Lovetocruiseprincess

Used the same on on Crown without any problems and without any extension cord. The only issue was that, even though I got the higher rated one, it still won't charge my ASUS tablet in the USB slots.

 

Really. I've never had any problems charging my Samsung tablets. Strange that it wouldn't work on an ASUS.

Did the same USB outlet charge other devices? It might be a bad unit.

I don't have a ASUS tablet but I'm going to try charging my ASUS laptop tonight and see what happens.

There used to be customs taxes (tariffs) on many items from cameras to perfume in many countries.

 

"Duty-free" then meant there were savings to be had with no tariffs included in the price. Thus the duty-free language on ships and the many duty-free shops in International airports.

 

However, duty-free does not mean discount. Most items sold "duty-free" are at full manufacturer's suggest retail price. And in countries which do not have the tariffs, the concept of duty-free is just a marketing term as there are no tariffs to take off from the retail price.

 

Since many items can be found at a discount pricing in the USA and no doubt in many other countries, discount pricing on land, even with local sales taxes or VAT added, often works out to less than the full retail price on a cruise ship or in an airport duty-free shop.

 

We found this out last cruise on all of the islands. Pricing out hard external hard drives & a Chromecast unit I found that the similar units in the US for hard drives were around $15 or so more and the Chromecast unit was almost double in St Thomas....$65. :eek: I wouldn't doubt that the same holds true for cameras.

Since you'll be doing a B2B cruise stopping in St Thomas on the first leg, purchase what you'd like. If they don't collect it when your board (chances are they won't) they'll deliver it to your cabin before the next cruise & at least you'll have it for the second leg.;)

Sometimes you can flip the locking handle on the TV support to give a little more clearance for your hand to fit behind the TV. On one ship it turned out to be better to lower the TV rather than raise it for more room to work.

Once the HDMI is plugged in, leave it there for the whole trip. The cabin steward won't touch it.

[quote name='Steviewonder1']The issue with 4 digit combo's is that there are sprays out there that can be sprayed on your keypad that will show which 4 keys have been used and the thief can get the 4 digits to play with. I wipe all the keys down and then press all of them two times moving my finger around in a circle, wait and then enter the 4 digit combo to lock and open. Only in High End Hotels have I found card swipe safes, but covering all the keys does work to thwart thieves, just don't wipe the keys later. Also do this exercise every couple of days.[/quote]
[FONT=Comic Sans MS]Sounds like a little to much TV lately.
Better call Saul. :D:D[/FONT]

Happily, it's REAL carved turkey ... not the processed one.

 

LuLu

 

It might be real carved turkey but not from a real whole carved turkey. They'll never give you a leg or thigh.

Not all the TV's on the Royal are the Viewsonic as billco posted. If you do luck out & get a cabin with one, you still can't change the HDMI input but it's easy to disconnect their input & connect your own HDMI cable into their input.

It's tight but it can be done without to much difficulty. The crew doesn't have the ability to switch inputs either. They mostly have the Viewsonic TV's and disconnect the HDMI input as well to view their own movies.

 

The other TV's that I encountered are the Samsung (model ?) and it seems to be fed right into the TV by a Cat 5 Ethernet cable that I found next to impossible to disconnect at the TV input end BUT the end of the cable where it exits the wall (on top) can be easily disconnected and if you have a female to female connector you can connect to the end of their cable. There is no other accessible HDMI input that can be seen & you can't switch in input anyway since there locked off.

 

I still don't know for sure if that arrangement will work or not but I'm going to give it a try next cruise. My media player does have a cat 5 output.

What are you going to use to connect the flash drive to the TV? Laptop? Ipad? Iphone? Media Player? DVD Player.

bwt- there are no accessible USB inputs that I could see.

Wow I have never seen 5:15 as an early dining time, but I've been doing anytime for years. What ship and where were you cruising ?

All of the ones we've been on. The people begin lining up at the door at 5 PM sharp. By 5:15 PM there's a line 25-30 people long.

GAK!!! 5:15 is waaaaaaaaaaaaaay too early for dinner!

 

Not here in Florida. Most of the non working people eat before 4 PM- Only the people who get home from work late eat after 5.

On the ship all of activities fit the early schedule much better. Eating early, main show, other shows and then a snack before the movie. Of course I'm up a little earlier than most people....no later than 5 AM. :D

I suggest cashing out daily if you have a balance on the casino account.

There can be circumstances when the casino unexpectedly cannot remain open as expected for you to go back and cash out later.

 

Examples:

o Unable to sail from a port in time and thus not in international waters.

o Medical evacuation which brings you out of international waters.

o Speed up to get to a port (including on last evening) to avoid weather conditions and thus get out of international waters faster.

 

Good point. I never though about that one. I would hate to have to deal with Princess after I arrived home.

To be honest I'm not blown away, our cabin is ok and our balcony is that too, having sailed Princess around 20 times we have only had a balcony about 5 times and always a small one so that's not not a complaint from me, but if your used to booking the larger balconys I can see your problem.

 

I'm not sure what you meant by having a larger balcony but we've only booked standard size balconies on past ships (and a Caribe balcony a few times). We're not use to a suite size balcony at all and I've never been on one but when a person sitting on a chair not even directly facing the water has to move in order to let the other person by behind them, that irritates me. Yes, I did read about the tiny balconies in past reviews on CC but never did I expect them to be as small as they actually are.

There are many good points about the new ships and although we'll no doubt be booking a trip on the new ships in the future, a balcony won't be an option for us any longer on the new ships and unfortunately neither will a window.

Caribbean Princess was last in shipyard just last May, so I doubt there will be any break in service.

It's hard to believe that the cushions & tables in the Piazza, the showers at the Lotus pool, mattresses, plumbling and some of the lounge chairs were tended to just last April. They sure have degraded fast.

Just bring the wine to dinner by the glass. There's no fee & no charge.

Did anyone notice the showers next to the Lotus pool?

What a joke.....doors that didn't rotate, handles that didn't function, one came off in my hand. LOL :D

.....and oh yes, a wave machine that was permanently turned off or broken.

Normally my cruise card is not in there the entire time I am playing.

 

It appears what you are saying is if you insert your cruise card, load $$ from it or your onboard account to the slot machine, that you cannot remove your cruise card (for example to buy a drink) without the remaining machine balance being put onto the cruise card.

 

Correct?

That's what I've found. I just pull my card out & it automatically goes back to my casino account although there is a button to push that does the same thing.

They may have changed their program since some people may have forgotten to transfer the money back to their account and left it in the machine. :eek:

If you look around you can find old & tired furniture just about anywhere on the ship in the Piazza, computer room, Lotus pool, main pool lounges, etc. The ship is definitely in need of a facelift before it goes to Europe this summer. I'm not sure if all the mattresses are bad or not but ours was in pretty poor shape, sagging badly.

As far as the sewerage smell goes we didn't experience it till our last week & then had to detour to the other side of the ship (Caribe deck) each time we walked forward due to a bad spill. It lasted 2-3 days & dissipated. I can tell you for sure that it wasn't fresh water. Other parts of the ship AFAIK smelled OK.

 

We made the best of it nevertheless but all those people who say it's not that bad must be a little blind to what a typical Princess ship should look like.

Now that the government has approved powdered alcohol (just mix it with your favorite mixer) it will be interesting to see how this will affect ship liquor policies. I understand it could be available in stores by June.

 

I'll have to try adding to one of their non alcoholic drinks next cruise as soon as it's available close-by our area. :D

I wonder if it'll be available in the Caribbean stores?

You can send out as much laundry as you need but I don't believe Princess has dry-cleaning any longer.

Have a fabulous cruise!

They have what they call "cleaning" which replaced the dry cleaning. We

we never had problems with it as we have with the laundry.

Carnival seem to be very thorough -- they carefully check bottle

safety seals to make sure you haven't refilled them. Their ships

seem to sail on time.

 

Princess treats their guests with a little more respect, but I'm sure

after enough people cheat them, they will rethink that.

 

How will they ever know?

When I posted thorough I meant inspecting of anything that could hold alcohol besides bottles. There are many devices commercially available and I'm sure there must be numerous other ingenious containers people use.

As long as I'm allowed my 1 bottle without a penalty I'm happy.

Princess watches these boards as all the other cruise lines watch theirs. That is why they check so hard and know what to look for. Much safer and less stressful to just play by the rules. Princess is a great cruise line. Check to see what scotch they offer.

 

Princess knows all the "common" tricks to smuggle alcohol on their ships and they really don't check all that thoroughly. If they even did clamp down & thoroughly check every item it would take all afternoon to board and we all know that will never fly. ;)

If Princess wanted my business that bad they would have at least kept the double FCC credit program in place all the time as they offered a few years ago. ;)

Although we'll continue to sail predominately on Princess, at home I can at least have the time to do some comparative shopping rather than just select a cruise from a book which offers us nothing at all.

Cioppino (Italian seafood stew). Flourless chocolate cake or key lime pie for dessert. Heaven!

We don't care to much for the Flourless cake since it's always to heavy but the key lime pie is about the only one they do make well. The other pies leave a lot to be desired.

If I recall correctly I think they did serve them one time in the dining room. They were part of an assortment distributed after dinner.

I'm sorry that you lost loved ones to cancer because of smoking. So, why blame ALL smokers for THEIR deaths. As I stated before...if the smell of smoke bothers you don't go to the areas where smoking is permitted. Simple solution.

 

Not quite that simple. What about all the smoke that drifts out of the casino into the Piazza. We don't go near the casino but get blasted with it every time we get even close by. It's become the new indoor smoking room.....for cigarettes at least and Princess doesn't seem to be the least bit interested in correcting that problem. As Ryndam2002 posted, maybe they are planning to eliminate it altogether & don't want to add to the expense. :confused:

We always open a casino account the first night & transfer everything into it from our on-board account. What ever is not used at the end of the cruise is refunded in CASH. Let them bill my credit card for everything charged on the cruise- drinks, tips, tours. In the end it all balances out anyway.

....and non smokers are very sensitive to it. maybe Princess could put in some quiet hi speed fans in the ventilation system in the smoking lounge to pull the smoke out faster but, you should probably just count your lucky stars that it is still allowed onboard at all

 

They probably could but it would be like a wind tunnel in there and also increase AC costs. It would at least keep some of the smoke from leaking out when the doors were opened.....and that wouldn't be all bad.

I can envision only one fix which would totally work but it wouldn't be to popular for the few remaining people who do continue to smoke.