5:00_Somewhere

Following your journey is getting me just that much more excited to board on Sunday. But, your weather is making me jealous. I've made the mistake of looking at the extended forecasts for our port days - understanding that they are notoriously unreliable this far out - and just hoping we get a little more sunshine, or at least a little less rain that is currently predicted. 🤞 Regardless, we know we will have a great time aboard our favorite "little" ship in the fleet, exploring an area we've never visited before ... with our parkas. 😉

Same, so I still print them out from the website and carry with me just to be safe, although I've never had an issue on Celebrity (Princess Medallion App is notorious for losing spa appointments, dining reservations, etc.)

I may have an explanation for the recent problems getting through to your Princess CVP. We have a wonderful CVP whom we adore, and who does an amazing job for us. She also manages a wonderful private Facebook group for her clients, where she provides all kinds of detailed information. Among other things, she let us all know a week ago that Princess was changing their phone systems and that there would likely be some "issues" for the first couple of days. She also let us know that all CVPs (and other personnel) would be rotating through training on the new system the first part of last week and wouldn't be available to take calls for large chunks of various days. Finally, and perhaps most significantly for these purposes, apparently much to everyone's surprise, they discovered that the new system required passengers to enter a 1 before punching in their CVP's usual extension number. If you didn't enter the 1, you would apparently get the error message others have reported above. This was apparently not covered in the training, and was discovered somewhat by accident. Gotta love technology. Probably the same people who created the Medallion App designed the new phone system. 😜 Now, I don't mean to say this is the reason for all the problems people have mentioned in this thread, but thought I'd share the information our CVP provide in the hope that it might help at least some. Best of luck, everyone.

Agreed, though it took me a few years to realize that. When we first started cruising, it was exclusively with Princess for several years. They have laundry rooms with irons, and I used to press all our clothes that needed at the beginning of each cruise (and do laundry on longer cruises). Finally, it dawned on me that I was wasting vacation time ironing, and no one really cared about a few creases or wrinkles but me. Also, discovering wrinkle release was like a miracle. Between that and just hanging in the closet - or in the bathroom during my shower for really bad wrinkles - I find it's quite sufficient. 👍

That has been our experience as recently as May on Discovery Princess: they required at least one person from each cabin to be physically present to book Sanctuary reservations. When we were in line, there was one lady who was extremely upset that they would not let her book for travel companions in another cabin. Also, there are no cruise cards any longer, except upon special request. Otherwise, everyone will have to have their Medallion with them.

We had a Celebrity Suite on the Summit just about 1 year ago. We absolutely LOVED it (except for the infamous bath tub 😉 ). Chris has actually been checking literally every day to see if one comes available for our cruise on 9/11. Nothing so far, but we did get to move to a Sky Suite with a very large balcony. 👍 And, in case you haven't seen them, here are a couple pictures of your sail away this evening, I found posted on a FaceBook Celebrity group. 🙂 Enjoy the next leg of your adventure.

@Jim_Iain we're supposed to have beautiful weather today in Boston: sunny, only reaching about 85° and relatively low humidity (for us). Hope you get to enjoy it. I do recommend a walk through the Public Garden if you get as far as The Common. It's just across the street, and much more picturesque. One of my favorite things about our fair city is how walkable it is. Enjoy your day, and take care of "our ship" for us. We'll be boarding when you disembark. 👍

Some years ago we had a Riviera Deck aft-facing balcony on the Royal Princess and the soot and smoke/fumes were so bad they made the balcony completely unusable to us. I have followed this issue closely over the years, and read that Princess has undertaken various measures to try and remedy this problem on later builds, and to retrofit to the earlier ships. So, we took a chance and booked a Dolphin Deck aft-facing cabin on the Sky Princess this past December and had almost no soot and no smoke/fumes at all. There was evidence of a few little black specks on the balcony loungers, which I suspect accumulated over time, and we took a pool towel to wipe them down the first few days before sitting down. But, it was so minimal that we stopped doing this and never had a problem. We enjoyed the cabin so much we booked it again for next December. Hope that's helpful.

Yes, it's still open to all on the Reflection. On our March cruise - in Aqua Class - we spent a good deal of time up on the Solstice Deck. Has always been one of our favorite spots on S-Class ships.

Still lovin' this thread. It's the first thing I check every morning. 😉 Also, I'm another "GoodReader", although I'm embarrassed that I've fallen behind on my reviews lately. 🤭 I noticed the Donna Leon Commissario Brunetti books on one of the lists above. One of my very favorite series. Picked them up after our first visit to Venice. I've read them in order, and it's been fun to watch the progress of world events and especially technology. For better or worse, I'm almost caught up to the most current book. 😬 Maybe we should ask the Admins to start a stickied "Cruise Book Club" thread. 😉

Thanks, I try. Don't see the need for sarcasm ... most of the time. 😉 I have to say, as bad as it can get here on CC sometimes, the Facebook groups (for Princess and Celebrity) are absolutely brutal. The nastiness folks heap on one another is shocking sometimes, especially when you consider we could all very well be cruising together on the same ship at some point. 😬 And back on topic, hope you get to enjoy a good ol' fashioned New England Lobster back some day. 🦞

For our 9/11 sailing on the Summit, we received an email with our ticket booklet - including luggage tags - and our eDocs became printable on the website at the 30 day mark from the embarkation date, which has been pretty typical in my experience. You may want to contact Celebrity or your TA to see if they can assist. Otherwise, I understand the porters at luggage drop have blank tags that can be filled out on embarkation day.

We had a Deck 8 Celebrity Suite on the Summit a year ago and absolutely LOVED it! We loved the large, spacious cabin, and the separate bedroom - as others have mentioned - and the wall of windows and, while the balcony was narrow, it was long and provided panoramic views. People on other balconies could see us on our balcony, but that's not a concern for us. On, and it has an enormous walk-in closet. One thing some people don't like is that the bathroom can only be accessed from the bedroom. Again, this was not a problem for us. We had an opportunity to upgrade from a Sky Suite on our upcoming cruise on the Summit but turned it down only because the only ones available were on Deck 9 right below the pool deck, and we have heard many complaints about the noise from above. Also, didn't like the large overhang shadowing the balcony. Here's a link to my "review" to our cabin, in case it helps. Summit Celebrity Suite

Same here. We know so many people in our lives who have contracted Covid in recent days/weeks, including people we know are being very careful, people who are vaxed and boosted, people who have had it before ... it seems it's hitting everyone. To be honest, until now, I've been very comfortable cruising this past year because of the protective measures being taken and reduced passenger capacity, but I'm more than a little apprehensive about this upcoming trip. Which is too bad, because we're really been looking forward to it. At least we don't have to fly, so that removes one big source of exposure. Sorry, didn't mean to ramble about this. Thank you again for your posts. I'm loving following along, and it is definitely helping keep me excited about our cruise on the Summit.

Fingers crossed this is the new protocol. 🤞

That's my biggest concern about our upcoming cruise on the Summit. We've sailed 4 times this past year and not gotten Covid once so far (knock wood). We'll be following our same protocols, avoiding elevators and crowds when possible, masking indoors, washing hands and doing everything we can to avoid the virus, but know it's still very possible to get it, especially with the ship expected to be close to full capacity. Would just hate to spend a bunch of days stuck in a cabin with no access to fresh air.

Looks like we'll be starting with a new crew. Don't know if that's good or bad. 😉 We felt the same about the food in Luminae on our last to Summit cruises. Glad to hear things are still up to par. @WorkerBee74 thanks, that all makes sense, and is pretty much what I would have thought, based on many other travel and customs experiences. But, as I mentioned, there are all kinds of rumors spreading all over the web, and I've found it difficult to find definitive answers; and I just don't recall the details from our Alaska cruise in May. Again, always appreciate the insights from folks here on CC.

Thank you. I remember drop-down options from our Alaska cruise but, because we only visited the US and 1 Canadian the port, I never got beyond that, and just can't recall the details. I think I'll take screenshots when I do it for our upcoming New England/Canada cruise next month.

Thank you, that's on my list, as well, if we have to wait until we board. 👍 We don't usually dine until 8:00ish, so hoping things won't be all booked up, but know it gets more and more difficult to scheduled your desired time the closer you get to sailing date. We'll be on the Sky.

@Jim_Iain, Thank you, as always, for your wonderful posts, pictures and observations. It's getting me VERY excited for our upcoming sailing, and making me look at your itinerary for a future trip. One silly technical question I'm wondering if you can answer: in ArriveCAN, is it the case that we only need to enter information for your first port of call where we enter Canada, and not all ports of call in the country? This is being debated here on CC and in Facebook forums, but I can't seem to find a definitive answer anywhere, including the ArriveCAN website or otherwise on the interwebz, oddly. We only had one port stop in Canada during our Alaska cruise last May, so the question never came up. If you haven't had to address this, no worries. Just thought you might know, whereas you're making at least 2 stops in Canada. Thanks for any info.

Thank you all VERY MUCH for your very helpful suggestions. I'm basically going to try them all, including asking our friends if they might consider making FP early. Once again, the Cruise Critic "hive mind" to the rescue. I'm glad I came to you with my question. Yeah, part of me wants to blame the Medallion App (which irks me no end in general), but I do suspect there are few people who would make this request, so perhaps not all that unreasonable that it wouldn't be a pre-programmed option. And, there are plenty of other elements of the App to complain about. 😝

Thank you both. That actually occurred to me, as well, after I posted. Only hiccup is that we're Elite and can, therefore, book reservations upon booking (which we did yesterday), but they are not, so we'd likely have to wait until they make final payment. But, I will give it a try. I'll report back once we've given it a shot. 👍

We just booked a cruise with friends. We are in a suite and, therefore, have Club Class dining available. Our friends do not have Club Class. None of us cares about CC (yes, we know our friends can't join us there, and are not asking for that), and plan to simply dine together in the regular MDR most nights. However, when I go into Dine My Way on the Medallion App there is a banner announcing I have Club Class dining but no option to book any other dinner reservations in the MDR at all. There is simply nothing but Club Class in the Estrella Dining Room, and the specialty restaurants. I also can't find any way to make MDR reservations on the Princess website. For those who have actual experience with this, does anyone know if/how we can make dinner reservations in the regular MDR on the Medallion App (linking with our friends)? Seems odd that this would not even be an option, but I suppose it shouldn't surprise me, as so little about the Medallion App makes any sense (mini-rant). I will also call my Princess CVP once she's out of the craziness of this week, but thought there might be folks here on Cruise Critic how had some actual experience with this. TIA for any info.

FWIW, the affogato wasn't actually on the menu when a Cafe al Bacio barista first recommended it to us on the Summit a year ago, and again on the Reflection last March. They said, just ask. 😉

@Thrak I have posted 2 reviews that you may find helpful, for D222 and S222 (I'll add links below). You are correct that those cabins forward and aft on Dolphin Deck (on Majestic, Sky, Enchanted and Discovery) are standard Deluxe cabins (meaning they have a love seat) but the balconies are very very big, and 1/2 covered much like the Caribe Deck balconies on the Grand Class ships. They are fantastic cabins, but can be a bit spendy. We also found that the Sun Deck cabins forward near the Retreat pool (on Sky, Enchanted and Discovery - not sure about Majestic) have balconies that are almost twice as deep as the standard on the majority of the Royal Class ships. These are standard cabins (a bit smallish) with balconies are fully covered. And we loved opening our door to have the light from the Retreat pool area filling the hall. Plus it was the location was very convenient to everything on the Lido Deck. The only downside to this location is that early every morning we would be awakened by the deck crew dragging loungers around above us, setting them out for the day. But, over all, we liked the cabin and the location, especially for the price. Below is a picture I put together regarding those Dolphin Deck cabins, and here are the links to my reviews. Hope they're helpful. Sky Princess D222 Discovery Princess S222