JimmyVWine

I don’t think there is a price difference but if you buy it on board you can use OBC to pay for it. And if you don’t have enough, you can always purchase an AARP gift card at an 8% savings and bring it on board. Guest Services will upload the amount of the card into your account. So you can upload $100 worth of OBC to pay for some WiFi at a cost of $92.

This entire ship is still in Beta testing mode. I’m pretty confident that “sometimes” will become “always” once the Dining Room Manager sees the impact this will have on wait times on Deck 7 on the nights where the MDR meals are offered on Deck 8.

At the current rate of change, by the time Star boards its first guests, everything that we have come to know about the Sphere Class ships will be different!

It will DEFINITELY matter. That adds 50% more seating for people who want to enjoy the MDR menu and allows those who choose to do so to dine in shorts and T-shirts or be as casual as they want. I’m not being facetious but just THINK how much this board would change if every Princess ship offered an MDR with the full MDR menu that was truly “come as you are”. There would never be another thread or post asking if such-and-such attire is allowed in the MDR. Or if there is, the simple answer would always be: “Yes. On Deck 8.” I truly hope that this experiment becomes permanent. I don’t think too many Princess cruisers pay what they pay just so that they can eat scrambled eggs or hamburgers for dinner. Some, yes. But not a whole dining room’s worth.

It remains to be seen if this is a feature or a flaw. The decision to place the buffet on Deck 9 is a bit curious, but I think that Princess wanted to capture the vibe of NCL’s Boardwalk without creating a half dozen different restaurants. In so doing, they sort of restored the concept of a usable Promenade which was stripped away in the last build. I think this will prove popular. But at the same time, thousands of people are going to be using Decks 16-19 from mid-day on, especially on Sea Days and having only the usual pizza and burgers up there would never be enough. So some expansion was essential. But I’m not sure it’s enough. The first sea day in the sunny Caribbean will tell the story if people will be willing to leave their loungers on 16 or 17 to go down to Deck 9 to eat. The short walk to the World Market on 17 was a whole lot more convenient for people in bathing suits than a trip down the elevators to Deck 9.

I have definitely seen YouTube videos that show a salad station where all of the component parts are separated allowing the guest to tell the server what they want. Looked sort of like the toppings station at a Subway sandwich franchise. Not sure if that was in the Eatery or outside on Deck 9 near the pizza station, or at the Deck 17 food stations.

There isn’t anything about the reservation system that locks you in. I am able to make reservations for my upcoming cruise and each day is independent of the others. There is a toggle that you can select for “same time each night.” But if you don’t select that, you can make a reservation for Deck 6 on Monday, Deck 7 on Tuesday, and jump back to Deck 6 on Wednesday. The only difference is that when selecting Deck 6 you are only offered two choices: 5:30 and 8:00 whereas on Deck 7 you get many other options. And you also get the option of “Private” or “Shared” table. I assume that the Dining Room Manager will piece together the puzzle of people who select “same time each night” and provide those people the old fashioned Traditional Dining experience and for the people who don’t select that option, they can be rotated to different tables each time that they dine on Deck 6.

I just went back and checked my saved information from a couple of cruises. The first time I sailed in a Mini-Suite, it was on Crown Princess. The literature that I screenshot from that time showed the cabin to be 323 sq. ft. (including the balcony). This was back in the old days of EXACT measurements. I just looked at the Deck Plan for Crown Princess a moment ago and the cabin we sailed in is listed as an "average" of 323 sq, ft. Then I checked the second ship on which we booked a Mini-Suite which was Sapphire, because I know that that cabin was larger. The literature I saved showed 354 sq. ft. (including the balcony). The current Deck Plan using the "average" size shows that same cabin as being...wait for it...354 sq. ft. When we entered the cabin on the first day, we could perceive that that cabin was larger, but not in any meaningful way, or any way that would influence our booking decision whatsoever. So I would advise to not let the use of the term "average" throw you. It does not appear as if they have changed anything other than to use a word that is putting you on tilt. The vast majority of cabins in a particular class are going to be identical, within that class. Accessible cabins will be bigger, and some one-off, oddly placed cabins (like Family Suites) will have different dimensions. And the balcony sizes will throw the numbers off, but usually only to the positive. For example, on the Royal Class ships, the mid-ship angled balcony cabins might show the same "average" square footage as the non-angled balconies, but we know that the angled ones will be bigger. I don't think you will ever get a cabin that is smaller than what is listed as the average, as they appear to be using the "typical" cabin as the "average" cabin. In other words, no one has added up the total square footage of all the cabins in a category and then divided by the total number of such cabins to get a "true average". Read the word "average" to mean "most" or "typical" or "no less than".

I'm curious to see how this develops. I suspect that this will become the norm. The American Diner concept seems pretty brilliant to me...for B and L. But for dinner, not so much. If you polled the 4,000+ people on board and asked them if they would prefer Deck 8 to be a Diner for dinner, or convert to a casual venue serving the MDR menu thus alleviating the logjam at the other two decks by providing 50% more MDR seating, it seems to me that the vote would be a landslide.

Thanks for your insights. The ship's schedule would never allow for a sunrise visit and the availability later in the morning looks promising.

We have an overnight in Southampton which means a full, free day to explore. I was originally thinking of doing this exact plan until I realized that our day in port will coincide with the autumnal equinox. Does anyone have any insight as to whether this celestial event will cause Stonehenge to be a complete zoo of people? The site is not important enough for me to waste my time being shoulder to shoulder with zealous people on pilgrimages. Thanks.

I'm not sure what you mean by "generic". Every single balcony cabin on Aloha Deck is going to be the exact same size except for very, very few one-offs. So if you look at 27 different cabins and see that every one of those cabins is listed as being 179 sq. ft., it's not because the site is giving you generic information, but rather because those 27 cabins are actually the same size. Unless I missed it, that site does not use the dreaded word: "average".

Try cruisedeckplans. That site still uses exact figures, though I do not know if they are accurate given that it is a third party site. But my guess is that the information contained on that site was taken directly from the Princess published material, and when Princess changed to "average sizes", this website did not.

Somebody should send the memo to Land's End and Victoria Secret!

Yes. Just enter the final balance. The card will not zero out and instead will carry the difference which you can use on board by going to Guest Services and have them upload that amount as OBC. Or you can just hold on to the card and use it for a future cruise payment.