Cuedon

My shower has pump bottles sort of attached to the wall. So not quite a dispenser (unless you count a pump bottle as a dispenser, which it is, but...), but, yes, it does have shampoo.

3 hours ago, Loveh2ofl said:

And did you ever look on your tv dining reservations (don't need a smartphone) to check if it was correct? First thing the head waiter would do upon getting to the dining room would be to scan one of our medallions and the reservation would come right up.  Just curious.

Doesn't matter, according to multiple people in different departments; the backend for the reservation system is distinct from the display that's passenger-facing. Which is probably for the best, since, depending on the day, I have one to six of them showing, but whoever the service desk phones about it insists there's only one showing. 

3 hours ago, Loveh2ofl said:

Perhaps it's the peak time of 7pm that is the issue...

Unlikely, since I received a call at the end of my first leg about booking for the subsequent legs, and I said that any consistent time before 7PM was fine... And they called back confirming me for 5:20. Which is very much unconfirmed. 

On 5/30/2022 at 6:29 AM, Loveh2ofl said:

We just got of the 5/11-5/26 sailing.  Both MDRs were anytime dining.  I had reserved private tables prior to the cruise except for a couple of nights when not available.  I changed my seating time from 6:20 to 6 via the tv 'app' after the first two nights.  We ate in Provence every night since that was the only MDR where we found reservable tables for 2.  For 2nd half of cruise we requested a specific table every night and were able to get it expect for one night where we were seated at a different table for 2.  On dates where I couldn't reserve a table for 2 and had 'dine with others', I kept checking back and was able to reserve table for two on those dates.

I've been escalated to three different tiers of management to get a fixed time (not even a fixed table) before 7PM, as was promised by five different staff. 

I still can't get in without the staff doing seating at the door telling me it's my fault every day. 

2 hours ago, paulandjoyce said:

Thanks so much for the update! strange about the safes not working. 

It's really good if people complain and get things fixed.

Sabetini's was not great on the Enchanted - nor was the crown grill...on the enchanted or the regal. We will try the Bayou - on your recommendation, but not blame you when the meal is not great LOL!

If not international cafe, where do you go for coffee and small snacks? Is there a main atrium where there is some food and a place to listen to music, etc.?

Well, 20 people is 10 covid couples - I'm guessing not so awful for a couple of thousand on the ship. Who knew we would be so lucky, in early December, the Enchanted had no covid. We never knew for sure in February, what was on the Regal.

Did the ship look nice and clean????

It's mostly that La Bayou has a distinct menu that, barring its sister ship, has items unavailable anywhere else on the line. It's also the premium steakhouse (allegedly), so... yeah...

The buffet is open until 10PM, and the Lido pizza's open until 11PM, so I mostly grab random piles of stuff from there and keep it in my room for late night/early morning food. Room service is also available. A lot of the bars have espresso machines (as opposed to there being only a few on ships that have an International Cafe), so you can get your premium coffees there. There's also a bakery/pastry-ish area at the front of Lido, capping off the buffet.

The main atrium on this ship is four floors, has Good Spirits, at least one other bar, the service desk, both MDRs, and has entrances directly to the library, internet cafe, and whatever the smoking lounge on this one is. (I don't think it was labelled Churchill's, but I could be mistaken.) 

I don't know if there were more people dispatched to other hotels-- that was just to the one hotel that had people that was part of the mega-party that I had met. 

On 5/25/2022 at 7:22 PM, paulandjoyce said:

Hi - you wrote you are currently sailing on the Island Princess. We are on the August 12th trip and have not been on this specific ship. Can you tell us about the shows, staff (are there enough support staff), food - or anything that might be interesting? We love the Gigi's/alfredo's on other ships...as well as the international cafe. What's the deal on the Island? We also have a free specialty restaurant night - any suggestions?

We are booked on the mid ship 9th floor - how do the rooms, carpeting, beds look as the ship has just gone back into service.

Will love hearing back from you.

Joyce

Staff seems a bit short, and my steward last week seemed particularly addled-- when you need to drop off messages in a room with DND, just shove it under the door... No need to call to say there're messages... MDR reservations have been a hellscape. Service desk staff have been making fundamental errors (kept adjusting stuff on the wrong accounts!). 

No international Cafe (and by extension, no 24/7 food). No Alfredo's, but Sabatini's has pizza for lunch... Sometimes. Still never made my way to it when it open. 

Shows tend to be small scale ones... Allegedly, one of the comedians did their very first show last voyage. I think there was only one full-scale production show. (Maybe two?) 

I'd recommend La Bayou, on the grounds only Coral(?) and the Island have it. Sabatini's is available elsewhere, though they changed up their plating here. They both were, uh, lackluster, though. (And, judging from what I've seen other people say, I tend to be fairly generous in my assessments.) 

There's been a litany of issues, mostly things that would probably have been ironed out after a few weeks in service, for passengers to find and report them for fixing... But one I doubt they can do much about is I heard reports of a lot of nonfunctional safes.

Aft port 8 was the quarantine ward last voyage... Heard 20 people were debarked for quarantine at a single hotel this turnaround. 

Always problematic for me, and in multiple ways.

The upshot, if you like eating late, there's almost always easy availability for onboard bookings after 7PM. 

21 hours ago, HBCcruiser said:

My TA upgraded us for our 10-day cruise in December. The cost was $25.00 per day per person. We drink high end wines so it’s worth it to us. This is what my new Summary states. Interesting when you see the value they give each add on. 😳

Waitwaitwait-- MNet WiFi (1-DEVICE)? 

The new package is supposed to be 4-devices I thought? 

Edit: Never mind, that must be what the MNet device upgrade is... Conveniently NOT listed right next to the 1-device entry. 

If you want to do a metagame version of Majority Rules, have people vote on the answer-- but have them scored on what they think the majority answer is.

I've found you're also more likely to get honest answers out of that variant too, instead of people trying to second guess the crowd just to win: I was really surprised when kittens/puppies/sloths lost out as cutest animal. (Sloths were the trendy animal at the time.)

22 hours ago, nini said:

I really do not understand why yo would purchase OBC, when it is you who would be paying for it with most likely the same credit card.

Budgetary reasons, access to more cash than available on the credit line, profitable financial shenanigans, other people paying... plenty others.

22 minutes ago, judy-judy said:

Does Army National Guard count as Military Service?

i - United States Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard, National Guard or Reserves with a copy of a military verification certificate confirming active duty status available for free online at Servicemembers Civil Relief Act website.
ii - Canadian National Defense -- CF1FC Silver Card with the word Veteran in the lower left corner for retired or the initials CAF for active military.

Tangentially related, the current, US-version of the Princess site doesn't make a mention of people who served in the militaries beyond US/CA, but I did spot a (different) forum discussing getting it in the UK from 2013, and a travel agency from 2015 for Australia and New Zealand... any idea what other nations may receive it?

Edit: There's a different bit in the fine print for retired; just copied the bit listing the active for brevity.

1 hour ago, cr8tiv1 said:

My concern as a stockholder is the younger crowd doesn't have the days off to cruise for 100 days, let alone 2 weeks.  Princess really does need to assess who will sustain them on the long haul.  That would have been me.  Yes, I can do technology.  But don't care for many of the other changes.  

There are definitely those that can with adequate internet... which is exactly what I do, especially since my internet requirements aren't particularly stringent. (No streaming necessary; all documents and basic emails.) I don't think that's their long term plan though-- Princess'd really need to boost their consistency to make it work out, and I don't think they currently have the right lifestyle mix to sustain interest for most people in situations like that. On the other hand, with the rising interest in remote work, maybe they're trying to get out (too, too far) ahead of the crowd.

Having said that, Princess probably doesn't want me sailing with them anyways, since I've been a net expense for them, so... 🤷‍♂️

20 minutes ago, CalLuvsCrusingToo said:

So being able to Show Proof of Correct amount, always helps expedite correction.

Except around a third of the time, when I have a four-digit amount of freeplay, it truncates the last digit in the display, even when there should be enough room to display it, so... fun times!

I hope the ship is still in existence-- I'm currently on it!

Seriously though, I just checked the website and saw 37ish voyages listed as available. 

2 hours ago, Minnie29 said:

How did you find the food onboard and did you pre-book any speciality restaurants?

A month ago, food on the Majestic was fine... Food on the Island right now is... Questionable. I wouldn't say it's BAD (I haven't gotten sick, and I can get it down), but there are definitely preparation decisions that make me wonder. 

According to Princess's own FAQs, "Unless noted, onboard currency is in U.S. dollars. However, on select Australian-based itineraries, the onboard currency is in Australian dollars."

According to a travel booking website with a UK URL, Princess uses USD even in Europe, as do most other international lines with a non-Eurocentric focus... However, it DOES note that P&O actually uses GBP, and MSC uses EUR for EU, and USD elsewhere. 

Small dish/cupped items are self-serve, basically anything hot is staff-served. 

Blackjack for a serious session. 

Lucky Pony for fun. Seriously, most dippy bonus song ever. I use it as my ring tone. 

When I was last in Fuerte Amador, shortly pre-C, there was a shuttle bus that ran from somewhere near the tender dock to a fairly huge mall (Albrook, I want to say it was, based on the large animal sculptures).

Does anybody know if these shuttles are still running? Or, if they were operated by the ship line, is Princess is still doing it? 

I've taken to keeping a copy of my statement for the relevant time frame, making sure I have a copy of the email I sent out, and just taking care of it on board... Seems to work out smoother that way. 3rd time so far that I've had to do it this way due to unresponsiveness, and no issues yet. (They've also never asked to see an attempt at getting it beforehand, like the email... I do, however, often bring snacks to the service desk since I'm there a lot.) 

USD unless you're on an Australian route-- then it's AUD. At least according to some notices I have for next year. 

I get these all the time... Even a notice for nonpayment months AFTER the cruise once. Never had an issue with it myself. 

On 5/10/2022 at 8:55 AM, ftwtong said:

If anyone has any pics of MDR menus, I would love to get an idea of what that is looking like. We will be on Island in June. Thank you for everything you are sharing. It is very helpful and gets me excited about our trip!

Are you still looking for menus? This set is for formal night #2:

https://ibb.co/s9bLHpz
https://ibb.co/0JkhLbN
https://ibb.co/xDpwbrN

Mine are for fully comped voyages instead of discounted, but they tend to be fairly clear about if they're valid for specific voyages, or for any voyage (meeting fine print requirements, like <14d, NOT Asia/Australia, etc.).

If you're looking at the emails, there's often a 'See voyages' button, or something like that, that shows the valid routes... Sometimes things are buggy and they show a cruise as valid when it isn't though, based on my last attempt at booking. (Never happened pre-C though...) 

3 hours ago, Margarita Jane said:

@Cuedon Any updates on your cruise? Sounded pretty awful from your post on Monday. 

I suppose it honestly depends on what you're accustomed to, and what you'll tolerate. 

From what I can tell, a lot of the water issues have been resolved, the dining issues (for me, at least) are resolved, getting INTO the MDR is a lot faster too. Whatever they're doing on Lido is probably going to be resolved by the next leg. 

One issue I heard (no problem personally) is that a lot of rooms have poor or nonfunctional AC... There's a lot of blues on this trip though, so that might be from a block of people leaving their balconies open and causing the thermal systems to kill themselves. 

One interesting issue that I heard from somebody in the MDR near me (who spent the entire dinner complaining, after opening with how she's not a complainer...) is that a lot of rooms have nonfunctional safes.

Internet is still weird, in that I can use it for free on my phone. (There was an email a few days back noting that it'll be free for the Transatlantic since it's expected to be terrible, so a moot point, I suppose.) 

In the buffet, anything not on those minidishes is still crew-served. 

Masking is encouraged, but realistically, under 10% of people are, so... Up to you. Sanitizer stations are still all over the place. 

Entertainment is weird; a lot of the mid-day events are ones I haven't seen before, like "Word Tennis" (It plays kind of like Concentration or Shiratori.) or Rock the Room... Which was like what you get if you took mixed music trivia and split the entire room into two teams. I heard that one of the comedians was their very first time performing the other day. Reviews on him were 4 good, 1 'okay for a first timer', and 1 awful. 

Casino is awkward, but that's an effect of it being really, really small. Rumor mill has it that they might have budgetary issues this trip. 🤣