Dan

The Miracle, Pride and Legend are all sister ships to the Spirit, so those reviews should give you the basics. They are all the same floor plans, just the decor is different.

$250M isn't that much to refurb 8 ships. That's about half the cost of a new ship. The newest of that class is 10 years old now (or almost 10 anyway), so they need to be re-freshed.

No wonder this guy is divorced from the wife that sailed 200 days with him LOL. I wonder if he carefully inspected the life raft she gave him LOL.

Your best bet is to make sure you book cruise air at this point, then try to find your own flights as they open up in December '07/ January '08. You'll be able to cancel the cruise air up to final payment in late summer '08 if you find your own deal.

I thought Billy Vader was absolutely hilarious when we saw him on the Grand Princess in 99. I picked up his tape on the ship. I had a sore stomach the next day and had lost a bit of my voice from laughing so hard.

Back in the 80s when it seemed like a plane was hi-jacked every other week, a Tonight Show comedian joked that TWA stood for "Travel With Arabs" while Delta meant "Don't Even Let Them Aboard". LOL

As with most other things on a cruise ship, this would likely have a hefty price premium over what my eye exams at home would cost. I've never seen the doctor on the ship, but I have heard it is ridiculously priced. A haircut is usually 2-3 times the price of a cut at homne, even a man's haircut. I would not pay a couple or three hundred dollars for an eye exam on the ship. I would not imagine that anybody who won't take an hour of their time at home to get their eyes checked will give up that hour while on vacation.

I hardly read the boards over at critic anymore, other than the air board, but just had a look at the Princess board and found a thread relating to this topic. It seems that Princess will not have any ships sailing out of FLL in the summer of 2008, which as was said on that thread, really isn't anything new prior to 3 years ago. The Caribbean Princess will reposition to Brooklyn New York and do 9 day Caribbean sailings from May to August and 7 day Canada/New England from late August to late October, before repositioning to San Juan for the winter of 2008/09. Presumably a couple of the Grand, Star, Golden, Crown and Emerald will move to FLL for the winter of 08/09.

My impression from the title was the poster was referring to late 08/ early 09. I think part of why it seems so late for them to be opening up the schedule might still be uncertainty about New Orleans. Princess was going to put the Crown Princess in NOLA last winter, so they might still be evaluating whether they might want to look there for that season, or plan on deploying elsewhere again.

Probably a matter of it's too early yet. The website only has a couple Caribbean cruises listed for May 2008 at this point, and only 10 for the whole line for that month, but it will open up soon. There isn't a chance in you know where that Princess will stop sailing from Port Everglades.

We didn't have an issue with our cruise last year, but we booked and made the request almost a year in advance. I did read on the larger boards that people on our sailing were waitlisted for fixed seating. I also had heard they had one dining room set for traditional and 3 for personal choice, and they ended up using 2 for each. Makes you wonder how popular personal choice is when they have so many people wanting traditional.

Also I found that watching the transit back down the locks in the afternoon was more interesting than going in. First off, it was less crowded on deck. Second, you have a better view from up high on the ship. When you look at the locks as you approach from the channel, most of the public decks on the ship are higher than the lake level already, and makes the whole thing a little less impressive looking. But when you stand over the bridge and look back down the locks from the lake, it almost looks like you are on the top of the first peak on a roller coaster (and I did wonder out loud what the ride would be like should those locks give way, being that they are almost 100 years old LOL). Make sure you drink lots of fluids, and wear a hat or something. The sun down there is deceiving.

I'm sure some swearing would be involved LOL.

To trim costs, first I would say that usually onboard gratuities are $10 pp/per day, so that cuts $900. You can add as you wish, but that's the base. I don't know why anyone would pay to park at the pier for 90 days. If you are close enough to drive, you can rent a car one way, or get family/friend to drive you. I'm not sure what the 32 ports at $100 per is, but we aren't shoppers, so this wouldn't be a factor, especially since a couple lines down is something about shore excursions. We also aren't drinkers, so that part would be cut back. But I do like the casino, and that's not factored in. So it would still probably cost us 10 grand. Factor that in with lost income, and the fact that most of the bills don't stop when you are away. Oh yeah, and our kids are 5 and we wouldn't want to be away from them that long. I'd love to do a world cruise (although not on the QE2), but can't see it being feasible for us.

I've posted before that I think crew members from Western countries were the worst of the bunch. They aren't motivated the same way, don't like to be seen as servants, and generally looked like they were there for a working holiday.

I didn't like Limon when we were there, and this only reinforces that feeling. I know crap can happen anywhere, but in that place I found many of hte locals to be pushy and trying to insinuate that we should spend lots since we were so rich.

Gross tonnage isn't weight, it's space. I don't beleive those battleships were 900 foot long, 100 foot wide 150 foot tall boxes like a cruise ship is. Also, naval ships are usually measured in displacement, while cruise ships aren't (even if some literature sometimes calls it that). Here's a piece from wiki with some interesing comparisons.

$800 worth of internet is about 40 hours. If somebody is spending 40 hours online during a 7 day cruise, they really should just stay home. I'd have to see what the new limits are before I say it's a bad thing.

I liked the GM Robot. The Fedex one was pretty funny. Many of the ads can be seen at www.sportsline.com/superads

Just take a lounge back to your cabin like we did LOL

It is standard for cruise lines to charge a deviation fee if you want to go a day ahead. I haven't booked a pre-cruise stay through the cruise line, but I don't beleive they charge the air deviation in that case since they are making money off your hotel price. I'm not sure what your TA is telling you. If they are telling you the deviation is $270 (hopefully for both of you, not each), this makes sense if not booking a hotel through Princess, since there also is a difference in airfare clause as part of going a day ahead. Sometimes those flights are more expensive. But if they are charging you the deviation even if you book the pre-cruise through Princess, I'd say they are charging this in error. Cruise air isn't always a bad deal, especially to places like San Juan. It's usually pretty competitive going there. But even to Florida. Our friends are going from Toronto to Ft Lauderdale in March. They got their flight info last week. I checked it out on the airline website and the airline is almost $300/pp more than what Princess charged. And this was consistent with what I found over the last 9 months since they booked.

We've had a couple cruises where hurricnaes went through the islands a week or so ahead, causing us to go to different ports. I'm bound and bent to get to St Maarten some year LOL. We caught the tail end of a hurricane on the Grand in 99. We had one night where the shows were cancelled due to the performers being ill. My wife went to bed early. I went up to Skywalkers and enjoyed the ride LOL. In 2001, we caught the tail end of a tropical storm off Nova Scotia on the Victory. We sailed into Sydney harbour, and turned around and left since it was too windy for the ship to dock.

On our first cruise, on HAL, which was our honeymoon, they had the honeymooners get together with the past guests. It was a rather small group (with 1200 people on the cruise), so it was nice to be able to chat with the officers, and have pics taken. We went to the past guest party on Carnival in 2001. Because of 9-11 the previous week, it also was a small affair, but we had the free drinks and eats. Didn't meet the captain at that one. They did give a quick rundown of the new ships coming out. We really enjoyed the one on Princess last year. Lots of people. It was held on formal night right before first seating dinner. Free drinks and appetizers again. Then they ran down the list of new ships, and made presentations to the people with the most number of cruises on Princess. Had pics taken with the captain.

I like aft balconies, after we had one on the Sapphire last year. If you are after a regular balcony cabin (not a mini-suite or higher grade than that), there are several aft balconies on the Crown. I would look at Baja 750 or 751, since these have slightly deeper balconies if you feel like grabbing a lounger from the pool like we did. Unfortunately, when Princess designed the Sapphire and Diamond, and followed up with this new design for the Crown and Emerald, they didn't put balconies on the equivalent cabins that we had. We were on the aft of Aloha deck, which is the same deck as Riviera on the Crown. We were in cabin 746 right beside the Terrace Pool, and these 4 aft cabins on this deck have portholes on the Crown, where they have balconies on the Sapphire.

We've done this twice. First was actually with my mother, her husband and friends of theirs. We sat together at dinner and saw each other around the ship, but that was about it. They hung out together and went to the various bars in ports, but that's not our thing. My mom seemed a little upset at dinner after Aruba to hear we rented a car and saw the whole island, while they just walked around the downtown area. She was like "why didn't you tell us you could do that?". I said "Well, I found out the same way you should have, I read the big sign that said "Car Rental" right beside the gate as you left the ship" The last cruise we did a year ago was with people from Kentucky we met on a previous cruise 6 years previous. We had talked over those years about getting together again. We finally planned it. Then our neighbours said they'd like to go. Then our Kentucky friends said their neighbours wanted to go. So we had 8. Again, we sat together at dinner and went to the shows together. The other 3 couples had cabins near each other midships, while we went aft. The "Bluegrass 4" did some tours together, while we "4 Canucks" hung out a bit but did our own things in port, except the planned meeting at the Cabo Wabo Cantina for some overpriced cervesa. We really enjoyed having all these people together. We did have a bit of concern by the middle of the first full day that our neighbours were going to be a little too "clingy", but it was their first cruise, and once we showed them around the ship they were fine. (Either that or I got them sufficiently disoriented that it was easy to lose them LOL). They liked it enough to book a 2 week cruise for their honeymoon in 2 months (they got engaged on the cruise with us). We would like to take another cruise with our Kentucky friends, but maybe just the 2 of them. Maybe we'll get around to it in another 6 years LOL.