cruise2relax

Already purchase the old unlimited package on upcoming voyage.  Checked this morning and it is no longer available, just this new one.  If they maintain this new one, I will not be buying it as I too liked the port photos, candids etc, not the portraits.

Believe it or not, what was required was for me to log out of the app and log back in, all the information was now there and was able to link voyage and complete the process.  While I enjoy technology, Princess has some serious work to do making this process more user friendly.  

6 minutes ago, idahospud said:

 

Any chance the journey is already linked in the app? I wish I could see what your screen showed and I could probably be of more help. 

I was able to do most things online except the security photo and passport scan.  Went back to the app, did the profile pic, set pin and now it will not me go to "next" which I am assuming, perhaps incorrectly, is the security pic and scan of passport.  "ocean ready" and "my journeys" are not highlighted as options on the app.  

14 minutes ago, idahospud said:

I'd say try updating your information at ocean.com and instead of updating in the app?

Thanks - that helped.  Still would not let me link the upcoming cruise.  Final payment made and a  fellow traveler was able to add and able to order the medallion.  Frustrated.

I have read this thread and still do not understand the problem I am having.  On the Ocean Ready app, I can log in.  As for my personal information, I can input it all except my zip code - it will not register the numbers for some god forsaken reason.  As well, trying to add a reservation, I put in my booking number then the app will not let me click on anything else such as DOB.  Any suggestions?

Thanks everyone, very helpful information.

We usually book anytime dining and are considering a change.  I have two questions.  Online you can choose the table size but they say it is not guaranteed.  How likely are you to secure a 2 person table?  Online when it says second seating 7:15pm, is that accurate or does it change once on board.

Ok - 3 questions - if it is not a 2 top and we are not happy, can we switch to anytime once on board?

For us - the cheese plate and a glass of port

Is it for one device only or one device at a time.  I use my phone and laptop.

The Princess website on the package states "subject to terms and conditions"  but those T&C are no where to be found.

I have tried to locate the current "terms and conditions" for this package online without success.  Anyone that can assist?

it was approximately $45

Having done Princess transfers in the past, there is sometimes delays and hanging around waiting until the bus is full etc.  We just took a cruise out of San Francisco and we used a taxi.  Straight forward drive and the taxis pull up right to the entrance of the cruise terminal.  It was very simple.

I am thinking about the Spain pre-Barcelona 6 day cruisetour.  Never been on one, can anyone shed any light on these?  Good, bad?  How many folks on a cruisetour?  Good restauarants and hotels?  

Any information would be appreciated,

Anyone have any information on the Regal - it appears to stop in Rome with nothing after?  Will it be doing a transatlantic or going elsewhere?

Thank you Justafem - for the comments on the Vancouver cruise terminal, I was beginning to think I had lost it.

We booked this cruise when it came out as it was differentand very appealing to us. It must havebeen to many others as it sold out fairly early. That being said, while travelling in Napa,Sonoma and San Francisco prior to the cruise, we were notified of an upgradefrom our Caribe balcony to a Dolphin mini suite. First time that has ever happened to us. Not complaining!

We left from the pier 27 cruise terminal. Very well organized and easy. We arrived around 10:45am (took an Uber) andwe were on board at 11:15am. Again, nocomplaints with that. The staff stilltries so very hard to direct you to the buffet. We did not bite and instead hung around for the dining room which openedat 11:30am. Always our favorite way tostart a cruise. Room were ready at1:00pm and our luggage was already there.

The ship. Okay so theGrand Princess is one of the older vessels in the fleet. That does not give Princess a pass on it. Most of the general everyday maintenance isfine and well kept. It is the deeperstuff that needs addressing. Twoexamples of what I mean. One, in theWheelhouse Bar, the bar stools lack any and all cushion/support in theseat. You literally sink through. Two, the sofa in our mini suite is anembarrassment. The condition is so pooryou would not find it in a frat house. You cannot sit on it as there is no cushion and you sink almost to thefloor. It is the type of dirty that nolonger can become clean. These arethings Princess should be addressing constantly not waiting for dry docks.There are a number of first timers on this cruise. We have the benefit of sailing on 25 cruiseswith Princess over 20 years so we can take it with a grain of salt. Not sure how I would be impacted to cruiseagain with Princess if this were my first cruise with them. On the flip side, the new Princess beds areterrific. HUGE improvement in comfortand quality of the linens is notable. Good job.

Food and service. Princess still cannot get anytime dining right. They keep encroaching on it through Clubclass and making one anytime dining room a traditional early seating. The wait times have been more on this shipthat others. Not sure why. Service of the food and the quality isconsistent with our prior experiences and we are pleased with it. Of note, the wine menu changed as of thiscruise and prompted massive confusion as they are still trying to use up theold inventory and the servers do not know the new inventory yet. Unclear if this was the problem with beverageservice in the dining rooms but it was terrible. On our first two occasions, we did not getour glass of wine until half way through dinner. We learned to wait to order food until we gotour drinks. This was not unique to us,it was happening to everyone around us.

We chose to try the new Sabatini’s and we were very pleased. First, why is that you call the dining linefor a reservation, they always tell you nothing is available before 8pm? We agreed to the 8pm reservation and went at7pm and were seated immediately because they were nowhere near busy or full. Again, poor move as you are losing business. Anyway, the menu was explained by the waiterand off we went. We had the burrata andthe fried squash for appetizers, both delicious and larger in size thanexpected. We both had the cheese soupwhich was a real treat. Our two pastaswere the seafood pasta and beef cheek pasta. My beef cheek pasta won that round. We followed with the Porchetta and the veal wallet (it is a cordon bleutype of prep). Both really good butagain large portion. Really well doneand delicious. We would go there againand we were fans of the old menu. Theonly misstep was the dessert, kind of flavorless. But then again I may have overwhelmed mytaste buds by that point.

Ports:

Astoria, Oregon: what a surprise. I did not have any expectations as I couldnot find a lot of information on this port prior to the trip. We were lucky with a sunny beautiful day inport. Lovely small city at the mouth ofthe Columbia River and the Pacific. Wewalked to town along the Riverwalk in the morning and took in a seafood andwine pairing and cooking lesson (our only Princess tour) at Baked Alaskarestaurant. Well done and a veryenjoyable day in this port. It is quitebeautiful and would not mind exploring it further.

Seattle, Washington: we have spent time in Seattle before sowe have kind of done the things that most would do. We took part in a food tour of downtown withSavor Seattle. I was hoping we woulddock at Pier 66 rather than Pier 91 since this was not a turn around day. No such luck. Great weather though.

Vancouver, Canada: dockedat Canada Place downtown. Also did adowntown food tour. More great weather. I will point out, having never stopped herebefore, the cruise ship terminal is confusing, not well marked for directionscoming and going.

Victoria, BC: More great weather, nice port. We did not plan anything other than to walkabout as we were only in port for half a day. Although lovely, I would plan a tour if I return. Not a lot to do just walking around.

We had a medical helicopter evac on the morning of the lastsea day. At that point the captain saidit might delay our arrival to San Francisco. I found this odd as he had 24 hours to make up the time. We have experienced this before with far moreout of the way problems for evac (think turning around on a transatlanticcrossing). True to his word, the shipwas 3 hours late into San Francisco. Almost missed a noon flight. Whatwas maddening was the lack of explanation outside of the medical evac. If we missed a slot to et into port, tell methat. People were flipping about flightsas the ship was moving very slowly all day and night. Really did not make sense based on what wastold to us. May have been a goodexplanation, but did not hear one.

All in all a solid trip, liked the itinerary a lot. There were some large groups onboard thatmade for some challenges with certain bars and dining rooms but we learned tonavigate.

Side note: if anyone from Princess is reading this, the princess@sea app is comingalong nicely but why can you not put thedining room menus on this app? You putmost of the patter on it, it really should not be complicated.

Hello -

I have read of the new menus being tried and the Ruby and another passenger attended a BVE on the Grand recently and made mention of new menu items starting. Can anyone tell me if they adopted the Ruby type menus or just changed up with new menu items?

Does anyone know if they have been rolled out on any other ships?

Can you book a cabin under the $1 deposit and figure out later who your cabin mate will be? If so, how do you do that?

Not a whole lot of information in the press release. Hopefully someone will post the actual cruise list like usual. Almost nothing on the transatlantics.

Trying to hit the highlights for a review of our 25 dayGrand Crossing from Rome to Fort Lauderdale on the Royal Princess. First, let me say the trip waswonderful.

The ship was in great condition and the staff was performingvery well. The weather was perfect(although I know Princess has nothing to do with the weather). This was the first time we have ever beenaboard for a back to back (our first leg ended in Barcelona where the secondleg, the transatlantic, commenced). There was a significant turn over in staff on that day which was highlynoticeable to us because the dining staff we had grown comfortable with allchanged. Minor detail but I would havepreferred it remain the same as we really enjoyed them and the replacementswere “training.” There was a lot of thatgoing on in the second leg. Due to theport intensity on the first leg and the first half of the second leg, we paidvery little attention to the cruise director staff until the 7 daycrossing. We had Lexi as a cruisedirector, who I heard was a fill in. Frankly, she was awful. We havebeen on transatlantic cruises before and they are usually wildly variedactivities throughout the day that change up frequently. Not this time. Same stuff every day, pretty much at the sametime and most of it revenue generating. Really poor job for a 7 day stretch. It really was a make your own fun type of crossing. Quite disappointing.

Although subjective, the food we found quite food. The menus continue to be clipped in scopewhich is a bit sad but the quality was good. The dining room lunch menus, which used to be a favorite, were verybasic and disappointing. Princessappears to be struggling to reach the lowest common denominator. Lots of sandwiches on the menus. This is a trend we have noted over the yearswe have cruised with Princess. Speakingwith other cruisers from other lines, this is not unique to Princess. In contrast I was thrilled to see a return onthe dinner menus of pates, duck, escargot, and soufflés. Some of the dinner offerings were moreupscale that in recent cruises. Allgood. God knows I did not gohungry. The buffet on the Royal is stilllight years ahead of the older ships.

With the exception of three ports, we used private tours inall stops. We did so without incident,some on our own with friends, some arranged through cruise critic (some by me)in both small and larger groups. I amnot going to go into detail with the tours unless someone inquires (I am happyto do so if anyone is interested, just let me know) - here is a rundown:

Rome: Countryside tour and transfer with RomeCabs; Naples:Amalfi coast, winery and lunch with Simply Amalfi; Messina: Castiglione winery andlunch with sicily4you; Dubrovnik: Tour of Dubrovnik & Peljesac and vineyardwith dubrovnikshoretours; Kotor: Speed boat tour of Kotor, Perast and Lady ofthe Rocks with Kotorprivatetours; Corfu: walking food tour withcorfuwalkingtours; Toulon: wine tour of Bandol and Cassis withprovencewinetours; Barcelona: city tour and Montserrat with Barcelona day tours;Valencia: requena caves with Princess; Cartagena: walking food tour withPrincess; Gibraltar: highlights of the rock with inside out rock tours; Seville:tour of Seville and Alcazar with Spain day tours; Tenerife: Teide and Northtour with winery and lunch with Feel Tenerife; and, Lanzarote: full dayhighlights with Princess.

On a side note, this is the first trip we used EZ Air withPrincess. When I first was looking forflights, I was experiencing enormous price tags due to a one-way to Europeflight. Princess is able to get aroundthat open-jaw thing and we were able to secure a great direct flight to Rome. We even had to change it without a problem. No hiccups in any way with the booking oranything to do with the flight. It wassimply to manage through the airline website directly once booked. Our experience was so positive, I will lookat the EZ Air options for future cruises without question.

Great cruise and met some really wonderful people.

Thank you. Happen to be on the Royal right now and saw this. After all these years, I did not know this. I had a sweet potato and the my other half had a baked potato last night. Yumm.

Has anyone done the Balcony dinner on a regular balcony on the Regal/Royal? Is there enough room? I would like to do this but am a bit concerned as the balconies are a tad tight!

To the OP and everyone on this thread - THANK YOU!! We just paid for our passage which was over the $4,001 2% redemption mark and received single points. I called the number provided by the OP and could not have been happier with the service I received. She immediately knew what I was talking about and explained that they are having an ongoing issue that "passage" payments are not tripping the 2 points per dollar in their system like on-board charges do AND passage charges are not showing as eligible statement credit redemption purchases. Both transactions had to be manually done by her. She fixed the points first then verified the balance with me and asked how many points I wanted to redeem for a statement credit (2% value due to the purchase amount) and did the same for me. Took about 7 minutes and she apologized multiple times saying she hopes it is remedied in their system soon for no further issues.