Dan

Howard you guys may be right......... i still question this "surcharge" I don't think everything is as it appears.. I didn't mean to come across as correcting you, I'm just thinking that inflationary price increases are fine, but how can they predict fuel increases like this? Fuel is such an a big expense that it's really hard to absorb that increase. The courier company I work for has a fuel surcharge of somewhere around 11% right now. I know our major competitors also have one, that varies between the service offered. They get adjusted on a monthly basis depending on the average price of either diesel or jet fuel. I think based on what we are charging, the cruise company's surcharges are a bargain. $35 per person for a week is a pretty low percentage. And at least they didn't go with a percentage, because I think it would be unfair to charge someone who pays for a suite a fuel charge several times that of someone who buys an inside cabin, when they are both using the same amount of fuel.

Well Mr Michael at least put a plausible reason on the ravble...for that I do appreciate the response.. but it also occurs to me ... that when pricing cruise fares that far out should they not already take into account inflation???.... Inflation is one thing, 70% increase in fuel can't be accounted for in "inflation".

We sailed HAL for our honeymoon (our first cruise) and loved it. Look forward to trying them again.

I think I read that the return on the points per dollar spent is pretty slim on those cards. I think maybe using an airline credit card might give you more bang for you buck, unless you don't need to fly to your port LOL. Or a cash rebate card like Discover. We have a loyalty program in Canada called Air Miles. I can book an outside, cat 6 on Carnival Conquest for 9000 miles. I can probably pay $700-$800 for that same cabin. Those same 9000 miles would give me 2 airline tickets to Hawaii valued at a few thousand dollars.

I have to respectfully disgaree with John on 2 points. Princess might used to have been considered a premium cruise line, but since they became part of the Carnival Corp family, they are as mass market as Carnival or RCI. They certainly aren't priced as a premium (out of those 3 lines, RCI is the most expensive generally). Also, HAL turning off the lights at 930pm was not our experience when we honeymooned on the Westerdam. For a smaller ship sailing at about 75% capacity, with a noticeably older crowd (although not as old as either of our Carnival cruises - go figure LOL), there was still a disco going until the wee hours, and a couple lounges with musicians playing after 11pm. And the casino of course.

Princess is more the equal to Royal Caribbean, while Celebrity is more of a step up. If Celebrity is your thing, I suggest you give Holland America a try. We honeymooned on the old Westerdam and have yet to find service like that since. It's also difficult comparing different types of ships. Service is generally better on smaller ships, but they don't have the amenities of the larger ships. You have to decide what matters to you. I suggest that when Celebrity starts getting their mini-Voyagers a year from now, many X-vets will be complaining on the boards about how service has gone downhill.

I see you are sailing out of New York. How far is your drive to the pier? Parking will be $180 for your 10 day cruise. If you think you can do it for less than $90 each way, then go for it. Otherwise, drive and park. Have a great cruise, it looks like a great itinerary.

Hanging out with big spenders who buy rounds really helps shave things down a bit LOL.

The Triumph and Victory are the modified sisters of the Destiny. The Spirit, Pride, Legend and Miracle are sisters.

Other than decor, the Valor and Liberty are the same ship. The Triumph is smaller. When we were on Victory, I was wishing it was a little bigger, and voila they came up with the Conquest class LOL.

They are transferring the Sovereign to Pullmantur in Europe, and moving the Monarch from the west coast to Port Canaveral. The Monarch is actually a touch bigger than the Sovereign. There is nothing on the RCI website saying the Mariner is moving, and they have cruises still listed through the end of 2008 on there. Perhaps they are thinking of homeporting the Independence there when it's finished and moving the Mariner elsewhere, perhaps to the west coast.

Just do what I did last time. Order room service the first day, and keep the tray - hide it if you have to, since they don't have trays at the buffet anymore. Then you can take the tray up to Horizon court, load it up and take it back to your cabin. Of course, it helps if your cabin was as close to the buffet as mine was LOL.

I tried Sabatini's. Won't again, but that was just me. We had a group of 8, and our TA paid the fee, and it was a fun experience. I just hit the buffet a while later. No reason you can't try both though LOL. Can't say I get the balcony dinner concept. $50 per person or whatever, for what amounts to room service with champagne and a picture. There is disagreement on another board on whether you can actually order room service off the dinner menu. Some say you can't, others say they just did. But again, this is just me. One of our favourite parts of the cruise is the dining room experience and I have better uses for $100 bucks than sitting on plastic lawn furniture on a rather cramped balcony eating dinner.

Further to my description of the "hump" cabins, I found this picture on Google Earth. You can see the hump sticking out between the line of lifeboats.

A hump, or bump-out, is a part of the ship that sticks out from the sides a bit. Here's the deck plan of the Carnival Spirit. The hump is that part with the blue cabins right below the yellow ones.

I think I read it was around 10 bucks from Crown Bay to Havensite.

I think that was Premier (the Big Red Boat people). They stranded people in Halifax when the ship was seized. I don't beleive Ren stranded anyone, but it's been a while so I may have forgot those details.

I think of those ruebens on the Victory. As well as bacon, sausage, eggs, hash browns, toast, fruit salad and all that other breakfast buffet stuff I never have at home.

If you book a future cruise on Princess, you can book more than one person per certificate in the same cabin, and those people only have to put down the $100 deposit, and they also get the on board credit. This is a tidbit I didn't know when I booked 2 open bookings the last time we were cruising, or I would have only put down $100 instead of $200. They are good for 4 years. I don't beleive Princess is sailing from Galveston now but I think Royal Caribbean and Carnival are. Bookings for cruises are usually open 12-18 months ahead of time so you can book and save for a long time if needed. Have fun on your Grand cruise. I see you are leaving the day before us. That was one of the cruises we were looking at.

At least those sticky shower curtains move when hit by my caboose LOL.

Slightly more acreage in the bathroom.

We've sailed Carnival twice. The Tropicale, which is no longer in the fleet and the Victory. So I guess that leaves the Victory as our favourite LOL. I'd rather try a Conquest-class or a Spirit-class if we go on Carnival again. It'll probably be the Victory again (or the Triumph) though, since we plan on taking the kids for their first cruise on one of the shorter east coast cruises out of New York, and those 2 ships seem to rotate the route year to year.

Thanks everyone for your input and advice. We've settled on the Caribbean Princess doing the eastern route. Simply a matter of convenience and cost. We are going to book it tomorrow after my wife talks to her parents one last time to make sure they are okay with having the kids (I told her not to tempt fate LOL). The route is reversed to what we did last time. Princess Cays on the first day, then St Maarten and St Thomas. I guess that means immigration in St Thomas, but that should make disembarking easier back in FLL. Of course, last time we went, St Maarten was heavily damaged in hurricanes, so we ended up not going there.

I go on vacation to get away from work, not life. Since work for me has nothing to do with a computer, any time I spend online is recreational for me anyway. The last couple cruises, I've gone online on the ship's computers, and would rather do it from a deck chair outside than in the internet cafe. Granted, it wouldn't be near the same amount of time as at home. Some people like to read, some like to just sit back and sunbathe. Why not surf the net as well if you want? And I've said before that if you happen to be in a job that you can't quite get away from, what better place to be answering emails from? LOL Oh, and taking a picture of a note with the name of your port, what a good idea LOL

Yeah, the Crown goes to Aruba the week we are looking at, which is one of things that really grabs our attention. We loved the port stop there when we did the Canal in 2001. The Crown is actually the newest of the 3 ships, and it just came out last year. I was looking at the New York sailings, but they are 9 days, which might be asking too much of the in-laws, since we would of course stretch that by a day or 2 like we will with this 7 day one. Plus the New York sailings are significantly more money. If we did the San Juan, we wouldn't fly from Toronto or London. Air Canada's website doesn't even give me any flight options for those weekends, and the codeshare's on United are ridiculous. Northwest from Detroit is over $600 US right now, while Spirit is just under $350. Both have lousy schedules. Jetblue from Buffalo is around $450 with a slightly more favourable schedule. Spirit does have the advantage of the "Big Front Seats" for not a lot more money