HaveDogWillTravel

Sapphire (& I believer her sister Diamond) have two mini suites….last aft both port and starboard that were recategorized as B4 balconies. There were fitted out as ADA but when they didn’t meet all requirements for that they were recategorized. Long story short they are 354 sq ft with a huge balcony fir an absolute great price. The reviews and photos I found were all pretty old so I booked D736 sapphire princess on a wing and a prayer. I am extremely happy with what I found when I walked into my room! I’ll post lots of photos but I’m at sea so it may have to wait till I have cell phone service in Alaska. While the room description says you cannot convert the twins to a queen I asked my steward (showing him some old pictures from @JF - retired RRT hope I quoted the right person my apologies if I’m wrong) to do it and he obliged. YMMV. If you have questions please ask as I’m here for 10 more days.

@Drdarkknight. I’m on this sailing also. You picked a great itinerary and a great ship for Alaska. Thanks for starting this Live From for us!

@ThrakI hope you advise them to forgo a package and bring their own wine on board. It’s really the only way to have great (or even good) wine while sailing Princess these days. I’ve enjoyed your posts these many years. Would love to host you & family for a glass of wine on our eclipse cruise.

It’s not clear who you are talking to here. Please clarify.

I’ve only sailed once on Oceania (last month Riviera). My TA however has been with the company since they started and has given me great information. She told me I could bring on what ever alcohol I wanted in any quantity I wanted. I was pleased to discover this to be true. For as wonderful as we found the food we were surprised by the lack luster quality of the bourbon, vermouth and wines. I was served martinis in margarita glasses….. in two different bars! So wrong. We were happy that we could rectify this by bringing on our own supplies. I noticed a lot of old and infirm passengers on our sailing. But the weird thing was that entertainment (theater shows, music…) didn’t start until 9:30! I really wanted to stay up and see just who the folks were who stayed up that late to start the night. But way past my bedtime as I’m a (very)early riser. There was no other entertainment to speak of (unless you count trivia). Oh there was an occasional piano player in Martinis bar early evening but he really should have refrained from singing. Specialty restaurants are included. You can see your allotment on the website when you access Manage My Booking. We had 4 on a 10 night sailing. We especially enjoyed Red Ginger. We never turned the tv on so I can’t report on that.

Take an LA to NYC and then do a QM2 crossing 😃I don’t like those long flights either. Had so much fun on our (not) Bermuda 😂sailing last month with you, Stu and the group. Hopefully we can join you again someday. That red ginger tasting menu dinner was a real treat! Thanks again for everything. Last sailing was 10 day RT miami to Bermuda last month Next one is a RT Vancouver 11 day Alaska sailing leaving April 29.

I just posted bar menus on your previous thread. You should pencil it out for yourself. I think you’ll like Princess

Here’s Vines from Feb 25 notice the fine print at the bottom.

The menus from Feb 25 were literally printed that day. That was the day the new packages took effect. There were some typos in there that I pointed out to crew.

Anything over $20 will be charged the difference plus 18%.

Wines on board are a real crap shoot. Every ship on every sailing is subject to whatever new rules they re using to stock. I simply have stopped expecting anything with regards to white wine. I no longer pay for a package. Bringing on my wine is a bit more trouble but worth it for me. But cocktails have been consistently great. I just use my OBC to get a few cocktails.

Sabatini’s Restaurant uses the Adgio Bar and they have some unique offerings

These are from the Wheelhouse post pandemic but not as recent as the others posted.

Upper deck. Bar menus

Good spirits at sea cocktails.

MDR full wine list.

If DH likes good white wine Princess simply doesn’t stock it on board. If he likes good red wine he should be able to find something under the Premier Plan. Getting Plus and just paying the overage plus 18% might be best….do the math. If he drinks cocktails then Princess serves some of the best on Plus. Take him to Good Spirits at Sea. I recently sailed Oceania and was shocked at how poor the cocktails were (wine was just as bad as princess if not worse). Here are some menus from the Royal Feb 25, 2023 sailing. These are from Crooners. I’ll post more

You can order coffee 24/7 on your TV or through the ap. Especially that time of morning I’ve found it to be pretty quick. I sailed on the Diamond Jan 31, 2023 to Mexico out of LA. There was a hot pot in our suite. Now granted it was the 1300 plus square foot Grand Suite but I’ve never had a hot pot in other Grand Suites (or vistas, premium, penthouse or owners) Heres some pictures of it. It’s just a plain Jane Bodum that is widely available for purchase. If anyone sees anything that makes it different I’d really like to know!

Riedel has a Restaurant Series that is used on the ships. They are lovely glasses but are not the $20-$80 stems sold in their other series. What I have found to be true is that on the Royal class ships the “good” glasses are freely given in most bars and restaurants (barring upper decks of course). On Grand class ships they have been monitored more carefully. My personal experience is pretty extensive with regards to this. If you read thru these responses you’ll notice this trend.

Here’s some Stanley pics

I had the Balcony Breakfast for my birthday in January on the Royal. I was solo in my cabin. I loved it. Here are some pics.

Correct. Nothing on the books at the moment. Hopefully in the future though! Their sanctuaries are so unique compared to all the other princess ships. Just thought it might be useful information for anyone reading about sanctuary experiences.

Only if you are on the Coral or the Island. The sanctuary all the way aft, has no glass windows that you have to look through and has 180 degree views as it takes up the entire aft area. These pictures were taken 4 days apart on the Island. It was cloudy heading north and sunny on the return trip heading south.

I’ve sailed with Standard, Plus and Premier. All my future bookings are now Standard. I always have enough OBC to pay for grats, corkage for the wine I bring onboard and the odd cocktail or two. Also my phone works in all ports so I don’t need WiFi but my OBC usually covers it if I do. The wine offerings, for my tastebuds and preferences, are awful and just getting worse since last fall. The ships have maybe one or 2 white wine by the glass at any price in stock that I like. Not love, just will drink. Occasionally I hunt down a random bottle left over from before the decimation of their wine offerings. But those will be non existent soon if not already. I love red wine but it does not agree with me. I have tasted many of the reds and those offerings on premier are pretty good. If I could stick to red (or cocktails) I’d be fine with the Premier reds. But the reds on Plus are plonk in my opinion for my tastes. I also like my wine in a glass without a rolled lip. It’s a struggle on princess to get a “good” glass outside of MDR or vines. I really get tired of begging for a good glass and “can you please see if you have anything else?” Wine is just as subjective as food. There are some who think the included wines at Plus are just fine. The Cattier Champagne on premier is good but I got so very tired of it after a week and I had 3 more days to go. It has been getting harder and harder to book specialty dining once on board at my preferred time of 6:30. With all those Premium packages including 2 nights, it’s bound to stay that way. For me one night in specialty dining at most is enough and I really don’t miss it when I don’t get it included. I used to do the chef table or winemaker dinner but it’s all just too much food and wine. Having the included photos was fun. I took pictures with other passengers and crew and then gave the pictures away to the people who didn’t have the package as I had the digital. Normally you can’t get pictures with crew included but we got permission. But I absolutely would not have paid for this nor missed it if I didn’t have premier. Premier was nice as it gave me a sense of “all access” on that sailing. Plus is nice because it gives a worry free end of cruise bill. Standard is nice because it saves so much money especially if you sail a lot like I do. Just my 2 cents.

I have ‘split’ my gift cards multiple times. I use a great PVP. I’ve even had partial refunded GC applied to other bookings. I can apply GC myself to pay for bookings. When I want to use GC to load extra OBC after final payment I have to ask my PVP to do it.