jticarruthers

We are scheduled to visit Santorini in June. According to the ship's itinerary and the port schedule for Santorini we will be there from 2pm to 11pm. However, the excursions available through the ship all start at 9am +/- ...... Feels like a shitty start to the day having to swim ashore a few hours before we get there. I have asked just about every avenue at Royal that I can (Regular #, C&A #, Excursions, Group Excursions, my TA called in and we even called the Casino line) ... no answers just bounced from department to department. I did find one travel blog that mentioned that the cruise ships dont dock but technically do two tender stops in Santorini. First one is to drop off passengers booked on ship excursions and then they relocated to the second tender area to drop off all other passengers and eventually pick up all passengers. Is anyone able to shed any light on how it works in Santorini? Seems like a no brainer to do a ship excursion if it gets me 6 extra hours in port but not sure I really believe that explanation. Thanks

It is much easier for all so kudos for figuring it out, I have also used it with Carnival and MSC but oddly for as much as they embrace Tech not Disney.

I havent seen it as an option the last couple of times I went out of Miami (most recently April this year). I think global entry kind of died away in most contexts.

In the same boat, never saw any stimulus but luckily didn't need any. My understanding is that a lot of the surge in travel is still being attributed to people saving their stimulus checks since they also didn't need them but were lucky enough to get them anyway and are now using them to fund travel, etc. coming out of the pandemic. Anecdotally know a couple of people in that category but perhaps that's overstated.

True, they also have several more ships active now than they did in 2019 which would reflect in higher deposit balance. To be clear I am also not disputing that demand is also up, I was just commenting that prices being almost double is probably driving more of the record revenue and profit than the amount that demand is up.

Glad they are doing well in their post-COVID bounceback (both as a cruiser and a stockholder) but I think its disingenuous to claim the record highs are due to demand. It is due to record high pricing that so far has not impacted demand but likely will if/when the economy starts to move back to a more normal vibe (people not getting regular stimulus checks, paying their student loans, etc.) As a regular cruiser who never expected to want or be able to cruise as regularly as I do the price is starting to cause me to rethink some of my options, hopefully (as a stockholder) I am wrong and the good times keep rolling but I have a hard time seeing that.

The reason for cruising DCL is the Disney not the Cruise Line ... selling it off would only work if it included licenses to continue to use the Disney characters/theming and maintain the Disney standard of service ... at which point why would anyone not called Disney want to take it on? AFAIK DCL is profitable so I wouldnt think spinning it off makes any sense, the insane ESPN business where you are paying massive fees to televise sports than large numbers of people dont watch makes a ton of sense to dump though.

Sticker shock on the first few sailings , guess I wont be replacing my Allure sailing with the twice as expensive Utopia sailing after all Doesn't seem too crazy later in the year so we will probably end up booking but my credit card is back in my pocket for today.

Opposite for us, Canaveral is easy to get to and vacation time is the limiting factor so lots of weekend cruises that take minimal time off is fantastic. Add in bigger ships with so much to do that we can stretch the experience over multiple trips and Utopia is looking awesome. We have weekends on Allure, Oasis and Symphony already next year .. probably adding 1-2 Utopias depending on the price point.

When I first started cruising (not in the days of sailing ships FYI) the "sales" were very infrequent and even the low level C&A discounts were actually useful ... then one of the marketing geniuses learned about the "always on sale, all the time" technique and the low level C&A discounts basically became worthless because the prevailing sale is almost always as good or better. I wish they were stackable but it is what it is ...not a scam but it feels wrong when you are supposed to be getting a loyalty benefit but instead they give the same benefit to everyone.

Big increase for not much value but not enough that its going to materially change the price of a cruise. Pity there is no refund for "staying on the boat".

True ... figured that would come with the booking window though

Ready to book ... just waiting on the window

Doing a similar cruise in July, the docs from Princess had a blurb about there being an onsite storage company at the cruise terminal that has reopened. Not sure where you find the details but seems like maybe an option ?

7/15/24 makes sense Allure heads from Canaveral to Miami that week ....