Z0nker

5 hours ago, Tinknock50 said:

The longer Alaska cruises are sure booking up fast for 2026!

2025 as well. Despite the prices, Alaska seems to be a hot destination. That said, we compared 7 day Seattle with 11 day SF and those extra 4 days cost surprisingly little. Practically nothing once we factored in airfare. 

1 hour ago, LACruiser88 said:

We prefer Barcelona or Rome.  Our first choice of flight to Rome is non-stop Business Class (BC) from LAX on ITA Airways (previously known as Alitalia).

 

For Barcelona, first choice is BC on Air France with a change of planes in Paris.  Lately, Air France has been offering the best mileage awards for BC.

Thanks, those are the cities we had in mind for our first Med adventure. 

On 7/23/2024 at 6:34 PM, LACruiser88 said:

We are with your wife, after 5 Alaska cruises/trips over the years we are done with Alaska.  Now, the Med we do almost every year!  😊

Thinking of doing Med for the first time. What have you found to be the best cities to fly into from the West Coast?

Has anyone seen this? Apparently Parc 19 will never open. https://www.cruisehive.com/new-princess-cruise-ship-will-never-open-key-features/139887

If we're driving to port, we tend to bring a lot of stuff. Flying is another story.

Will this be available only at Alfredo's / Gigi's or pool deck, too?

Carnival Pride 2008. LA to Mexican Rivera. Had a blast.

Dining reservations on the Ruby had only been available thru July 4, 2025 but have just opened up for July 5+. YMMV. 

17 minutes ago, Arizona Wildcat said:

Discussed over and over. Princess is releasing only about 50% of tables.

Calling will not help as reps have no idea what is happening. 

Stop stressing and simply go to a restaurant on boarding and get your reservations.   Except for say 6pm will not be an issue.

Do you have a source for that 50% stat? 

26 minutes ago, judydoc said:

We cruise on the Sapphire 20th of July.  Have tried to book dining with no success. Kept getting error try again later.  Decided today to call and see if I could get through to Princess.  Got someone in Customer Service and waited for half an hour. Then to be told we were able to only book for 7 out of the 14 days for the time we wished and it would cost us $300 per person to have thoes reservations.  After saying that was unacceptable, he came back and said they would only charge for one person.  Since when do we have to pay for a reservation in regular dining.  I understand specialty dining.  We are Elite and have sailed with Princess almost 50 weeks.  Totally unaccceptable.  Did not take his good deal.  So frustrating.  Dining is part of what makes our cruise!!

I’m seeing something similar. Booked the first 7 days of an 11 day cruise. App won’t let me book the other days except for specialty. Might have to call in and see what story I get. 

12 hours ago, polmcs said:

I’m in the exact same boat here (so to speak). Have booked the 32 day South Pacific circle out of LA for Oct 2025 on the Sapphire. Only 2 out of the 5 MDR show up as available and time slots are every 20 mins, so in line with the current DMW rules. 
 

I’m looking for traditional late seating, so expect to be in the International dining room, but it states no slots are available. What’s especially galling is that today, I received an email from Princess, referencing my booking, stating that I can now make my reservation under the new rules. Err, no I can’t! 

The communication is the worst part. If you’re going to have a buggy system, at least try to manage expectations. 

15 minutes ago, susancruzs said:

It can't possibly be this easy, can it?  I decided to try because I haven't had any luck with the web version.  On my phone, make sure everything is green, go to my Oct. 17th Emerald cruise.

 

First dining room, nothing available, 2nd one, time slots every 20 minutes, 3rd one, time slots 5 and 7:30 PM, I chose 5, populated for 14 days and got a confirmation.  What the heck, Princess?

I'm very skeptical as nothing they've done lately leads me to believe it would work like this!

 

Congrats! Just to be sure you could check back in a few days and see if the reservations are still there. But I think you’re good to go. 

1 minute ago, Cruise till you drop said:

I didn’t share that part of the story but was on for 30+ minutes before connecting.  At first I was 9th and it kept asking if I was still waiting to which I said Yes (did this about 7-8 times during my wait), then I went to 2nd in line before it kicked me to 6th, then after going to 1 left, it kicked me to 11th.  After a bit it went to 2nd then first but was waiting for a long time after that to get connected

Same here. And when I finally got a chat agent they just said “they haven’t told us anything. Just keep trying every day or two”

Has anyone been able to book dining on Ruby for a date later than July 2, 2025?  Thought it was a “one year” rule but we’re passed that. All that’s showing up is TD. 

32 minutes ago, mthomp5 said:

@Z0nker, are you sailing on the Sun for this June/July 2025 where you could only book dining up to 7/5/2025 and not beyond that date?  I’m wondering if the within a year requirement is for the Sun.

 

We’re platinum and will be on the Sun Sept 2025.  I tried again and now it says no dining times are available for main dining or specialty dining. 

We are sailing on the Ruby. 

2 hours ago, lorri111 said:

We have dining booked down to Sept 2025, though we are Platinum

Thanks for letting me know. I will try again on the June/July 2025 trip. I’ve heard that the details vary by ship, so we’ll see. 

Just now, NoWhiners said:

IDK about others but I can't even login to Princess. I am using the correct credentials. It is so frustrating to have to fight the various obstacles Princess constructs to get anything done. I don't see what the issue is, Internet access to accounts has been around a long time and not just on Princess.

 

By the time I am able to login, all the tables will be reserved 🙂

Have you tried accessing with your booking number? 

13 minutes ago, arizonaperson said:

Might be a ship by ship roll out for dining reservations for 1 + years out??

So far Sky Princess  & Island Princess has been bookable for 2026,this has been reported by cruise critic members.

Others have reported that they keep getting error messages and they just keep trying and they’re able to get a reservation.
Also members have said they’re not paid for a cruise in full ,but they’re able to book dining room reservations.
Others have said they are not platinum or elite and it’s their first Princess cruise and they’re not paid in full and they’ve been able to book dining room reservations. So it seems to be all over the board at this moment. 
Keep trying for reservations if that is what you desire.

The only “thing “that I’m not seeing Cruise critic members talk about is the walk-in restaurants, they are available once one cruises after September 14/15,but nobody’s really asking about those.

So who knows when this new dining program takes effect  in September if the walk-in places will be totally empty?

 

There is a lot  of places to dine -in the evening ,so sounds like the majority of cruise critic members are wanting to book a reservation for main dining room(s) and get it over with, but of course there’s the buffet, specialty restaurants, casual restaurants, etc.

Speculation here, but I suspect people who prefer walk in dining are not planners and are therefore unlikely to be on Cruise Critic. 
 

As far as specialty, we will book that when we board so we can use OBC, at which point we’ll need to cancel the MDR for those nights. 

1 minute ago, mthomp5 said:

We are platinum sailing on the Sun in October 2025. I tried to reserve dining today via the app and I got a pop up message that says voyage must be paid in full or be platinum or elite.  So no luck with being platinum. 

I think the error message is wrong. You can’t book because your cruise is more than a year away. I have a cruise leaving just under a year from now but returning just over a year from now. I’m only able to book dining up to July 4, 2025. 

10 hours ago, californiagirl said:

I posted this in another dining thread with no response so I think it may be better posted here.

 

 

We are taking our kids and grandkids on Enchanted next June.  We are a party of 10.  My husband and I are in a reserve cabin.   I was not able to book dining under our booking because of being reserve I think.  I was able to make reservations under our son’s family booking and add the others except for us.  Our bookings are linked and when making the reservations I tapped edit number of people and the other family members were visible with a check box to add.  We were not listed.  When I tried to add us via booking number it wouldn’t accept our number.  Short of contacting our PVP has anyone had success in adding people in a reserve cabin to a reservation?  
 

I realize we can go anytime to the reserve dining room but we want to eat with our family.  The reason for the reserve cabin is because we have one of the forward facing mini-suites with the gigantic balcony.  

I think you’ll need to contact Princess about this. 

2 hours ago, ljhershey said:

I still can't do this.  Which dining room is for same table every night, please.  Thanks for posting this encouragement.

Michelangelo will get you the same table every night. But the only dining times are 5:00 and 7:20

10 minutes ago, alwalaska said:

 

 

Finally Success!!  For anyone else with this problem here are the steps I followed 

1. 1) Do Not log in to Princess.
2. 2) Go to the Booked Guests > Access Cruise Personalization
3. 3) Use the Access Your Booking Without Registering 
4. 4) Verify the correct Booking Number on the page that comes up
5. 5) Scroll down and click the "Try our web version" link. 
6. 6) Click My Journey and verify that it is the correct one.  Mine was not the first time, nor again when I was writing these notes.
7. 7) If it is correct, go to Dine My Way. If incorrect, click Exit, then by your name, click Logout.
8. 8. On the page that comes up, click Use Booking Number and put the info in yet again. I'm going to have my booking number memorized soon.
9. 9) Once again, check the Booking Number.  It should now be correct.

I also found if I click too fast, it is more likely to get stuck and I have to go all the way out and start again.  If I go slower, things work much better.

 

Now to figure out how to get the Add People option to work with our 2nd reservation number. Our TA said she linked the reservations, but I can't see them. When I type in the reservation number, it returns to the first page with no additional people. 😞 

 

I'm thrilled though to have one cruise finished.

1.  

 

@alwalaska thanks for providing the details. We ended up using the phone app because we needed to pull in a traveler from another booking. 

4 minutes ago, alwalaska said:

Thanks!  I tried it and it showed the correct booking on the first page, but then, I had same result when I clicked through to the web app with the wrong reservation.  😞 Thanks for trying.

I ended up getting satisfaction on the phone app. I suspect a lot of this has been back end data processing. 

2 hours ago, travellingnana said:

I don’t know what is happening on other ships, but we got on Regal today and 10 minutes into dinner our waiter asked us if we wanted our table reserved for the rest of the cruise. Same thing for the people next to us. While we have requested the same table in the past, we’ve never had a waiter approach us about it. Something else new??

Definitely new. 

Ruby Princess.dining is now working. Was able to book a private table in Botticelli at 6 pm every night. Only encountered one oddity: our farthest out cruise starts just under a year from now and finishes just over a year from now. Could only reserve the nights up to the one year mark. No big, We can come back in a week or so.