sunviking90

I agree. We’ve seen some nice late afternoon cheese offerings on the Royal class ships. I haven’t seen near the selection on other ships likely due to space restrictions.

Wow, that’s a lot of blue! Obviously a smart decision on the part of Princess to have these itineraries in the summer if they are attracting half a ship full of new cruisers. Can I ask how you get these numbers? I’m always curious on the breakdown when we cruise.

I just want to say that I love that your handle is “Ocean Mouse” and you’re asking about cheese!

I would say as always a smart phone can be a convenience and make things easier in some cases, but the only time I have used it is to find my DH! He doesn’t even have the app. I guess I’m used to just ordering things in person. We don’t get drink packages, so we are probably ordering less than some. I think it depends on the cruiser whether you “need” one or not.

Have wonderful time!

My guess is they will embark people and stay at the port until they are sure what the next step is. Many people will not have accommodations otherwise. It’s a little more complicated than just letting them stay at their hotels. Many hotels in SFO will be booked up at this time of year.

If you don’t get an answer here, you could try a roll call for the ship and ask if someone would be kind enough to look for you.

Which ship are you sailing on? It varied depending on the size of the ship. On the Crown Princess last week there were 2 recumbent bikes, and one stationary bike (which was not working properly) and other bikes reserved for the spin classes. The recumbent bike seats were adjustable forward and backward. I didn’t notice if there was a recumbent elliptical cross trainer.

Everything I have looked at this morning has gone up in price and no OBC. So, a typical “sale”

Just back from Alaska on the Crown. MDR was a free for all. No one will care what shoes you wear. Alaska has always tended to be more casual anyway.

We just booked a short cruise from the list while on board and we DID get the OBC associated with the FCD purchase AND the OBC being offered as part of Princess’s current sale.

They will have a pile of handouts with the cruises listed. You don’t need an appointment to get one. I didn’t know about this before either. I read about it on another thread a month or so ago.

I would wait. In addition to the OBC you’ll get, they will have a sale sheet on board of slow selling cruises and yours may be on it. We just booked a cruise on board off of their salesheet and the price was almost half of the best price I had found before the cruise (resident rate, etc). Many of the cruises on the sheet were repositioning, one ways, etc.

I couldn’t remember who the naturalist was. Thank you @[Big Z]for answering! As I said MDR food was great. I was pleased to see wild sockeye on the menu and most other fish dishes were also very good. We have “realistic” expectations for cruise food these days, but we’re pretty happy most days. The Botticelli dining room was chaos the first few days though. I had reservations for 2 at 5 pm every night and asked after the first night to have the same table (waiter was just ok, but we liked the location). The hostess gave me a handwritten “ticket” with our cabin #, time and table number and every evening those with tickets were able to bypass the crowd at the door (walk ins and those with out “standing” reservations). It felt like a Disney fast pass line! Then, for about the next 3 evenings they attempted to seat people at our table after we were seated. Apparently their system showed us at a different table every night even though we had a standing reservation and a ticket. Very strange. We just made sure to be on time so they couldn’t give away our table, lol. I didn’t find the variety of desserts at the IC to be very good and missed the daily round cheesecakes that I usually see. Probably just as well. Our rooms steward was also just ok. He mostly did what had to be done, but would forget little things. He also NEVER said hi to us! It was so strange. The other stewards doing other rooms down the hall always greeted us but he didn’t. Very strange. I think he may have been new and wasn’t aware of how those little things make a difference. We saved money on extra tips anyway!

It was great! Food was the best we have had in all our recent cruises. Your previous trip report inspired us to hop on another Alaska cruise, so thank you for that! This is a great itinerary.

We boarded the Crown 11 days ago with 3 ships in port (I think). We got there at 10:40 and were on by 11:00. We do have Nexus so that speeded it up. I would guess another 15 min if you have to wait at us customs. Keep in mind that things will be slower now until the longshoreman’s strike is over. They are working the cruiseships, but at reduced manpower it seems and it will take longer for debarkation of the previous passengers who don’t take off their own bags. We were delayed an hour getting off today.

Just off the Crown also. Our original disembark time was 9:45, then moved to 10:45. It was about 10:40. It ended up being pretty orderly, just delayed. We considered taking off our own bags when we got the delay notice, but decided another hour on a cruise wasn’t a bad thing. We were one of the last groups. Supplies etc are being loaded. Cruises will be fine, but as always pack some patience.

I wish we had those options! We are on the Crown right now and pizza is still complimentary but only 2 basic options. They have a daily special but it’s not listed.

Looking forward to your review. We loved the Emerald Princess and her crew last November and we’ll be on her again in August for 19 days.

Thank you for your report. We were on the Emerald last November and will be again in August for 19 days. One of our favorite Princess ships.

We “usually” are prepared to give extra tips to our room steward and our waiter (we dine at the same table/time every night) because they are usually very good. Having said that we are currently on the Crown Princess and our cabin steward is only “ok”. Small things that aren’t going to ruin our cruise, but I won’t be giving extra tips to him. Our waiter in the MDR is also only “ok” -doesn’t remember that I like no ice in my water, that we like tea after dinner, etc. Maybe we’ve been lucky but these are things our waiters usually know by day 3, and we are day 7 now. He won’t be getting an extra tip. So basically if they’re good we tip extra, if they’re only adequate we don’t.

Thanks OP for a helpful post. We started doing this about a year ago purchasing Esims through airolo or Simoptions. Very cost effective and service is faster than using the ship wifi. I’m fine with using it only in port too. Sea days are a nice break from being “connected” for us.

Thank you. I did that just now (cleared cookies) and it’s still not there. Hmm. Maybe Canadians aren’t allowed to refer anymore, lol.

We have friends who are interested in a cruise we are booked on. I was going to send the link to the itinerary and I thought Princess had a refer a friend link. I can’t find anything though. I did find a description of the refer a friend program on the deals page, but no link to do so. Is this program dead?

Additional advice: if you don’t already have seats, pay for seats as close to the front as possible. It really makes a difference.