Paula_MacFan

I think I may the 'lady' that said they actually opened my soda in Galveston 🙂 We were on the Regal 2 weeks ago and I reported that upon boarding. We completely agree with you about the Princess Live venue being horrible and that Explorers is sorely missed. The Vista Lounge isn't used to its full potential on the Regal which is a shame. Also agree with the volume in the Piazza during the day for games and activities, and missing Skywalkers like the Grand class ships. Overall it sounds like you had a good cruise and thanks for taking the time to write up your review!

Our food was delivered quickly and hot. Coffee table worked just fine. We're low maintenance people and rarely eat in the MDR. Enjoying our aft balcony view is just fine with us.

I haven't done those excursions but when I was researching our upcoming cruisetour I looked for reviews and found many on TripAdvisor which is a sister company of Cruise Critic. You might check there.

If it's as big as the ones we had 2 weeks ago on Regal then it was huge and much bigger than MDR. Ours were huge and our neighboring diners stopped eating to watch the server de-shell them, then said 'wish we'd ordered what you guys got, we're coming back later in the week for surf & turf now'.

We ordered Crown Grill room service on the Regal 2 weeks ago. We'd eaten there already in the cruise but were tired and didn't want to schlep down there again. Same pricing as MDR add on plus service charge. Steaks were just as good as dine in.

We did this same thing on our NE cruise in 2018! They were all different but delicious in their own way. One of my favorite memories of that trip. We also really enjoyed the Hopewell Rocks Provincial Park excursion from St. John. Long day but amazing sights with the tides, guided tour with ranger, and pretty fall colors. We were there in early October.

Does anyone know if they still offer the photographs as part of the package? One photo used to be included but on the Princess website it doesn't list that as a perk anymore. Also does anyone have experience with the UBD on embarkation day? I was thinking that it typically wasn't offered the first day, but for our upcoming Alaska cruise it lists day one as an option. We don't leave until 8:30pm so I was thinking that might be a good night to do it. We'll be coming from our 8 day cruisetour so doing UBD on embarkation day might be a nice way to kick off the cruise if they actually will do it then. If anyone has recent experience or feedback I'd appreciate it.

We've also sailed on the Caribbean, Grand, Crown, and Golden. While we enjoy some of the features on the Royal class ships, we see the value in the older designs as well (Explorers etc as noted). We have upcoming cruises on Sapphire and Caribbean so we are looking forward to those 🙂 Three times on the Regal was probably enough for the time being.

We missed Costa Maya due to wind 2 weeks ago, but our refunded port fees didn't show up on our accounts until a few days later. (Costa Maya was supposed to be our first port so our itinerary was slightly different than yours).

We booked Princess transfers ourselves from Southampton to LHR last October. It was $59 per person then, but I've heard it may have increased. I was able to book it myself by logging into the Personalizer, but it may be different for you since you're not based in the US? Also here in the States if you use a TA then they have to book the transfer for you, the option isn't available online. It's only available to book yourself if you've booked the cruise direct with Princess. Sorry you are getting the run-around. I would be very surprised if Princess wasn't offering the transfer service. Maybe try calling Princess directly?

Here's the Alaska schedules for 2024. If you click on Skagway you can see the calendar, and the berth codes will tell you which specific location. https://claalaska.com/?page_id=1551

Agree 100% We were just on Regal the week before last and even though we did attend a couple things in Princess Live we really do not like that venue and miss Explorers! That is one of our favorite venues on the older ships. We were on the Island in Sept/Oct and found ourselves comparing her to the Regal a lot on our recent cruise. We had been on Regal 2X before so we did know what to expect, but after having recently been on the Island we realize how much we enjoy Explorers, a full-sized Wheelhouse and not the one cobbled onto the front of the Crown Grill like on Regal, and Crooners which had actual live music on the Island but not on Regal. The Vista seems criminally underused on Regal and has been relegated to live sports broadcasts, movies, bingo, and the occasional comedian. Back when we started cruising you could find live music in Vista but not anymore apparently, as everything is more focused on the Piazza.

There actually is a Princess FAQ page regarding the Medallion process. https://www.princess.com/en-us/ships-and-experience/princess-medallionclass/ocean-faq For #2 it says this:

Glad you found the info. We definitely had a separate paper in our cabin upon boarding, wonder if your steward just missed it.

With limited time in port and limited excursion options I would never leave booking until the day of port arrival, but that's just me. We've had our excursions booked for months for our May/June cruisetour and the prices have only gone up and choice excursions sold out. Also you might check the port schedules to see how many ships will be in port with you. For the ports on your itinerary there can be as many as 6 ships in port at once. Think about jockeying for an excursion with thousands of other people. Your choices will probably be limited. https://claalaska.com/?page_id=1551

1. Yes, it's a typical hotel hair dryer and works fine. Not worth bringing one from home IMO. 2. Yes, you'll get one every day in your cabin. There is plenty of entertainment every day and evening. 3. 75 days 4. We like Alfredo's on Royal class ships but you should have plenty of options -- buffet, Lido pizza and grill, MDR, International Cafe, Vines.

You realize that post is almost a year old..... Also not sure what 'pic' you're referring to as my post was simply a Google search results link to an article here on Cruise Critic.

We sailed 1/21 and got the lounge paper in our room on day one. It was held in the Vista every night except for Sunday when they showed NFL playoff games in that venue.

No idea! I just tried to do a mock booking and got the same results as you.

That is exactly how we looked at it -- like a floating hotel! We enjoyed our entire days (and evenings at the overnight stops) away from the ship in port. We had a lovely aft room, a good variety of food, and the itinerary went exactly as planned. We couldn't have been more pleased with the whole experience. If we wanted to just float around by the pool all day we would have done the Caribbean (which we did last week 🙂) Edit to add we also did almost a week in California pre-cruise doing the PCH and redwoods. It was a great, long trip. Those were days better spent than a bunch of sea days, in our opinion.

It was about 6:30 for us last week.

Different strokes for different folks 🙂 That many sea days are just too many for us, with too few ports. We are not retired so we only have so much vacation time and want to make the most of it. We had an amazing trip to Hawaii but will probably not go back anytime soon, so we wanted to do and see as much as we could on one trip. If I lived in the LA area like you I'd probably consider going more often too!

Is this it? Not sure about rotating items. It was posted on another thread from a few weeks ago. We were on Regal last week but didn't eat in the MDR.

It's basically a photo op. We don't go either and have no interest, but the OP is going with a group of people so it sounds like they want to see and do everything, and take pictures.

We are longtime loyal Princess cruisers, but when we decided to go to Hawaii we just couldn't stomach the 10 sea days for 3 or 4 ports. We decided to do NCL Pride of America with their land package in January 2023 and have no regrets. We got 11 full days in the islands with no sea days. We went to PCC and Pearl Harbor/Arizona Memorial, rented a car on Maui and did Haleakala on our own + evening in Lahaina, Volcanoes National Park while Kilauea was erupting, went to Waimea Canyon on Kauai, sailed by the Na Pali coast with amazing views from our aft balcony, and so many other wonderful activities during the cruise. After reading so many reviews of rough seas across the Pacific to and from Hawaii, that led us to investigate alternatives and we are so happy with our decision. We had great weather and a smooth cruise around the islands.