We found another great deal on a Transatlantic Cruise this April on Princess Cruises. This will be our seventh Transatlantic Cruise, and our sixth on Princess Cruises. This trip will be on one of our favorite ships, the Regal Princess, which is currently the newest ship in the Princess fleet, at least until the Majesty launches this spring.
The cruise is 15 days long, and leaves out of Ft. Lauderdale, Florida on April 2, 2017. The end port is at Hamburg, Germany on April 17, 2017. We will disembark in Hamburg, and then take a train to Berlin, Germany, where we will stay four nights, and then fly home on April, 21, 2017.
We have booked a Balcony Cabin, which was on special for $1040.00 per person, plus port taxes. For a 15 day cruise, this was a great deal. In addition, Princess was offering $300.00 per person shipboard credit when you booked a balcony cabin, as well as a specialty dining restaurant cover charge for each passenger, valued at $58.00 total. Plus, we received another $100.00 per person shipboard credit for using our Future Cruise Deposit, and booking the balcony class cabin.
We had initially looked at booking an interior cabin, but the shipboard credit was half as much, there was no specialty restaurant offer, and we would have only received $50.00 per person for using our Future Cruise Deposit. The price for the cabin was only $200.00 per person less for the interior, and with the additional shipboard credits for the balcony cabin, we are really equal on cost, but have a much nicer room, and a Specialty Restaurant dinner to boot.
In total, Princess offered us $800 shipboard credit for this cruise, plus the specialty dining cover charge of $58.00. Not bad.
We will also receive another $250.00 shipboard credit for our Carnival Stock as a Stockholder Benefit, and we will have accumulated another $100.00 shipboard credit on our Princess Visa. In the end, we should have a total of $1,150.00 in shipboard credit for this cruise, which we will use for the daily tips, and for the all inclusive drink packages, which unfortunately, was not offered for free on this spring cruise like it was on our 2016 Spring Transatlantic cruise to Copenhagen. That was a really great deal, we got all of the same shipboard credits as this cruise, plus the two all inclusive drink packages.
The real reason for booking this cruise, in addition to it being a great deal, was that this cruise spans across both of our birthdays, mine being on April 6, and Stephanie’s being on April 15. Stephanie had wanted to do something special since this is her 45th Birthday, so we thought a cruise was a fantastic way to celebrate both birthdays. We plan on using our free specialty restaurant cover charge to go to the Crown Grill on my birthday, but celebrate both. This was the logical choice since we are in port in Rotterdam until 10:00 PM on Stephanie’s birthday, and plan on taking a train to Amsterdam for a long day of sightseeing. Certainly, after that long day, we will be too tired to attend a special dinner, so our plan is to celebrate both birthdays at the Crown Grill on the same night on my Birthday.