Last year, Suzi and I took a Halloween Cruise on the Majestic Princess. We decided to grab a table in the Buffet and ended up sitting next to a few members of the entertainment staff. Suzi and I brought a big bag of Halloween candy to pass out to crew (and any kids on the cruise). We ended up having breakfast and/or lunch with them every day. One of the staff was the trombone player, Tony Tromboney. Since I played trombone in High School, we made a connection.
We have kept in touch with Tony ever since. He had a couple of free days in Los Angeles between ships, so we met Tony at his hotel and took him for a drive around town.
Tony is currently the Music Manager on the Royal Princess, whose homeport is San Francisco. They are doing a California Coastal itinerary and were in San Pedro (Port of Los Angeles) on Friday. Tony was able to get us both Day Passes, so we could actually board the ship, have lunch and visit.
We met Tony outside the cruise terminal and got to go in through the Crew entrance. We “traded” in our Passports for our visitor badges, went through security and onto the ship.
Having had the opportunity on the Ruby Princess to do “The Ultimate Ship Tour”, so knew what to expect. A very utilitarian environment but very clean and well maintained.
Since we were “visitors” and not fare-paying “guests”, Tony was able to show us some of the crew areas, like the Crew Mess.
Officers Mess
And the crew pool at the bow, including the “spare” anchor.
We were able to meet some more of the crew and will, hopefully, see them in the near future.
We were able to go into the Horizon Court Buffet and sat with Tony at one of the high top tables, similar to when we first met on the Majestic one year ago, almost to the day.
4:00 PM… (OK, 16:00 Ships time), it was time to disembark after relaxing in the Piazza and enjoying a hot chocolate from the International Café.
As we traded our passes for out passports, we realized how lucky we were to have met Tony and to have kept in touch.
Long time no blog. I wonder why. Not much has happened, has there? Let’s just say it was a very loooonnnnggg 18 months. We had a back to back (B2B) cruise booked for April, 2020. In fact, we were going to be traveling with two other couples during one of the legs. Canceled.
Per Princess, they were expecting the pause to last until mid May, so we booked Alaska. Canceled. Let’s try Europe for the summer. Canceled. Another B2B for October. Canceled. The only good thing was that Princess offered 150% Future Cruise Credits (FCC) if we kept the money with them. Since we had the cruises budgeted out, we went for the FCC’s.
So not only was the industry shutdown, ships were anchoring off the coast in Long Beach. On one day, we counted 7 ships, mostly Princess. Talk about adding salt into the wound. So close, yet so far. We took weekly drives across town to see ships docked in San Pedro. Sad, but kept the dreams alive that someday, they’d be back.
Finally, with the pause ending in sight, we booked Ruby Princess for Sept. 18th and Majestic Princess for October 30th. Another cancelation… Ruby was being transferred to its new home in San Francisco.
Since I already had time off booked for the week of Sept. 18th, we looked for an alternate on Princess but none we could do in that time frame. We had exactly 14 days before becoming Elite on Princess and 14 days booked, so we really wanted to find a way to make this work. We have a 15 Day Hawaiian cruise booked for April, 2022 and wanted to board as Elite (free laundry) instead of having to wait until our next cruise.
Well, drop back and punt. The Carnival Panorama was sailing out of Long Beach on Sept 18th and going on the same itinerary, so we booked it.
As you might recall, Cruise #19 took us to the same ports but that was on the Carnival Imagination. This was on Royal Princess.
I’m not knocking Carnival, by any means, but #19 was with our brother, sister and two teen boys, so they would have been bored on Princess with no water slide. Us, we like the relaxation of cruising.
So why so soon? Easy answer? We are cruise addicts. That’s what we do. We conjure up reasons to cruise. Now the rationalization behind booking this cruise is…
As of this moment in time, we have three 7 day Princess cruises booked for 2020. That’s 21 sea days. We need 18 sea days to reach Elite. If you do the math, it means that we will reach Elite during our third cruise for the year. As you know, loyalty upgrades don’t happen until you have completed the cruise. So… by taking this 4 day jaunt, we will reach Elite when we get off our second 7 day cruise and will board the third cruise as Elite.
Honestly, Suzi and I aren’t into the whole status thing. No… Want free laundry and a bar setup. We aren’t interested in getting any preferential treatment or think we’re “owed” anything… Just want my damn free laundry. HA HA! I know, I know… It would cost a lot less to pay for laundry than paying for this cruise but… Gotta have an excuse for the addiction.
So while we were enjoying Cruise #20 on the Royal and realized we could become Elite 1 cruise sooner, we booked this 4 day. Generally, we feel that 10 Days is the minimum cruise length, so were glad to get away but thought the time would just fly by. It really didn’t. We had visions of walking into our cabin and seeing disembarkation instructions… We did not.
This was our first ever Forward facing cabin, Lido 103 Starboard. It’s an extended balcony stateroom with obstructed view. It was a very large balcony, but the glass under the railing was nice thick steel. Superman would have had difficulty looking through this. But, all in all, excellent cabin and we’d do it again.
Copyright Meinke Photography
Embarkation using Ocean Medallion was a breeze. We boarded at 11 and our Cabin was ready. Since we had just gotten off the ship in Oct, we knew the layout. Since we booked so close to sailing we got Anytime Dining and were #54 on the wait list for Late Traditional Dining. Since we prefer building a relationship with our waitstaff, we just opted to eat all meals at Horizon Court, which was fine cause I didn’t have to bring long pants and dress shoes…
We recognized quite a few of the staff and several of them recognized us. Matt O was our CD the first cruise. This time it was Marcus. Two totally different personalities but both were present and on top of things. We had seen all production shows but did go to see our favorite comedian, AJ Jamal. Just as funny the second time.
One of the guest lecturers, Leo Rossi, went on tour with several bands including Fleetwood Mac. He had lots of great stories to tell. Really glad we went to those talks in the Princess LIVE! theater.
Woke up the morning of Day 2, walked out on the Veranda and saw…
Copyright Meinke Photography
We booked an excursion to the Wrigley Gardens through Princess for later in the day, so we had a leisurely breakfast before heading to the tender. By now, it was starting to get a bit cloudy and cold. As we started to group together, we found out there were mechanical issues with the tour bus, so it was cancelled. Oh well… We ended up walking all the way from the tender dock to the Casino and back. While we were in line for the tender, it started to sprinkle. By the time we got back to our cabin, it was raining.
The next day was a day at sea. There was something magical about this day. Since Catalina and Ensenada are in close proximity, the ship was doing 2 or 3 knots. Add to that, being over the front of the ship, it was eerily quiet. No wake, no wind.
Copyright Meinke Photography
The last day was Ensenada. Was quite cool stormy-looking but we walked all the way into town and back. I know this is really nothing more than a Jones Act requirement, but I kinda like Ensenada. It’s laid back but it’s comfortable.
And… During the cruise, we got an email from the Upgrade Gods. We found out that for our second cruise of 2020, we are getting upgraded from a standard balcony to a Mini Suite. SWEET! This is Leg Two of a Back To Back, so I called Princess and we were able to upgrade Leg One to a Mini Suite, just not the same one… I’ll check back after any deposits got returned and see if we can book the same room for both legs.
With all of the online tools available today, why go “old school” and use a Travel Agent? That was my reasoning for not using a TA ever since I knew I could book everything myself.
My “day job” is computer technical support, so I have no qualms getting online, searching for the best itinerary, shore excursions, etc. I started watching a YouTube vlog, CruiseTipsTv
Sheri and her family always use a TA for the expertise as a value-added resource. Once I found out the TA Sheri used was right around the corner from us, I decided to give CTA Travel a try. Suzi and I made an appointment with Karen Lentz and the rest is history.
Karen listened to our preferences and follows up when booking. She can apply special rates or On Board Credits granted to TA’s that us mere mortals don’t get. Except for making payments, I still have the ability to log into the Princess site and research, book excursions and do pretty much everything I used to do.
Then there are usually perks:
For example, the two cruises we’ve booked through CTA, Karen provided a really nice breakfast served on our balcony. This is something we would not do for ourselves, but found totally delightful! Included with our most recent cruise to Hawaii was a Princess coffee card, worth 15 specialty coffees along with two coffee mugs showing the Hawaiian Islands and Ports Of Call. Very nice and much better than the picture frame our first TA used to give us…
Personalized service. This past cruise was the first time we decided to rent a car. Karen helped us research rates and contact info for shuttles to and from the port to the agency. Karen also sends custom documents detailing things to do during your stops. They even have a cool app for your smartphone with your itinerary, etc.
CTA does charge a minimal maintenance fee (hey, they gotta make a living, too), but the OBC we got from CTA more than paid the fee.
We all love OBC’s. Here are a few ways we maximize money we have to spend on board. This may not work for you, but it fits us just fine.
Princess Visa. Since our vacation of choice is a cruise and our cruise line of choice is Princess and we don’t rely of air mileage to get to the port, we use the Princess Visa exclusively. We just do our normal monthly spending and use the card. We never spend more than we can fully pay off, so never carry a balance or pay interest. We get double points for Princess purchases and single points otherwise. $100.00 in OBC uses 10,000 points. $500.00 OBC, however, is only 40,000 points. Of course you can redeem for a variety of products or services, but we go for the OBC. Another plus is… OBC’s from redeemed points is fully refundable, so anything left over comes back to us by check.
CCL Shareholder Benefits. Purchasing the required 100 minimum shares of Carnival Corporation stock just to get the shareholders benefit is NOT a good reason to buy stock. It would take you 112 1 – 6 day cruises or 55 7 – 13 day cruises or 23 14 days or longer cruises to recoup your investment. If you are like me and like to make a long term investment in companies I am a consumer of, it’s worth looking into. I look at it as an extra dividend every time I step on board.
Future Cruise Deposit. Leave a deposit, normally $100.00 per person, and get OBC based on cruise length and cabin type.
Use a Travel Agent. I must admit, that I am completely capable of handling all of my own arrangements and did so until just last year. After following my friend. Sheri, at CruiseTipsTv, I tried it out. The agent Sheri uses is about 3 miles away, so I made an appointment with CTA Travel. Although they do charge a minimal service fee, Karen always gets us enough of an extra OBC to cover the fee. a TA will also keep track of any fare changes, handle special requests and sends us personalized guides of where we are going.
Bottom line, we usually get on the ship with at least $700.00 in “free” money. Takes care of tips, excursions and extras.
Every time I pull out my Princess Visa, I’ll say “Cruise Points!!!!”
The Veranda Life 