LIVE: Caribbean Princess to Canada and Greenland, August 15-31, 2022: Geoherb goes solo again

[LACruiser88]

12 minutes ago, roxievegas said:

we are getting serviced 2X a day

I'd be happy to get serviced once a day!!!  😄😄😄

 

 

 

 

 

Edited September 3, 2022 by LACruiser88

[WYB!]

Nice meeting you.

 

Good comprehensive review of this trip.

 

in 7th Place with 139 points: the Solo Gems

 

Safe travels,

 

- WhosYourBuddy

Edited September 3, 2022 by WYB!

[geoherb]

4 hours ago, Keikidoc said:

Geoherb, thanks for the excellent live reporting. We are scheduled for Sept 10 embarking from Quebec City to NYC on Caribbean P. Could you tell me if cabin steward tended to ur cabin 2x a day or just once a day? 

 

He did it twice a day without my having to request it. On my previous cruises since the restart, it was always an option that passengers could request in person or through the app or TV. I requested the evening service a few times on one of those cruises when I had laundry ready to go out.

[geoherb]

1 hour ago, WYB! said:

Nice meeting you.

 

Good comprehensive review of this trip.

 

in 7th Place with 139 points: the Solo Gems

 

 

 

Thanks. It was nice to meet you. The champagne waterfall photo is of my 4:00 trivia teammates. I managed to have three separate trivia teams with only one regular teammate in common at the 10:00 and 4:00 games. 

[cr8tiv1]

Thanks @geoherbfor taking me along on this cruise.  I have decided after cancelling this cruise twice (once by me:once by Princess), that I would never experience Greenland.  

 

I appreciate all the posters who take time away from their cruise to do a live.  

[Keikidoc]

 

2 hours ago, geoherb said:

 

He did it twice a day without my having to request it. On my previous cruises since the restart, it was always an option that passengers could request in person or through the app or TV. I requested the evening service a few times on one of those cruises when I had laundry ready to go out.

Thanks for the info on cabin service.

[Keikidoc]

Thanks for the update on cabin service @roxievegas

[mellon1]

On 8/27/2022 at 4:10 PM, cruzsnooze said:

Unfortunately this has been a less then stellar experience. Our tour in Halifax was cancelled then our tour in Sydney was cancelled and we didn't stop in Nuuk.  The crew has been wonderful. The food is so-so. It's not a very inspiring menu. We're in Club Class and the service couldn't be better. There has been a wait time since CC gets full and they put some overflow tables in the regular area of the dining room with CC servers but it's noisy awkwardly  placed randomly in aisles. Breakfast is in Sabitin's and the service there is also excellent and attentive.

    The bathroom water is either hot or cold and they have tried to fix it several times. It seems it's the a portion of plumbing effecting several cabins on the deck. Many people we met have gotten quarantined with a positive covid test. The captain announced about the covid outbreak and asked everyone to wear masks. I'm looking forward to disembarking Wednesday and getting home. My next cruise in Nov is on the Discovery and I hear good things about that ship.

  The two ports we did get off at were Nanortalik and Qaqortoq and were delightful. The people were friendly. Qaqortoq has a population of 3,000 and so we passengers doubled their population. The weather was cold but tolerable. It's easy to see the towns entirely on the walking tours which were lovely. 

  The entertainment was passable. The best show so far was Bravo which was excellent. If you don't get to the theatre at least a half hour early on most nights you wouldn't find a seat. Since the entertainers couldn't fly home from Nuuk we had a varty show that was put together but the entertainers stuck on board as a varity show. Credit to them for trying to improvise. 

  The Caribbean Princess is showing her age not so much cosmetically but in needed repairs. 

   

I'm told fleet wide......................

As an FYI there is no more upgraded bathroom amenities so bring what you need. Lotion (in a full suite) is in a plastic pump bottle like what's in the showers. No Q Tips or linen spray or nail files, no blue tote bags.

what room are you in on CB?  We are looking at 2024 for 40 days and have it booked, but I am worried about cold showers!  LOL.  Thanks.

[roxievegas]

13 hours ago, mellon1 said:

what room are you in on CB?  We are looking at 2024 for 40 days and have it booked, but I am worried about cold showers!  LOL.  Thanks.

we are currently on board - Lido Deck.  First time on this deck and we really like it, we walk 50 ft down the hall and we are outside on the same deck as the pizza, BBQ, buffet and and take pictures coming and going to port.  The room seems smaller than the Discovery and Majestic and Ruby that we were on in Dec 2021 and April 2022 and June 2022,

We have had no problems until last night the toilet would not flush.  I called Guest Services and they said they working on the problems, it sounded like it was "a lot" of cabins.  I asked if it was ship wide, or just our deck, but he was not giving me an answer.  Later, I heard it flush by itself and it is working this morning

 

  

[mellon1]

37 minutes ago, roxievegas said:

we are currently on board - Lido Deck.  First time on this deck and we really like it, we walk 50 ft down the hall and we are outside on the same deck as the pizza, BBQ, buffet and and take pictures coming and going to port.  The room seems smaller than the Discovery and Majestic and Ruby that we were on in Dec 2021 and April 2022 and June 2022,

We have had no problems until last night the toilet would not flush.  I called Guest Services and they said they working on the problems, it sounded like it was "a lot" of cabins.  I asked if it was ship wide, or just our deck, but he was not giving me an answer.  Later, I heard it flush by itself and it is working this morning

 

  

it's been a few years since on her, but even in a suite we had issues of the toilet overflowing and not flushing.  I thought, or I guess assumed, they would have taken care of it by now, especially with all the time no one was cruising.  HMMMMm

 

Thanks for your input,  It's truly appreciated.

[XBGuy]

4 hours ago, roxievegas said:

 

 

We have had no problems until last night the toilet would not flush.

 

I'll bet $1 that one of your fellow passengers flushed something down their cabin toilet that should not have been flushed.  That gummed up the plumbing for all the neighboring cabins.  The primary suspicious substance would be "Flushable" wipes.  They may be flushable in your home toilet, but not on a ship,

[cruzsnooze]

18 hours ago, mellon1 said:

what room are you in on CB?  We are looking at 2024 for 40 days and have it booked, but I am worried about cold showers!  LOL.  Thanks.

We were in a Fiesta Suite Deck 6

[mellon1]

3 hours ago, cruzsnooze said:

We were in a Fiesta Suite Deck 6

Thanks.  Not a pleasant experience when the toilet overflows that is for sure.

[coo359a2]

4 hours ago, XBGuy said:

 

I'll bet $1 that one of your fellow passengers flushed something down their cabin toilet that should not have been flushed.  That gummed up the plumbing for all the neighboring cabins.  The primary suspicious substance would be "Flushable" wipes.  They may be flushable in your home toilet, but not on a ship,

That would be an easy bet to win. People never listen to the don’ts regarding the ship’s toilets

[geoherb]

I posted the Patters from the cruise in a separate topic. Sorry that the internet did not work well enough for me to keep posting them daily while on the cruise.

 

 

[Happiest when cruising]

On 9/3/2022 at 11:23 AM, WYB! said:

Nice meeting you.

 

Good comprehensive review of this trip.

 

in 7th Place with 139 points: the Solo Gems

 

Safe travels,

 

- WhosYourBuddy

What is going on with that scoreboard? 

[Happiest when cruising]

On 8/27/2022 at 1:10 PM, cruzsnooze said:

Unfortunately this has been a less then stellar experience. Our tour in Halifax was cancelled then our tour in Sydney was cancelled and we didn't stop in Nuuk.  The crew has been wonderful. The food is so-so. It's not a very inspiring menu. We're in Club Class and the service couldn't be better. There has been a wait time since CC gets full and they put some overflow tables in the regular area of the dining room with CC servers but it's noisy awkwardly  placed randomly in aisles. Breakfast is in Sabitin's and the service there is also excellent and attentive.

    The bathroom water is either hot or cold and they have tried to fix it several times. It seems it's the a portion of plumbing effecting several cabins on the deck. Many people we met have gotten quarantined with a positive covid test. The captain announced about the covid outbreak and asked everyone to wear masks. I'm looking forward to disembarking Wednesday and getting home. My next cruise in Nov is on the Discovery and I hear good things about that ship.

  The two ports we did get off at were Nanortalik and Qaqortoq and were delightful. The people were friendly. Qaqortoq has a population of 3,000 and so we passengers doubled their population. The weather was cold but tolerable. It's easy to see the towns entirely on the walking tours which were lovely. 

  The entertainment was passable. The best show so far was Bravo which was excellent. If you don't get to the theatre at least a half hour early on most nights you wouldn't find a seat. Since the entertainers couldn't fly home from Nuuk we had a varty show that was put together but the entertainers stuck on board as a varity show. Credit to them for trying to improvise. 

  The Caribbean Princess is showing her age not so much cosmetically but in needed repairs. 

   

I'm told fleet wide......................

As an FYI there is no more upgraded bathroom amenities so bring what you need. Lotion (in a full suite) is in a plastic pump bottle like what's in the showers. No Q Tips or linen spray or nail files, no blue tote bags.

It no longer lists the upgraded bathroom amenities on the website…another thing quietly slipping away. 

[geoherb]

13 minutes ago, Happiest when cruising said:

What is going on with that scoreboard? 

 

Teams competed in one trivia on sea days where the scores accumulated. Gareth, an assistant cruise director, led those trivias. Instead of the usual question by question approach, he gave out papers with 20 questions. He graded them between sessions and posted the scoreboard to let teams know how they were doing. The last few trivias, though, he stopped posting the scoreboard to keep it suspenseful. He did not show the final scores until after announcing the winners and giving out prizes. In addition to the top three teams, Gareth gave prizes to the best solo player, the best duo team, and best team name (Who gives a ship?).

 

My team started tied for second place, slipped to fourth place after the second round, then gradually came back to take first place in the fourth round and hold onto it. The contest was very close, especially since we did not know how the other teams had done the last few rounds until the last day.



 

Edited September 5, 2022 by geoherb

[Happiest when cruising]

27 minutes ago, geoherb said:

 

Teams competed in one trivia on sea days where the scores accumulated. Gareth, an assistant cruise director, led those trivias. Instead of the usual question by question approach, he gave out papers with 20 questions. He graded them between sessions and posted the scoreboard to let teams know how they were doing. The last few trivias, though, he stopped posting the scoreboard to keep it suspenseful. He did not show the final scores until after announcing the winners and giving out prizes. In addition to the top three teams, Gareth gave prizes to the best solo player, the best duo team, and best team name (Who gives a ship?).

 

My team started tied for second place, slipped to fourth place after the second round, then gradually came back to take first place in the fourth round and hold onto it. The contest was very close, especially since we did not know how the other teams had done the last few rounds until the last day.



 

Now, that’s you make it exciting and new😉

[feisty_tuffy]

Did anyone on your cruise see Polar Bears?  We are looking to go in 2023 and all the excursions that mention Polar Bears are sold out.  We are wondering if this is like Cabo where you take a whale site seeing and the whales are actually closer to the ship than the dingy you are riding around in trying to find them.

Thanks!

Linda

[coupeb]

On 11/26/2022 at 4:33 PM, feisty_tuffy said:

Did anyone on your cruise see Polar Bears?  We are looking to go in 2023 and all the excursions that mention Polar Bears are sold out.  We are wondering if this is like Cabo where you take a whale site seeing and the whales are actually closer to the ship than the dingy you are riding around in trying to find them.

Thanks!

Linda

No polar bears, not even a mention. Saw lots of dolphins and whales, but that's it. One of the officers on the bridge would announce over the intercom whenever they spotted anything, "dolphins coming up on the port side". It was greatly appreciated.

[MsSoCalCruiser]

On 8/15/2022 at 3:34 PM, geoherb said:

The wait for the shuttle bus to the port was ridiculous. There are a lot of angry passengers. The Princess reps did not know anything other than to say that they hope the buses would start showing up soon. I was prepared to wait until 10 or 10:30, knowing that my flight had been very early. I took the supervisor's advice and went down to Dunkin for a bite to eat. By that time, it had been five hours since my breakfast bowl of cereal. I started this thread afterward and played the daily free tournament on Bridge Base. Surely, I thought, the buses would start soon.

 

I was wrong--very wrong. Fortunately I started talking to some very nice people in the crowd. One woman talked about how she was also looking forward to lunch in the dining room. She likes the appetizer with grilled vegetables. I was going to have the vegetarian ravioli. Around 11, I said it may be possible to still make it on the ship in time. By noon, I had given up. She and her husband went to reconnoiter the situation downstairs. They encouraged us to join them outside. A small crowd of 20 had gathered there. The supervisor was constantly on her phone, standing in the bus lane looking for one of the buses. One finally showed up at 1. Upstairs, I'd estimate the crowd had been up to 200 people. The supervisor said they were expecting 750 today.

 

Earlier, a couple of the lead reps started taking down names and cabin numbers of people who wanted to give up on the shuttle and take a cab. They said they would be reimbursed for the cost of the shuttle tickets. I plan to be anyway. I visited passenger services as soon as I got on the ship. One of the pursers took down my cabin number and said he would make sure I got the credit. A mother-daughter pair we talked with decided to go the cab route. I ran into them at the International Cafe. They were happy with their decision, although they only got to the ship about 20 minutes ahead of us and still too late for lunch in the dining room.

 

The ride over was not too bad considering that traffic backed up a bit in spots. Our bus driver was 72 years old and had lived in Brooklyn his whole life. He said he started driving buses 50 years ago. That's a long time to work. The ride over took 40 minutes. He pointed out some sights along the way. When we got to the port, they said we could leave our checked luggage under the bus and the porters would take care of it. At least that saved me a few dollars for not having to see one in person.

 

They did not mention the wine I had in my backpack when it went through the security screener, and I did not see a table set up to declare extra bottles. There was not really a separate line for priority boarding, but a rep sent me to the shorter line when I asked and showed her my medallion. They asked to see my passport, proof of vaccination, negative Covid test result, and ArrCan. But some people had not done the ArrCan yet and they were still let through.

 

From the time I got off the bus to getting on the ship was under 15 minutes.

 

My cabin is an inside on the Riviera Deck. My minibar contents were not already set up, so I called room service to save someone a trip by letting the woman who answered what I wanted. She said they did not have Perrier, only club soda. That will do.

 

My cabin steward introduced himself. He seems very nice. He warned that laundry will take 72 hours. That's better than the four or five days I was afraid it might take. Someone mentioned that there are 550 Elites on board. I'm betting the number is higher. I'll find out eventually from the loyalty and events director.

@geoherb Thank you again for the link to your Live thread! I thought I would ask a question here, so it will bring your thread back to the front because there are probably others looking for a review just like I was. 
 

We are doing the 17 day Canada/Greenland cruise round-trip from Boston. What is ArrCan? We both have passports. Is ArrCan something that we need?

Edited Tuesday at 12:14 AM by MsSoCalCruiser

[phabric]

1 minute ago, MsSoCalCruiser said:

@geoherb Thank you again for the link to your Live thread! I thought I would ask a question here, so it will bring your thread back to the front because there are probably others looking for a review just like I was. 
 

We are doing the 17 day Canada/Greenland cruise round-trip from Boston. What is ArrCan? We both have passports. Is ArrCan something that we need?

ArriveCAN app  came out during Covid.  ArriveCAN is an app that you fill out for Canadian Immigration.  Before you used to fill a paper form with the information now a kiosk at a Canadian airport. 
 

You can fill it out within 72 hours before arrival into Canada.  You will receive an email.

 

At the Toronto airport, once off the airplane, follow the signs to Immigration, there will be a sign for Express, follow Express sign, there is a kiosk put your passport down, it takes your picture, take the paper, gates open, hand your paper to the Immigration officer.  Since you have completed ArriveCAN app with the information it saves time.

 

I found as a returning Canadian, it saved time in the long line waiting for a kiosk, filling out the information on a computer and lining up for an Immigration Officer to hand in the paper.

 

Not all Canadian airports have the Express kiosks.

[MsSoCalCruiser]

2 minutes ago, phabric said:

ArriveCAN app  came out during Covid.  ArriveCAN is an app that you fill out for Canadian Immigration.  Before you used to fill a paper form with the information now a kiosk at a Canadian airport. 
 

You can fill it out within 72 hours before arrival into Canada.  You will receive an email.

 

At the Toronto airport, once off the airplane, follow the signs to Immigration, there will be a sign for Express, follow Express sign, there is a kiosk put your passport down, it takes your picture, take the paper, gates open, hand your paper to the Immigration officer.  Since you have completed ArriveCAN app with the information it saves time.

 

I found as a returning Canadian, it saved time in the long line waiting for a kiosk, filling out the information on a computer and lining up for an Immigration Officer to hand in the paper.

 

Not all Canadian airports have the Express kiosks.

We are round trip out of Boston. Do we need ArriveCan? 

[geoherb]

11 hours ago, MsSoCalCruiser said:

We are round trip out of Boston. Do we need ArriveCan? 

 

It was not required after Oct. 1, 2022, according to this article on Cruise Critic:
https://www.cruisecritic.com/articles/everything-alaska-and-canadian-cruisers-need-to-know-about-arrivecan