress, that we did not feel unsafe, just that we were used for a quick buck and did not get value for money.

The experience has not put us off using local tour operators but this ONE tour operator is firmly logged our never use again book.

How about the rich pax who pay for Full Suites? Do their luggage labels say priority? :halo:

 

 

 

Not referring to myself, I am a mere mortal.:eek:

When you ask the question in that way, what do you think the odds are that you are likely to get an answer?

And yes, I am a suite passenger, but I am also a "mere mortal" who had never noticed that we had any priority. As long as it arrives before we sail, who cares? Certainly I don't.

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What is “Freedom Dining”? First I’ve heard of it.

I meant 'Anytime Dining', Freedom Dining is a term another cruise line uses for Anytime Dining.

Sorry for the confusion.

We stay in suites and prior to the introduction of Club dining, without asking, we were always unofficially allocated a table in Freedom Dining. This table was always available and we never had to book or stand in line and our friends dined with us every evening and were also able to enjoy the benefit not having to queue.

I stress we did not seek this benefit, it just happened, but it was so obvious that the table had been reserved for us that on evenings when our group went to Select Dining, we made a point of telling the Restaurant Manager that we would not need 'our' table on that night and we were always thanked for letting them know.

Now that we have Club we have accepted that, in order to dine with friends who are not in Club, we will have to forego our place in Club Dining and stand in line with everyone else waiting for a place in Freedom Dining.

You, I'm afraid will need to do the same.

Picked up a local report for USVI dated Friday 20th October which said that:

1. The whole of the territory remains under a boil water advisory.

2. 80 % of properties still have no electricity and they hope to have 90% of clients reconnected by Christmas.

3. There is a standardised territory wide curfew from 8pm to 5am

4. Bathing in the sea is not advised because of a heightened level of bacteria

5. The hospitals on both St Thomas and St Croix, will probably have to be completely re-built

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/10/20/559026813/st-john-could-get-electricity-turned-back-on-6-weeks-after-hurricane-Irma

I also picked up a report which said that, as of 20th October, 19% of the electricity company's clients on St Croix had electricity and 23% of clients on St Thomas, but I can't find the link.

I might add a few caveats here. First is that I get considerable more OBC than my DW so I am able to book more excursions with OBC than she can. I could not book DW's excursion against my OBC even though we use my credit card to pay at the end of the cruise.

We are in exactly the same situation and this has been discussed a number of times on CC.

Princess have not removed the ability to charge your wife's tour to you account, just the ability for you to select the charged account when booking on line.

Princess are well aware of this problem and if you phone them they will book the tours and charge them both to your account, after which, when you visit cruise personaliser, you will be able to see the cost of the tours showing as a charge against your OBC.

I’d go to the CG once and save some money.

 

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Interestingly many people have worked out that they save money by taking UBD rather than CG!

I'll leave you to do the arithmetic for yourself, but I'll give you a couple of clues.

1. Do you drink wine with your meal?

2. Do you ever choose surf and turf in CG?

Not to mention the other benefits / goodies

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Wrong. BVE's precede Suites and Elites. As do any wedding parties if applicable.

Not sure that it is fixed as that as the layout of the terminals sometimes dictates what they can do.

For example, the arrangement at terminal 21 at Port Everglades is such that the Suite/Elite lounge is a small area, with seats and a couple of tables with coffee and sandwiches, right by the airbridge, and everyone has to pass through this area to get to board the ship.

The way it is arranged it is that there is one large 'airport terminal' arrangement with a ramp down to through the Suite/Elite area to the airbridge.

The area closest to the ramp is initially available only to Platinum and above. The entry to the ramp is controlled and only Elites/Suite passengers are to allowed proceed from this area down to the small lounge by the airbridge. Once the people waiting in the Elite/Suite area have boarded, people in the Platinum waiting area go down the ramp and through the Elite/Suite 'lounge' / waiting area and once they have boarded, passengers with general boarding presumably follow the same route.

Because of this arrangement it would appear to be impossible for anyone (including BVE or wedding parties) to board without having to walk through this area and past the waiting Suite/Elite passengers. We have used this terminal on just two occasions. Both times we were early and arrived before the ship was 'zeroed'. I would therefore have noticed if anyone had boarded before the Suite/Elite group and on neither occasion did anyone pass through this area whilst the Elite/Suite passengers were waiting.

I'm not saying that it doesn't happen, just that if it had happened on either of my visits to Terminal 21, I would have noticed if anyone had boarded before the Elite/Suite group commenced boarding and they didn't.

Good questions and ones I’ve asked my friends currently on the Grand to double-check. I’m seeing them tomorrow in Long Beach when the Grand ports there and will hopefully get some answers.

 

Something to keep in mind is that this is still a trial and subject to change and modifications. It’s not set in stone.

 

Two photos sent to me by my friends from the IC on the Grand this morning. She said the speed was very good. The other photo is the flyer for non-Platinum/Elite passengers. No mention that I could see of just one device.

What is very interesting about this is that there is NO MENTION of the volume limits of each package.

CORRECTION. Each package is said to have unlimited volume of data on each day. (Just under the heading 'keep in mind'

Seems to imply that the discounted Elite/Platinum package is for a lower level of service.

As crazy as it sounds, I thought the agency had to agree to give up the booking.

 

Which never made sense to me, as the customer should always control the booking.

That has sort of been my experience in the UK as Princess will only take over an existing TA booking if they have a formal request to do so from the client so that they can justify 'requesting the TA to give up the booking' and transferring it to Princess.

I say this because we once had a TA decline to contact Princess on the basis that they knew they would not succeed with a request to benefit from a promotion without cancelling and re-booking which would incur an administration charge.

I tried explaining that I had spoken to Princess and they had already said no problem applying the promotion to the existing booking, but that I just needed to get my TA to call them (as they couldn't deal direct with me), but they still refused, even though I gave them the name of the person to contact at Princess.

So, I went back to Princess and asked if they would take over the booking so that I could have the promotion. They agreed, but only if I sent them an e-mail asking them to take over the booking so that they could justify the request to the TA.

Obviously I was not party to the discussions between Princess and the TA, but the TA obviously agreed to the change as the transfer took place without any problems and without changing the booking reference.

Once the transfer was completed, Princess allowed the promotion which the TA had erroneously said was not possible.

NOTE: All my conversations with Princess were with the same person and, although technically the TA had to agree to give up the booking, I never felt out of control, hence my opening words - 'That has sort of been my experience in the UK.....'

Be interesting to see if suites get their free internet access re-instated by offering them one of the 'superior' internet plans.

Surf plan seems to be the obvious one.

Princess right now is testing Princessconnect, a new wi-fi internet service with various levels. The top level is supposed to provide unlimited fast wi-fi service that should meet most of your needs at a cost of $29.99/day. The test is on the Grand Princess. No roll out schedule has been announced for other ships in the fleet. Maybe you can call Princess for information on your ship. Below is a link to some recent information

https://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2550917&highlight=princessconnect

I understand what you are saying but, despite what Princess may say in their marketing presentations, on a cruise ship you have to share the available bandwidth with others who may also be 'bandwidth hungry'.

At sea, you are fundamentally limited by satellite bandwidth which is not unlimited meaning that, despite what the Princess marketing department says, 'unlimited fast Wi-Fi service via a satellite link' is an oxymoron, particularly on a ship with 3000 passengers and 2000 crew.

For sure, Princess may indeed be increasing the bandwidth such that, with normal levels of traffic, browsing will become much more responsive BUT, the big questions are how many folks will buy into the marketing speak and try to use their minutes to make video calls to the grandchildren, and how much video traffic can be handled before the lack of bandwidth results in calls dropping out in mid conversation.

I had no problem in achieving this in the UK, on a cruise which is way out in the future, in order to get the benefit of a promotion without losing my preferred location.

All sorted by my TA (can't mention the TA on here, but think of a very vocal MP)

Princess told my TA that they would have to cancel and re-book, and initially wanted to charge a £100 cancellation fee, which the TA managed to get waived.

Princess also told them that they would do the change in a matter of minutes but that 'momentarily' (their word not mine), during the short period between it being released to inventory and me being re-booked into it, there was a risk of losing my existing stateroom, (a suite on the South American side for a Panama Canal cruise which were showing as all sold - though there were two suites in the same category on the other side of the ship),

Discussed the strategy with my TA and the risk that my original stateroom might disappear in the short period of time between it being released to inventory and me re-booking it, but as this was going to be just a few minutes, I took the risk, especially as we were doing it in the morning before North America was awake.

So, my TA made a new booking for a same category suite on the other side of the ship, and then cancelled the original booking with Princess whilst promising to keep checking for my old suite to come back onto inventory so that they could move me back into my original suite.

I also kept an eye on the website for the suite to come back onto inventory and, as soon as I saw it, I phoned the TA who said 'I hope it's not there if you look now as I have just moved your new booking over to that stateroom/suite' and sure enough when I went back to the website my original suite was no longer showing as available and the temporary suite we had booked on the 'wrong' side had re-appeared in inventory.

So, although I was monitoring what was going on, my TA was on the game, and had been ahead of me with the result that I got my original suite and the promotion.

All, I am going to be in the Caribbean but have started a new job and am going to have to conduct some meetings. Can I use my AT&T cell phone as a hot spot for audio and screen sharing while conducting a meeting via Skype? I know this is my vacation, but I have some work commitments, please no negative comments.

Assuming that you have data roaming, AND that deal includes TETHERING, then no problem when you are in port and connected to the local 4G network.

However, not withstanding the cost, no chance when you are on ship, UNLESS, you are close enough to the shore to get a connection to a mast on the local 4G network.

$10K for a 14 day cruise - something sounds fishy here

Definitely NOT fishy.

I am on that cruise, which is a Christmas cruise, and $10K is 30% less than I am paying ON THAT CRUISE for a Penthouse Suite booked from the UK. I also noted that a couple of aft facing Penthouse suites came available a few days after this thread was started, though they quickly disappeared, so I guess the OP may have found the better deal they were looking for and cancelled.

If so, it looks like Princess resold the OP's suite rather easily, but that is always the case with Christmas cruises (for example, all the suites on our 2018/19 Christmas cruise are already sold out). However, that will not always be the case, and alienating a high revenue client who cruises in a suite up to five times a year doesn't seem to me like good business strategy.

Methinks that Princess would do well to remember something that the airlines have well understood for a long time, namely that:

".. it costs 10 times more marketing dollars to win a client from a competitor than it does to keep your existing clients loyal

AND,

once you have lost a client to a competitor, it is almost impossible to win them back".

Personally I can't stand the canapes. They use to offer the chocolate dipped strawberries, but no more. On our last cruise I asked to substitute the strawberries and they wouldn't. The strawberries are less expensive than the cananpes. We were not in a suite but we are elite.

OP is in a suite and on our last cruise suite passengers were still able to get strawberries dipped in chocolate.

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I was wondering if the complimentary canapés that is offered to suite guests can be substituted with anything else?

 

 

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Substituted by what?

We have never substituted our canapés, though we don't always finish them, so I can't really answer you question, though Inhave to say that and I am struggling to think of what alternative you could be thinking about.

Bring back the unlimited "free" internet for suite perks, please.

Agree, but remember why we lost it. It was reportedly lost because some suite passengers were allowing friends in other staterooms to use their logon details. Seems to me that, unless they find a way of stopping people sharing their package, they will have similar problems with any unlimited use package.

FWIW, I have just looked at the pre-booking options available through, Cruise Personaliser, for our December Caribbean Princess cruise and the internet packages on offer are all 'minutes connected' deals and no unlimited deal is on offer.

Think I will believe it when I see it actually appears, though to be honest, we find that our 500 minutes (2 Elite/Platinum packages), plus our (almost) worldwide 4G roaming deal (when in port) is sufficient for us on a 15 day cruise, though it would be nice to get our (unlimited use) suite package back.

Also, one thing that folks are missing out on, in their understanding of unlimited internet access, is that, while cruise lines may increase the available bandwidth substantially, they cannot change the fact that everyone is having to share a limited bandwidth and whilst the ship may have multiple satellite connections, if more than a few people decide to use Netflix, then the response time will drop to the point that streaming is no longer possible. (We see the effect of multiple users streaming all the time in marinas in France where, despite the marina Wi-Fi service using broadband landlines, the system quickly becomes unusable during summer evenings, when crews of visiting yachts all try to use Skype to speak to their families, and we find ourselves having to use our 4G links, even for non-streaming use, just to get a decent service).

Whilst I never change into casual wear after dinner, you will certainly not be alone if you choose to change after dinner.