HaveDogWillTravel

You should receive a letter in your cabin at embarkation with the details of where and what hours the specialty dining room breakfast is (not to be missed) as well as the evening cocktail hour for elites & suites with (recently) pretty nice offerings. You could do Club Class breakfast but the specialty dining breakfast is nicer and they serve mimosas with fresh squeezed OJ. You can ask for anything the ship has on board and they will get it for you, usually by the next morning. The MDR menus are not always automatically given. Tell you steward on the first day you’d like the lunch (sea days) & dinner menus before noon. I date them and save them by tucking them in a drawer. Ordering from the MDR is one of the very best perks. If you can not get through to room service call the front desk and tell them you are not able to take advantage of this full suite perk and they will put you through and the phone will get picked up. The same day laundry is another priceless perk. I send in a few things every day. Ask your steward what time they need it by to get it back that night. I don’t send my super delicate clothes or anything I’d cry about if it was lost/damaged but pants, pjs, socks, shirts & basic underthings have always come back perfectly. I’ve used this service hundreds of times across a half dozen ships and never had a problem. Others may not agree but that’s been my experience. I always take a picture of what that days laundry is just in case my steward has to look for a lost item. I haven’t seen the actual pillow menu post pandemic but there is a wide variety to choose from. I really like the Dream Pillow & a body pillow. By default your sheets should be changed daily. I ask my steward to only change them every other day. Some stewards are more experienced than others, but they are always willing to learn and improve. I know full suites already pay more in auto grats but I always tip my steward at the end of the sailing for a job well done. Welcome to the suite life as they say.

Thank you very much for relaying your experience. I find it odd that Princess has this secret rule. I mean what is this? In and Out Burger? I have no problem following rules but how can I follow a rule if it isn’t stated? Secret rules should not exist. thanks to all for posting their experiences and thanks for sharing your expertise @chengkp75 As always we all appreciate your wealth of knowledge.

Thank you to all those who gave me respectful and thoughtful replies. I truly appreciate your input. For those who missed it. I had indicated that the cherries would be consumed on board and they would in all likelihood not see the dawn. So no taking them off ship at another port to spread disease. I do think that the list of prohibited items should clearly state what food items can not be brought on board. I carefully read that document and my passenger contract. There is no mention of food being an issue. I have never done it so I had no personal experience. It seems unreasonable for people to be expected to know about secret rules. I’ve asked my PVP and am waiting for a reply.

Thank you for the clarification. I wasn’t trying to daft but it seemed your response was only for prepared foods and not things like whole fruit that wouldn’t be processed. But your explanation of how the fruit and veggies are sanitized makes sense.

Thank you @CruiseRaiderfor relaying your first hand experience.

I read this in detail and my passenger contract. I can find no reference to fresh fruit being prohibited. But I now know I can bring my small Swiss Army knife as it’s blade is under 2.5 inches in length and less than .5 inch in width 🙂

Thank you so much for your reply. Would you say fresh cherries are okay to bring on board?

Thanks so much for sharing your experience.

Thanks for the reply. Just curious have you had any experience bringing on fresh fruit?

Thanks to all for the fast replies! @voljeep I’ve never tried to bring flowers on but have read on these boards that others have. And no you cannot take the Princess flower arrangement with you when you disembark. At least I was denied post pandemic. I asked my favorite crew if they were interested in the arrangements and all said no as they had no room. Instead they accepted a single flower and loved it! I was like Johnny Appleseed letting crew who wanted to select a flower. The girls put them in their hair it was quite festive! @cruzin4usthanks for the crew chat message. I saw the cruzely story but it had no documentation unfortunately. @kiwimum Thanks for your very recent first hand account of bringing on fruit! I do think I’ll bring them and risk it. If you’ve ever had a tree ripened cherry you will appreciate why it’s worth doing. I am sure they won’t make it to morning after boarding. They are simply perfect right now!

Thanks for the quick reply. Did you find this on the Princess website? I wasn’t able to. I’d really like to find the written policy if you or anyone could help I’d be most appreciative.

I am boarding in San Francisco soon and my crew friends have said they’d love some fresh cherries out of my yard. I read the pages of prohibited items on the Princess website and fresh fruit is NOT on that list. Has anyone had experience bringing any kind of fresh fruit on board when they embark? When I did a google search I get conflicting information and I couldn’t find any documentation that it was prohibited. The cruise is to Alaska if that matters. Thank you in advance.

Post #16 @karatemom2hits the nail on the head. I do put my cash, passports and expensive jewelry in the safe. My iPad will just get tucked in a drawer as I can locate it using FindMy ap if it should walk away. I keep my counters clear of clutter (those strong little magnets with hooks are amazing at holding stuff on the walls!). The reason for these protocols is three fold: it reduces my room steward’s work, creates a safer environment for my steward in that they can’t be falsely accused if I lose something or someone other than my steward enters my room and takes something. A room steward is in serious jeopardy if something goes missing from one of the cabins they attend to. I trust them completely. I’ve come back to my room to find maintenance being done & my room steward nowhere in sight. You are supposed to be informed before hand & your steward should be there when anyone else is in the room but that doesn’t always happen. I have a little less faith in the obscure person who might come in for another purpose. But my room steward? No worries. On the first day I show my steward a designated spot where I will leave anything I want them to take away…..glassware, dishes etc. That way if I’ve left a half empty glass of sparkling water or a glass of wine out or anything else that I would like to finish later it is not disposed of. Everyone transitions out of the pandemic (or not) at their own pace. So do what you need to be comfortable. However well you might clean the room in general, those bed linens really need to get changed every 3 days (that’s the pattern in cabins except full suites which get changed daily). The body oils, sloughed off skin cells and mites (yes you have them everyone does) you shed need to be removed so they don’t migrate to the mattress that I might be sleeping on when you leave.

I’ve routinely ordered up to 4 per person no problem on the ap. If I call room service I can get 6. This is over 4 different ships and 60 days of sailing since July 25 2021. No charges with Princess plus. please don’t judge me. I’m a statistician just doing research.

I’ve sailed on Princess 56 days since the very first sailing July 25th where no passengers wore masks & the crew were in cloth Princess masks. I think it’s fair to say I’ve sailed through all the variants and with a wide variety of ever changing protocols. I got the vaccine as soon as I was eligible, the same with both boosters. I have been more relaxed in my personal safety measures when I don’t need to test positive soon after a cruise and I’ve been extremely strict on other sailings when I was doing B2B or otherwise required a negative test after sailing. I’ve never gotten so much as a cold let alone Covid on a ship. I think so much depends on each person’s immune system response that there can’t be a one size fits all approach to staying healthy on vacation. I think I realized I had a strong immune system when I remembered that over 20 years of teaching at the college I had maybe two colds and never the flu in spite of not getting flu vaccines until the very last few years. There was always someone sick in my classroom. I had roughly 150 students each semester. On my April 23 sailing I was with a group of 4, two early 40’s and two early 60’s. One of the early 40 year olds never masked unless required. He’s the only one who came home with a cold (negative for Covid tested multiple times post cruise). Symptoms didn’t start till last day of cruise and he did self test negative on the ship. The rest of us masked while walking around inside but ate regularly in MDR and sat in bars. No one went to any shows or other inside activities as we simply were having too much fun! My medicine OTC kit now includes a half dozen self test kits, kn95s and medications to relieve cold symptoms.

Well I don’t know that. It might perhaps suggest this. For all we know it’s just some ad person using some pictures of pretty drinks for a flyer. All I know is that those pictures are the craft cocktails from GS. GS rolled out a new menu when I was on the discovery first week of April. It had some of the original drinks and new ones. I posted the menus to the April 7 live from.

Yes they were all included.

The drinks pictured on the premier side are all from Good Spirits (I’ve earned my shirt). This would perhaps suggest that GS will no longer be included in Princess plus.

Has anyone used the Japanese baths on board? If so what was your impression of them? If you stay in a full suite you get free access to the the thermal spa. Does that include the baths? what about that gorgeous tub on the deck? Is that part of the full suite access? thanks in advance.

Adding or deleting someone from the booking does not trigger a refare. I do it all the time.

True. https://www.cruise118.com/news/no-more-service-charges-on-po-cruises/ A spokesperson for P&O Cruises have since confirmed that passengers are neither ‘required nor expected’ to tip on-board, but it can be done if passengers so wish. The change will also not affect crew pay on-board the ship, who earn a ‘fair and appropriate wage’. So P & O absorbed the gratuities and kept paying it to crew. The change happened in 2019. I’ve never priced P&O before or after but I think it reasonable to believe their business model would require the gratuities not be taken out of the company’s profit margins.

January 2022 I was able to use my OBC to pay for DH specialty dining and anything else he wanted. In April 2022 I used it to pay for some friends specialty dining. I simply gave my medallion and had things charged to me.

I make no judgement on your choices. Simply giving a point of information. On these cruise lines you are paying auto grats as part of the fare. On these lines it is mandatory and can not be removed. It is not listed as a line item but it is in the price automatically.

It was the entire aft section facing the wake. If we stayed away from the railing and the wind blew in our favor it was okay. So we would be out on the balcony and you’d get a big whiff of smoke then it would dissipate….wash, rinse and repeat. Standing at the railing it was bad most of the time. Dolphin deck sticks out further than Emerald deck, I imagine that deck must be worse. I never saw anyone smoking on the sides toward aft. They always walked to the wake. That doesn’t mean it didn’t happen, it just means I didn’t see it. There’s no telling if this policy will stay in place or not.

April 23-30 the aft was closed for crew smoking. The smoke was very evident on my aft facing vista suite balcony D736 throughout the day and night.