Cruise Raider

I had no idea … I wish I’d have known. We’d have loved to meet you in person. Well, now you know what we look like and we cruise out if SF all the time so, you’ll have to stop us and introduce yourself. I am the blonde and our neighbors and good friend were with us. we happen to be on the Diamond right now with that good friend.

Yep … he did! We both did! I was the first one up and my DH lasted only 6 seconds. He’s not one to get up and do those things but what a champ for giving it a try.

We sure were. He’s always with all women. 😂 lucky guy!

I know many of the officers and department heads have an allowance for certain gifts for the passengers. They may have extended this to some of the crew as well. You may have done something, such as not making him work so hard by keeping your room tidy, that made him/her give you the special gift. Take advantage of generosity, thank him/her and maybe leave a nice tip at the end of the trip. That is what I do would do, anyway.

They’ve had the E-muster on Princess since the restart and there’s currently been no talk about moving it back to the gathering in a room for the process. But, if and when it happens, I guess we will all know about it.

Not being a fan of ice cream, I had a taste of my DH’s cone and it seemed fine. He had no problem getting a cone of it every time we were up on deck.

I think you mentioned you bought the premium package so you should see a portion of your screen stating you have credit for 2 specialty dinners pp for those that have that package, making that 4 dinners you can reserve. it’s highlighted in green, as I recall … If not, you may need to call. No secret number but you may be able to go through the Chat feature online. Also, I hate to say it but when you cruise, $200 is not very much onboard credit. You can easily use it without even trying.

Anyone of any age can sign up for the AARP rewards to get the Princess gift cards at the current time. The members only gift cards are the ones that most likely have the age limit.

You can absolutely do this. We’ve done it a couple of times!

It may be a different set of rules based on where you are traveling but it used to be within 3 days for all the cruises we’ve taken that required tests in the past.

So, I know once you’ve put a deposit down, it isn’t automatically turned over to your CVP if you’ve booked it online. However, when I’ve done this, my CVP is always willing to help me with my booking anyway. She just won’t credit for doing so. Perhaps if the same deposit is available, if that’s why you booked it, he/she can rebook it for you. But, I would still not crazy about getting that response. Depending on how much you do or don’t care for your CVP, I would probably suggest turning it over to a travel agent that could help you.

It is on all the Princess ships now. You automatically get the Prizes option when you purchase the Premier Package but you can purchase it daily if you do not. I believe it’s around $20 per day .. something like that. So, the prizes are based on when you enter your cabin and you can see your prize on the digital door display. It may state that you’ve been entered into the final drawing or ‘better luck next time’ or display the prize you’ve won that day, such as onboard credit added to your folio. It only works while the casino is open so it works more like buying a lottery ticket… it is gambling. I’ve won $25 on each cruise on which I’ve had the premium package but a friend won $275. The final drawing is on the final day in the piazza and they give away another few $100 prizes and a grand prize of $5000.

Shorts and tshirts are fine for breakfast and lunch in the MDR. The only restrictions would be that you need to be wearing (clothing and) footwear and there are no bathing suits (or robes) allowed. (Yes, I’ve seen people trying to get in while wearing a robe). I add clothing and robe because I’m trying to answer your question seriously but some of the smart axxxx will try to jump on that statement.

You can use the ‘excursion credit’ as you would on any thing else onboard, with the possible exception of using it in the casino.

That’s exactly what I was going to suggest. Last time we went there, we aimply took a cab there and bought the day passes up front. it won’t work during Easter time or in the middle of spring break, though.

What on earth would make you suspect that? From what we’ve seen, the crew is trained in safe hygiene practices .. I’ve not always seen that with a small, but significant, percentage of passengers.

We’ve cruised on many different lines throughout our years of cruising. We’ve even tried land based all inclusive trips .. variety is the spice of life! Plus, we are bargain travelers with some occasional splurges … I can only remember one cruise that was a total bust. Shortly after that cruise, I discovered cruise critic. Since that time, most of my posts have been positive because all the other cruises have been awesome experiences.

We were on a ship a number of years back and it kept getting hit with noro outbreaks .. I think for 3 cruises in a row. The captain got on the PA and told us “if we ever wanted to get our tong privileges back, we needed to WASH OUR HANDS!” That made me laugh … tong privileges! 😆 Thankfully, we never contracted it .. we do constantly wash and sanitize our hands.

I have not cruised on Celebrity since 2017 but have a sailing booked with them for April of this year. Several of my bookings with them had been canceled for various reasons, not only due to CoVid but also from charters and ship changes. So, I will finally be able reevaluate them after so many years away. I used to consider them my favorite line as they seemed a notch above the other lines in the same price range. We’ve cruised extensively with Princess, especially after the CoVid shutdowns and while others are complaining about the cutbacks, I’ve seen such definite overall improvements in cruising. I will finally get the chance to see if Celebrity wins me back. I definitely live the coffeehouse breakfast but understand, I will most likely miss the evening cocktail happy hour. I do like that most all the rooms have at least a small seating area within the cabin on Celebrity. While I don’t hate a shower curtain, I do appreciate the shower doors. I also love the ambient light in the bathrooms at night. Also, I like that their theaters hold an appropriate number of guests compared to the ship’s capacity. Mostly, I love that they have no smoking inside the ship anywhere, not even in the casino.

I completely agree with your assessment. Plus, when there was no smoking in the casino during CoVid, we are told that ‘everyone’ who said they would gamble more didn’t .. blatantly false! For me and the friends that I’ve cruised with actually gambled a lot more often and for longer periods of time. I didn’t have to choose from the small number and variety of machines the cruiselines placed in the non smoking section.

I agree with you on that. The Royal is the only ship where I’ve seen a distinct area that was separated by a wall for the nonsmoking area. If I remember correctly, and I can not be even 70% sure of this, the area that was formally Club 6 is now partitioned off as both the nonsmoking casino and the Double Down Bar and lounge area. Not a whiff of smoke there at all. The casino area there is very small and I do think there is another area in the main casino that doesn’t allow smoking but that area, you can definitely smell smoke from the smoking side as it is not cordoned off like the other nonsmoking area.

While that might be true, our last cruise on the Royal (ending 6 days ago), the nonsmoking area was definitely free of smoke. I am very sensitive to smoke and it was not a problem for me in the very least. There just may have been fewer smokers onboard, too??

All indoor areas on a ship should be nonsmoking and have designated areas outside for smokers. They figured out how to do that when banning smoking on the balconies. With that being said, the Royal has a nonsmoking area that is actually partitioned off from the rest of the casino. It's rather small but still very nice to have some space without smoke. People can use it to get to the casino and there is a cozy bar area there as well.

I was hoping to meet up .... we were at the meet and greet. Was asking around to see if you were there but it was kind of cut short. My DH was the guy with the long white beard.

I forgot to mention that we went through customs with facial recognition ... nobody even asked us for our passports. It was so quick and easy.