NownZen

I am not Kay S but we waited for around 10 weeks earlier this year and around 9 weeks for the most recent cruise. Our traveling companions got their refund at about 11 weeks.

Downsizing the Patter would be horrible for us. We rely on it each day and circle what we plan to do. Trying to look at the schedule with the app or on the TV is just an exercise in frustration as you spend all of your time scrolling and scrolling and scrolling and you cannot mark things.

There are a number of different stainless steels. Some are magnetic. We held off getting a new refrigerator until we found one that is magnetic. Types 304 and 316 are non magnetic while 430 and 434 are magnetic.

A few things. The $50/day plus package is each so so $1500 dollars total. Wifi is 1 each. The pictures, gifts and meals are with the Premiere package which is $75/day each. The Plus package includes tips and wifi so you end up paying about $25/day each for drinks. That is two glasses of wine each so it can be a good deal if you drink more. Beer is three drinks per day. The Premiere package includes higher priced drinks than the $12 each for the plus package. For us the Plus package makes sense, the Premiere does not.

The only problem was that I wanted to use the balcony. Well that and the fact that the maintenance head said there was no problem.

The bartender enters the info on his screen. But in this case, it was that they had not turned on the drink package so it would have been better if the bartender was slow.

Thank you for your postings. Bacon is one of those things that is pretty hit and miss. Sometimes it is almost raw and other times it shatters. I alternate between scrambled eggs and bacon and a bacon omelet depending on the condition of the bacon. I do have a question. How is your balcony door in terms of opening? On the Grand earlier this year you had to hurl your body against the glass while doing a twist to get it open. The lady who was head of maintenance told me that it was normal and all ships were like that (as if I had never been on a ship before). The maintenance man came out and put wd40 on the seal. You do not do that on rubber as it makes it worse and stickier. I cleaned off and the next day he came back. I went to PSD a couple of times telling them to leave the door alone. The next time the maintenance man came he did not get a good reception. I have also found that when I make a number of visits to the PSD, I never seem to get a survey after the cruise.

You are right but the question is how much emotional energy you want to put in on worrying and fretting about it. It will come when it comes. I prefer to think about the good times on the cruise.

I take a somewhat different view. We had something over $1000 to be refunded after our most recent cruise. I assumed they would send it back at some point. They did at about 9 weeks. If I were to be dependent on a few dollars, I should not be cruising.

I really wonder what the churn is among cruise ship passengers. Is it better for Princess (or any other cruise line) to pamper the first or second time cruisers or the twenty time cruiser. Is the assumption that if you have done x number of cruises that you will come back and you do not have to be pampered as much? Is it more important to hook newer cruisers in? I assume with all the research Princess does that they have these answers and we are left to guess by their actions. Clearly the demise of the strict TD is not aimed at the newer crowd. We either cruise for the itinerary or the relaxation. Princess is very good on the relaxation part. A cruise from LA to Hawaii is great for that. Itineraries is a bit more problematic. There are a lot of places that Princess does not go that are fabulous like Egypt and India. We have to go on another line for those. It was fun after going through the Suez canal to have a drill on what to do if pirates attack the ship as well as having people and equipment loaded on the ship from a "fishing" boat which then met us again near Oman to take things off the ship. They told us the last attack was repulsed. The other issue telling us where Princess is going is the ship size. We loved the Royal, Ocean and Pacific Princess but those are gone now. (The Ocean is now the Oceania Sirena). I have no interest in a mega ship with roller coasters etc. The Grand class are great ships for us as well as the Coral and (to a lesser extent after the remodel) Island. Anyway, we will see and we still have choices.

The app allows me to choose the same table at the same time each night. Sounds pretty much like TD to me. There is no need to have a whole dining room for TD (unless you want to enforce a dress code) as the tables in all dining rooms can be used for TD according to how many people want to do this.

We had no problem dining the same time with the same people on our last cruise.

The TD is the most efficient in terms of the resources on the ships. However, it is the most restrictive for the passengers. Any DMW or Anytime dining will be less efficient at the front end as people coming in are spread over a long time. We do not want to be stuck with one particular time so the DMW is much better for us when we decide to eat in the dining room.

The cruise lines care about total revenue which is number of passengers times the average spent per passenger. If a ship is not full, it makes sense to "give away" rooms to people who have shown they will spend money on gambling. Those rooms cost very little on an incremental basis and the gambling revenue is important. For the paying customers, I read at one point that they are looking at onboard spending to be about an additional 50% of the fare paid. When ships are full or nearly so, I suspect the gambling offers get much less generous. I have never received an offer since I do not gamble on the ships.

The interesting part will be when they stop on board testing and quarantine.

Thank you for the balanced review and observations.

That is not true. There is a whole alphabet soup of versions. Most of it centers around security protocols and that may be the Paperwhite issue.

If you have not finished the web or app check in you need to show them your passport, vaccine records, test record (in selected areas) and have your security picture taken. If you have finished the web or app check in you need to show them your passport, vaccine records, test record (in selected areas) and have your security picture taken. Plus you get to go in the blue line which is shorter since most people did their checkin through the app or online. You can see how much the precheck in helps speed things up.

It is nice to see the library. When we were on the Grand in January, they had one book and no games.

I have been wondering about the issue of these refunds taking so long since they can charge you in seconds but it takes months to do refunds. How much of this has to do with the drink packages? In the old days I asked the customer service desk what would happen if we had a credit at the end of the cruise and they told me that normally did not happen. So maybe the mechanism was not in place for them to refund money easily. With the drink package taking care of internet, drinks and tips, there is not much left to charge so there will be a lot more accounts with a credit at the end of the cruise. This may have overwhelmed the finance department. Or they just are this slow in paying all their bills. Viking took care of this problem by making on board credits nonrefundable (so I have a collection of Viking coats and knickknacks).

I have been wondering about the issue of these refunds taking so long since they can charge you in seconds but it takes months to do refunds. How much of this has to do with the drink packages? In the old days I asked the customer service desk what would happen if we had a credit at the end of the cruise and they told me that normally did not happen. So maybe the mechanism was not in place for them to refund money easily. With the drink package taking care of internet, drinks and tips, there is not much left to charge so there will be a lot more accounts with a credit at the end of the cruise. This may have overwhelmed the finance department. Or they just are this slow in paying all their bills. Viking took care of this problem by making on board credits nonrefundable (so I have a collection of Viking coats and nicknaks).

The reinstall the app is the Dogbert school of customer support. The issue is communication with the server which is a Princess issue. The issue with the app is that it is badly done. I think they should have gone big and hired a couple of 16 year olds to program it rather than the 12 year olds they used.

I wrote a reply but it is somewhere in the cloud. Not on the roll call yet. The small ships are now on Oceania and Azamara. We still go on them when there are itineraries we want. Princess does not go to many areas we want to go. Packing. Our experience was that the temperature was not too bad but the wind was what made us uncomfortable. We are bringing a medium coat and a windproof jacket and pants. Also good gloves, a mask and a watch cap. Gloves are a nuisance in using a camera though. We will see if this makes us take a large suitcase instead of our normal carry on. We did a cruise and trip where we were in Key West at 85 degrees and at the Matterhorn in 15 degrees. We made it there with a carry on. Layering is your friend.

The rubber wrist strap has magnets in it so the medallion only fits properly in one orientation. Then it is very solid.

The medallion is a glorified room card. It does the standard functions plus it has a bluetooth interface (and a battery for that) for the long range detection and location on the ship. The Medallion app runs on a phone and has almost nothing to do with the medallion. The app lets you order drinks and food to be delivered. We found that function to be very unreliable and it was easier to just flag down a server. The only function I ever used was the locate shipmates function. That function is a bit hit and miss which is why the food and drink delivery is not reliable. Mrs Zen will not use a phone on the ship. She had no issues. There is one interesting feature where if you put the lanyard inside your shirt against you skin, it generally did not work and you had to pull it out to get a drink. On your wrist it worked better. There is a little bit of humor with the medallion. On one cruise when I approached the room it would show my picture and then refuse to unlock the door. I would just go down to a bar and wait for my wife to find me.