Calling all wine drinkers!

Is it just me? I have Googled, Yahooed and MSNed and cannot seem to find a site that lists places close to embarkation ports - preferably worldwide - where you can pick up some wine before boarding. I know it's something I'd find useful and judging from the posts of others on Cruise Critic, I'm not alone.

I can do a lot of the research myself but would love to get input from those with first-hand knowledge of places that are close to embarkation ports and whose hours are convenient. Any other comments regarding selection, pricing, store websites, etc. would be very useful, too. I will be happy to compile all the information and post it somewhere for posterity. You can either contact me directly using the form at the very bottom of this page (scroll down - way down) or leave a comment at the bottom of this post.

And if such a site already does exist, please let me know because I can't find it!

Blink and you'll miss it: a lesson learned

As I'm sure many of you do, I keep my ear to the ground when it comes to price drops or adjustments.

I usually book in U.S. funds but on a recent cruise I purchased future cruise credits in Canadian funds since the dollar had been at par for some time. A month or two later, of course, the Canadian dollar started dropping leaving me to regret my decision. And by then I had already applied my future cruise credits (see blog below).

Recently, though, the Canadian dollar has gained strength and started to rise again. I could either cancel and rebook in U.S. or I could just wait and see if Princess adjusted their exchange rate which could potentially save me some money.

Well, I found out on Monday through a kind Cruise Critic poster that Princess had just adjusted their foreign exchange rate from $1.25 to $1.15. This effectively dropped the price of my booked cruise by about $170 a person. A nice little price drop and the second one since we'd booked the cruise.

But I was busy and got sidetracked. I figured I was safe because the drop was due to a change in their foreign exchange rate and what were the chances they'd adjust that again so quickly?

So I contacted my TA yesterday and although the spread between U.S. and Canadian prices were at the new rate, in the space of 24 hours the U.S. price had gone up. It had gone up to the point where the Canadian price was exactly where it had been before the rate adjustment. Grrrr...... my potential $340 savings gone.

So now I'm back to watching the pricing, hoping it will drop again and THIS time, I will move on it right away.

Cruise Roll Calls

How many of you sign up for cruise roll calls on Cruise Critic but then never show up for the meet and greets on board? How many of you never even bother to sign up in the first place?

For those who may not know what these are, there are boards or "roll calls" on cruisecritic.com on which the commonality is a future cruise. You pick the line, the ship and then the actual voyage and meet other people who are taking the same cruise. The individual roll calls can range from hundreds of posts to thousands of posts depending on how active they are. Through them, a day and time is arranged as to when to meet or get together on the ship, usually held the first or second day. Depending on the numbers, sometimes a senior officer or two will come to the meeting.

I confess: I used to be a roll call lurker. I'd post a few times, maybe hook up with a few people for a private excursion but never showed up for the get-together on board. However, a recent 14-day Southern Caribbean cruise my husband I took with another couple completely changed my thinking. This was a great cruise with gorgeous ports of call every day but the downside was there was a definite lack of nighttime activity on board except for one very visible group of about 12 people. They were always out together and seemed to be having a great time. You'd see them in the specialty restaurant, around the pool, ashore, and in the public rooms at night laughing away.

Halfway through the cruise we met up with one of the couples from this group and it turned out they had all met through an online roll call. They obviously enjoyed each other's company and on the last couple of nights were already planning another cruise together.

So on a cruise we took in March I decided that this time we would actually show up for the meet and greet. As it turns out, we met two great couples who not only were at the next table to us in the dining room but lived about 10 miles away from us back home. Our group of four doubled to eight and we had a super time throughout the voyage with them. We had lively dinners together and great days ashore. We have since booked a future cruise on which one of these couples will be joining us.

Apart from friends you might meet, these roll calls give you the chance to join in on some great private shore excursions. We took two on our last cruise that were probably the best we've ever experienced and had we tried to arrange either of them on our own, wouldn't have had the wherewithal or numbers to do so.

If you've never signed up for a cruise roll call, consider doing so!