Grislap

"Big Ball of Burning Gas Princess." Now *there's* a name! After all, LNG!

Cruisedeckplans.com has photos. Might be viewable by members only, but here's the link just in case: Sky Princess Cabin A734 Video and/or Picture (cruisedeckplans.com)

We were in B734 at the end of May, northbound Alaska. Loved it! Huge balcony. Saw a tiny amount of soot one day. Wouldn't have even known what it was if I hadn't read about it. Not an issue at all.

I gave it a 1 star review. Had multiple two-three hour phone calls. Never did get it fixed until we got to the port. Had to go see a tech person at one end of the counter. He had to call people in Florida and walk them through what needed to be done. Took about 20 minutes. Why couldn't it have taken 20 minutes months earlier? I think the vast majority of bad reviews are from terrible experiences people had before they ever got on board a ship. In our case, once we were on board we used the app a lot. It wasn't perfect, but overall we really liked it. Used it a lot to order food and drink in particular. Worked fine except for two issues: 1) in the Piazza staff found it hard to pinpoint which level we were on if we were sitting near the railing; so we worked around that by ordering from a specific location such as Crooner's; 2) when I ordered food and an alcoholic beverage at the same time they got totally screwed up because those orders are filled in different places; so I learned to order one of them, and as soon as it was being processed I would order the other. It always worked.

Here's what we had on the Royal (B734) at the end of May. Very comfortable, even when we didn't use the cushions.

We like to eat at 5 p.m. at home, and that turned out to be perfect on the Royal just over a week ago. Granted, we were in Club Class, too, but we were always the first ones there and often were there a while before anyone else entered.

Yes, this also was our experience on the Royal just over a week ago. We stayed in a suite and ate in the Club Class section of the Concerto dining room. All the tables had a white tablecloth and gray napkins with stitched "CC" lettering. To the point of the OP: This was our first Club Class experience and we loved it. We eat early, typically around 5 p.m., and usually were the only ones there for a while. Never felt crowded or hurried. We got spoiled and intend to do Club Class from now on. Plus, being in a suite (again, first time), we had breakfast at Sabatini's each morning which was wonderful and again uncrowded. Add in the other suite benefits and I think we're pretty much ruined for life. We may travel less because of it, but it will be more relaxing when we do it.

I'm not sure if this is the best place for the following or if I should put it out as its own post. But in any case here are several tips about using the app onboard, based on our recent experience in Alaska aboard the Royal Princess. Once we got on the ship, the medallion and its phone app were great. The medallion unlocked our door as we approached, and the phone app helped us find each other onboard and allowed us to order food and drink whenever we wished. We didn't use it to make dining reservations; in club class you don't need reservations, and for the specialty restaurants we made one ourselves shortly after boarding, and our concierge made the other one. The Medallion does have its glitches, though, and I would advise people to be patient. Also, a couple of tips for better success: 1) Don't order food or drink while seated in the Piazza. Deck 5 might be fine, but if you're on 6 or 7 the servers find it very hard to locate you, as the app cannot tell between deck levels in the Piazza. 2) Success is much more likely if you're seated in an identifiable place, such as Crooner's or the Wheelhouse Bar. But when placing your order make sure the app shows your location (in the upper left) correctly. Ours often said we were in our staterooms. So we would back out of the app and then open it again, and it would be correct. 3) If you want to order both some food AND an alcoholic drink, don't place them both into your cart and order at the same time. We found that this combination confuses them, because the food comes from one place and the alcoholic beverage from another. So only one would arrive. So we started ordering the food first. Then, once the app said they were starting to prepare that order, we would place a second order for the drink. (We didn't have this problem when the beverage was soda.) I've posted before about the truly awful time we had with the app from September right up to boarding. No need to rehash that. I realize now that it was a tremendous waste of time and mental energy, because they finally fixed it at the terminal and other than a delay of about 20 minutes we had no problems getting onboard. My advice to everyone having terrible troubles using the app before your trip: let it go, bring your documentation with you, and you won't have trouble boarding.

Oh sorry for cluttering things with my last response. Somebody else had just said the same. Anyway, nothing wrong with carrying your phone around, taking pictures and posting on FB. At least there'd better not be anything wrong with it, or I'm in trouble! 😄 I was happily surprised at how quick my photos uploaded into FB on our May 28 Alaska trip on the Royal. I kept reading from people on CC that the WiFi was super slow north of Vancouver. For us, it was only a little slower than at home, at least for FB.

It's the medallion that opens the door. It would open the door whether or not you have your phone with you.

This happened to me, although I don't believe my app said the old cruise was cancelled. Instead, it kept the old booking number and the cancelled ship. This was last September, when Princess cancelled the Sapphire for our Alaska cruise and replaced it with the Royal. First the bad news (followed by much better news). Between September and early May (our cruise began May 28) I tried chats, emails and phone calls. In fact I had three phone calls that lasted three hours each. Every time I left with the sense they would fix it. When they made it possible to put key information into the web version of the personalizer, I was able to get all the key documents uploaded. The website had my correct booking number and ship, but even the website personalizer did not, so I couldn't order the medallion because it had the expired booking number and ship attached to it. Finally, just in time to order the medallion, they did indeed at least correct that. But my phone app still showed the old booking number and ship when we showed up at the terminal in Vancouver on May 28. I was concerned this could cause a major problem. They pointed us to the corner counter, where someone worked with technical issues. It took about twenty minutes of him trying things and working with their tech people in Florida. Finally, it was fixed, and we were able to board. So the very good news? They'll fix it at the terminal. It wasn't worth all the wasted hours I put into trying to get it fixed ahead of time. We just brought copies of all the key documents, and at the gate they finally had someone who knew what he was doing. Why in the world couldn't they have solved this in twenty minutes months ago, I'll never know, but if this happens to us again I'll know it's not worth worrying about, and will spend more of that time getting excited for the trip.

We were on the Royal on its May 28th voyage out of Vancouver. After checking out our suite (B734, it was great) we wandered around the ship. So we just dropped by Sabatini's and made a reservation in person. It wasn't at all crowded, so we probably didn't need one.

We sail tomorrow and our app still has us on the wrong ship! This after months of trying to get them to fix it. It seems to be a database problem rather than an actual app problem. In terms of showing up at the port and getting on your ship, just bring paper copies of all your correct info and you shouldn't have any trouble. It will be easier if your Medallion itself is connected to the proper info. In our case they finally got that part fixed, but not the app.

My wife and I will have to bring our test results to the port, as I won't be able to enter them digitally. Perhaps the online personalizer would let me do it tomorrow afternoon for our Saturday sailing, but I won't have computer access. I can't do it on the app, because since LAST SEPTEMBER the app has continued to put us on the wrong ship. Right date and location, but wrong ship. It's because on September 1 they cancelled the Sapphire and put us on the Royal. I have had multiple two- and three-hour sessions with Princess people at various levels. They finally DID at least get the medallion itself correctly connected to the right booking, but still have not fixed the database issue in the app. At least we were able to do most of it online, but we can't do the final covid testing stuff, or set an embarkation time, or try to reserve anything else, because the app thinks we'll be on the Sapphire. I wonder if we'll even be able to use it for anything on the ship. We get to Vancouver tomorrow and intend to get to the port early on Saturday. We're in a suite, so perhaps that will help. And we'll have all our documentation. I'm not worried about any of that, and we are really looking forward to a vacation. But I must say, I have never in my life had any experience even close to this one in terms of pre-vacation stress. It has been months, and lots of promises that have not been realized. At least our 2023 cruise looks to be accurate in the app as well as online, at least so long as they don't switch ships on us again. I am known to be very easy-going. I've used a lot of apps that have caused at least some degree of frustration, and have always managed workarounds or simply given up on the app. But this Medallion app is by far the worst app I have ever had to use.