PescadoAmarillo

We have done back to back and ship to ship cruises several times. I book ship to ship thinking it will be nice to have a new ship, perhaps even a new cruise line, with different menus and shows. And it is. But I can’t remember a single instance where we were on the new ship and I didn’t wish, at least momentarily, that we were back on the old, familiar ship. I find that B2B is remarkably easier more than S2S is more interesting.

I had to Google him. 😆 If it’s not sports, I don’t watch it.

For those with access, John Chernesky is the cover story in Travel Age West this week.

That would be an incorrect assumption. I can’t recall a single Princess cruise where we didn’t do at least one, and often more, loads of laundry at the self serve laundromat. And yet I’ve never once requested free tokens at Guest Services. It’s my choice to not use (or use) the Elite perk; if I choose not to, I don’t expect to be compensated for that decision.

What an odd comment.

And then there are the “claimers”, especially on ships that have stacking washers and dryers. They believe that, since they’re using a washer, that gives them a claim on the dryer right above it, even if it is sitting idle and someone else could be using it now.

We’ve done that itinerary several times and I’ve blogged about our visits here. Yellow Fish Cruises blog Just click on the labels on the right side to go to the posts about each of the ports you’ll be visiting.

If you want to read a book on the cheap and have a Kindle Unlimited membership, there is a book entitled Cruising Alaska 2022-2023 by Dr. Lew Deitch. I haven’t yet read it and can’t comment on the quality of the information contained therein, but it is free.

I am late in joining your many avid followers as I was traveling myself, but I am now caught up and thank you so much for your (always well written and informative) review. These ports are all new to me and that makes them especially interesting.

My drinking behavior over a week or two is significantly different than over a month or two, and much different on a cruise than at home. I’ve had Plus one time, for one week and was not able to fully enjoy the alcoholic part of it. On our upcoming cruise, there is nothing to stop me and, really, trying new drinks is what I’m most looking forward to. That’s the benefit of Plus to me…trying things I wouldn’t otherwise order. I suspect that after two weeks, I’ll be abstemious the rest of the year. But there is little doubt that I’ll get my value out of the package.

That was not our experience, except at the kids-specific pool. But we spent most of our time in the adults only area (for free), including eating at the cafe there with its healthier food options. But we also haven’t returned….to the Royal Princess or the Allure OTS. Big ships are just not my favorite way to vacation.

What is not often considered is that large white spaces on the deck just below the Lido Deck can be the pools from the Lido Deck above. We have found these to be among the noisiest white spaces either from rough seas with the water splashing literally next to the wall of your cabin, but also from the pool cleaning equipment, which usually starts up right on schedule in the wee hours of the morning. The pump noise, if you’re particularly unlucky to have a cabin next to the room where that is housed, is especially troublesome.

We’ve spent over 100 days in a row in an inside cabin on the Ruby and lived to talk about how wonderful the vacation was, so you’ll survive. The TV is against the wall that forms the divider between the cabin and closet hallway. It is on the side of that wall furthest from the door. I’ve never noticed that it presents a viewing issue.

I was actually suggesting the entire bidding system was based on half day rentals. Highest half day rental bid gets first choice. They might reserve a lounger for every day, all day of the cruise. It’s going on cost them a lot, but they’ll get exactly what they want. Or they might just choose one afternoon on one day, Then it goes to the second highest bid, and down the line. @caribill, it could be held in the hour just prior to sailaway, or by notIfication on the app, but I think the hour prior to sailaway would work best. Yes, it requires everyone to be at the Sanctuary at a certain tIme, but so does the existing system. It doesn’t have people rushing on the ship, it doesn’t favor B2B or Elite passengers (Princess should like that part the best, since they’re all about first time cruisers), and it provides a higher revenue stream (Princess should like that second best).

I hear you, but I am also reminded of a regional VP I worked for, and learned so much from. He was a former Green Beret, and his most memorable line was “Don’t tell me it can’t be done. Figure it out and tell me when it’s done”. And thusly challenged, we usually did. In this case, Princess could simply bid out half days. That’s it…no further details needed. Once on the ship, highest bid chooses first, both location and days. Looking at this from the Princess viewpoint, I think this would extract far more revenue from the Sanctuary than they are currently getting. From a guest perspective, there is no more rushing to get on the ship. If Sanctuary seating is really important to me, I will bid high enough that I get to be among the first to choose the spot and days I want.

The fact that there really is no “reservation system” in place right now, just a map of loungers and handwritten assignments on a first come first served basis means that there is a huge opportunity here. Princess’s cabin bidding system was outsourced (my understanding is that the same company performs that function for several cruise lines). It would be a great summer job for a high school or college student to set up a bidding system for the Sanctuary and sell it to the cabin bidding company or Princess directly. Bidding solves several issues. Those people who book their cruise late still have an equal access to the most favored loungers in the Sanctuary (highest bids get first choice). People who board later in the day do too. At some time just before or after sailaway, people who have been notified they have a winning bid report to the Sanctuary to claim their lounger. The most favored loungers will yield a higher revenue for Princess. The total Sanctuary revenue is bound to be significantly higher on warm weather cruises, but on cool weather cruises, people can reserve the loungers for less instead of not reserving them at all, which is what happens at the current static pricing, and the revenue is likely to be higher too.

I’m quite happy to see so many pics posted while on board. It gives me hope that the WiFi will be more usable than it was on the Majestic in Alaska.

This, at least on warm itineraries. It makes no sense that people are rushing on board and still being disappointed. There is obviously enough demand for a huge price increase. Or, better yet, figure out a bidding process as for cabins. Highest bidders get first choice of chair location. Six years of higher business education and the one economic lesson that stuck with me the most is to maximize the area under the demand curve, as bidding does. Current Sanctuary pricing does the opposite of that.

Back in the day 😆, I think Platinums did have unlimited internet. I recall my first cruise at the platinum level. It was a transpacific and DH was supposed to have been with me to celebrate the end of his military career. He was stop lossed and I ended up going with a friend instead since he wouldn’t be home for the holidays. I spent a lot of time emailing him during those 31 days. A LOT.

I said the same thing when we had an inside cabin without the little round table. The first thing we used to do was put it in the closet.

Funny…I don’t miss them in the least.

We have several cruises for which we’ve never been able to make dining reservations. We have two cruises later this summer for which we could and did. I check them every day. Today they all changed and when I try to change them back, they tell me nothing else is available.

Um, to put this delicately…hell no we haven’t.

I’ve cruised for as long as five months as a time. I get vacation waivers for the few prescription meds I take so I get a six month supply at a time. I take a lot of supplements and they take up more space. I don’t take any controlled substances so I take everything out of the prescription bottles and organize them in the stacking pill containers I use at home. Then I pour those into the little pill bags, one for morning and one for night. I can tell by looking at the pills if they’re morning or night pills but I still separate them into a gallon ziplock bag for morning and for night. I use Restatsis containers to hold the pill bags in a nightstand drawer. They fit perfectly. I also use those little pill bags, well labeled, for OTC meds like Sudafed, Dextramathorphan, and ibuprofen.

The Royal Class ships are pretty awful for scenic cruising watching from public venues, except the Majestic has the Hollywood Conservatory and even then, if it’s raining, you’ll see nothing. We spent a rainy day in the New Zealand fjords with literally no place to watch from except the area behind the buffet…with 1500 of our new friends.