Tkhalaska

We are currently aboard the Crown Princess. As part of the room steward introducing himself when we first arrived, we asked him how to address dirty dishes. He told us just to set them aside in the room and he would take care of it. Maybe stewards have their own preferences, or different ships have their own quirks about doing things. There is also the room servicing request medallion function outside the door, or the app. There are quite a few passengers who use wheelchairs or walkers, so while it might not be wrong to leave dirty dishes outside the room I probably would not do it. Our first 2 days out of HI the weather was an issue, the sea was so rough anything we placed outside the door would have ended up in the hallway.

We are currently on the Crown on the way back from HI and did the tours on our own. Here's how it worked out for us: 1) Took an Uber ( $25 each way) from the ship to the Bowfin and did the submarine and exhibit tour. As stated above, you will not be able to bring a backpack or bag. 2) Took the shuttle to the Missouri and did their tour, also did the chief engineer tour (costs extra and offered on a time schedule). The MO and Aviation Museum are on base, the shuttle is the best way to get over there. You would not be able to take a rental car there unless you have a military ID. Even then, I would check to see what the requirements are for rental car documentation. 3) Took the shuttle to the Aircraft Museum. There is a cafe there to have lunch at. 4) Shuttle back to the visitor center, Uber back to the ship. It was a long day with a lot of walking, you would need to be off the ship first thing. We had been to the AZ memorial on a different trip so did not go again. We had been to the MO on that same trip but had to cut our time short because we were on an organized tour so we wanted to go back and see more. We got back to the cruise ship around 1700. Last shuttle out of the Aviation Museum is 1700, last one out of the MO is 1600. MO closes at 1600, AZ and Aviation close at 1700. For everything except the AZ you could but wouldn't have to purchase tickets in advance. There would have been time to go to the beach since the ship wasn't due to leave until 2300, but we were tired and there was some kind of a festival going on in Waikiki when we were there. If you saw fewer of the museums/memorials you could easily do that in the morning and have the entire afternoon and evening free.

We are sailing on the Crown Princess to Hawaii in a couple of weeks and have the Plus package. We decided since it is a cruise with a lot of sea days it might be worth it. This is also my test case as we want to do the 33 day Tahiti/Hawaii cruise next year, which is another heavy sea day cruise. My math looks like this so far: Crew appreciation $16 a day x 2 people x 16 days = $512 Wi-fi $15 a day x 2 people x 16 days = $480 (we are not eligible for 1/2 price wi-fi on this cruise but will be eligible on the next one. We each will have 1 device) Plus package $60 a day x 2 people x 16 days = $1920 1920 package cost - 512 to the crew - 480 wi-fi = 928 $928 coffee+alcohol budget/ 16 days / 2 people = $29pp/per day Which works out to essentially 2 alcoholic drinks per day per person to break even. While we may not do that every day, I do like my morning latte and we also would be getting bottled water and an occasional smoothie. Our consumption of premium deserts ( 2/day/pp allowed) will not significantly factor in, we may each have 2 or 3 the entire cruise I will probably utilize the 2 fitness classes/cruise, DH will not. Not a cost buster. We only use room service occasionally for breakfast, I believe only meals other than breakfast incur a charge, so room service fees are not a factor either. Having our usual costs taken care of, I used our $1100 OBC to book excursions, with a little left over in my account for the spa. In 2 of the ports we have shore activities planned not involving Princess. So in our case we will likely be slightly better than even with the Plus. I will see what our actual usage is to determine if it will be worth it for next time, taking into consideration lower internet costs!