caribill

7 night cruise cost for two people $1550. Hours on board: 164. Cost per hour: $9.45 Number of hours playing trivia before winning a ship on a stick: 6 How much is that ship on a stick worth: 6 hours X $9.45 = $56.70

There are two "special" evenings on a 7-day cruise. Some Princess ships do this as two formal evenings and some as one formal evening and one "dress-to-impress". No matter which the ship does, the Personalizer will list it as two formal evenings. The "dress-to-impress" concept is an attempt to balance the desire of many passengers not to be dressed up a second time and the ship's desire to provide another opportunity to take portraits of dressed up passengers to sell. Of course anyone who wants to wear fancy clothing every evening of the cruise may do so no matter what Princess calls the evening.

Even in the past before facial recognition, immigration was not very slow. It took a little longer that using facial recognition does now, but the agent looked at the picture in the passport and visually confirmed it was "you." The thread on the Princess forum says that the holdup was that every single person was being fingerprinted and there was only one line for that. The fingerprinting was done before passengers then went to one of about seven immigration agent stations for looking at the passports.

In a number of ports (I am not sure about Galveston) taxes are charged on onboard sales which would include any beverages. But that would apply to packages (and beverages) sold while in port. Pre-paid packages are not sold while in port and thus any beverages served while in port were not purchased that day and are not subject to the tax. Often packages purchased the first day are not posted until after the ship has departed and thus do not show up as being sold while in the port. In Texas, there are no restrictions on selling non-alcohol beverages in port (package or not) or selling alcohol that Princess had purchased from a Texas distributor (package or not).

Your "last evening" statement should have shown shown much remaining was refundable and how much was not. This part was not in your post. Your final bill shows that you did not use all of your non-refundable, namely $25.07 which they assigned to the shareholder OBC. That amount is thus subtracted from what you had expected to receive.

It is not too long once the ship sails away. But if departure is delayed, so is the serving of alcohol. Ther reason for this is twofold. 1) Texas law requires any alcoholic beverage sold in the state has to have been purchased from a Texas distributer. 2) Princess usually just usually purchases a very limited variety of beer, wine, liquor from Texas distributers, limiting what can be served while in Texas waters. If no alcohol is being served at all, then Princess really went cheap choosing not to purchase any alcohol beverage from a Texas distributer. Once, due to weather, our cruise from Galveston did not leave until around 8 AM the next day. That meant very limited selection for those who like wine at dinner. On our Princess cruise last December from Galveston, everyone with a package received an OBC to compensate for not being able to get the beverages people preferred. Of course all beverages other than those with alcohol are available from the minute you board the ship.

They may have the TVs, but they do not pay to have the licenses to broadcast more games.

I have been reading on other threads about taking an hour or more to get through immigration/customs in Galveston at the end of a cruise. Is this happening with CCL cruises that end there?

Please post next week if you have the same long disembarkation line as today.

So is that one line before or after the 7 stations?

Last year in getting off in Galveston there were no lines at all. From starting to get off the ship to getting through immigration was less than 15 minutes including finding luggage.

Princess usually does not make ship-wide announcements. \ The paper that had your luggage tags also had meeting places listed for each tag. It is at those locations that the announcements for the tags assigned to that venue are made.

It will come in a plain white envelope from another company that Princess uses to process the refund. It might mention Princess on the envelope. It might appear to be junk mail, so be sure to look for it and not accidentally throw it away.

And that was only the halftime score.

All those fancy cakes may be destined for the buffet today as usually there is a fancy dessert presentation (for eating) at the buffet on the last sea day.

May be the Winemaker's Dinner location.

Deck 6 has a galley between the aft dining room and the one near the atrium. That is why one must go up to deck 7 from deck 6 to get to the other deck 6 dining room.

Sometimes it is 6 inches. Other times it is a normal table separation.

Yes, the same.

It is worth going to even if you have to stand for the entire event.

From the Princess web site: Top-Deck pizza by the slice It’s the “Best Pizza at Sea” says USA TODAY and we couldn’t agree more. Harkening back to our Italian heritage, our Neapolitan-style pizza is hand-tossed and freshly baked right on deck. From traditional margherita and pepperoni to the daily specials, you’ll find it nearly impossible to pass by without grabbing a slice – or two. (I wonder if they also say Room Service Pizza is the Best Pizza at sea".)

I think that refers to the pizza on the pool deck (now called slice), not Alfredo's. Princess made this claim long before they had their first Alfredo's.

I am interested in how you compare the two experiences. Which one do you feel was better>

That probably includes loading and unloading time. With the use of local boats that can hold hundreds of people, it takes longer to fill up before starting the journey back to the ship.

Yes, your picture and cabin number are displayed to the bartender. But so are the pictures and cabin numbers of other people near the bartender. So he/she asks for your room number to be sure that the drink is placed on the correct person's account. There have been many posts on Cruise Critic about charges that should not have been placed on their accounts. I suspect most of those wrong charges came from staff not correctly recognizing which picture belongs to the customer, thus the question about cabin number. It is not just bartenders, also happens everywhere you make a purchase as well as at the Customer Service counter. They are trained to ask even if you are the only person there. This is so they do not forget to ask when they really need to.