IndyKid

7 minutes ago, Thrak said:

 

Cruise Australia/New Zealand. There is no indoor smoking allowed. Period.

Another reason to admire the sensibilities of our friends down under.

8 minutes ago, Torfamm said:

There was no smoking at all indoors until about March of 2022. It was fantastic. Why they ever started it again is beyond me

Gotta take care of the 1%...

2 hours ago, TRLD said:

How many of you that say the company should make it part of their wage would be happy to see the base fare increase by an equivalent amount as the recommended gratuity...

I would in a heartbeat. Also, when searching and comparing prices on cruises I would like to see all the cruise lines list the "out the door" total price (taxes, fees, etc.) so that one knows the exact price per person, instead of having to dig in 2 or 3 levels of the web page to get to the bottom line.

Some airlines also play the same stupid games. When you use a search engine like Google Flights, Matrix ITA, etc. it will show their lowest fare, but when you go to their website you find out that it's actually what I call steerage - no carry-on bag, no choosing seats beforehand, etc. which for us is not an option. 

Our trip aboard the Caribbean Princess last December was our first with PCL, having been only on Royal Caribbean in the past. When we were on Allure OTS several years ago we made a stop at their private enclave at Labadee, Haiti. It was OK, but nothing to write home about. We planned on our recent trip to stay aboard the CB while at Princess Cay but unfortunately the water was too rough for the tenders.

Ahhh, nothing like the topic of tipping to get the masses riled, it ranks right up there with MDR dress codes and people who play the towel game with the deck chairs!

The wife and I like to drink on our vacations, and I also enjoy my coffee and cappuccinos in the morning, so we usually do a Plus or Premier package anyway. Since CA is already included it's sort of a non-issue for us. But I totally understand the frustration it generates. As a (much) younger man I worked a second job hustling for tips as a server in a restaurant so my wife could be a stay-at-home mom. Now that I have the means to travel, for which I'm extremely grateful, I don't mind paying the extra amount, and I always give extra to our room attendant and MDR server (if we have the same ones each night). Most of the crew that work so hard to make our cruises memorable will never be in my shoes.

Yes, you're overthinking it. As karatemom2 said, it's a great feature for all the reasons she listed. The picture is so that employees will recognize you when interacting at bars, restaurants, getting off and on the ship at stops, etc. And at many places when you disembark they use facial recognition, no need to stop and talk to a customs and immigration officer. 

5 minutes ago, bladerunner6 said:

IndyKid and Steelers- how mobile are you? This time of the year is pretty much a coin flip weather wise.

 

Good luck and clear skies!

I have a car, and I've already arranged to have the day off from work, and my wife works mornings so we'll be able to move around a little.

We're cruising to our back yard, the path of totality is coming right through our area....

We had looked at Virgin previously before we booked with Princess last December for a 7-day trip aboard the Caribbean Princess, there's a lot of things about VV that we find attractive, not least of which is the all-adult feature.

We like going to the Caribbean in general, but we've not been to anywhere east of Puerto Rico and would like to see some of the Leeward Islands. Being than I'm still working, I don't like to take more than a week off from my job, so in order to see those places we would have to embark out of San Juan. We would do Princess again in a heartbeat as we really enjoyed our trip aboard the CB but PCL doesn't offer anything from San Juan, but Virgin does so they are on our short list for a trip next year.

22 minutes ago, Incognito1 said:

No children is a negative for me.  Also, we're conscious of where our money is spent - not going to Virgin.

What's your beef with Virgin? Because it's all-adult? That's one of it's featured selling points.

5 hours ago, Thrak said:

 

Be aware that alcoholic drinks are not "included". One can pre-pay for Bar Tab but there is no "drink package" per se. Any unused Bar Tab funds are not refunded.

Oh, trust me, that would never be an issue for myself....😁

1 minute ago, colesc15 said:

I'm willing to try it at least once with an open mind 😊 I don't expect to like it more than Royal, but tough to pass up a chance to try a new cruise like in a balcony for potentially 10 days for basically free 😊

Yes, in your case the price is right!

36 minutes ago, colesc15 said:

So one of our concerns with princess is.. Is there stuff to do each night that isn't just trivia? My wife and I are both in our 30s so our only concern is being bored at night as we like having stuff to do late into the night? From what I've gathered, the age demographic seems to be older on princess. We love all the activities Royal has on their oasis class and Icon. 

Yes, the age demographic is definitely skewed towards a more mature crowd. Most of the guests on our cruise aboard the Caribbean Princess in December were 50 and up. There were younger couples in your age group but not many, and virtually no children. In this case you might be better off on RCI, or possibly Virgin as they seem to cater to a hipper demographic.

@colesc15, my wife and I were in the same boat as you, we had only sailed with RCI before trying Princess. We enjoyed it immensely, and RCI doesn't offer a package that bundles everything together that we want (wifi, gratuities, drinks) so it was a no-brainer. We won't be going back to RCI, especially on their huge, floating amusement parks. From now on we're sticking with the Sea Witch...

1 minute ago, Thrak said:

 

Considering how much time I have spent in bars on Princess ships it might surprise folks to find that we don't frequent bars at home. Once in a while - not even close to once a month - we go out for beer and music at a local place or two. We sometimes have 2 beers apiece while there. Wahoo!!!

Same here. I'm pretty much a teetotaler except when on a cruise ship or an all-inclusive resort, where I don't have to worry about how I will get home - I only have to hoof it back to our room. And if the boat is rocking a bit, I can almost make it look like I'm sober if I time my steps properly...😃

13 minutes ago, memoak said:

So if people are moving around they have to chase you down. That is why I see servers calling out names in the piazza for people who decided to go someplace else. Even for a coffee they could have gotten just by standing in line for a few minutes

We used it only for those times when we weren't near a bar such as the buffet or in our room. We would not leave until our drinks arrived,  so that they wouldn't have to chase us down. 

23 minutes ago, memoak said:

I don’t get the connection of the medallion and the app. The medallion opens your door, lets you charge products, gamble and get on and off the ship. The app lets you see menus, orders some beverages and food be delivered, see you folio etc. I don’t see how the they are connected. You could have the app and a cruise card and there would be no difference except for the locating of shipmates

When ordering food and drinks for delivery to your location you need to order through the app, then the wait staff uses the medallion to locate you for delivery.

We went on our first Princess cruise this past December, and I enjoyed using the Medallion and all its features. No worrying about remembering to take it along or losing it, we both kept it on our wrists. Used it to order drinks all over the ship, worked flawlessly with the app. Do other cruise lines use anything similar? 

4 hours ago, Pickels said:

I wouldn't provide a credit card information for shoreside; don't know who or what they are, don't trust them, --- providing this info for shipboard on Princess is ok. From Princess staff they said it doesn't affect your boarding. (fingers crossed). 

After I booked our next cruise I loaded the new app and everything transferred from the old app. The card I had used for our previous cruise on-board account was hacked (not due to anything with the cruise) and it is no longer valid but it's showing as my shoreside card, I'll just let them think it's the one I want to use for that. My valid card is only for the on-board account. 

15 hours ago, Cdude said:

From TrixieBel, “You need to be looking at the "web version" of the app in the cruise personalizer.  Open cruise personalizer.  On the FIRST tab (not the dining tab) which I believe is the "Summary" tab, scroll down just a short ways until you see:”

 

This worked for me with some fumbling around on the full site. Others have also reported success. Good luck!

Web version is not working, it says "Something went wrong, please try again later"...

If you received any on-board credit for booking the cruise it will apply that first and charge you the balance.

Just now, Rick&Jeannie said:

Probably the easiest way to resolve this is to just pay and deal with it on board.  Many here have stated that they will give you refundable OBC a guest services.

Yeah, I may have to do that, although I wanted to avoid it. I re-loaded the old Medallion app and tried, but it says I can't do it until final payment. I may do that a few days early before everyone else and try to do it.

So I've found at least one bug with the app, it doesn't recognize that we have the Premier package for our next sailing, and it's wanting to charge me when I try to reserve our 2 included specialty dining meals at Sabatini's & Crown Grill, I didn't have this issue with the old app. When I called Princess they even admitted it was a problem on their end, suggested I pay now and then hit them up aboard ship for a refund. Not thrilled about that...

I just got off the phone with Princess, they're telling me it's a problem with their system (no kidding, Sherlock) and to basically pay and work at getting a refund later. I'll just wait and try again in a few weeks, I have plenty of time...

I decided to go ahead and put our dining reservations in for our trip aboard Ruby in October. We have the Premier package so we're entitled to 2 dinners at either Sabatini's or Crown Grill. When I get to the point of confirming the reservation it wants to charge my credit card, why is that?

I know that someone on the forum will say to "just go ahead and pay" and then visit Guest Services to have the charges removed but I'd rather not have to deal with that. I didn't have this problem on our last cruise with the old app.