Cruise Raider

Oh my word .. now that you explain it, I think you got charged for the casual dining fees as well. That’s what it looks like anyway. $18 for the oysters and 14.99 for two price fixed meals casual meals. It definitely looks like you should receive the overcharge of $30 + 18% back if you haven’t used your casual dining beyond the limit of your package.

We’ve been on the crown many times this year and every room we’ve been in had the same USB ports in the desk. Perhaps you got a room without one? I did ask one of our traveling companions if they had a port in their cabin and they said no. But, the next day, they said they did have one but just never noticed it before they looked for it.

You are so right. Each day in our lives is what we make of it! I don’t mean to be disrespectful but I’m surprised some people on these boards even enjoy cruising. As far as the production shows, we’ve seen where half the production crew is sick with something contagious or the main character is injured. They always replace it with something we can watch and enjoy.

Sorry but the casual lunch doesn’t include the extra items you ordered. So, they were not wrongful charges. You are correct about checking prices, or at least asking about prices before you order. The sushi lunch is included, extra items are not.

For 2025 cruises, they’ve instructed us it will be available in November. No problems for me with that, though. The application has been seamless, it’s usually been applied with 24 hours and if you refare it, it doesn’t knock it off your booking as before.

If you go on a shorter sailing, less than 10 days, during any normal school holidays or in the summer, you should expect a lot of children to be onboard. Otherwise, you are pretty safe.

Celebrity, by a huge margin, used to be our preference. We started cruising on Princess mainly because of their itineraries. They were ones that sailed out of San Francisco consistently. How things have changed onboard both Princess and Celebrity is apparent. Or maybe it’s us that changed in our likes and wishes. We are not foodies but I’ve always thought the food was better on Princess. We do love to be entertained, whether it be by a live entertainer, activities staff, lecturer or an on demand movie up our cabin. Princess for the win. We love good wine and even though it doesn’t have to be a Reidel, a nice glass makes any wine better. At first, Celebrity would have gotten that point but now, Princess has upped their stemware. They each get a point for that. WiFi goes to Princess hands down! Celebrity has better cabins for 1/4 point goes to Princess for the open closet design. Overall goes to Princess now although, now they seem to be limiting the OBC on some sailings depending on the promotion used. My CVP recently posted that the Princess Picks promotion cruises no longer qualify for Military or Shareholders OBC additions. Celebrity never used to allow stacking of OBC (don’t know about that now) .. so that one is a tie. The medallion app and the little medallion itself, although some don’t like it, is ingenious. Princess for the win. Nonsmoking in the casino goes to Celebrity hands down. I don’t know why Princess still allows it .. they had the perfect opportunity to keep it banned during the pandemic. Princess did send out a targeted survey regarding the casino recently, so maybe they are thinking about going to nonsmoking. Who knows?

We were told no but someone else said they were included. We didn’t want one anyway, just wanted to know.

Oh no .. the Rollata is gone? We loved that and would split one as our main course. Never mind .. just not on certain ships

The Alfredo’s on the Grand is just so small. We have also seen that happen. I’m not sure if it’s still the same but they didn’t even have salads or soup in there. Now, I don’t think the IC has salads anymore whereas, one used to be able to grab one there and take it to your table. I supposed now you can order a salad to take it in with you when you first order your pizza.

We did a side by side cruise last year with Celebrity and then on Princess. While Celebrity used to be our favorite cruise line, Princess won us over since the post shutdown restart. We walked off the Celebrity ship and onto the Princess ship in the same port and both of us said, “Now we’re home”. We haven’t looked back since then. Mind you, Celebrity used to be our favorite cruise line and we’re close to elite plus status. I’m not saying the Celebrity cruise was horrible, as a matter of fact, there were many things we did love. It was just kind of boring. There was really no onboard entertainment, lectures, activities, etc during the day. No place to grab a quick bite unless we wanted to go up to the buffet. Room service was expensive and not delivered anywhere but in your cabin as room service. I actually missed the medallion. One big thing Celebrity has that Princess does not is the Apple Store onboard. That is pretty nice! But if you cruise often, you wouldn’t be visiting there all that often. The crew was great on both but, there’s no real officer engagement like there is on Princess. The food on Princess is so much better and the venues where you can get food between the two cruiselines is like day and night. Princess all the way on the food! I do love the open design closets on Princess but the cabins on Celebrity are so much better. All cabins have a small seating area and their bathrooms are awesome, especially with the lighted mirror at night. But all in all, cleanliness is the most important factor for us on any line and both lines have been good where that is concerned. Only two times did we had terrible room stewards on Princess but we cruise on them many more times so, I would never judge my overall experiences based on those two. Also, nonsmoking in all inside venues, including the casino .. well, Celebrity all the way! If given a great deal on Celebrity, we would go back but if we are paying for a cruise, and we do as our gambling is very meager in their eyes, Princess has won our vote, hands down!

I went through a crew member. Only if you book for the second leg on a B2B or you have paid the $10 for shipping.

We were on a B2B recently with a lot of OBC so we didn’t purchase the package for the second leg. Lo and behold, even though we never swapped out our medallion, we were given the $10 credit each when we purchased the package onboard with our OBC. Nice surprise to say the least.

It was not allowed before so, we’d just idea one pizza to split. Now that, at least on the Majestic, it’s nice that we can get our pizza to take to our balcony to enjoy. Im not sure if this is true on all ships but the pizza that is ordered via the app (that incurs a charge) seems to be made in the room service pantry ovens. It is not at all like pizza from Slice and certainly not even in the same league as the pizzas from Alfredo’s. The cruise is completely different. I’m not a foodie so, I won’t go as far to say it didn’t hit the spot when we ordered it. I honestly thought they may have made a mistake and given us a gluten free crust or something like that .. the crust is yellowish and the pizza is quite compact. So, when it happened a third time, I realized that it must be made in the room service pantry instead of at Slice. This was on a Crown class ship where there is no actual pizzeria.

My fingers are crossed. We go at the end of the month and so will report back to you. But, we are not going on the Sun so, that my experience may not reflect what happens to you.

No, you won’t! Doctor’s orders for my DH to eat as early as possible. I can still eat late but I don’t do that anymore.

Love that! 🤣 We try to never go to a SD restaurant on embarkation day. We tend to be a bit tired on that first night after a couple celebratory cocktails so usually, we like to go on the second night. We will probably just hit up Alfredo’s or the PES happy hour on the first night, especially if we have gone to the embarkation lunch. But thanks for freeing up that early dining for us. I certainly do appreciate that. It’s really funny to think we used to pop in for dinner at 9 PM in our past lives. We never could understand who wanted to eat dinner at 4 PM. That changed to 7:30 PM, then to 6 PM and now, the earlier, the better. We are officially ‘old farts’ now. We are usually off to bed before the 10:30 PM comedy show rolls around. I don’t even bother to look at the events that start after 10 PM on Journeyview. We used to close the casino down .. yep, also in our past life. 😆

We are also going to use our onboard credit to upgrade to the premier package next month. However, we don’t intend to eat dinner every night, maybe 4, possibly 5 out of 11 nights. We are super flexible so, whatever days they can give us will be fine with us. They usually tell us to come in at 5 PM on the dine line so, we will get the time we wish to have.

It’s so true that it oftentimes the very new cruisers that are in awe when they are onboard. Although we are frequent cruisers, we still have that feeling of awe walking down the gangway. We are content with the current tier levels and perks, even though we very rarely use the laundry, buy the package and take the wine of our choice to the parties and tend to not get off in tender ports (all except in Loreto and Kona). We do use the PES lounge, early booking, priority boarding, priority tender in those two ports noted above but little more than that. I do miss the loyalty credit but no sense on dwelling in that. Would I take more perks, if offered? Sure would! But, I won’t really complain about not getting enough .. just like the new cruisers that just seem to appreciate whatever they get.

Mostly pate from what I saw. I don’t eat that (fin and feather only) so, they were lost of me. I’ve had those made with tuna at a private cocktail party on Princess and they were so delish! They did have some wonderful Brie in puff pastry, quiches and seafood appetizers at the MTP, as well.

I can’t say much about the Sun but I can tell you that on the Majestic, there was no availability through the app for the days we wished to dine. When we got onboard, we were given exactly what we wanted. This was before the new premier package, but nothing on the app doesn’t really equate to nothing once onboard. Be prepared to ask for earliest dining times, though.

It is at the piazza bar .. beware, it’s super crowded, as the act not only as baristas but also as bartenders.

The ‘cruising ducks’ comment was an attempt at humor. Antiquated or not, I think the display was very elegant and it showed they put in time and efforts in doing so. It really set the mood for the party!

Yes! And I think it’s been like that for about a year.

I don’t think there ever was one on the Diamond.