Cuedon

The Ultimate VIP trips are ones you don't really want to miss if you're within reasonable range; everybody registered on the last one (Majestic, in April, I think?) got a prize of at least 500$, with the biggest being 1.5k. (See below.) There's also daily snowball/fireball/hotseats, as well as an assortment of, frankly, junk gifts. (Princess Players Club tarp anybody? At least the silver foil playing cards could be played with...) The downside is that since it IS a casino trip, expect the casino to be packed, and spa/restaurant bookings to be full from offers that flow out of the host to larger players. Prizes (linked images for compactness): https://ibb.co/bP3M32D https://ibb.co/qkFvpYZ https://ibb.co/x756CZV https://ibb.co/1v2XPSm https://ibb.co/GHb5FNt

The ones I got from the Venetian before were just basic fare... Unless it specifies it comes with Princess Plus, I wouldn't expect it to. Note that you also have to pay 200$ deposit per person, but unlike my experience with NCL, you get that back; it's not a surcharge.

You can also ask to keep your old medallion if you didn't bring extra magnets of your own-- I currently have three of them on my walls holding up various papers.

A Where's the upper berth hidden? I don't remember any obvious wall mounts when I was there a few years back, and double checking video tours online, there's no room for a ceiling drop down between the recessed ceiling, vent, lighting, and fire protection.

I'm pretty sure the 'extra' two spaces are made by pulling out the sofa bed in a minisuite, so there's only, at most, three distinct sleeping surfaces.

I've never seen a lump-sum hold like that before from Princess; they usually throw a pending charge equal to the actual balance from a few days prior, for me. Somewhat annoying as it still eats up a decent chunk of my credit line until it drops off. Though I did accidentally sidestep that process on my current voyage by forgetting I used a debit card that has since been disabled... So I just get a notification every day that my DC has rejected a transaction instead.

Oh, sure. I was just hoping that they may have reinstated the option, or had it buried somewhere that I missed since you could put more than the 1500 current-OBC-limit on it, and there are reasons why it would be preferable to preload it than bring cash, establish a line of credit, or deposit front money.

Huh? Creme brulee shows up as a Princess Favorite every night on the Island, still. At least, it was there for the last few nights. ... Wasn't very good, though. (The macaron on one of them was so hard it shattered when I bit into it.)

Wave your medallion at a machine, go through the instructions to setup an account, charge whatever amount you want to the room... I'd recommend playing a little bit so it isn't an even number, and cash out at the cashier (maybe even a few days later).

Generally speaking, PCR has a higher sensitivity and is considered a better test... Except you can test positive weeks after you're no longer contagious, which can prove problematic. As of last week, PCR (not sure about 'rapid') was acceptable for Princess up to 3 days in advance. Edit: Actually, just to avoid any problematic issues since my info is US-centric... Here's the link to Princess' page itself: https://www.princess.com/plan/cruise-with-confidence/cruise-health/frequently-asked-questions/

I'd be surprised that two different bills would share OBC balances, like people are saying-- I'd expect each ledger to be handled independently. That the balance is ultimately being billed to the same credit card is an unrelated factor.

Nah, that's applying for a line of credit (as in borrowing money), a totally different beast. There used to be (pre-C, at least) an option on Princess where you could buy vouchers for the casino, the way you could get a cake or preload OBC, that people were wondering about, and what looked like the prior poster was referring to.

Are you seeing that currently? A few of us were wondering what happened to that option a few weeks ago and nobody could find it.

Lots of first timers on board who might think this is normal for Princess, as opposed to people who've been there a few times who know that the quality of service/experience is typically better.

I'm on anytime and finding the dining on the Island is messed up right now; a lot of people (myself included) are seeing long waits in line and getting told there is no availability for a private table, despite booking for the entire voyage pre-voyage. Or private tables aren't open yet, or you have a reservation but no table, or you don't have a reservation, or the system is bugging out... The reason, mostly from the same guy, kept changing. I had better luck at Bordeaux, where they found seating for me in a few minutes (and apologized that they couldn't seat me at the same table as the other day, which I didn't expect anyways), as opposed to Provence, where I was told to come back in two hours.

This is more LA to FLL at this point, but.. wow, are there all kinds of issues on the Island right now. There appears to be some kind of systemic issue with the DMW system; a lot of people who are booked for private tables aren't getting them, and one couple I was speaking to said that, after two days of 30min+ waits to get into the MDR via reservation line, they canceled their reservations and got in faster as a walk-in. The maitre'd trying to explain why it was evidently impossible to get a private table despite having a reservation kept changing the reason mid-explanation too. MDR food is consistently slightly off. My walnut and goat cheese salad turned into olives and gorgonzola; the bananas foster was raw bananas in syrup; the potato sides keep coming out as different kinds of potato dishes. Plumbing is also messed up-- no hot water leading to low water pressure, and once the pressure was fixed, I discovered my shower drain's outflow was woefully low. Other people reported non-flushing toilets and I met somebody whose shower head fell off. Only production show so far was the one like "Think You Can Dance?" or something. Everything else I noticed so far was billed as a solo performer... Obscure enough labeling that I only noticed they were the theater performer by looking at their venue. Internet is pretty messed up but in a good way-- I somehow have full internet access this morning without having paid for it? Woke up to alerts going nuts. There's also a surprisingly high number of blues for a TransCanal, making this a particularly poor showing for Princess.

Offers for slot players tend to be a fair bit higher at the same CI which is reasonable: The edge on slots is several times (if not an order of magnitude or two) higher than most tables, assuming they're played at anything remotely near optimal. People also often end to underestimate the amount of CI-- a sloooow BJ table clocks around 1k/hr@25/hand. Bouncebacks are also incredibly variable; one of my friends who didn't play AT ALL got a 300FP/interior off offer a few weeks ago, and, on the same trip, I ended up with a balcony/500FP... Playing purples as my baseline.

Can't say for Vegas since they've been getting stingier year after year, but most of the places I frequent will give 5-10% of actual session losses back in promo chips, when in HL... if you ask.

I heard that most of the Alaskas are out of WA/OR because they worked in an exception for the Jones Act in those two states, letting them skip Vancouver while it was closed, so I'd guess that the ships that would've been running LA-AK got shuffled elsewhere, while SF-AK is a 'close enough' thing for them that they didn't feel the need to bring LA's back once things reopened. ...If that run-on showed any lucidity.

The offers vary, but I find the ones in Asia to be exceptionally rare; I had a few pre-COVID valid for trips out of Singapore... the current offer, assuming it's similar to mine, has a lot of up-to-20d voyages on its docket, as well as the 15/16-day Hawaiis out of SF/LA/SD... it was only the first trip on the Sapphire that, for some reason, didn't count.

Interesting-- my offer didn't include Tahiti as an option that I noticed; what category was it under? I ended up booking a 20d Carib Explorer and a 20d Central/MexRiv. My third pick was a Hawaii that one of my family hadn't been on yet, but for some reason, the Oct 4(?) on the Sapphire was showing up as unavailable according to the rep, despite it showing up as one of the ones that were valid via the link and in the fine print.

Worked fine earlier today... just did a booking ~4 hours ago.

Called the casino bookings department today for other reasons; they said it's valid. ...Well, that means I've shorted myself thousands on OBC. 😑

It's just computers for public use; to do anything online (other than view free sites, like Princess' own page), you still need to log in with your plan.