Have to say that both of us have really been looking forward to being passengers again. Today marks that day as we sail the first seven day Mexican Itinerary.
We move from our Guest Entertainer's cabin. Which I must say was quite nice and had two portholes to an inside sideways cabin on Aloha deck.
I know Bernie is happy to be getting the free laundry back - especially the ironing.
We have lots of good friends coming on board this sailing - John and Leslie, Darcy, and our friend Meghan.
I have always enjoyed the 7 day Mexican Riviera cruise and I am excited to be doing it again after two years.
I am sad too because this will be our last sailing with Michael Prasse the Hotel General Manager for a while. He will be on this ship (unless he changes) on the West Coast and we don't foresee sailing the West Coast now that we live on the East Coast.
So sit back and enjoy as I continue with my blogging. I have missed doing it, but I also enjoyed the freedom of not having to do it daily. So I can mention now that I am not sure how often I will report but when the urge hits and I have something to say I will report.
We are just a few days from heading out on our next voyage. But this time things are really crazy at home. You see we started a bathroom renovation a few weeks ago.
So our goal was to have some of the work done while we are away and not have to deal with dust and construction noise. But because of this we have things from the ensuite bathroom all over the condo. I tried to pack the bathroom up with the thought of putting stuff I may need on the cruise in a different box, but of course as I start to pack I am searching thru boxes looking for things.
Okay back to the cruise.
We leave on Wednesday night after work out of Vancouver on Westjet to Los Angeles. Westjet at the time of booking allowed us one free bag each, but as of tickets booked now you have to pay for all bags. We love flying Westjet and the crew on board so we are actually looking forward to the trip.
This week I booked Prime Time Shuttle from the airport to our hotel in Anaheim. After doing a lot of research on what was the best option to get to Anaheim it appeared that Prime Time had the best option at $15 per person one way. Although it is a shared ride and will probably take a while to fill the van and get to the hotel the price difference was worth it.
I did look at the option of the Disney Express but that was not cheap $30 per person one way, or $48 return but we only need one way. I also contacted a private car but they quoted me $98 one way (oh that is not in my budget, but a good option for a family).
We booked our hotel quite a while ago thru Priceline and asked for a three star near Disneyland and got the Red Lion Anaheim for $80 per night. We will be there for four nights.
Our friends are flying in from Sacramento on Friday morning to join us at Disneyland and show us the ropes as it has been 45 years since I was at Disneyland and I am quite excited.
We board the Grand Princess on Sunday for a ten night Mexican Riviera Cruise. The ports we will be visiting are San Diego, Cabo San Lucas, La Paz, Loreto, and Puerto Vallarta. We are quite excited to get on board the Grand.
We haven't been on her since before she had her major retrofit. Also our good friends Paul and Yvonne will be on board.
The biggest obstacle will be handling the bathroom reno from the ship. We will be in constant contact with our contractor and hope it will run smoothly... fingers crossed.
So follow along on our trip as I will once again be blogging this amazing adventure.
You would think after over 30 cruises I would know more of when to book. But even an experienced cruisers needs to realize when it is time to say "time to book, price isn't going to go down".
We knew a long time ago we wanted to do the Star Princess Vancouver to San Francisco Repositioning two day cruise. Then to stay on and do the ten day San Francisco round trip Mexican Riviera cruise. We started watching the price back in June. Price was $919 for an inside, and $149 for two day back then.
I swear we checked pricing every day. Every day it was the same price, but I wasn't concerned I was sure it would go down and I advised Bernie that we should wait to book. Note there were a lot of cabins still available, in every category too.
By mid July price still was the same and we then stated that if by the beginning of August the price hadn't dropped we would book.
One positive is that the price of the two day had dropped $20 each. And airfare was excellent, in fact it was so good we booked our return flight before we had booked the cruise.
Finally the day came where after doing some research we sat down and decided to book. Why you might ask, well a couple of factors.
- balcony cabins were almost totally sold out
- the selection of inside cabins was getting less and we didn't want a cabin with upper berths (too many smacks in the shoulder) so we knew we had to book a specific cabin and only guarantees were available in most categories
- since we saved on the two day cost, and we saved on the flight we knew we were already ahead of the game
- lastly our travel agent bestpricecruises was offering an on board credit of $60 for the ten day and normally they drop that the closer you get to the sail day so we didn't know when that would be removed
The last thing was we found a cabin in category L for the ten day that met our needs and the same cabin was available on the two day. So we booked the ten day inside category L with a $60 on board credit from the travel agent.
We then went to book the two day cruise but the $129 price was for a category M and J and we had to take our chances and book a guarantee. The category L cabin that we booked for the ten day was available still on the two day, but the price was more so we rolled the dice hoping Princess when assigning a cabin will put us in the same cabin for both legs.
Today I checked our personalizer and we got our cabin assignment, guess what. Yup they did assign us into the same cabin for both legs. Yeah. So we got a few category upgrade and saved a bit of money.
Now changing cabins on turn around day would of been fine. We have done it before. But now that we don't have to move we can be off the ship right away when we dock in San Francisco and enjoy the city for the entire day instead of packing up and moving bags.
So the moral of the blog today - even I second guess everything.
