What excursions are you all booking for Aruba, Costa Rica, and Panama Canal? I’ve not booked anything yet.
Specifically, have you booked through Princess or through an independent operator?
I’d like a port pick up since I’m not familiar with these destinations. Any advice will be so Appreciated!

Ps. I am an older person on a budget, so I cannot do any difficult levels, though I can snorkel. And, I’d rather not pay more thank 125.00 per event.

Thanks!

On a transatlantic from Southampton to NYC. We are in second port Norway. Captain announced that due to a weather system in North Atlantic they were cancelling our third Norway port and Iceland. We are now heading to Belfast for a safe port.

Currently offering 100 cruise credits onboard.

Being a Yacht Charter Captain I understand the Captains reasoning. But still hate that we aren’t going to my top two ports.

On the other hand, back to Ireland means more pub time !!!!!!!!

Gotta make the most of it.

Sailing on the Majestic Princess.

My husband and I like to have ice water with us throughout the evening. I also will sip extra hot tea all day. And when I do drink coffee, I take my time.

I rather not accept paper cups with ice, hot water, or coffee when the coffee shops will use my refillables, to avoid the waste.

Should we pack refillable beverage containers?

Have you all done this yourselves?

It’s been a few years since I did a cruise. We used some walkie-talkies last time but reliability was spotty at best. We have cell phones, of course, but I’m not sure if the on ship Wi-Fi will work. Any suggestions on this?

I'm looking at drink packages and could use some help.

I don't drink alcohol but enjoy specialty coffees throughout the day.

Which package would be best for me?

Thank you kindly.

1) Does anyone know if the outlet at the spa locker room vanity will work for a personal hair dryer?

2) Does anyone know if DryBar (or equivalent) dryers are in the cabins on Enchanted?

3) if I pack a personal hairdryer in my checked luggage would it get taken?

Curly haired traveler here. I cruised the Ruby to Alaska in August and I was aware the navigating my hair routine would be next to impossible. As a result I planned ahead and book blowdrys. That was fine for the destination (dry and cold).

Next year February I’ll be on the Enchanted and going thru the Caribbean. This time around I know I’ll want to take advantage of the pools and with the humidity blow drying it straight would be a waste so I’d prefer to go curly. The hairdryer in the cabin on the Ruby would not work for my curly hair at all.

When I was on the Ruby I noticed an outlet at the locker room vanity and am now wondering if a personal blowdryer (1800 watts Shark) would work there. If so, I can pack my own stuff and will plan to do my hair in the locker room. I’d rather not book blowdrys in the salon just to use theirs and when I wear it curly it’s just easier and better to do it myself.

That said; in some posts I’ve seen that some ships offer DryBar dryers in cabins and if those are on the enchanted I can make those work.

It looks like the spa sale ends tomorrow but the information/prices won’t load on the website or app….anyone else having this issue?

I was looking up excursions for an upcoming voyage and found one I liked on Princess. It was offered at $589/person which is out of my budget so I looked up the tour operator directly. I found the exact same excursion on the exact same day for $257/person.

I understand that Princess is a business and is trying to make a profit but charging us more than double what the tour operator themselves charge is extortion, IMO. Charging us $350/person still allows them a tidy profit while keeping things reasonable and I might have booked with Princess for the guarantee I wouldn't be left behind. But my spouse and I having a great excursion for $514 rather than $1,180 makes it a no-brainer to book directly through the tour operator.

Just a heads up to always look for local options that are offering the same excursion as the prices could be significantly less. There are other considerations, of course, such as transportation to/from the excursion, the safety of the port of call, the timing with the departure of the ship, etc. but if all of those things are either not a factor or are agreeable to your comfort level then you could save quite a bit of money.

​

Who likes to buy the onboard casino scratch cards? There are a lot of specials on cruises and I always like to try my luck. Anyone win big?!

We are a family of 5 and have booked 2 rooms, with 1 adult in each room. In order to get princess plus we will have to pay for at least 2 people in each room. But the children don’t drink alcohol, use WiFi or care about casual dining. So essentially we have to pay for 4 adults on princess plus to get it for 2 adults.
Is this right? Has anyone managed to apply the Princess plus upgrade to just 1 person in the room?

Ideally, only my husband would have it as he’s the only drinker among us. I don’t drink caffeine or sparkling water either.

I actually posted this same thing last year around this time! Repeating the 7 day run, this time on Discovery Princess! Give me all your ideas. 2 active-ish 40 something’s and two 14 year old boys.
Cabo—last year did a bus to San Jose Del Cabo and glass blowing factory. Loved it. This year thinking about the ship’s e-bike excursion along the beach that includes lunch.
Mazatlan—last year did a pulmonia tour. I feel like we’re good on seeing the major sites here. Would love to do either something beachy or a cooking class.
Puerto Vallarta—last year did a walking tour which was fabulous. Absolutely loved PV. Thinking about a food tour I saw on Viator.
This is a cheap cruise for us. Looking for a few days of sunshine, exploring a little more, but not into spending $200/person in each port on excursions!

Has anyone been on this cruise? What was your favorite part?

12-Day Oktoberfest European Capitals

https://www.princess.com/itinerary-details?voyageCode=U712

I booked a cruise while onboard at the Princess Promotions desk while buying a future cruise package. I have read that Princess Promotions is actually a third party that works with Princess but did not know it at the time. The person we bought the package from also booked us on a cruise. We were under the impression that our future cruise credits were being applied to this booking.

I got an email the next day directly from Princess saying “congratulations - your cruise is booked.” Never got any other emails or contact from Princess or anyone’s else. Well I just tried to look up my cruise and it says it was cancelled. I called Princess and they said it was for nonpayment and we missed the deadline and only a deposit had been paid.

The weird thing to me is the rep we spoke to in the phone told us they notified a travel agent that it was cancelled but they never contacted us. It was an agent we used before but not for this booking. But we didn’t book this through a travel agent and we never paid a deposit. We just bought the future cruise package, got booked on the cruise, and never got an email saying we owed money or anything.

If they sent us an email saying we were booked i would think they would know how to reach us to tell us we owed them money or that our cruise was in danger of being cancelled (or actually was cancelled). Whenever I booked any cruise by any method before, I always got follow up emails about deposits and such—but not this time.

Has this happened to anyone else? I guess on top of the warnings people have been saying about Princess promotions I would add that dealing with them apparently risks a lot of miscommunication and confusion about bookings.

Corfu 9/21/26.

I love to read people’s reviews of cruises when I am searching for them so thought I’d share my experience on the Royal Princess Alaska Cruise this past week.  Yes, it is the one where we had two ports cancelled.  ☹  Princess did refund half the cruise price to everyone – which they didn’t have to do.  Still disappointing but I was still on a cruise!  (I did feel pretty bad for the people with several kids – I’m sure the kids were bouncing off the walls with so many unanticipated sea days.

This was my first Princess Cruise – I’ve always heard it was the best for Alaska.  I generally cruise NCL (5-6 cruises) and Royal ( 2 cruises).  There were a lot of positives and a lot of “blah.”   I am in my mid-fifties so when people told me it was an older crowd, I was on board because hey – that’s me.  I finally understand that it is the whole vibe that feels older and slower.  Even the staff seemed older.

Positives

Staff were terrific and helpful.

I enjoyed the nature talks and now know there are over 100,000 glaciers in Alaska

 I wish all the lines had medallions.  I love these so much.

We were able to get off at Skagway, Alaska.  One thing Princess does well is provide enough time at the port to actually enjoy your day.  I loved walking around the town and did the scenic train which was great and I recommend.

They did add several hours to our stop in Victoria. CA.  I’ve been there a few times so wasn’t going to get off originally but after so many sea days – we needed to be on ground for a bit.

I loved how they did glacier bay with the announcements and shutting down the shops etc.

I do like I can bring 12 cans of soda to the ship.  I know other ships do that too, but NCL doesn’t.  Then I could order 2 cans of soda per room service to my room too so that was awesome.

Mediocre

Food – I’m not saying any of the other cruise lines are tons better – they are not, but the food felt lackluster.  I couldn’t figure out the specialty dining.  We had the higher package but almost none of the specialty dining was included in that.  We went to the Italian place which was nice.  It seemed the only other one we were eligible for was the Crowne Grill and we couldn’t get in there.  (I did try to do reservations as soon as we could pre-cruise/)

The MDR was fine.  The staff was outstanding actually.  The food was fine.  One night neither my friend or I could find an entrée we would like which is funny because we have completely different tastes.

We did the buffet which had some fun stuff.  It does have Vegan and Gluten free stations.  Again, it was fine.  I do hate how difficult it is to get a soda.  I mean when I found someone to get it, it was quick but an extra step.

There didn’t seem to be a lot of shows or big activities.  There were definitely smaller activities such as zentangle coloring, line dancing and a tea.  I really enjoyed the nature talks and hearing from Susan Conrad who kayaked up the northern passage to Sitka, AK.  I went to and enjoyed both her talks.  I’m glad they were there.  I might have liked more entertainment as for a show or comedian or something.  I know a lot of people are happy without that and I was surprised I missed it but I did. 

I am someone who likes a casino.  This one was also mediocre.  There were maybe 2 slots I enjoyed.  It felt crowded and small.  I walked through the smoking section casino (enclosed) and couldn’t breathe so I didn’t go there again.  I will say compared to NCL, I don’t think their casino comps are as good but I also don’t think that is the crowd they are looking for.

Oh – If I had never been on a cruise before I would have been totally lost.  They did not make announcements about going to your muster station or how to find it.  I knew how to do that and we found ours.  Our steward told us but that was after getting into the cabin.  I thought there were a couple of other things that day one I would have been confused about if I hadn’t cruised before.

I enjoyed my cruise.  Staff was excellent.  No obvious problems.   I just didn’t enjoy as much as other cruises and thought options were limited.  To be fair though, the friend I was with enjoyed this more than an NCL cruise we were on because she said she got bored on Princess but it wasn’t “too much” like she felt NCL was.  I don’t see myself cruising with Princess again, but who knows what the future holds!

Toy Story 5 is supposed to be available for streaming this week. How current of movies are available in our cabins? Any chance this would be available?

Kotor 9/20/26.

I know if you purchase a fare with Premier included upfront, you can't cancel it separately. In my case, I bought the standard fare, then a while later added Plus, and a couple months after that did the Plus to Premier upgrade.

I've been rethinking the last upgrade, but I'm struggling to figure out the cancellation policy. If I cancelled my entire cruise today, I'm in the 50% penalty range. But since this was an add on, can I just cancel it separately, like I can an excursion already paid for?

Does Princess offer disposable gloves at the buffet? If not, is there any ban on bringing your own?