Centsless_Cruiser

We can second the comments on Moorea snorkeling especially about the current.  Our last 28 day cruise in Feb 2020 was one of the best and worst ever!  The catamaran ride was an absolute blast but the snorkeling was extremely dangerous due to the current.  Our catamaran actually dragged anchor in the current and came within a few feet of crushing a smaller sailboat before they got it under control.

Just off the Crown yesterday SF-Hawaii and our mattress was the worst since the new Princess Mattresses were rolled out!  I asked the Deck Supervisor for a new one but the best they could do was to flip it over.  Helped a little but still had a big depression to the extent that i felt like I was rolling up hill when I turned over.

20 hours ago, Rick&Jeannie said:

I honestly don't think I could drink that much soda in one day to warrant that cost!  And I drink a LOT of Diet Cokes!

2 Sodas and 2 Mocktails = $22.42 easy to do!  Especially if you like mocktails (Sunshine Daiquiri being a favorite if you can find a bartender that makes it right!)

Classic Soda was available on the Royal for our 27 Mar - 12 Apr Hawaii cruise at $15/day plus 18% netting $17.69/day

22 hours ago, LACruiser88 said:

We will try Uber.  If that is not available at the time, we will use the bus shuttle that is down the street from the water shuttle port.  In the past, the bus shuttle was $3 pp (???) round trip and it drops you off at Whaler's Village in Kaanapali.  The buses run every 20 min's or so.

We normally take the bus (KA’ANAPALI ISLANDER RT#25) which leaves the back of the Wharf Center every hour on the Hour and Whaler's Village back on the Half-Hour.  The fare is $2 PP each way for Adults, $1 PP for Seniors, kids under 5 Free or you can ask the driver for an unlimited Day Pass $4 PP.

We almost always eat at Leilani's before leaving.

On our cruise in March the Embarkation Lunch was served in the Concerto Dining Room (Deck 6 entering thru the Club Class Side)

1 hour ago, PescadoAmarillo said:

This took me a minute to figure out. I kept thinking biscuits?  Sausage gravy? 😆

 

Any patience I had for almost three years for dealing with those who mocked my mask wearing is long gone. I’m afraid I would suggest anyone commenting kiss something far less pleasant than southern oatmeal. It’s best I just don’t cruise I guess, or I would find myself in trouble. 

I am pretty sure she is quoting Flo from the TV show Alice who loved to say "Kiss My Gr*ts" whenever she didn't like something.

 😉

The only time my DW and I did this was on the Star in 2016 when we did LAX-VNC and VNC-HAW-VNC in that case we did not have to get off for turn around most likely since our return was back to Vancouver not to a US port.

33 minutes ago, Tedferg said:

Thanks for prompt and informative responses. We do have Plus package and itinerary is Mexico, so reception should be OK versus Alaskan itineraries.

 

I think I understand a bit better. I had heard about Airplane mode but thought that meant you were then incommunicado.

Your Mileage May Vary but our CA Coastal itinerary went as far south as Ensenada and that was one of our worst days for Internet.  Hopefully this is some type of technical issue with MedallionNet and it will be fixed soon and back to its incredible speed.

8 hours ago, Astro Flyer said:

Fastest Internet at sea?

 

 

Similar or slightly better than the Majestic 2 weeks ago.  Princess seems to have some type of issues with MedallionNet.

As a recent passenger on the Majestic (12-19 March CA Coastal) most of the information provided above is what you need (Princess Internet Package, Phone in Airplane mode and WiFi turned on and connected to Internet (AKA MedallionNet)) you can use the phone to make WiFi calls.

One issue missing in the list above is quality of the Internet signal.  Princess's MedallionNet is normally very good however on our last cruise it was generally very bad and most of the time did not support WiFi calling (constant drops and reconnects) so keep this in mind if it is very important to you.

3 hours ago, Level six said:

They do run small.  My husband could not use them at all.  But, I could and he used the N95 that we had brought with us.  Even wearing the masks the entire time on the Majestic we ended up sick after 14 days onboard right when we got home.  But, we tested 4 times for covid with home tests once home and they were negative.  But, it is still shocking that we could get sick at all since we used masks the entire time but literally no one else was wearing them, so it must mean that others wearing masks does help.   Near the end of our cruise when almost everyone was coughing, we just stayed in our mini suite,(thanks for the upgrade Princess) ordered room service and hung out on the balcony.  I guess we just had a head cold or our tests were flawed????

Anyway, have fun, stay safe. We almost were going to join you on this cruise, but decided not to book, it would have been fun to catch up. 

My DW and I survived 2 weeks on Maui and 1 week on the Majestic plus all the air travel from Upstate NY to Hawaii to LAX and back home with no Cold/Flu/COVID/etc. but we were very careful with our mask wearing all the time.  I do agree that towards the end of the CA Coastal people were getting very careless with masking which just made us more cautious.  This is the first time in a very long while that one or both of us didn't get a least some type of URI after travelling so we felt very lucky and very happy that we used the masks so much.

One thing on the Majestic at least that made us uncomfortable was a lack of hand washing/sanitizing in the Buffet area so I was almost suprised that COVID or NORO (remember that still exists) didn't break out.

17 minutes ago, MsDolly said:

Well I am on the next sailing of the Ruby Princess, not the news I wanted to wake up to!  
 

Don’t mind masking but no chance I can find any KN95 now before flying this morning.

 

Hopefully the increased numbers on the March 27th sailing won’t be a huge mistake by Princess.  I realized we need to get back to “normal” but it should be a slower process and perhaps not in conjunction with no masks and the return of self serve buffets.

You may have two KN95s in your room when you board (we did on the Majestic last week) and we asked our Steward for a few more (no problem he had them with him).

On 3/21/2022 at 1:29 AM, wallyj said:

Hi @tourismtessy, my friends on board reported they heard the passenger count was about 2300, far from full capacity of 3560 at double occupancy, a quick stop at passenger services or a quick question on crew chat on the APP will verify the number.

2300 was last week on the CA Coastal and it really wasn't crowded but it felt like the Crew were being stressed with that number I hope more staff have been added to keep up with the increase.

Last week on the Majestic Princess CA Coastal the MedalionNet was nearly non functional most days (with occasional exceptions) perhaps there are some related issues with equipment or service providers?  I wonder if Princess (really Carnival Corp) might work with Elon Musk and switch to Starlink??

7 minutes ago, Tak8 said:

Anyone have thoughts on the Sapphire?  I haven't been on Sapphire yet.  

My DW and I have been on the Sapphire 3 times (Hawaii-Twice and Hawaii/Tahiti-Once) she was our favorite ships before moving to Asia.  The Sapphire and Diamond are special Grand Class ships as they were built in Japan versus Italy where all the other Grands (Grand, Star and Golden) were built.

Two significant differences are that the Prominade decks are wider and accommodate lounger deck chairs plus instead of two dining rooms on decks 5 & 7 midship they are split into 2 each for a total of 4.

For Princess trivia bugs, the Diamond Princess caught fire while under construction and so the original Sapphire Princess was renamed Diamond and the repaired Diamond was then renamed Sapphire.

Hopefully someone who has been on her lately can fill in on what changes have been made.

18 hours ago, Steelers36 said:

The only time I have seen much of a line for returning tenders is at Princess Cay.  Not much incentive to me for other ports we have been to.

Try a Hawaii cruise and see the tender line in Maui!  We have waited up to an hour in the tender line.  This is mostly due to the Lahaina Dock Master's priorities but return tender lines definitely do exist.

It took us almost 1 hr on hold yesterday to cancel the 2023 Haw Tahiti cruise after they dropped Bora Bora.  There should be a much easier way to just cancel a cruise.

Per Cruisemapper the Grand should be the only ship in port on the 19th so unless there is a problem they should dock at Terminal 2.

Honolulu (Oahu Island, Hawaii) cruise port schedule | CruiseMapper

First I recommend that you look at @pescadoamarillo Yellow Fish Cruise Blog Yellow Fish cruises (pescadoamarillo.blogspot.com), looking particularly at her 2019 cruise on the Ruby from LA to Australia for how well the MedallionNet worked Transpacific. 

Additionally, my DW and I did the last 28 Day LA-Hawaii-Tahiti cruise in Feb 2020 on the Emerald also with MedallionNet and we experienced no issues at all with connnectivity and speed.

On 8/29/2021 at 9:23 AM, Syracusefan44 said:

I live in New York and prepaid my PVP.  When I go to my cruise summary and selected PVP it confirms that I have travel insurance thru Princess.  
 

I filed a complaint with my State Senator & Assemblyman regarding this decision by the NYS Department of Finance.  I did receive correspondence stating they are investigating why NYS is the only State in the country that prohibits residents from purchasing PVP. 

This happened to us as well and we had to call Princess to get it back.  See the previous thread...

Any NY State cruiser who paid the PVP Insurance in Full by the July 20th deadline should check your Travel Summary to make sure it took  We just checked ours today for 2023 28-Day Hawaii-Tahiti and found it was not applied and they had deleted the Insurance.  It took over an hour on hold to get Customer Service to verify payment and reapply the PVP.

To be safe we will keep checking at least once a month.

Word to the wise.

2 hours ago, geoherb said:

 

Some has already started a live thread for the next cruise. I plan to do one as well in three weeks. 

Yellowfish will be on the cruise next week (8 August) so we can all be infotained by her Blog.

4 hours ago, caribill said:

 

Crowne Plaza has charged for the shuttle the times I used it.

We have done this at least 6 times including Feb 2020 (last Princess cruise) and other than tipping the driver we have never paid the hotel.

16 minutes ago, mamajean1113 said:

We just booked a 15 day cruise to Hawaii from L.A. in February of 2023!!  We have only sailed NCL - 4 in the past and 2 booked for 2022.  Anyone that has been on an NCL ship and a Princess ship what differences can we expect?  NCL has a casual atmosphere where you can dress up or not on certain nights, does the Crown Princess have a formal night?  Can you eat at any time or do you have to eat the same time each night?  Are there specialty restaurants where you have to pay extra?  We live on the east coast so we always drove to the pier in NYC.  This is the first time we will be flying to the ship.  Are there hotels convenient to the pier? Sorry for all the questions!  I have been viewing You Tube videos of the ship and it looks so lovely.  Going to Hawaii is a life long dream of mine.  Thank you in advance for any advice.

 

 

Princess ships atmosphere in general is relatively casual.  There will should be two formal nights where dressing up is encouraged but not strictly enforced.  All other nights smart casual is the norm (No shorts, tattered clothing, etc.).  Princess has both Fixed seating and open seating plus you can call the Dine Line to make reservations (old system theoretically you will be able to do this with your smart phone/tablet with the new Medallion system).

Regarding hotels there a two 3-ish star hotels in San Pedro (Crowne Plaza and Doubletree) that have free shuttles to the pier.  Alternatively you can get a Princess Transfer from LAX to the pier or even arrange both hotel and transportation thru Princess (not cheap but very organized).

Per above all Princess ships have an very nice upgraded Internet and SmartApp system that provide many features that you should look at on the Princess web site.