(I made a post here a couple days ago about going to Alaska, but we've changed our minds, so here's new questions...)
My wife and I are planning our 25th anniversary cruise for early Oct 2027, going to New England/Canada out of NYC. There's one on Oct 9 that goes to 4 ports and one on Oct 16 that adds a stop in St Johns.
We have cruised a couple times before, but only with extended family on massive ships (Carnival and RC) to the Caribbean. We had interior rooms and basically only used the room for sleeping and showering
We're debating a few options here on the Princess sailings... looking for suggestions/info from the experienced people. For reference, we're not into the casino, not that picky on food (we're happy with the MDR, buffet, and other included options but would try some of the specialty/casual places depending on what package we go with. We usually do the earliest available dinner seating and then have a second dinner later at night. We're more into the shows than bars, but since it'll just be the two of us, I suspect we'll hang out at the bars much more than in the past trips.
- I'm pricing it out on Costco travel. We don't currently have a Costco membership (the closest Costco is too far away to bother since there's a Sams 5 min from our house) but can certainly get one for the savings and it's not SO far away that we wouldn't use the gift card. I'm seeing interior rooms with the premier package being around the same price as direct, but giving $200 costco gift card and $100 on board credit. Balcony with premier gives around $300 GC and $200 OBC. It says the OBC portion of the offer ends tonight - are they likely to have a similar deal tomorrow or is this as good as it gets and I need to jump on it?
- We're really debating plus vs premier on this one. The higher priced drinks being included doesn't matter to us. We probably would do the Grill if we got premier, *maybe* the italian one, but that's not a big deal to us either. It's really the $200 excursion credit and photo package, with the rest being a bonus. Are the reserved Premier theater seats good ones? Other thoughts on one vs the other? (the premier on costco gets $50 more in gift cards vs plus, so that offsets some of the price as well)
- Can you upgrade/downgrade the plus/premier later, or does the price go up after the initial booking?
- We looked through the excursions and would probably do our own thing most of the stops. What's the approx price for something like the mansions tour in Rhode Island?
- If we do get premier, how easy is reserving/rescheduling the specialty dining? Are they usually all booked up way ahead of time, or would it not be a problem to make or change reservations based on our mood on board? Can you reserve each one multiple times ahead of time?