masterty

Definitely going to rethink this deck party we have scheduled in our suite. Smuggling juices, mixes and pre-purchasing bottles on board may be the answer. Do suites have the same RS menu as non-suites? 

Is there any difference in cost sitting on deck having alcoholic drinks and sitting in a cabin having the same drinks delivered via room service?

Princess has refunded my cruise which I have booked with their platinum insurance. I plan on rebooking a similar cruise in a less expensive cabin. This will leave me with a credit I assume would show up as OBC on that itinerary. Is this OBC refundable? TIA

9 minutes ago, Shmoo here said:

Maybe they have to use a room steward to actually open the door for those things?  That way they'd be supervised.

Stewards enter/open when PAX nap. If RS could open my door and say "Good morning Mr X, may I come in? Here is your coffee. Have a nice day" and leave while I lay in bed that would be AWESOME.......

Will AM room service enter the room themselves?? The very few times I have used it they would knock and knock until I answered the door. Is there a command or secret checkbox I can enable that gives them permission to enter in the AM and place my coffee on the table and leave? I can ensure you I and my DW will be covered up and decent. 

To be honest the conversion the Island underwent made a lot of people upset. Much of the vibration rhetoric included some hyperbole. All ships vibrate in the aft cabins when hard underway or docking. I would not let the reviews made shortly after the conversion sway you too much. More bodies in the same real estate would concern me more but even this the Island handles well  Enjoy your trip on the Island. The Coral and the Island are my favorite ships in the fleet. 

11 hours ago, releck97 said:

Nee Nee and Biddy posted this on her Regal review just a few minutes ago. It's not great, but it's certainly an improvement. Looks like it's being rolled out on multiple ships. 

Well that is a much better selection.

3 hours ago, daletabu said:

As far as the embarkation night specialty dinner reservation, we found once we boarded the ship we went direct to the club class dining for lunch and the host took care of our dinner reservation in the specialty restaurant, very simple.

Great advice. Especially when most of the fleet is missing a concierge lounge.

3 minutes ago, XBGuy said:

There is no concierge lounge on Grand class ships.  Only the newer Royal class ships have one.

Thank you for the quick response. Well that explains a lot.

Second question I guess would be, does the Grand Class ships offer any concierge services without a lounge for suite guests? 

Just curious as I could not find it. Where is the concierge lounge on the Grand Class or more specifically the Star Princess and the Grand Princess?

2 minutes ago, milepig said:

 

Here you go.

 

The Star Bar/Yacht Club are on deck 8, and the closest cabins are on 6 (two floors with elevator right there) and the closest cabins are 310-313 - balcony or 302-303 and 320--321 - ocean view. The Star bar is open throughout the day through cocktail hour and again after dinner. The same cabin numbers on the floors below would be the same and are served by the same elevator.

 

Compass Rose is on deck 6, and the closest cabins are also on 6 324-225 - Ocean View and literally right across the lobby from  the compass rose, the closest balcony are 316-319. These also put you right next to the elevators/steps up to Veranda and Amphora. Compass Rose isn't open as much as the Star Bar, I think mostly cocktial hour and after dinner with music/dancing.

 

They also serve in all the dining areas, at meal times.

 

Of course, the other option that involves no commute or waiting for a server is your mini bar.

 

That having been said, you can walk from one end of the ship to the other in less than 3  minutes.

Thank you tremendously. This is exactly the information I am looking for. Good day to you. 

Sweet! We took the Star RT 10 day SF to Alaska in 2014. Taking the Grand this May to Alaska in an S7. Going to miss the window suites, but the trade off will be worth it in my opinion. The Grand is long in the tooth and even with the DD scheduled for March 2019 I am happy to see it replaced. 

On 12/16/2018 at 4:56 PM, milepig said:

Other than the restaurants, there’s the pool bar that also serves the yacht club, as well as the bar in the lounge. 

 

They’ll also serve you anywhere on deck although it may make a bit of time to flag down someone. 

This is my concern. The more I drink the harder it becomes to find service. Also trying to locate a cabin close to a bar is proving a challenge. 

Bar locations on Star Legend? Looking at the deck plans I only see one. My question is. How many and where are they located? TIA

On 11/15/2018 at 2:48 PM, suekel said:

They might have the TV on Demand by then.  Going into dry dock next spring.  Lots could change by 2020.  

 

This^^

Formal night is archaic and needs to go the way of the dodo bird. Those who wish to put on the formal costumes are certainly allowed to. If others are comfortable in t-shirts and flip flops them by all means be comfy.

Bummer that Carnival is not as welcoming as some of its subsidiaries. Tape them up, slap on a luggage tag and leave it with the porter.

Best way to buy your future cruise credit is to do it my way.

I open the browser on my phone for princess@sea while waiting to disembark. Click the number of credits and for whom and within 2 minutes got an email from princess corporate with our credits. The charge then shows up on the credit card given to them previously.

Easy, no form just a couple of clicks.

Yep! This is the best way to buy FCC. Last two itinerary I have done it this way. Click, click, done. Immediate results, no real person or paper necessary.

All that said. There are many people that like to talk to a person, shake a hand, smile, discuss, verify, ect. For these folks Princess often falls short providing courteous, available, in transit services for.

I book refundable deposits as soon as possible. This way I know I can get the cabin I want. If the price goes down, I re-fare the trip. If a "new booking only" promotion comes along I can cancel and re-book usually (always in my case) keeping your cabin. Re-booking does run the risk of loosing your spot in line for your dining option but again this has never happened to me.

If the price goes down it is a win. If it goes up it is a win. Booking refundable deposits early does not have any down sides that I can think of. Waiting only looses spots in MDR seating. If traveling in a group as I always do eating together is important to us.

Good to know. Thanks. Next cruise is Alaska on Coral and will try wifi calling using ATT. I guess on shore since Alaska is part of the USA, calls are per your plan (for us free).

Coral is trying out unlimited plans on the Coral and the Grand Princess.

Check out this thread.

https://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2608774

Every public space I visited had great WiFi coverage. It is only once your inside your cabin and close the door do you see a significant drop in signal strength to the access point. Each cabin acts as a sort of faraday cage blocking radio waves.

Another thing to understand is that 95% of pax beleive better WiFi signal means they will get better internet speeds. Does not work that way. Of course you need good local area network speeds to have good internet speeds. But you will never get internet speeds faster than the local area network parameters allow. Your WiFi connection will likely be good most everywhere and fast. However it is the internet bandwidth within your WiFi connection that provide the speeds you experience when accessing the world wide web. I conducted several speed tests to the www. with uploads consistent in the 1.5-2.3MB range. Downloads were pathetic. Every download speed test conducted using both google and speedtest.net were 0.01MB to 0.03MB download. These speeds were the same on both a "surf" account and "premier" account. Middle of the night or middle of the day did not seem to change the speeds I recorded. YMMV.

I know most who read this do not remove their phone's from the cabins safe for the entire trip. This post is not intended to deliver you any viable information. However to the others who enjoy crushing candy or surfing the net on those long sea days then keep reading. I have walked the halls of the Coral Princess to map out AP locations so you would not have to. While others were doing hot laps on the promenade deck I was sweating in the bowels of this steel giant. This map does not ensure signal strength in each cabin. It does not ensure lightning fast satellite data speeds. It does not provide anything except the locations where a blue light shining down from the ceilings WiFi access points reside. Use it as another tool in your quiver should high signal strength be required on your voyage. You can not argue phones on ships are here to stay. I snapped this photo with my phone upon entering the Princess Theater. There were many more phones visible from this location but my lens was just not wide enough.

That said. If you wish to know how close or far away your cabin is from a WiFi access point then check out this .pdf file.

Coral Princess WiFi Locations

Also if anyone is interested in the Panama Patters in 2018 Here you go.

Coral Princess Panama FLL to SFO 15 day 2018

Enjoy!

No longer included but was able to get the charges reversed multiple times.

Just off the Coral and her is what happened.

Once aboard I went straight to the Lotus pool for some soft serve. Once I arrived I noticed milkshakes, I promptly asked for a strawberry milkshake and handed over my card which had the PBP included as a result of Sip and Sail promotion. She informed me that they were no longer included in the Premium Beverage Package. I was certain they were and asked for here supervisor who arrived but appeared uninterested and told the milkshake maker to make me a milkshake "on the house".

A couple days later I noticed a charge for a milkshake appear on my account. I went to the pursers desk only to be told that milkshakes are no longer a part of the PBP. I then brought up the princess.com PBP web page and showed the purser. Learning this he removed the $2.50 charge. Again a couple more times this same charge appeared with each milkshake I got. As before the charges got reversed with each complaint by me.

I do not know if there is a new change coming or what but milkshake drinkers beware.

Just got off two days ago. BOGO $1 was still going strong.

Update.

A call to Princess today had my FCD returned to my account.

I understand that I made a mistake and also understand Princess was under no obligation to return our FCD's.

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