Honolulu Blue

@pkt1976: Thanks for sharing your views on this special comedy themed cruise. Nice pictures. I'm glad you and your party had a nice cruise. 😁 I mean it sincerely and not in any way as a backhanded slam. I'll have to add it to my verbal arsenal and be careful how I use it from now on. Our 80s themed cruise that ran concurrently with yours didn't have any late night comedy, but did have a comic (Ralph Harris) who had two nights of shows in the main theater - one of which was 18+. BTW, his show wasn't especially 80s themed. I wonder if the person who commented about not liking Armando in the other review thread (can't link it, sorry) will comment here. Unlikely, because that's not the way thing work around here. I'm glad your cruising party seem to be converted to cruise addicts! We had lots of n00bs on our cruise and some did speak favorably of Princess.

Some Captains have bigger fan clubs than others. I'm pretty sure Captain Kate didn't wave bye to me as I left the Summit when we shared the same ship back in 2017. I was a self-disembark and one of the first 10(!) passengers off. I'm sure she had better things to do at that time on that day. You made me think of whether I've been greeted by any officers upon disembarking any cruise ship. Memory fuzzy, but... cruise directors, yes (not on Celebrity, I don't think). Not any others. Just ordinary crew in ordinary clothes kicking me out the door while waving bye. Then again, most of the time I've been a self-disembark and out the door before most everyone else.

Cute! Thanks for sharing. Let's call the ones with portholes "ocean view" and the ones without "interior".

I haven't heard anything recently about sports betting coming to Carnival anytime soon. However, sister line Princess has had sports betting onboard through its app since the restart.

Princess did a redo of their themed cruises page at https://www.princess.com/ships-and-experience/special-events/ . The bad news is that there is no more listings for either 80s or comedy cruises. The ones that were listed have either sailed or will sail in a few days. I think they'll be back eventually, though you'll have to ask the boys and girls in Santa Clarita when they'll add them. The good news is that there's a new Nature & Adventure Themed Cruise listed that will be hosted by Jeff Corwin and sailing September 6, 2023 on the Sapphire Princess. For a more complete description of this adventure, head to https://www.princess.com/ships-and-experience/special-events/ . The listings for the Comedy Stars and Culinary Stars cruises remain as they were.

I don't care about Port Everglades, but I really miss Carnival sailing out of San Juan. ☹️

I don't have a very good answer for you. I've been to Belize, twice. Yes, it's the longest tender ride that I've ever experienced (15-20 minutes), and no I never went into town, but I didn't think what I saw was THAT bad. I had a stop in Nassau scheduled last year that was canceled due to high winds. Perhaps it was for the best. I scheduled a cruise for next year with an overnight in Nassau, but the port is not the point of the cruise - just a place we have to go. We'll see how it goes. I've docked in a bunch of industrial areas, but that doesn't necessarily make them bad. I like Miami best of all the continental U.S. embarkation ports. The sailaways have a nice view of all the pretty, expensive buildings that I could never afford and will probably be wiped out in the next 50 years. On the other hand, I've only embarked on cruise ships from San Pedro. In a word, ick. 🤮 The terminal area is hopelessly out of date and really needs a teardown and a rebuild by a cruise line that cares. I've been in the San Francisco and San Diego terminals and they're much nicer in much nicer areas. Maybe I'll embark on a ship from one of those cities sometime.

Aw, they just wanted to have a reasonable discussion on their second amendment rights (or the Panamanian equivalent). 🙂

Like @Essiesmom said, the trips out of sunny San Juan to the Eastern Caribbean will have minimal sea days - usually one per 7 days. Indeed, I once took one out of SJ that was 6 days and had ZERO sea days.

Hi everyone! It's time for another unscientific poll. This was inspired by a post I read elsewhere. I think the question is relatively simple and straightforward, though you guys have a habit of complicating things for me. For those who can't see the poll, the question is in what general class was the cabin on your first cruise? Interior, Ocean View, Balcony, or Mini Suite and above. Thank you for reading, replying, and voting!

I got a notice that Flower Power has sold out, so I decided to check to see how my music charters are doing. Rock & Romance is sold out except for basic interiors, basic ocean views, and basic balconies. The 80s Cruise is sold out except for interiors and balconies. The McDonald LaBelle Cruise shows all cabin classes available. It seems to be just a matter of time before the first two sell out, and I wouldn't be surprised if Mikey and Patti also sell out in the near future.

I've got an update. One of our CC fearless leaders will be attending the President's Cruise in June. The summary is that new Celebrity President Laura Hodges Bethge WILL be on it and there's no word on whether LLP will make it. Source:

I would suggest someone contact LLP's office while she's still the big dog. When Celebrity made all those dining changes back in January and some were hot and bothered about it, several people made contact and some got return phone calls (always phone calls, of course 🤔). The answers were mostly spin with some platitudes, but maybe it started the process of change? I'm sure those in her office are more interested in solving problems (of which some of you seem to have, and I'm sorry) than discussing policy decisions. I don't have her contact info on hand, but it's been spread around in several threads. Search should pull it up.

I'll see what I can do! No promises! 🙏

Tiny data points, but my one RT cruise from Galveston on the Ruby last week had near perfect weather, no delays, and no fog. I did have fog on an inbound sailing into Galveston back in 2015 (not on Princess). We were only an hour or so late, so it didn't affect us too much.

I got a small e-mail update from The 80s Cruise (which I'll abbreviate TEC much of the time here) with two items of interest. First was the fact that former VJ "Downtown" Julie Brown was officially invited to the 2024 edition. She was a substitute on last year's cruise for former VJ Nina Blackwood, who was on several of the 80s cruises going back to 2020 and beyond. I thought Ms. Brown did a good job and played well with the other former VJs in hosting events, etc. The other item is that they're still working on pictures for last month's TEC and they will be released soon. I'm likely to be in several of them, if they didn't break the camera or weren't tossed out for being unfit for general audiences. 😛 We'll see. Here's a picture of Ms. Brown (she's on the far right) with others introducing Lou Gramm in concert on last month's cruise: (the others, if you're curious, are interviewer Lori Majewski on the left, and former VJ Mark Goodman in the center)

Thanks for sharing this article. I hope Princess and Galveston get what they want. Your last paragraph is most interesting to me. I've heard of B2Bs being handled this way, but I've heard the vast majority (at other ports) have you get off, mostly briefly, during turnaround day. I'm sure it varies by port and cruise line, and possibly by date. I really should ask about this more generally, but I don't know how to get a good answer out of this.

I started a thread for the McDonald LaBelle cruise at @George C did the honors of starting the roll call thread for next year's Rock and Romance cruise at And I did one for the 2024 edition of The 80s Cruise at

I'm glad you enjoyed it. I did notice some cabin door decoration - some in 80s themes, some in the more usual themes (anniversary, birthday, retirement, etc.). A few combined both. No pictures, sorry. All cruises longer than a week will attract an older crowd. I especially noticed this on Carnival, but thank you for confirming that it's similar with Princess. Maybe we'll be on the same 80s themed cruise together someday? And maybe I'll give you some eye candy?? P.S. I mentioned earlier in this thread that I hadn't seen any reviews here of the comedy cruises. I want to link a recent review thread of someone who was on the last comedy themed cruise on the Royal. The reviewer there seemed to like the comedians, though less so some of the other stuff.

This was the library onboard Royal's Navigator OTS when I was there last month. There was some shelves behind me with about half the number of books pictured here. I didn't see any games. I didn't see any donations. I couldn't make any because I haven't brought books on a cruise in a very long time. I was onboard the Ruby Princess and went into their library. There were far more books and some games. No pictures of that one, sorry.

After a clearer reading of the original post, I think you're right - they got the original OBC onboard for their ports and excursions being missed, somehow didn't use it onboard, and are now waiting for a refund from Princess. I've never let it get to that point, but once that happens, then yes, they're going to mail a check - which might take a while. I apologize for the confusion.

I'm surprised to hear your experience and that of others for a couple of reasons. I've traveled on several different cruise lines and have always had refunded port fees and canceled excursions delivered to me by OBC onboard within two days. I've never had to wait for a check. In fact, Princess refunded me about $27 in port fees prior to my last cruise with them last week. I guess the fees went down before our cruise? Experience and a bunch of posts here have taught me that billing issues are a lot tougher to resolve when you've left the ship. I wish you luck, though patience will perhaps get you your just rewards with a lot less stress.

I booked this cruise and I'm not even that much of a jazz fan. It will be interesting to see who this cruise attracts and how I will get along with them.

Room service was a big disappointment for me on my cruise. The first try took 40 minutes - not the worst, but slower than my other times using RS on Princess after the restart. The second attempt I told room service to cancel my puny order after an hour and a half. On my first Princess Cruise on the Regal I had room service every day and had it delivered every time in under 20 minutes - and often in 10 minutes or so. Of course, this was the good old days when we had fewer than 1000 other passengers...

Thanks for sharing. I was wondering why I hadn't heard about any of the comedy cruises. And now we get your trip report. I was on the 80s themed cruise that overlapped your cruise. It was on the Ruby sailing out of Galveston. My comments, mostly based on what you've said above: We didn't get any of the production shows. We got three tribute bands and two nights with our comedian (Ralph Harris - pretty good, IMHO). I preferred it this way; if I wanted to see the other Princess shows I would book a Princess cruise without a theme. I didn't have a package, so your description of your adventures with the Plus package were especially enlightening We had a fair number of kids on our cruise also (300 or so) I don't remember if we had afternoon tea. I didn't attend it if was offered. I'll look through the newsletters to see if it happened on our cruise. We had watermelon slices in the buffet most days for breakfast and at least two days for dinner. I never had lunch in the buffet on this cruise. With the end of crew-served portions in the buffet, I don't expect them to do much there. They're probably watching us to make sure we don't screw up too much. There were some waiters there taking drink orders. I agree with Celebrity's buffets being better than what I've seen on Princess I'm sorry Princess didn't wow you on this trip. I wish you the best of luck in your future travels.