Cruise Raider

With all due respect to my fellow passengers, it does sound like there are a lot of assumptions being made that the film crew is going to ruin your cruise and invade your privacy. Relax and just enjoy your cruise!!! Stop looking for reasons to hate it or find something to complain about before it even happens. And please, don't let one mishap or incident increase your ire and anxiety. I'm not saying that to be mean or a bully or a troll ... learn how to live with appreciation that you are still above ground and on an amazing cruise. Unless you are running from the law or hiding your spouse, just go with it and have a great cruise!! Even without a film crew, you are most likely in someone's video or photo when out in public on a cruise. Again, nothing personal .. but just be a little more flexible, relax and you will probably have a much better vacation.

And it will be my birthday cruise to boot .... nothing short than CoVid will ruin it for me!!!

They will keep the cruise cards available for those that simply refuse the medallion ... you can obtain one at the guest services desk. But, the medallion is so convenient ... they have a variety of wrist bands and they are as low as $10. They also have clips but they also can fit into an airtag holder you can get on amazon.

The app is not the same as the medallion.

I'm on this cruise as well and saw that email this morning. It actually sounds like it might be kind of interesting and something a little different. I have the ability to opt out but won't do that. If I were upset about it, I would simply cancel and take the FCCs through my Princess Vacation Protection. But, we have always been able to find a place to hide out on a ship ... or we can choose to be in the thick of it. That's what is so wonderful about cruising .. as much or as little as we choose to do. BTW, I thought something was up when they shut down the bookings for about a week or two last month. I imagined it might have been a large group that was signing up to be onboard.

I also agree. We've been next to large tables and for one person to speak with someone at the other end of the table, it's so loud and disturbing for other diners in the general area. 2 tables of 6 are so much better.

I wish that, too. One of mine is currently showing as unavailable, too.

So, I was told by someone at Princess that a bid offer is only available to those with the Plus or Premier package but I can confirm that either they already changed that policy or it is not true. We got an upgrade bid without the package and just added the plus package and received the bid offer again.

Dont quote me on this, but I do not believe the Royal class ships have wrap around promenade decks. Is there even a place to get outside in the very aft on those ships. Maybe so? Edit: I just checked my photos of the Majestic and there does appear to be an area below the passenger cabins where crew can gather. So, nix my statement above.

I did .. probably noted it somewhere within this thread. It was a much better deal by bidding on the minimum but then, a few days after I made the bid, the price dropped on the cabin I wanted and it was slightly lower than my bid. So, I rescinded my bid and upgraded my cabin.

I just received the same offer on my MA cabin … it’s double because I booked it as a solo. Still a great deal if my minimum bid is accepted. I truly doubt that will happen, though.

Perfect ... so glad to hear it.

I will go check it out.

We live close so we usually just take an Uber or take the BART train over. We have parked there once because we were with others and they had a lot of stuff. That was the time the wait was so long and the Embarcadero was just bumper to bumper the whole way there. The parking isn't guaranteed to keep your car safe but the one time we did park there recently, it was at the garage at Pier 19.5. It is locked up at night and the car was fine when we retrieved it.

I have never seen them in the buffet .. I mean since the restart last year.

I don’t think it will. The procedures ar pier 27 are pretty solid. We live nearby and usually try to get there around 11:00 AM. We’ve only waited around 15 minutes or after check in to board recently.

If you get stuck checking in at pier 35, that’s the only thing I could see that really slows you down in terms of check in. It’s not set up for that anymore so, they have mass chaos in that terminal when it is set up for embarkation. Also, the Embarcadero is a tangled mess with so much traffic and such. They would be smart to put the Zuiderdam as well as the smaller ship down at pier 35 as this would probably be a port of call for both of them. I watched the local news of us boarding back in April … what a disaster. We were there for 4 hours waiting in the bitter damp cold just to get into the terminal and another 1.5 hours to get through check in and board. I was ready to turn around and go back home … just take the FCCs. I saw a picture of me on the news while waiting on the sidewalk. 😂 I can laugh at it now … it wasn’t funny back then.

We’ve boarded several times in San Francisco since the restart. We’ve had three or four fairly easy boarding experiences, one that was bad, one that was just awful. The one that was awful boarded at Pier 35 as the Majestic took the berth at Pier 27 coupled with the Ruby’s previous disembarkation being delayed. Most of the delays earlier this year were caused by something related to CoVid … since they now won’t be requiring testing for many of the cruises on the Ruby, there shouldn’t be any long delays getting onboard going forward unless they reimplement testing again (outside of Canada). I believe the Ruby isn’t doing any cruises longer than 15 days until at least December, so you should be ok as long as there is not another ship in port at the same time you are there or if some reason, they stick you down at pier 35 … I don’t see it happening, though.

You can definitely pre-book shore excursions using OBC online. I’ve done this since the restart back in July 2021… well over a year ago.

As much as we love the aft facing balcony cabins, we were bothered with it up on the Caribe deck on the Grand last year. I scooped up that aft facing balcony on the Ruby for a cruise later this years, not even thinking about the smoking area below. Then, I remembered … ugh! I may ask to be moved to a port side balcony.

This was verified as a mistake by my CVP online … it was only supposed to go out to those that hadn’t booked the Plus or Premier packages. I guess Princess had received a lot of calls about it. To the OP, since you already booked the Plus Package, just ignore the email.

We were able to upgrade to an aft facing balcony on the Ruby on the dolphin deck and are just wondering if we’ve made the right decision. We are both sensitive to cigarette smoke and are wondering if the crew smoking section is still all the way aft on the promenade deck below. I know they received a lot of complaints from those in aft facing balconies and suites. And, since a large number of crew are smokers and I wouldn’t want to deny them their only outlet for their stress and hard work, we would consider moving to another location if smoking is currently problematic. However, we sure do love our aft facing balconies … what is the more recent experience for those on the Ruby?

So, the pricing on our cruise which I put in a bid went down in price so, I canceled my bid and upgraded to a room of our choosing. It was actually a little cheaper than the minimum bid .. otherwise, I probably would have left it as is. We now have an aft facing balcony cabin .. yay!

Kids are always allowed in the specialty restaurants, especially when they are well behaved. I think the price may be half that of adults but don’t quote me on that.

Absolutely!