South America is our next, next planned cruise, Nov. 16, 2025 - Jan. 8, 2026
We lost our last pet, our cat "Pippy" (June 21, 2024) and now have no pets to worry about if we go away. We also have recently seen a couple friends pass away, friends fighting cancer, and friends with age related health issues. I started thinking we better enjoy our life and explore the world while we can. I was looking online for a future getaways and found a decent price on Princess Cruise Lines. I was thinking oceanview, but Lynn wanted a Balcony for this long cruise (so a little pricier than I thought).Then while talking to Princess, George (from London) said they had a Princess promotion... Give them $15k (6k down, then $1k for 9 months), and within 18 months you get (need to use or book)... $12k future cruise credit (to go on this cruise), $600 onboard credit (to pay tips, excursions or whatever), then included we get two 2 -day, two 5-day vouchers for 4 or 5 star hotels that you only pay the tax. Also you get 4,000 Princess points to use on hotels. Lastly, they would bump us up from our platinum status to Elite status for the next two years (until Sept. 1 2026) which gives you discounts on excursions, discounts on wifi, free laundry services, etc. They also put us on a list to possibly get a free upgrade from a balcony room to a balcony suite. I won't hold my breath for this, but it sure would be nice on this long of a trip and with almost half of the days being sea days or cruising around the horn or Antarctic Peninsula. This sounded good to Lynn, I was a little more hesitant, because it meant a $6k deposit and $1k per month from Oct. 2024-June 2025, versus a $200 deposit to start. So, we are booked on a 53 day South American cruise. We reserved Deck 11 - Baja, room B337 (a balcony room) for this cruise.
My one disappointment after looking into our Princess Loyalty levels and benefits is that they no longer (since 2019, I believe) give you any wifi minutes free. We use to get at 150 or more free minutes on each cruise. Now you have to pay, and it is not inexpensive. Platinum and Elite get 50% off, but for a 53 day cruise like this, half off still cost around $1,250 for us to have wifi during this cruise. This bothers me and may sway me to book other cruise lines in the future.
Our longest previous cruise was 28 nights and we said we could have kept going. So, this cruise will be our longest and most expensive cruise. I hope we love it as much as past cruises and it will expose us to many locations (17), that we have never been to. Our price was $21,972, but we will try to watch incase there is a rate drop before final payment in July. Tips, airfare, excursions and trip insurance will be extra. We booked through Costco and should get an approximate $1500 gift card for booking with them. Final payment (approximately $9,972) will be due in July 2025.
Sapphire Princes is an old ship, built in 2004. 2018 was the last time it was refurbished. The ship capacity is 2,670 passengers, it is 952 foot long and has a 158 foot beam.
More to come, when we plan more.
