beltsbear

The food and atmosphere in Blu on celebrity are a cut above reserve collection on Princess. Unfortunately all in pricing with a drink package is often much higher too. So while we love aqua class and prefer it, we go Princess plus or premier at 30% less per day. Breakfast at Blu is simply my favorite breakfast on the 30+ cruises I have been on.

On the Sapphire Princess CHURRASCARIA BRAZILIAN GRILL is in place of the steakhouse. It does not seem to be listed as an unlimited choice for specialty, which means there is just one choice Sabatini’s??

Not grandfathering is weird when the package has the same name and is just an evolution of the package. My cruise is actually cheaper now and I only have $200 down... so I am probably going to rebook with the new premier, unless they are not counting it yet as the new package.

On the royal they also would not give us free gelato even with premier, so we ordered the bigger free dessert with gelato . On the regal they would just give us three scoops of gelato with the premier package included.

The virtuoso was a very nice ship, but I have been on 30 cruises and never seen a worse gym to pax ratio. The only time I have ever been on a ship were not a single cardio machine nor weight bench was available. My time on the magnifica the gym was 3/4 empty. The regular buffet was nicer looking on the virtuoso, but the food was better on the older magnifica. But on the plus , I was yacht club on the virtuoso so the included YC restaurant was terrific.

Yes. Sushi at ocean terrace on royal class ships great, along with the full dedicated Alfredo’s.

And yacht club is often comparable to aqua class in price. It’s mostly because celebrity really increased the price of aqua class which used to be our preferred choice c

We have been on seven aqua class cruises and love celebrity. This gives us elite privileges as well. But the cost escalation has absolutely shocked us. So the last three have been Princess, usually mini suite. Princess is not as good as celebrity. But it can be half the price. And in the other direction… aqua class is often as expensive as MSC yacht club which we feel is superior to celebrity. we still look at celebrity, but each time we end up with something else. We did not see any decline in quality in our last celebrity cruise, it’s mostly cost combined with itinerary’s we want.

There are tons of groups (mostly country specific large tours) that are worse and happen all the time. On a Canada / New England cruise the pools are not usually the focus and it might not make a big difference. If you have kids that want the best pool , it will probably be a negative.

I love these table types. When you sit down or others sit down some people say hi and talk and others don’t. We met some very nice people this way , including having dinner or ongoing friendship later. If you don’t like to have conversation, they are far enough where that is possible. .

Yes, your device can read the Princess QR codes and displays the content if you are on ships WiFi without an internet package. This works on almost every cruise line. Did it on MSC as well. But the princess app has the menus as well for restaurants. But yes. A lot less QR codes on last cruise.

We were on her last month. Symphony was for fixed time, allegro was generally for walk up but available for reservations too, concerto mostly was for reservations. We tried for reservations at concerto and if not at allegro. At anytime you could walk up to any MDR and ask where you could be seated fastest if you didn’t want to wait and had no reservation.

On the royal princess they did not bend at all from the pric fixe menu, even with princess premier. It was disappointing. I did eat there a few times though. Alfredo’s let us order anything.

Ouch. Just booked an 18 day on December 18'th. So I guess I don't get that one doubled.

We have been booking the mini suites for a while, but I hate the name. It is not a suite. It is just a bigger room with a sofa. No suite benefits either unless you pay further for club class which most of the times we have seen is a very large increase in price. What we love most is the bigger closet and the tub/shower. For longer trips, all of your clothing fits with room to spare. It just does not feel cramped.

Yes, true. But only there. Not for really any other venues on RCL. And not on any other cruise line I have seen. Been on many HAL, Royal and celebrity. there was a classical duo on celebrity we loved, and came to see them multiple times during the cruise. We tried to tip them and they absolutely refused.

This is in contrast to the Royal Princess that would not allow substitutions in December. This caused both wasted time and wasted food on the royal.

Shorts in the steakhouse for dinner might be a problem on some ships. Though seen crummy tshirts in there on some nights.

We are on the regal princess now, and we’re on the royal princess in December. On board pricing is much higher now. The kind of excursions that were $89 in the past are now $129. We used to ( just six months ago) do mostly ship excursions. Now this trip we arranged all but one on our own , most being 50% cheaper. Kind of disappointing honestly.

As you can see prices are very high. We have never done so many excursions on our own. Bruges “on your own” (as princess excursion) is something we would normally do, but at $240 per couple we will Uber to the train with a cost being a fraction of $240. Usually princess would cost $80 each , still much more expensive than a an Uber and train, but more palatable.

there are some who say comping starts at 10,000 points…and others who say it starts at an average of 1000 points per day.

Dinner with a sub! Seen from the Concerto dining room at 8:30pm IMG_1799.mov

It was wonderful! IMG_1505.mov IMG_1505.mov IMG_1520.mov IMG_1520.mov

We are on this ship with you. Going to the Swanary in Portland in a few minutes.

Premier gives you more internet devices and higher end drinks. For us, that helps make it worth it. Plus we go to Alfredo’s or sushi for lunch about four times on a 12-14 day cruise.