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Yes.

The non-availability to check-in on line is due to document check, not because of the names. For international flights the airline is responsible for physically taking a visual look at your passport and verifying that it is valid and that the appropriate visas are endorsed, if required for the destination country. If a passenger arrives at the destination and is denied entry into that country by immigration, the airline foots the bill to send that passenger back to the originating country. The airline is trying to mitigate their risk. If you check-in using the United App, there is a way to upload your passport and have it electronically verified prior to check-in that that will allow you to check-in all the way online for an international flight. The boarding pass generated will show "INT'L READY." Been able to use this method to check-in all the way for an EZAir booked flight with my first and middle names lumped together.

I was assigned D701 on the Discovery Princess for a Mexican Riviera cruise last year. It had the 3rd and 4th pullman bunks from the ceiling, but it had an extended balcony. According to my Travel Summary, this cabin is categorized as a Category BD, Balcony--not a Category D4, Premium Deluxe Balcony--so no meta upcharge to choose this cabin. If the inside living quarters become tight, some of you party can sit outside, weather permitting. Never had to use the upper berths so can't comment on what's it's like to have more than two in that cabin.

You'll be fine. The airlines lump your first and middle name together even on tickets that are booked directly with them.

Cruising is back to pre-pandemic levels, which is a good thing for cruise line survival. We could go back to capacity caps like during the re-start but that would be detrimental to the cruise lines. Cruise like you did pre-pandemic and roll with it. Don't cruise with the major cruise lines if you don't like crowds; after all, ship's capacity is in the thousands. Go on a more premium cruise line or charter a yacht if you don't like crowds.

The wait isn't so bad if the port agents are organized.. I took the Sky Princess out of Southampton this past April and the majority of the passengers were British and didn't have the option of getting the Medallion shipped to their home. The Medallions were very well organized in bins. There was only point of contact at check-in; that agent did the check-in, retrieved the Medallion, and handed it to the passenger. Most importantly, the queue for check-in moved at a constant pace; there was never a time where it stopped and didn't move for a long period of time. The wait for the security line was longer and was start stop. It wasn't like at Fort Lauderdale where passengers have to queue and check with one agent and queue again in another line and retrieve their Medallion from another agent.

There was a Medallion App version update this week to Version 4.12. Removed the QR code, but supposedly added stateroom number to the "Ocean Ready Pass." This is per the version upgrade description in the App Store. Dining, Excursions, and Spa now appear as items in the bottom navigation bar.

The Princess Plus/Premium included perk of having your Medallion shipped to your home becomes void if you have chosen port pick-up despite having purchased one of the packages. Many passengers who reside outside of the USA forgo this perk because Medallions can only be shipped to home to US addresses. If you paid $10 for Medallion shipping to your home and purchase the Princess Plus/Premier package on board the first day, rather than pre-cruise, you can go to the Guest Services Desk and have them refund the $10 Medallion shipping as a $10 onboard credit to your stateroom account. Screen shot the Medallion Confirmation order page with the charges itemized and show it as proof that you paid for shipping. Not sure how long this will go on, but my shipmates were successful in doing this on two cruises taken after the changes to the packages.

I'm going to assume that you've already made final payment on the booking and you used a TA to make the Princess reservation and you have a negative balance on your Cruise Summary (meaning Princess owes you money.) Have your TA call Princess and request that a refund be processed for the overpayment for the EZAir flights. A regular Princess agent will be able to take care of this. The EZAir department shouldn't have to get involved. Recently, I re-fared my EZAir airline reservation prior to them being ticketed, but after final payment, that resulted in lower airfare and a refund due to me from Princess. The negative balance hung around in my reservation until I called Princess and a Princess agent manually processed a refund for the overpayment. The refund hit my credit card in five days but I was advised that it could take up to 10 days. I recommend that you save a PDF or print a copy of you Travel Summary with the date and time in the header before making the request showing the Net Due being a negative balance because the Net Due line will reflect $0.00 as soon as the refund request is put in by the Princess agent. In case you don't receive the refund on your credit card in 10 days, you will have proof that Princess owes you a refund and take it from there.

Coffee, iced tea, and hot water (for tea bags) are available in the buffet through self serve dispensers. On Grand class and the Island and the Coral ships, coffee is from concentrate at the buffets, not freshly brewed. There is no freshly brewed iced tea on any Princess ship; it's from concentrate. If you want fresh brewed iced tea, bring a water flask and make it from the tea bags on offer at the buffet. Plan ahead or you'll be stuck with freshly brewed hot tea. IC has brewed coffee, but it will cost you. Iced tea and coffee are offered with your meals at the MDR and buffet at no extra charge.

Maybe a schematic will help. I wish we the staterooms were large enough for Alaska King beds on Alaskan sailings.

No problem at all with your proposal regarding sharing the multi-device plan. Your sons will have to enter your cabin number and birthday on the MedallionNet credentials page. Princess allows for unlimited data usage on MedallionNet with purchase of any package and doesn't keep track of specific device used to connect.

Below is a map of the routes taken by the Princess ships in Alaska from the 2023 Princess Alaska brochure. The Royal class ships don't sail the entire Inside Passage and instead sail west of Vancouver Island. Follow the dashed lines for the Royal class ship route.

The area cruised in the thread title and the ship you booked don't go hand in hand. Princess' Royal Class ships, which the Royal Princess is the original iteration, doesn't go through the Inside Passage. It cruises around Vancouver Island's western side to get to Alaska. The smaller Grand Class ships are the Princess ships that cruise through the Inside Passage. If cruising the Inside Passage is important to you, I would rebook on a Grand Class ship.

Companies that fail to keep up with the demographic end up failing themselves. Kodak and Blackberry phones are great examples. They were once household names and have now ceased to exist on the personal consumer market.

Can't answer that. The highest category I could bid on when I was still interior guarantee was a deluxe balcony.

I think having the buffet menu pre-published on embarkation day is unique to the Sky Princess. Haven't seen this much organization on any other Princess ship. This kind of stuff requires lots of preparation by the ship's provisioner. I'm used to being served whatever the buffet cooks can scrape up towards the end of a long sailing.

How long ago did you pay for the oceanview obstructed? It takes a few days for the bidding website to update your current stateroom and update the categories you can bid on. I booked a guaranteed interior last month on the Royal Princess. The algorithm auto-assigned me a mini-suite 2 weeks before the sail date. A few days later, I was sent more bid to upgrade e-mails--this time for Club Class, forward facing mini-suite, and suites. Didn't take the bait though.

Below is a scan of the document left in staterooms on embarkation day regarding the daily menu themes in the World Fresh Marketplace. This is from the 01 April 2023 Sky Princess sailing.

Princess is trying to reinvent itself. The company is attempting stray away from the geriatric connotation that is attached to their brand. Not really worth the crew's time and energy getting into a confrontation with passengers over their dress. It doesn't cause a concern for safety or is it a threat to passengers. It's not military basic training; passengers are there to have a good time. Would hate to be the crew member drill sergeant that had to give guests a once over and decide if what they were wearing is formal. If a guest wasn't conforming to the formal theme, would they not be allowed to leave their cabin for the evening? On Hawaii cruises many men wear aloha shirts on formal nights in lieu of traditional formal wear, and it's totally accepted because aloha shirts are considered formal in Hawaii.

Hawaii has very hot, humid, and muggy weather in July and the chances for high winds and bad weather is unlikely, which means missed ports are unlikely. December is a toss up. Kauai is Hawaii's greenest island, so if it's going to rain, expect it there. I would book your rental in Kauai with a 9:00 a.m. pick up. It will give you enough padding to get to the car rental location. Also, I recommend that you have a local number to your car rental agency in case you'll be late to pick up. The rental car agencies in Kauai don't have as many cars as other locations on the islands, and if you're late, the car rental location may give your car away to someone else and not have a comparable car to give you. I would put a 4:30 p.m. return and return it early. It doesn't cost any thing to return a little early, but you might be charged extra if you keep it over your allotted time. Remember that island driving is more relaxed--the speed limit ranges from 45 to 60 mph on some "freeways," so don't expect to cover as much ground as you could drive on the mainland. Traffic can also be of some concern. Many of the cities in Hawaii are one road in and one road out, so if there's a major accident, you could be "up a creek." The police sometimes shut both directions of the freeway for hours to clear and investigate an accident.

Depends on the weather conditions, ship clearance, and the Captain. If all is on time, you can expect to be walking off the ship shortly after the published arrival time on the itinerary. If there are delays due to weather, medical, or clearance, you will be delayed. The Captain gets the final say on all aboard times. For my last cruise to Hawaii in January, the Captain decided that the last tenders in tender ports departed 1 hour prior to the published departure time on the itinerary. There were a few passengers making a fuss at Guest Services, but they were told by the officers that it was to give enough time for the tenders to be put away and achieve an on time departure. On previous cruises to Hawaii, a different Captain decided that the last tenders departed 30 minutes prior to the published departure time on the itinerary. Below is a scan of the itinerary with published arrival and departure times and a scan of the Patter with the all aboard time. You can compare the times.

On Royal Class ships there is a dedicated hot chocolate dispenser next to the coffee machine that dispenses hot chocolate pre-mixed--powder with hot water--ready to drink.

Go to this website: https://www.cruisedeckplans.com/ It publishes the deck plans with the cabins laid out with markings that indicate not only if a cabin can accommodate 3rd and 4th, but also if it's a connecting cabin, all in one place. The screenshot below of the Discovery Princess deck plans from the above website shows that C244 can accommodate 3rd and 4th, but also is connected to C240.

The baby boomer generation that put Princess on the map is beginning to disappear. Princess has to change its ways, albeit slowly, in order to attract a new demographic if they are to survive.