tetleytea

The beef wellington. The surf 'n turf with filet mignon and jumbo shrimp. Lobster bisque Creme brûlée. Any dessert that looks like a nipple.

I'm pretty sure the contractor developed the technology first, and then sought out customers for it second. That's okay--that's just the way it happens sometimes. Initially this was probably called something like a supply chain management mobile app with integrated bluetooth location tracking. Then somebody presented it to Carnival execs, they said, "Great. Let's use it for this...", and they adapted it to the cruise line to become Medallion app. Now, a lot of the bluetooth locating is not even bluetooth anymore.

DW did that from her work email and she got a verification email from Princess. They said they would follow up again by May 31st with more information, but that never occurred.

Did we have the same Regal concierge lounge? The one I remember was fairly large, and no one was ever there.

I just know that when I can get a suite for the price of a balcony, the mermaids' music calling me to the suite starts getting louder than the music calling me to any particular brand name.

I don't find the fares competitive with RCCL and Carnival for Galveston winter dates. For the same price, you could bump up a room category on the other lines.

Double-checked my Captain's Circle, and that was the Regal; not Ruby. Didn't think that was an important detail; only that it was not the Discovery.

The Princess Treatment: where you get your own personal shopping consultant to refer you to Effy jewelry, where they offer you an awesome 60% off discount, just because you're special. You can drive right down the street to the jewelry store at home, where they charge one quarter what Effy does at regular price. And oh...did I forget to mention that going out on a cruise has nothing to do with jewelry?

That might only be that particular concierge. We were very happy with our concierge on the Ruby.

Maybe, but some of us are utterly socially inept. Says my DW who constantly reminds me when my fly is down before I leave the cabin.

But I'm sure you have to at least be logged in as the actual teacher and have the discount tied to your account. My DW is the teacher (not me), and even if she did register for her own account on princess.com, I doubt this discount would just automatically be tied to her account. You must have to do something. What that is...I await for Princess to tell me. tick...tick...tick...tick...

MHO Medallion, in principle, is fine, but there are implementation issues. Most often in the IT field if you have a recurring problem, it's neither a software nor a hardware problem at all--it's a people problem. Princess is probably struggling to staff the IT which runs the app, but even more than that, I'll venture to guess that IT and the rest of the company operations are not interfacing that well. You have to interface with Guest Services to make Crewcall chat work. You have to interface with Dining services to make Dining Reservations work. and so on.... For that matter, Marketing probably has to stamp their approval on everything before any IT person gets permission to go to the bathroom.

Agreed. When I compared the cruise, I just logged into Princess as myself, slashed 25% off all the prices assuming a best-case scenario, and compared to Holland and RCCL. Other lines were still cheaper.

I'm beginning to believe it's not even a discount. I'm able to book a cruise on Holland or RCCL for the same date, same itinerary, same room category for less than Princess' post-discount price. Why bang my head against the wall when I can just book elsewhere?

We are trying to get the teacher discount with Princess, but we are still getting the runaround from Princess. I hope they understand it's a free market. DW got her verification letter and we know about the discount code, but after being placed on hold with Princess for about 35 minutes we still don't know how to apply it...or if it is already being applied...whatever it is.

Since the OP title is "What would you do," I will take that literally: I take the inside. The reason being the 4 sea days and the destination. Better uses for $500 than to stare at water. Plus if I was solo, I would never be there anyway except to sleep. And oh, about the sleep:. interior cabin, solo travel. I can sleep whatever weird hours I want, day or night. If I was offered a free upgrade to balcony I'd take it; if it was Alaska I'd get the balcony and some binoculars. But it is neither of those things.

We booked a shore excursion through the ship.to visit the Everglades, and they drop you off at the airport. That was wildly successful--I almost never book shore excursions through the ship.

I think they wanted $199 for us the first day of the cruise. Either way, about the price to just buy a plane ticket to Phoenix for 7 days.

What I like the most about being able to drive to port is the no limit on luggage. That means I can finally buy that oversized stuff for cheap in Central America or just ride my bike in Ketchikan.

Lately the Wake Show has done little more than tell us in 35 minutes what I could have found out by reading the Patter for 3 minutes. I did, however, find out that I need to buy my cruise photos today, on Deck 7, and that the specialty restaurants are really cool, I need to make my reservations today. And ooh, those Lotus spa treatments.

You can borrow them from a friend. All mine are currently lent out to friends in Alaska. The rest of the year, they sit in the shelf.

Boats might vary, but on Caribbean Princess this month the wait was actually far shorter if you had no reservations. We just had to be willing to share a table.

Plenty of cruisers go to the casino. The difference is not that big

The $1000 you spent for the 100.shares sure will.

CCL got a nice price bump today.