yoyosma

Just looked at the small print and since we booked as a group, we are disqualified from this FCC offer.

Wish we had booked on our own.

Call princess and ask, you may not be disqualified. The wording in the fine print is murky at best.

At least bar soap and individually-dispensed lotions are pre-packaged and not used by someone else. :)

 

While we're on the subject, the Elite bathroom amenities have been reduced to:

 

[ATTACH]293574[/ATTACH]

My cabin steward brought that and most of the other usual amenities like the cotton swabs, loofa, shower cap, and emery board. They came prepackaged and were brought a day late to my cabin - Nov 19th Emerald cruise - because they had run out on the previous cruise. 2 bags, one the shampoo, gel, and lotion the other bag was the older stuff. I asked and was told no more eye mask or linen mist. I don't think I got the lip balm sun screen either, but I may have.

I also just noticed this is an older thread. I was searching for something - suite amenities and got caught up in it. And I was on the Emerald when the thread was active. Go figure.

Can you name some of the penny slots ..Cleopatra? Treasuresof troy?instant rich ?extra ?bombay ...any??

I'm sorry, I don't pay much attention to the names of the machines, I recognize them by sight mostly. And I don't recall the ones you have named . The following is what I remember as best I can, it isn't the best but maybe will help you a bit.

Hmmm. I think the machines I mentioned earlier were Dragon King II or something like. Denver Duck. Go Sam. Some Hot Pennys - the one with the jems and mining. Some of the Quick Hits. Reels 'O Doublin and variations on that theme. They really didn't have much new. They had the penguin slide thing. All that Glitters and the bomb one next to it. Big Cheese Caper. One of the dollar machines was wheel of fortune. They had four of the Big Oh - may have been something other than "big" I really can't remember but it would say "thank you for playing the Big Oh" or whatever after the bonus. Lots of the old style butterfly and 7s machines without bonuses. A new one I played was Jubilee, there were 2 other similar ones. A lot of the old machines have been there since I first sailed the Emerald when the ship was new. There was a new panda machine. If you are looking for a specific one, name it and I will try to remember if I saw it.

It can vary a bit by ship too. Here is my personal observations.

Cruised on the Royal 11/10 and it had things going a bit later. Crooners had stuff going well after midnight as late as 1am. I enjoyed that because I'm not much into clubbing.

Cruised on the Emerald on 11/19 and they pretty much rolled up the side walks by 11. Even Crooners was done pretty early. Can't comment on Skywalkers because I don't usually go there after dinner time but they are the late venue.

As for the casino, here is the general rule:

Last night of the cruise the casino will close around 1 or 1:30.

If the next day is a port day, the casino will close around 2, maybe 2:30.

If the next day is a sea day, the slots and the electronic game tables are open all night, but the cashier closes at around 2 and all regular tables with dealers, etc. close then too.

The timings for the craps table, 21, etc may vary if there are still a lot of people playing.

I love the Braciano bags, totes, and duffles they have at the sales. I think I have cornered the market on them.

Just off the Emerald a week ago and did the Royal Princess on 11/10. Played the slots in both casinos, mostly penny slots. The Royal, being a new ship, was full of the newer slot machines but was extremely tight. I do think some people won. The Emerald only had a few newer machines. There is a large empty space in the middle near in front of the bar that I seem to remember from earlier cruises had a lot of slots that were no longer there. Just pretty empty. They had some really old slots like Denver Duck. I actually won a few hundred dollars on a quarter machine, but very little on the penny machines. Was up about $300 for the cruise. Most was won on the 3rd and 2nd to last night. Nothing first night, nothing last night. The 2 most popular machines were the ones for the dragon bonus and the orb bonus. Hard to get any time on either one. I really wish the casino people would upgrade this casino as they need more and better and newer slots. Even though I love Denver Duck and a few of the older slots. No one was playing the quick hit slots.

Dave, so glad you're enjoying the Royal... and she's meeting your expectations. I'm loving following your observations and photos.

 

The Sanctuary photo is interesting to me since it sounds like they are experimenting with different options. On the T/A, the Sanctuary opened at 8:30am and to get a lounger for that day, you had to be lined up by 7:45am. Then, I read that they were taking reservations for the next day after 1pm. From the photo, it sounds like they're taking reservations 24 hours ahead. If that's right, people will be lining up at 7am for the next day. Crazy. :(

I was on board the Royal Princess for the Nov. 10th sailing. I missed getting a full week sanctuary package by about 5 couples, so wound up buying a day at a time. They had just decided to sell the day prior on that cruise and I think it worked well for them. And they told me that on the prior cruise they put the next day passes on sale at 1pm but they had a lot of people lining up by 11am and that didn't work well for them. I did 5 days at the sanctuary and only got up early for the second to last sea day. I didn't book the last day.

ETA: Some people were in line for the sea days by 6:20am.

If they have it, Gelato is not free. I forgot how much, but I know they charge. I don't recall it being more than a few dollars.

Has anyone gotten a coupon book lately? We are cruising in Septmber to Alaska. Are there Internet minutes or coffee?

No coffee card coupons. There may have been a coupon for free internet minutes when you sign up for a package, but I don't recall for sure. I got my coupon books in March.

There are the usual by $200 in fine jewelry and get 10% off variety, many for spa services, but nothing I could use. 2 for 1 blackjack and slot tourrnament entries.

Sorry, wrong thread.

But I do bring my own, usually Purex sheets which are soap and softener. I bring a few extra softener sheets as well. The new pods from Tide and others might work really well for travel as well.

I have had that cabin on either the Ruby or the Emerald and we loved it. It was our first aft Balcony. We did a bunch more after that then went on to the covered mini suites then back to insides which I also like when I go without my husband. You should enjoy it, it is very quiet except when the thrusters are firing mostly to dock or leave port. The wake is great white noise and I love the view. I think aft balconies are my favorite cabin really. Congratulations. The only downside I can think of is their isolation, they are a bit of a walk to anything.

And the upgrade Fairy got me on Wednesday. We're doing a 14 day Alaska cruise and were upgraded to a Category BC balcony handicap room from a partially obstructed ocean view room. We are thrilled.

lol yeah that interview on the national news must of did it.... or maybe it was my Linked by the Sea blog on their site, whatever it is, I like it

Good news, I am going to try and get mine in Monday.

Thank you so much for the patters.

Hope you are feeling better soon.

11/08/09

Hi Everyone,

 

 

The staff has been the best we have experienced in a long time! Our room steward is totally wonderful! How does he know what we want before we do?!

We are having one little problem with some of the staff’s handling of bugs (maybe fleas) in one of the aft cabins and the staff seems to think it’s all in DogMommies head or that she is getting them ashore. But some of us went to visit her and received bites within 5 minutes of arriving to her cabin. The staff has been rude to her including the nurse in the infirmary. We are still waiting to see if and how its handled and will post the ending on here as well as the cabin number if they don’t get rid of what’s biting in there :P

 

 

I would love to know the cabin number of the bugs since we have an aft cabin (b756) leaving on Nov. 14th. :rolleyes:

 

-Andrew

 

And I'm in B755 on the 24th. I'd like to know too. I might call princess and ask them why they aren't treating this seriously.

Pics would be nice but they take a lot of time to upload and process. It may be nicer if we wait patiently for ziggy and janice to come home, catch up with the world and then post them.

Way cool Zyggy and Janice. Did you happen to catch the name of the cruise director?

The sea food buffet sounds wonderful, I can't wait to tell my husband. He discovered it last year on the Emerald. He came back to the room while I was getting ready for dinner and told me he wasn't really hungry and that he had found the most amazing pile of scrimp and other goodies!

Just watched you sail out of port (FLL) - right on time !! Have a great cruise.

 

Forgot to mention - we're on the Ruby Nov 24th, so looking forward to your "live" reports. :D

I watched too. It was fun. Were we fighting over the controller? And I snapped some shots.

I'm still tracking the Ruby on the

Marine Traffic website.

Can't wait, 20 more days!

Have a great cruise and don't spend too much time posting and answering questions.

I'm going to try and watch your sailaway tomorrow from the mortgagemobile web cam. We'll see how it works out.

Have a great trip!!!