Cruise Raider

I got a call at 8:00 AM as well yesterday .. but darn, my favorite cabin was already sold. But, we got the one right next door. I just like the head of the bed to face forward .. I sleep better that way. There’s still plenty of time so if I see it open, I will put a hold on it and have my CVP switch us. If not, I will just put a pillow at the foot of the bed and ask for an extra duvet.

Funny you asked this … we were introduced to a moscato sparkling wine on our last cruise. It was delish! hopefully, they will have moscato on your nest cruise … both still and sparkling!

The chicken korma served on the first sea day at lunch is so awesome. Some ships do it better than others and some have a larger selection of condiments for it. I get extra almonds, extra jalapeños, cilantro, green onions and a dab of mango chutney! Oooo yummm! I think the best was on the Discovery and the Emerald. Also, the lemon pan seared filet of sole on the last sea day for lunch is also superb. We’ve more or less stopped going to the MDR for dinner. We just have a nice lunch and just have some nibbles for dinner.

Yes, it can.

The midship ones have the least amount of obstruction.

Because the package prices are discounted .. you can’t pick and choose the items you want from the bundle. If you do, you have to purchase the standard fare.

Your CVP will not get any credit for the booking if you transfer it to a TA. In fact, all the work she has done will be for none. So, for $1000 savings in discounts and perks, I might have to do the same. But, I would let her know why you are transferring it.

We were just coming back from the Emerald when we saw the story while we were waiting at the airport. It made me sad to hear it. Glad she’s all repaired now. im forever running out of those FCDs .. so we each bought three extra ones on the Emerald, as well as booking a bunch of those cruises that were 50% off.

Like you, we have traveled on many different cruise lines and settled in nicely with the new Princess. We love the new ships and the benefits of the packages. On July 25th, 2021, since then, we cruise an average of once a month. It was much less before that! But, after being locked down for over a year, I was so ready to throw caution I the wind and if I got CoVid, so be it. I am happiest when I’m on the ocean and don’t particularly like to fly, so most of the cruises we go on, the ports of call aren’t even important to us. We are also light eaters and usually have our largest meal at lunchtime. We’ve more or less stopped going to the MDR for dinner, with some exceptions. We do like the Crown Grill on occasion but now that’s even a stretch for us to eat that much for dinner. we tell them, just bring the very smallest portions they can find. My problem is that I really love good wine so, we even upgrade to the premier package every so often. I am going to check to se if I can gift the specialty dinners to a couple of the crew members that we like. We are just as happy to eat soup and a salad at Alfredo’s or a small plate at the GastroPub.

It’s in two weeks on the Ruby .. so we will be there on the 15th and leaving on the 25th. In September, we’re doing something new and flying up to Seattle for our next cruise. I looked all over for you last time, asking all the SFPD if they knew who Alan was .. none did. You will have to let me know where you will be stationed so we can at least meet in person. Too bad we didn’t meet each other formally when we sat right next to you on that one cruise.

We do tend to cruise out of our home port of San Francisco whenever possible. There is a real dedicated group of people that live in the bay area and cruise very often. No matter how hard we try, our only chance to get to that MTP luncheon again is if some of them are driven away by these new changes .. 😂 We were invited only once and I gasped with glee when I saw the invite in our room! There were only 800 passengers onboard. Others at our table only had like 200 days. That’s not happening again!

We were on Celebrity in April of this year. It may have been a one off but I only saw 3 shrimp on my noodle dish in the MDR on the entire cruise and there were none to be found in the buffet. My shrimp were slightly overdone but the noodles were good. I used to enjoy the shrimp salad at the sandwich bar .. no more. I also used to get them in my Chinese stir fry, nope, not one little shrimp in the entire buffet. I even asked. For me, the food was just ok in MDR my DH didn’t care for his at all. There were still things we enjoyed but Princess is a much better fit for us! I like the bathrooms and couches in the standard balcony rooms on Celebrity. The coffee at Cafe Al Bacio was out of this world. All their glasses, water glasses, wine glasses, martini glasses were all Riedels. But, we even paid for the premium package because the wines they had were of poor quality in the classic package. Even the premium package had very poor choices for decent wine! The Apple Store onboard was a huge reason we went on that cruise. This had been a cruise that was canceled a couple of times for a charter pre-Covid and then a few more times during CoVid. We finally just booked it so far out so, it wouldn’t be canceled another time. We just had so much OBC so, couldn’t let it go to waste. We were able to get two new iPads and upgrade to the premium package with all our OBC. I also love their smoking inside anywhere policy. The service was great except we did have to go to the guest services desk to get our WiFi added as we had paid for it with the package but it was not showing that we did. That was very minor for us, though. I think the process of immigration in San Diego was handled poorly. It may have just been the port of San Diego and not the cruise line itself, though. It’s been done better in the past. Princess handled perfectly in San Francisco on Princess since then. Again .. maybe it was just the port of San Diego was the issue there.

So, I’ve read countless complaints about the new perks to the Princess packages as passengers that book the standard fare will have some extra costs. people who feel as though they’ve been ‘loyal’ to Princess are being let down. I hadn’t realized that there were so many passengers that don’t regularly book one of the packages. Maybe it is just that these are a minority and the squeaky wheels. I’ve seen the same people that complained about never again with Princess during CoVid back to complain about never again with Princess due to these changes. Of course, there is so much misinformation out there on this site and on Facebook. We cruise a lot and help others book a lot of cruises. So of course, I am getting a lot of messages from these people as well, also peppered with a lot of misinformation. On our next cruise, we have the $50 a day pp plus package. Will we feel the need to upgrade to the new $60 package for the perks? Nope! We will continue to order food through the app. That will be a $15 charge. Because we will be on the Ruby, there’s no Alfredo’s or GiGis onboard so no change for us there. We will be able to go to the GastroPub and get an a la carte menu item so will save there from the previous $18 cover charge pp. This will actually be a savings for us there, enough to cover the $15 OceanNow feature activation. We may order a pizza with salads over the app. The pizza has gone from $3 to no charge to $8 over this year. Not a deal breaker to me to pay $8 for a whole pizza to be delivered .. it’s the same as we’d have paid without these new changes. But, with all these “loyal” passengers jumping ship, I am hoping to get an invite to the most traveled passenger luncheon during the brief period they go elsewhere! 😂 They are most likely not going to feel that the grass is greener on the other side. We are elite on both Princess and on Celebrity, as well as Diamond on RCCL and have lower level tier status on a few other lines. We recently went on a side by side cruise, one on Celebrity followed by one on Princess while in the same port. While there is nothing wrong with Celebrity, which used to be our favorite line, we just felt like Princess is a much better fit for us. Celebrity charges $12 for all room service orders (except for the continental breakfast, just like on Princess) and the only place you can order it is to your room. It isn’t delivered anywhere else on the ship like Princess does. We found the food venues during the day were either up by the pool or in the buffet. Only sweets were offered at Cafe Al Bacio. I much prefer savory over sweet, so the IC has my vote. The specialty restaurants are twice as much as on Princess and they charge an 18% gratuity on top of the price of the meal. Their choices of wine was pretty bad. I had to upgrade to the premium package just to get a wine that is offered under the Plus package on Princess. I also didn’t like they had very few onboard activities or entertainment during the day. The buffet was pretty good but it’s also been improved on Princess. Celebrity doesn’t serve one shrimp, EVER, in the buffet, though. I did have shrimp in the MDR one day and it wasn’t all that great. My DH didn’t like the food in the MDR there at all. There were some things on Celebrity that we did enjoy, so I’m not saying it was a bad cruise. We just felt more at home when we stepped onto the Princess ship after a week on Celebrity. Others that we met on the same side by side itinerary we did just thought Celebrity was boring! To some extent, I do agree with that assessment. Once we got onto the Princess ship, we all had a blast! So much bang for our buck! Anyway, my point is Princess is adding more value to those that book the fare with one of the Packages. They are filling their ships, maybe with a different demographic but possibly with many more that purchase the package fare. We still find great value in it and now more so, especially with the premier package with all the alternate dining options and great wines.

No, you can hang your door tag for room service and that remains free of charge.

it my understanding that you will be charged only on your first order on the app. Why not both persons in the cabin just use the one app to order your food? My DH wouldn’t even know how to order on the app so, I do it all anyway. Next, when we use the app to order, we never call on the phone. All our orders are done via the app. Our $50 fare is on the Ruby and without a sit down pizza place. We used to go to the GastroPub every so often but it was always too much food for the $18 cover charge. Now they offer a la carte options .. yay! So, we will probably get out for approx $10 each, now whereas before if was $18 each. So now, that $15 fee for activating the Ocean Now feature on the app is erased with just one visit to the GastroPub. No way are we going to pay the fee to upgrade. It makes no financial sense to do so. there’s a few cruises where I got the plus package and will upgrading to the premier package. All of those cruises are on Royal class ships, which have many more dining options. Thus, we will probably not even go to the MDR even once on those sailings. Casual dining is more our style. I am super excited about the new additions to the packages.

I have a few of cruises booked with the older plus package. For the next one up, it is on the Ruby so, I’m going to activate the ocean now function in my app and it will show $15 added to my folio on my first order. My DH can’t be bothered to use the app so, I will just do all the ordering. Since there is no Alfredo’s or GiGis on the Ruby, I may get a small A la carte item from the Salty Dog GastroPub now it is offered that way. So, I figure it will probably be another $10 each for dining there. There was too much food offered previously with the $18 pp cover charge. So, even if we do the Salty Dog twice, that would be about an additional $40. $60 if we went twice with the price fixed menu. I’m now up to $55-$75 in extra charges, which my OBC will cover. It just doesn’t make sense to upgrade to the new plus package for us at a cost of $200 when it will be covered for $55-$75. Previously, if I went to the Salty Dog twice, the charge would be $72. So now, this actually saves me money. Now, if I can’t find any wines I like that fit into the plus package, we may just upgrade to the premier package, so that will all be a moot point. The upgrade fee would be $600, though, so will have to think about that. It will give us more dining options as well as better wines, photos, prizes, etc.

Of course it’s all about profits .. it is a business, after all. As for Alfredo’s, the only ship that I know that only serves pizza and calzones is on the Grand. The Alfredo’s on the Royal has just as many options as GiGis does on the Discovery.

Just to point out a positive … For the Plus and Premier package passengers, their added value is that they can eat at the GastroPub or O’Malleys, etc for no charge. Since there is currently no increase in price for the packages (and I’m not saying there won’t be), this is actually a good thing for those with packages unless you enjoy getting pizza every day.

Sounds like a great deal for the passengers if you ask me!

Or maybe we view it as rude to stand up and walk out while someone is still up on stage!

I understand it was the same menu as they served at dinner in the Crown Grill or Sabatini’s and the cost was the same, as well. I really would rather go at lunch time as that is usually our larger meal of the day.

She has told me that!

It was for a trial period that happened to hit on our cruise earlier this month. We were in a balcony cabin.

I was going to say the same about honest reviews! We were concerned about the Emerald being a little too old for our liking but my concerns vanished very quickly earlier this month! Our one and only issue was the toilet in our cabin stopped working, was fixed and stopped working again. I know not to flush anything that doesn’t belong so think it started on the previous sailing. It was fixed a second time and fine from there on out. I was impressed that if you had a plus or premier package, bottled water was automatically placed in your cabin and restocked when getting low. We also loved the food on the ship and think they’ve done a masterful job in redoing the buffet area. We only went to the dining room twice and both times, that was for lunchtime. The food was excellent! Their wine options went above and beyond! I did miss Alfredo’s / GiGi’s pizzeria! We were served a cheese fruit and nut plate in Vines as the tapas. The Crown Grill was an absolute delight! For the most part, we had phenomenal service onboard and it was also a cruise that was filled to capacity. We have heard in the past that the Hawaii itineraries are harder on the staff as everyone is onboard for so many of the days. And it is oftentimes not very warm on all those sea days that everyone crowds inside. Because the cruise was so busy and maybe because there were many that splurged on the premier package, they had a lunch offered in the Crown Grill and once in Sabatini’s, both on sea days. I wish they would do that more often but I understand that crew may not be available. One other thing I loved was they had some new and creative games and completions onboard. Since we had a lot of kids on our sailing, they had baby races in the piazza one day. So cute! BTW, we usually don’t cruise on sailings that tend to attract a lot of young families with kids but I never saw even one child acting up the entire sailing.

During the restart, they were able to match perks offered through TAs but that is no longer the case. I stick with my CVP because she always does so much for us with our reservations. I know I may be missing out on some OBC but I feel like I have total control over my bookings. All I need to do is shoot off a quick email and all is taken care of pronto! Piece of mind and favorable results sometimes equal more than extra OBC. For all other cruiselines, I use a fabulous TA I found before the pandemic. While most of my cruises are now on Princess, I still will contact the other TA from time to time. I’ve sent a lot of referrals to her. My CVP is way too busy to take on any new clients.