Our cruise is treated as if it were 5 separate segments. Segments 1 through 4 are the base 107-day world cruise: Ft. Lauderdale to Dover. To this we added the 10-day Dover to Stockholm cruise to make ours a 117-day world cruise. When bookings opened, the only choices were the 107 or 117 world cruise.
About 6 months before the cruise began, Princess started to offer the options of booking only a single segment of the 107-day trip. Segment 1 is Ft. Lauderdale to Syndey (35 days). Segment 2 is Syndey to Hong Kong (23 days). Segment 3 is Hong Kong to Dubai (22 days). Segment 4 is Dubai to Dover (27 days).
Of the approximately 630 passengers, 400 are doing the 107 or 117-day world cruises. When we hit Sydney, 130 people got off and slightly fewer got on. (We have open cabins this leg.) In Hong Kong the ship completely fills back up.
This structure of the cruise is important if you are a frequent cruiser with Princess. If you have “elite status” (15 prior cruises or 150 days total), you get certain perks (reset of your mini-bar, additional free internet minutes) redone at each new segment.
Bills are also closed out at the end of each of the 4 segments.
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Monday, March 2, 2009
Cabin Choice—How Much You Pay
This is my third posting on cabins. See the prior two below.
I saw a tv documentary once on airlines. It took a sample flight from New York to LA and compared all of the fares paid for coach seats. Of the 250 travelers, there were about 90 distinct prices…from a low of $90 to a high of $900. The $900 was more than many of the travelers paid in first class. Some airlines have tried to simplify their rate structure, but they cannot make money when they do so. They have to try to get as much as possible when someone is will to pay a lot because they absolutely must be on that flight, and they discount if that is what it takes to fill the seat.
Cruise cabins work the same way. One passenger in an economy cabin asked some ladies with a similar type of cabin what they paid. He was shocked to learn that the two of them had paid about $50,000 more than he and his wife had paid. The ladies travel agent seemed to have taken advantage of the ladies.
One observation is that a travel agent CAN get you a lower price than the cruise line will offer directly. This seems backwards at first because the travel agent is one extra person in the chain who has to take a profit. However, cruises offer deals to travel agents because they need the agencies’ help to book out all the rooms. Further, without travel agencies, the cruise line might have to fund a much bigger and costly marketing department. Finally, when you book through a travel agent, the cruise line can defer all our your pesky follow up questions back to your travel agent to handle. In our case, we originally booked this trip through Princess directly. Later we were referred by a friend to his travel agent who had a cancel with Princess and assign the booking to him. We got a 4% reduction in cost…a lot of money for a trip this big.
Second observation is that booking early may get you the special room and trip that you want, but you’ll likely pay a higher price. If you can be flexible on both type of room and which cruise, some opportunities for lower price may open up as the cruise time gets closer and the cruise line wants to fill up the empty rooms. One good time to find this type of opportunity is when the final payment is due for the cruise. In our case that was 90 or 120 prior to departure. I understand there were a number of booking s for our cruise that were made a year or so ago, but cancelled at the final payment date when the downturn in the economy caused a greater than normal number of bookings to cancel.
I saw a tv documentary once on airlines. It took a sample flight from New York to LA and compared all of the fares paid for coach seats. Of the 250 travelers, there were about 90 distinct prices…from a low of $90 to a high of $900. The $900 was more than many of the travelers paid in first class. Some airlines have tried to simplify their rate structure, but they cannot make money when they do so. They have to try to get as much as possible when someone is will to pay a lot because they absolutely must be on that flight, and they discount if that is what it takes to fill the seat.
Cruise cabins work the same way. One passenger in an economy cabin asked some ladies with a similar type of cabin what they paid. He was shocked to learn that the two of them had paid about $50,000 more than he and his wife had paid. The ladies travel agent seemed to have taken advantage of the ladies.
One observation is that a travel agent CAN get you a lower price than the cruise line will offer directly. This seems backwards at first because the travel agent is one extra person in the chain who has to take a profit. However, cruises offer deals to travel agents because they need the agencies’ help to book out all the rooms. Further, without travel agencies, the cruise line might have to fund a much bigger and costly marketing department. Finally, when you book through a travel agent, the cruise line can defer all our your pesky follow up questions back to your travel agent to handle. In our case, we originally booked this trip through Princess directly. Later we were referred by a friend to his travel agent who had a cancel with Princess and assign the booking to him. We got a 4% reduction in cost…a lot of money for a trip this big.
Second observation is that booking early may get you the special room and trip that you want, but you’ll likely pay a higher price. If you can be flexible on both type of room and which cruise, some opportunities for lower price may open up as the cruise time gets closer and the cruise line wants to fill up the empty rooms. One good time to find this type of opportunity is when the final payment is due for the cruise. In our case that was 90 or 120 prior to departure. I understand there were a number of booking s for our cruise that were made a year or so ago, but cancelled at the final payment date when the downturn in the economy caused a greater than normal number of bookings to cancel.
Cabin Choice—Is Bigger Better?
There are many choices of cabin size. Smallest are inside cabins. These have no porthole and are about 200 sq ft. A travel agent told us that some folks in these cabins turn their tv to the channel that shows was the camera on the front of the boat sees. This gives them a tiny sense of being connected to the outside.
Next up are cabins on the lower floors, near the water line, that have small portholes…about 1 foot in diameter. Not much, but you don’t feel you are sleeping in a closet.
Next step is an “obstructed view.” These are on the 6th deck, and have full portholes (3 feet diameter), but they are blocked by lifeboats.
Next size have full portholes with no obstructions.
Next up are the balcony cabins. These are about the same size as all the ones I’ve mentioned so far: about 210 sq ft. Here you get a balcony that is comfortable for 2 people, and a nice full sliding glass door.
Next size up are the mini-suites. These are about 320 sq ft. On our ship they are about as deep as the regular balcony cabins, but are about 50% wider. On the bigger ships, the mini-suites were deeper, but about the same width as the regular balcony cabins. This latter configuration is nice in that it allows for a curtain that can separate the sofa area from the bed area for those couples that go to sleep and wake up on different schedules.
Finally are the full suites. These are 850-900 sq ft. They have a totally separate living room and a second half bath. In the full bath there is a Jacuzzi and shower. The living room has a full size couch, and a table that seats 4. The balcony is about 30 feet long with a dining table for 4, 2 reading chairs, and 2 lounges.
There are 10 full suites on the ship. The four in the front are call penthouse suites (PS). The 6 in the back are called owner’s suites (OS). The OS’s are slightly bigger than the PS’s due to the curved front wall in the PS’s. The OS’s also have their balconies slightly wrap around the side of the ship.
When we booked (over 16 months ago) the price of the minimum accommodation was about $250/day per person. The balcony cabins were about $300/day per person; the mini suites were $400/day per person; the full suites were $500/day per person.
The choice of cabin type has a lot to do about how you plan to spend your time. You can easily spend 50% less than another passenger by selecting the minimum. This may work well if you plan to do little more than sleep, shower, and use the bathroom in your cabin. You can spend your days in activities, sitting by the pool, or sitting on the open side deck on the 5th floor. Or you could spend back $500 of the money saved to have access for the entire trip to a special area on deck 9 at the front of the ship that has a hot tub and many deck chairs. (We have “free” access to this area as part of our PH perks. It is a nice area, but I’ve only used it twice so far.)
There are a few father-daughter and mother-daughter combinations on the cruise. Especially for the father-daughter ones, these smaller cabins mean that most of the changing of clothes takes place in the very small bathroom.
Truth is, if the mini-suites had been of the design of the larger ships, where the reading and sleeping area had a curtain, we might have chosen to stop at that level. We’ve seen all of the types of rooms, and the minis are quite nice.
Having said all this, we are very happy with our PH. We got a lot of extra room for the final step up in price. We probably spend more of our time in our cabin that most because the size and features make it comfortable to do so. (Right now I’m typing this in the living area while Kathleen is still asleep. We could not do this in the other type of cabins.)
We can order room service off of the main dining room menu. Other cabins have a more limited room service. This makes it nice for us to have dinner a couple of times a week in our cabin. Diner takes 20 minutes instead of 1-1/2 hours and we can either be in the living area or on the deck.
We get other complementary feature with the PH: free internet, free laundry, weekly resets of the mini bar, early departure treatment at ports. I’ll talk about some of these in later postings.
Next up are cabins on the lower floors, near the water line, that have small portholes…about 1 foot in diameter. Not much, but you don’t feel you are sleeping in a closet.
Next step is an “obstructed view.” These are on the 6th deck, and have full portholes (3 feet diameter), but they are blocked by lifeboats.
Next size have full portholes with no obstructions.
Next up are the balcony cabins. These are about the same size as all the ones I’ve mentioned so far: about 210 sq ft. Here you get a balcony that is comfortable for 2 people, and a nice full sliding glass door.
Next size up are the mini-suites. These are about 320 sq ft. On our ship they are about as deep as the regular balcony cabins, but are about 50% wider. On the bigger ships, the mini-suites were deeper, but about the same width as the regular balcony cabins. This latter configuration is nice in that it allows for a curtain that can separate the sofa area from the bed area for those couples that go to sleep and wake up on different schedules.
Finally are the full suites. These are 850-900 sq ft. They have a totally separate living room and a second half bath. In the full bath there is a Jacuzzi and shower. The living room has a full size couch, and a table that seats 4. The balcony is about 30 feet long with a dining table for 4, 2 reading chairs, and 2 lounges.
There are 10 full suites on the ship. The four in the front are call penthouse suites (PS). The 6 in the back are called owner’s suites (OS). The OS’s are slightly bigger than the PS’s due to the curved front wall in the PS’s. The OS’s also have their balconies slightly wrap around the side of the ship.
When we booked (over 16 months ago) the price of the minimum accommodation was about $250/day per person. The balcony cabins were about $300/day per person; the mini suites were $400/day per person; the full suites were $500/day per person.
The choice of cabin type has a lot to do about how you plan to spend your time. You can easily spend 50% less than another passenger by selecting the minimum. This may work well if you plan to do little more than sleep, shower, and use the bathroom in your cabin. You can spend your days in activities, sitting by the pool, or sitting on the open side deck on the 5th floor. Or you could spend back $500 of the money saved to have access for the entire trip to a special area on deck 9 at the front of the ship that has a hot tub and many deck chairs. (We have “free” access to this area as part of our PH perks. It is a nice area, but I’ve only used it twice so far.)
There are a few father-daughter and mother-daughter combinations on the cruise. Especially for the father-daughter ones, these smaller cabins mean that most of the changing of clothes takes place in the very small bathroom.
Truth is, if the mini-suites had been of the design of the larger ships, where the reading and sleeping area had a curtain, we might have chosen to stop at that level. We’ve seen all of the types of rooms, and the minis are quite nice.
Having said all this, we are very happy with our PH. We got a lot of extra room for the final step up in price. We probably spend more of our time in our cabin that most because the size and features make it comfortable to do so. (Right now I’m typing this in the living area while Kathleen is still asleep. We could not do this in the other type of cabins.)
We can order room service off of the main dining room menu. Other cabins have a more limited room service. This makes it nice for us to have dinner a couple of times a week in our cabin. Diner takes 20 minutes instead of 1-1/2 hours and we can either be in the living area or on the deck.
We get other complementary feature with the PH: free internet, free laundry, weekly resets of the mini bar, early departure treatment at ports. I’ll talk about some of these in later postings.
Cabin Choice—Where You Are
There are 3 aspects of cabin choice that are important: how big you want, where on the ship you are, and how much you pay for a given choice of cabin type. I’ll post on each of these separately…here on location.
In the aft (back) of the ship, you get engine vibration. It can seem soothing, or annoying. It is a constant shuttering motion with noise.
In the forward (front) of the ship, you generally get a smooth ride, but when the ship is pitching (rocking front to back direction) you experience this more than others. I don’t think this has been so bad. Kathleen takes meds each day and is not happy when we have this situation occur (but it has only really been significant about twice in the 6+ weeks so far).
In the center of the ship, you minimize both of these effects.
Beyond this, you can get a bad cabin. You can be above or below the casino or the dancing area…or next to the laundry room. Normally you are warned of this, but it is worth checking the map of the ship on the internet site to figure this out and avoid the bad cabins.
In the aft (back) of the ship, you get engine vibration. It can seem soothing, or annoying. It is a constant shuttering motion with noise.
In the forward (front) of the ship, you generally get a smooth ride, but when the ship is pitching (rocking front to back direction) you experience this more than others. I don’t think this has been so bad. Kathleen takes meds each day and is not happy when we have this situation occur (but it has only really been significant about twice in the 6+ weeks so far).
In the center of the ship, you minimize both of these effects.
Beyond this, you can get a bad cabin. You can be above or below the casino or the dancing area…or next to the laundry room. Normally you are warned of this, but it is worth checking the map of the ship on the internet site to figure this out and avoid the bad cabins.
Guam Chapels
There were chapels in Guam at the beach and at the overlook. A passenger said that these were for weddings. He had a friend who had done high-end weddings in Guam. These were popular with the Japanese.
The agency would fly the family and guests in from Japan. They would provide gowns, tuxes, and even best man if you wanted…all for added fees of course. Because of the high cost of facilities in Japan, this could actually be cheaper than doing the wedding in Japan.
It looked like 1/3 to ½ of the people in Guam are Japanese. We don’t know whether a significant portion of these are tourist versus residents.
We are now sailing to Japan. We’ll have 3 days at sea, then visit Osaka and Hiroshima on two successive days.
The agency would fly the family and guests in from Japan. They would provide gowns, tuxes, and even best man if you wanted…all for added fees of course. Because of the high cost of facilities in Japan, this could actually be cheaper than doing the wedding in Japan.
It looked like 1/3 to ½ of the people in Guam are Japanese. We don’t know whether a significant portion of these are tourist versus residents.
We are now sailing to Japan. We’ll have 3 days at sea, then visit Osaka and Hiroshima on two successive days.
Day 47 – 3/2 – Guam
Guam is a US territory. It looked like “Anytown, USA.” Because of its location relative to the date line, its motto is “the US starts its day in Guam.”
This was our most non-exotic excursion day. We went to the post office, to K-Mart, to an ATM (we could get US dollars here), to the beach, and to a city lookout.
At the post office we mailed a wine carton box full of items (mostly clothing) back to Cincinnati. Because this is US, it is US postage. The box cost less than $20 to mail surface…5-10 weeks to get there. BUT…we stood in line 45 minutes to send it. (This is why the government should not take over our health care!)
The other lesson here is not to pack so much. For us it was relatively easy to overpack because we drove to the departure port. I made a specific list of what I thought I would need. It was too long. To make it worse, if we had extra space in a suitcase, I’d through in an extra pair of jeans or t-shirt or pants. But, since we will fly back, it was time to readjust.
Kathleen also sent some items back. For a woman, the variety is more important, so women may still want to overpack a little bit.
We went to K-Mart next. Seems simple, but you do have to restock on some items. Still, in all, we generally packed more health and beauty items than we needed.
We went to a nice beach. Water was like bathroom temperature, and air was in the 80’s. This was a very beautiful beach area. It is hard to believe that NE US is getting slammed with 18 inches or so of blizzard snow.
We went to a nice overview of the city called Two Lovers Point. Picture below.
We did this on a “self guided” tour. Six of us rented a car through Hertz. It cost us $23/person and included being picked up and dropped off at the ship. The ships tours cost about $90/person each. The people who did the ships excursions were generally quite unhappy. They did little more than we did, said that the tour guides did little more than explain that this stop was for 15 minutes…they felt they spent $90 for a 3-4 hour bus ride.
This was our most non-exotic excursion day. We went to the post office, to K-Mart, to an ATM (we could get US dollars here), to the beach, and to a city lookout.
At the post office we mailed a wine carton box full of items (mostly clothing) back to Cincinnati. Because this is US, it is US postage. The box cost less than $20 to mail surface…5-10 weeks to get there. BUT…we stood in line 45 minutes to send it. (This is why the government should not take over our health care!)
The other lesson here is not to pack so much. For us it was relatively easy to overpack because we drove to the departure port. I made a specific list of what I thought I would need. It was too long. To make it worse, if we had extra space in a suitcase, I’d through in an extra pair of jeans or t-shirt or pants. But, since we will fly back, it was time to readjust.
Kathleen also sent some items back. For a woman, the variety is more important, so women may still want to overpack a little bit.
We went to K-Mart next. Seems simple, but you do have to restock on some items. Still, in all, we generally packed more health and beauty items than we needed.
We went to a nice beach. Water was like bathroom temperature, and air was in the 80’s. This was a very beautiful beach area. It is hard to believe that NE US is getting slammed with 18 inches or so of blizzard snow.
We went to a nice overview of the city called Two Lovers Point. Picture below.
We did this on a “self guided” tour. Six of us rented a car through Hertz. It cost us $23/person and included being picked up and dropped off at the ship. The ships tours cost about $90/person each. The people who did the ships excursions were generally quite unhappy. They did little more than we did, said that the tour guides did little more than explain that this stop was for 15 minutes…they felt they spent $90 for a 3-4 hour bus ride.
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