Optotronics

16 minutes ago, thedeadman said:

Its easy to rip off a tag without risking your job.  Just pickup the luggage by the tag...and its gone.  It will always look like a mistake

Actually, our luggage could carried by the cruise tag and won't tear off.

do your research and you can find the starting pay grade of the local ILA-1526 longshoreman; you too would see well they are well taken care of and would not risk tearing any labels or pulling stunts that could cost them their career.

1 minute ago, jasbo49 said:

Fortified wines, such as port, are not allowed.

 

Jim

Hi Jim,

ive bought onboard both port and champagne. In fact they've never even taken more than a glace at the bottle. Once I had then in my carry on backpack and they never even asked to look in the backpack.

14 minutes ago, John Brand said:

The 10 day Mexican Riviera cruise out of San Francisco will be my first cruise.  I have a couple questions.  What is the difference between the 2 nights of formal dining and regular nights other than formal dress.  Are they in a different dining room than normal dining?  Higher quality food?  

 

Also, we are allowed to bring  bottle of wine in our luggage.  Is Port wine okay?  It has a little more alcohol content, but is still a wine.

 

Thank you.

 

John 

I don't think it matters if it's port, champagne or wine; but it cannot be brought onboard in your luggage, it has to be hand carried onboard.

It's fixed now, but I don't know how.

ive been trying this off and on for the past couple months and I've done it before first time.

all I did different from all the other try's is that last night I deleted all the failed attempts from the personalizer and left it that way over night. This afternoon I tried again and it worked the first time:)

3 hours ago, shellfish5 said:

I ordered a $100.00 gift card on line for family members going on a Princess Cruise . . 8 days later . .  no card which was supposed to be delivered via US Mail . .  alas , no gift card.  I called twice and was first told to email them . . .okay, the cruise has already sailed.  Called again and was told that due to the holiday, no gift card support people would be in the office until Nov.Monday Nov. 26th.  We are in the  midst of holiday gift giving . . but Princess has gift cards . . . but no support.  don't do it!

I feel bad for you, but princess did nothing wrong. If you read the princess gift card page FAQ it states the normal delivery is "5-7 business days". Business days do not include Saturday and Sunday, so 7 business days is 9 days actual time.

in the next FAQ question someone asks about their cards not arriving in time. They again give the 5-7 business day or expedited in 2-3 business days. They also ask to please note the delivery times are only estimates and cannot be guaranteed.

i know they weren't available in the grocery stores a few weeks ago, but today I looked in the gift card rack and sure enough plenty of princess cards for sale.... I know what I want in my stocking:)

2 hours ago, Colo Cruiser said:

Are your flights non stop or connecting?

Are you putting the correct airline record number in?

Princess assigns their own number, don't use that one.

We are on non stop one direction and 2 stops the other. It gives the invalid flight on both.

i see a position to enter the airline record number, but since there is not an asterisk indicating it's required, we have never entered one. If I open the southwest app with my flight info, it only has the flight number, confirmation number and date/time...no airline record number.

incoming flight to fll is the day before the cruise and return is in the evening upon disembarkation.

When I try to enter our own flight info into the personalizer, it keeps telling me both flight numbers are invalid. Southwest Airlines says otherwise.

This has never happened in the past to us.

ive tried several times over the past few weeks and tried adding the airline prefix code to the flight number as well; but nothing works.

i would like to get it in the system for the purposes disembarkment day or an emergency where they would need this info.

anyone have any ideas or is this happening to everyone?

14 minutes ago, mtmorrisgirl said:

I just printed the travel summary for our upcoming Dec. 2-16 cruise on the Regal and it indicates there are three formal nights.  Since this is technically two 7-day cruises back to back (Western Caribbean first week and Eastern Caribbean second week) I'm quite surprised.  I wonder which of the two cruises will have only one formal night.  

There will be 2 formal nights each week.

the number you're seeing is if the cruise were a 14day with no b2b.

32 minutes ago, skynight said:

There is never a totally fair way. Booking after the ship leaves port will only add to further confusion, lines, pushing and shoving, etc. Imagine people rushing from the muster drills up & up 8 or 9 decks of stairs to the Sanctuary to get in line.

Also, sometimes bookings are made by passengers already on board from b2b's. Believe it is probably best the way it is.

I heard the Chef's table is done by lottery, and all those that put in are notified a few days later. 

That's what we do, go on b2bs and the 2nd week we can sign up for whatever we want after 9:30am on 2nd embarkation:)

I've been an amateur astronomer for going on 35 years, even tried to schedule our cruises to coincide with the new moon for the few cruises we've done on the regal & royal.

I tried to attend the stargazing at sea on each cruise, but never worked out. 1st and 2nd time was because of weather, 3rd time was scheduled, but it didn't happen....weather was ok at the scheduled time.

i tried on my own both from the top aft and from our balcony midship.

my opinion is that if you're already into astronomy at some level, then I think you're wasting your time.

you will already know what being talked about as they are for "beginners/non-astronomers.

what I was really hoping for was a turn off of the lights for a short time to see that night sky light up with a bright Milky Way.

another problem is that because they are usually held at the aft and while the ship is moving, all the smoke messes it all up.

i found the best view from our balcony and blocking ships light as best we could... much better than on the top aft.

of course if your neighbor leaves the balcony light on.....oh that's another thread:)

Princess is very money savvy.

They will say if they split your 680minutes in half that would mean getting 340min for the price that everyone else pays for 240min and that the minutes bought were for a single connection at any one time and if you need two at the same time you should have bought two.

Once you are onboard you don't get any bonus minutes, so easiest thing to do is cancel your 680minutes and buy two so they can be split and you still get some bonus minutes for ordering in advance.

It was fine, they bring the table.

My wife and I are both on the large size.

The only thing I wish were bigger was my stomach as it's a lot of food and drink.

We will do it again:)

This is my biggest pet peeve. It's one thing to use your balcony light when using your balcony. It's so rude and disrespectful to leave it on continuously. I've asked and had the steward turn it off. Sometimes it works and other times it's right back on like a bad habit. Being amateur astronomer, I really enjoy a moonless night at see; but it's so easily ruined by light pollution.

My Last B2B in FLL we stayed on the ship. We had to gather (and be scanned) in the showroom and were required to wait in there until we were zero'd out, then were scanned back in as we left the showroom.

On our last b2b on royal, we stayed onboard rather than doing our normal wine run because it was raining and we were at pier 21 rather than 2.

They gathered us in princess theater, then walked us as a group off the ship and down the escalators to the area where you claim luggage when disembarking. Then back up the escalator an scanned back on board.

Can't wait to do it again on January 19, maybe see you onboard;)

All of the 7 day princess cruises I've been on have all had 2 formal nights.

This time when I look in the personalizer for our 14 day b2b of 7 days each, it states only 3 formal nights meaning one of the legs will only have 1 formal night.

Does this ever happen?

The room service people distributing minibars have no knowledge of how you book a cruise. They just take the tray to each room that has an Elite in it.

 

Same goes for internet. You get offered a package based on the length of each cruise. And in our experience you don't even get the next offer until you use up the minutes from the first week. Have had mixed luck with changing rooms - minutes from first cruise may or may not automatically move to second (since minutes are tied to you and the room) but if they don't show up a quick request to the IT manager moves the minutes to the new cabin.

Thanks everyone, I tend to agree with you LeeW that they just look at your CC and that is applied before each segment.

Before reaching platinum I purchased internet minutes for our last b2b from the cruise personalizer. I didn't need them the first few days or so as we went to st Thomas and I could get cell service for internet use. When we were on day 4 or 5, they returned funds spent on internet to my account so I needed to rebuy them. This happened again when I preordered and paid for ultimate balcony dining in the personalizer and picked a date on 2nd leg of the b2b. When we got near the end of the first leg, the UBD I had ordered for 2nd leg was refunded to my account before the 2nd leg.

So what happens when you reach elite and stay in a full suite? Do you get 2 minibars for each leg (1 for elite and 1 for suite)?

How are platinum internet minutes assigned on a 14 day b2b which was booked as a 14 day.

Do they give you 250min beginning on day one; or do they give you 150min at the beginning of each leg?

It depends on how far he can go with his walker. It would be about the same distance for a princess excursion as any other from what I've experienced.

After getting off the ship expect 150-300 yards depending on docking location.

Hello,

 

I just spent 20 minutes on the princess site looking for their soda policy and could not find it. Do they let you bring soda on board the first day ?

 

Thanks, Liny

Yes they do. I use packing tape to tape 2 12 packs together and then tape a luggage tag to it. Drop off with luggage at the port. Occasionally the are rough with them and loose a can or two.

Some will strap then to their carry on and wheel aboard

We've only been on a handful of cruises and only on the royal class ships, I do the laundry for dw and I don't mind the walk at all. I've even paced it out at 130 steps from mid-elevators or about 250 from forward elevators multiplied by 3 (once to start, again to dry and then pickup). So when you see a smiling old guy wearing a Hawaiian shirt and carrying a large bundle down the hallway at 6am looking like santa... you'll know:)

Hi Astro flyer,

We on the other hand have always prepaid for it thru the personalizer. It's in the "culinary delights" section along with the ultimate breakfast.

In any case it looks like the 8x10 was removed from all descriptions, so that is probably gone (no big deal we have some nice UBD photos already.

After all the cutbacks we've seen this past year, I now read all the descriptions closely to see if what we are getting has been downsized as well making sure I order a couple cases of bottled water first thing in case they decide to stop offering it again;)

Here’s the current description for the UBD:

 

“Ultimate Balcony Dining features a hosted cocktail party, fresh flowers, champagne and a deluxe four-course meal featuring delicate sweet lobster tail or juicy steak among many available delicacies“.

https://www.princess.com/ships-and-experience/food-and-dining/specialty-restaurants/

 

The only thing not described is the photo & last October on the Royal we received everything you described.

Yes, I just found that description, but why was the description in the personalizer changed? This is where payment is made and details are supposed to be given.

It still makes me wonder what has changed because items were removed from the description that is given when buying the item. What is shown in the link you gave doesn't matter, it's what is shown at the shopping cart.

I was just in the cruise personalizer and the current description has no mention of champagne, flowers or 8x10 photo any longer.

Just wondering if this changed recently.

When they started charging extra for surf and turf at crown grill, we changed over to UBD because for only $20 more we got flowers, before dinner drink, champagne and a nice 8x10.

We have been in B436 on regal and D438 on royal.

The only noises to be heard is the cheering from the sea ore bar when they do the bar flare show:)

Also on both ships we were woke up by crew members at 7:30-8:00am who were chipping old paint / rust from the ship. I was surprised that this happens on two days of our royal cruise and once on regal. Maybe they should have "quite hours"? The noise from Hammering on the ships hull really carries.

No noise at all from atrium or the elevators that are right across the hall

He's 55 years old, but whenever you see his photo, it's always the old ones when he was in his 20's.

He's not an original band member. Joined Paul revere and the raiders in 2008 so any band photos more than 10 years old wouldn't show him.