azbirdmom

Yes, for someone who loves salty greasy crunchy food and could care less about sweets this was devastating. We make do with the Lay's Maui chips when visiting. Not the same but still pretty ono.

Yay! You'll be warming the ship up for us as we will board as you are disembarking. Can't wait to hear about your experiences. Have a fabulous cruise!

Folks I've talked to there seem to recommend the Hawaii Community Foundation Maui Strong Fund. They have done a lot for the affected communities thus far and are continuing to help in several areas https://www.hawaiicommunityfoundation.org/strengthening/maui-strong-fund . In addition to contributing to them I've sent money to verifiable *****'s set up to support the employees of restaurants that we've frequented that were lost in the fire. I started out by sending amounts that we would have tipped on our next visits but for some I sent a little more. I think the best way to support the local economy is to plan a visit and shop local. Seek out locally owned stores. Book tours with locally owned businesses. Visit craft fairs and buy gifts for friends and family (everyone on our Christmas list got gifts from Maui last year). Tip servers well!

I rarely watch YouTube videos but oddly I watched the first one last Saturday. It started out in a lovely community that we have visited in the past - Puamana - and from there the gut punch continues. We've actually visited Maui twice since the fires, the first time staying down in Kihei and the second up in Napili north of the devastation area but you can definitely see some of the damage from the bypass. It's rough to see and I'm not usually emotional but I was every single time we had to drive through that section. And the scope of the devastation is just beyond comprehension. I pray every day for those who lost everything as they start the very long process of rebuilding. The residents need to be taken care of first and then long after that the rest will come.

In typical Princess fashion they take their time in assigning replacement ports. If you still stop on Maui you'll be at Kahului. There's still so much to see from there and I really do hope that Princess keeps its Maui stop as opposed to adding a second stop on Hawaii (as some of the earliest cruises following the fire had done). It truly won't be the same as visiting Lahaina used to be but Maui does still have a lot to offer cruisers.

Well they did put these theoretical values on the different items in the Premier package per the screenshot from the Travel Summary for our upcoming cruise so that would be a starting point. I have to laugh at the price they've put on the Premium Desserts - more than Specialty Dining? And this is per person? I have yet to have one of those but that's my choice and I won't be asking for a refund LOL.

They've shown "Dress to Impress" on other recent cruises of our's. But they don't say anything about what this means on the Princess website nor do they give passengers any advance notice about this in the pre-cruise emails. Everything continues to show 2 formal nights for a 7 night cruise. So I think you can safely expect that most people will have Smart Casual attire as that is what they packed although there may be some more on the Formal side.

I guess this is a classic example of not believing everything the YouTube bloggers say. I've seen a lot of bad info given on those, so much so that I don't bother watching them any longer. We've had Premier for our last two Princess cruises (last December and the next coming up in a little over a week). For both we were able to reserve our specialty dinners without paying. At check out you should see a $0 charge. The app has been known to act up at times but for us there has been no problem making our reservations in advance.

They work great! We were actually gifted our's from strangers we were chatting with as they were disembarking a ship we were about to board in Sydney Australia! At first I thought the one I had was malfunctioning as it wouldn't hold the Medallion but a trip to the Ocean Navigator desk yielded the tidbit that you need to put it in a certain position in the wristband. They are very sturdy and I use it when we were in port. On the ship I use the clip. By the way the small fit me but was a bit tight. I ended up using the large one as my husband wasn't interested in it but a medium would have been perfect for me.

We went there with Zealandier in December. Such a wonderful place even if one isn't a huge Lord of the Rings / Hobbit fan. Hope you enjoyed it.

Are you on the Enchanted? We are and made our reservations a few months ago, just one left to make onboard and that's our first night complementary specialty dining 😉

Failure to use is very different than being denied use of a specialty restaurant which is what the OP was asking about. You can't just say I'm not going to use this or that and get a refund as everything listed is part of a package. But if Princess promises 2 specialty dinners and wasn't able to fulfill that I would definitely be at GS asking for a refund. Now fulfilling it may mean that you get a reservation at 9 PM at a restaurant that isn't to your liking, that's the breaks. But no room at any specialty restaurant for you would warrant OBC. Up to you if you don't want to go down that path if it happens to you.

+1. Unlike other "perks" included in the Premier package these have fairly significant values on them. It hasn't happened to us yet but if I wasn't able to use the two specialty dinners because the venues were full I would definitely ask for a refund.

The Royal Princess added slots and a poker table to the Double Down lounge next door and it's supposed to be non smoking all the time. We were last on the Royal last December from Australia and the whole casino was non smoking. Loved it!

It's been our experience that the closet is saved for hard liquor. They seem to be more tolerant of wine brought onboard at ports.

The OP didn't seem stressed and we all have different opinions. IMHO if you pay for a service you ought to get it. The phone call probably took 2 minutes.

+1. We were very happy with the HOHO experience. Did you make reservations for the tastings or just wing it? We made a reservation for Wither Hills as we had been there on a Princess excursion on a prior cruise and just loved their Sauvignon Blanc. It really is a great way to go,

You're welcome! By the way I just looked at the app and when I click to check the Medallion order I get the same pop up message to pick them up at the port even though we have them already. I do think something is wrong in the app or there's something amiss with the Medallion shipping process or all of the above!

That's sad to hear. We will be onboard in two weeks, same itinerary as your's! Have a fantastic cruise.

We are on a cruise on the same date. Our app showed "in progress" along with some gibberish. I called Princess using the prompts until I got to Ocean Ready, then a few more prompts after that. The rep I spoke to said she could see that it was packaged that day with no tracking or other information. Two days later the Medallions arrived, no email or other notice. First time that's happened. I'd suggest that you call them and ask what's happening. If you paid shipping or have the most recent Plus or Premier packages you shouldn't have to wait in line at the port.

We were scheduled to go to Israel and Egypt on Celebrity last October. It would have been our first Celebrity cruise but they were the most attractive option to get to a couple of the remaining options on our bucket list so we were going to cheat on Princess. Last May things were flaring up in the region while one ship was in an Israeli port and another was enroute. The one in port scrambled to get their passengers back on board and cancelled their other port stop in Israel. The other one was rerouted. Within days things were back to normal but our final payment date was fast approaching. We discussed pros and cons of making the final payment but ultimately the thought of paying a premium price for a cruise that could turn into another Mediterranean cruise sealed it. We cancelled, losing the deposit. (Well we lost $100 per person and they set up the rest as FCC to be used in a year but realistically it won't be used.) I continued to follow the roll call for a while and sure enough the week before embarkation October 7th happened. I watched as folks were deciding what to do. Some cancelled, some lost $$, some went but weren't happy about the substituted ports, others went with the flow. While horrified at the events that happened in Israel last October (and after) we were glad we made the decision we did to cancel. If you're a go with the flow type of person then stick with it. If the destinations are important to you then I'd suggest that you not put any $$ at risk on this cruise unless and until things settle down significantly.

Wow, they provided a lot more information to you than what we got in December! We did use the priority service through the concierge to get on the first shuttle out of the port so we could catch the Wine HOHO that we had pre-booked. Lines can be very long for the shuttles. Enjoy your day there.

Pretty easy to do. I uploaded my statement last fall, waited a few days for it to process, redeemed my perk. That was the most difficult part of it. Two days ago I booked another cruise. That night I went into Stockperks, entered the booking number and a couple of other fields and submitted. No new brokerage statement was required. And within 24 hours the OBC was displayed on our booking. So much easier than the old fax / email process.

I had to search your post as I was fairly certain you had been there. Such awful news today. Prayers to those in Sydney. 😞

One other thing to watch for is not getting the Elite discount on services. After getting a massage I noticed that the receipt had the full price and I pointed that out. The massage therapist basically said oops, I'll process an adjustment. Instead of reducing the charge she increased it, basically a $40 swing from what I expected. I noticed that the next day and went back to the spa to get it fixed. You really do need to stay on top of this stuff.